Why a Community of Prayer
Ruth Jarman writes:
I’m declaring war – anyone want to join me?
Inspired by Walter Wink’s “The Powers that be”, Bruggerman’s bible study on Jeremiah and by the Psalms that I’m reading for Lent, I am trying to write some prayers. As you can see, I’m hardly an expert in liturgy hence I’m using a lot of Psalms as is – I hope it doesn’t look sacrilegious to re-write the word of God according to Ruth.
The aim is to give vent to our anxiety (we are commanded to pray instead of worry) and fight the causes of climate change on a spiritual level – to use all the weapons in our armoury to fight what, on the face of it, is already a lost battle.
We are fighting the most powerful structures in the world and the most basic human nature. Of the few in our world who understand quite how terrifying the future is, only some believe we have any hope to change the entrenched situation. We need God’s help here.
And in the words of Walter Wink, God’s hands are tied if we don’t pray.
Please could any inspired CEL members also write some prayers and think about how best to pray them.
Our situation is too urgent to have an annual climate change “day” – we’ve got 10 years to take the brick off the accelerator and put it on the brake before our world tips over the edge – so how about a climate change day of the month or day of the week – maybe Tuesday, the second day of the week when God created the sea and the sky.
And we could all pledge to fast (if we want to) and pray at a certain time of the day – noon? 7am? Or we could have waves of prayer with people praying on the hour every hour to cover the whole day (I’m not saying we have to pray for a whole hour – waves have dips between them). Anyway, comments/ideas please! to community-of-prayer@christian-ecology.org.uk
P.S. This idea is as well as everything else we have to do to fight this thing, not instead! This is to support our activism on the spiritual level.
CEL’s new Community of Prayer is an e-mail community, together not in space but in time, and hope and purpose
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Comments on "Why a Community of Prayer"
Clare Redfern:
Thanks Ruth. Great encouragement to pray and not lose heart, from you and from Zimbabwe too!
Woman Pray:
You came up with a great idea indeed, for the Earth's well being. We are a group of ten women from Zimbabwe with same thoughts, we are happy to be part of this community. Our group is called 'Woman Pray', under the leadership of great-grandmother Stella Chiweshe. Please keep it up, together we are strong. Thank you.
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