Moot » prayer

Great Resource for Daily Prayer

admin — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:33:00 +0000

Thanks to Jennie Hogan for this heads up on this one, as many in Moot have asked where you find the texts for Daily Prayer in its Morning and Evening format. Well Jennie has let me know of an online resource. See here This gives you everything you need in trad or contemporary form saving you money so you don’t need to buy a lectionary. So please do use this if you are seeking something that immerses you in scriptural texts in the Hebrew Scriptures or Christian New Testament.

Remember that this practice in the Church of England is inherited as an adapted monastic approach to daily prayer. It is the practice to say the Benedictus in the morning, Magnificat in the evening and Nunc Dimittis in the night. Daily Prayer in the Church of England remains centred on these three core texts to the early church. Unsurprisingly these texts are full of hope and I increasingly find these inspirational. it is also much easier to do this form of prayer with others. It is aimed at small gatherings of people.

Hope that makes sense. So if you are experimenting with prayer with friends or your household or what ever, why not try this. The link above gives you everything you will need.

Need time to explore a deeper spirituality?

admin — Mon, 11 May 2009 09:47:00 +0000

Often at this time of year our lives are full of rushing. That we miss the rise of Spring, and new opportunities. Well, here in the Moot Community we have another opportunity to develop a deeper form of prayer by a day experiencing and trying out different approaches to prayer and meditation in an attempt to find approaches that work for you.

So if you are interested or need more information, please click here.

Moot Prayer Development Day 23rd May 2009

admin — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Following on from our plans at Easter with the Moot Rhythm of Life Service and the Passover meal on Maundy Thursday, we invite Julie Dunstan to lead us again to experience different forms of prayer or techniques that can then be used in personal prayer, or resources to use within Moot Services.

For more info or to book places, please click here

Abba – the Lord’s Prayer

admin — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 18:06:00 +0000

At today’s Remembrance Sunday service I was struck once again by the centrality of the Lord’s Prayer to every form of service. Remembrance Sunday is a difficult service anywhere, with memories of so many dead in so many wars. It was doubly hard this year, the 90th anniversary of the end of the first Great War, among serving soldiers and others seeking to create the kind of development that may defuse the seeds of future war.

In the middle of the memories of past wars and the hopes of preventing coming wars, a service that has many elements contains the Lord’s Prayer. I’ve been greatly enjoying, and finding unexpectedly challenging, a book by Evelyn Underhill, “Abba” – a series of meditations on the Lord’s Prayer. Today I found particularly sharp a passage on “Thy Kingdom Come”:

“It is true that the most drastic social reform, the most complete dethronement of privilege, cannot of themselves bring the Kingdom in; for peace and joy in the Holy Spirit can only come to us by the free gift of the Transcendent. But at least these can clear the ground, prepare the highway of God; and here every act of love, each sacrifice, each conquest of prejudice, each generous impulse carried through into action counts.”

A challenge to me to ensure that my work – all there is time for at present, I fear, along with daily prayer and a bit of time in the gym – is indeed a generous impulse carried into action, and a conquest of prejudice. That way I can indeed feel that I am part of the action of God’s Will that makes such war less likely.

This may seem an unlikely reflection for today. But the unlikely is – happily – the way of God’s Will. Evelyn Underhill again: “It was by an unlikely route that Christ, the country carpenter, itinerant preacher, and victim of local politics, carried humanity up to God. It was in defiance alike of the probable and the suitable that St. Paul was chosen, seized, transmuted, and turned to the purposes of the Will.” So by God’s grace there’s always hope.

Abba – the Lord's Prayer

admin — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 18:06:00 +0000

Prayer Development Day | 25th October | St Saviours Priory

admin — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:42:00 +0000

Pleased to say we have finally got our act together regarding a prayer development day. So on Sat 25th October Ian Adams will lead an experiential prayer development day at the beautiful surroundings of St Saviour’s Priory to explore contemplative approaches to prayer to enrich our own spiritual life. For more information or to book places, click here.

It is a common problem for us all to struggle with a personal spiritual life. Many of us struggle to find approaches to personal prayer that feel authentic and resourcing. The resulting danger is then created, where we carry a faith in our head with an inner desert in our heart. In our Rhythm of Life, we acknowledge the need for a sustaining spiritual rhythm that seeks God to resource us, over and above an approach to faith which is dependent on theories, theology and the stuff in our head. This is the great impoverishment of a an overly rational or postmodern approach to spirituality.

It is a great pleasure to have Ian Adams facilitate this day, who is an incredible resource in this who area. See event pages for more information.

Prayer Development Day | 25th October | St Saviours Priory

admin — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:42:00 +0000

It is a great pleasure to have Ian Adams facilitate this day, who is an incredible resource in this who area. See event pages for more information.

Advent Week 1 – Video Reflection

admin — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:51:00 +0000

Got the heads up from Emergent Kiwi about this great reflective video – for 5 mins reflection . So if your life is as busy as mine and you want a reflection – click here

Moot Rhythm of Life Prayer Beads

admin — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:15:00 +0000

Moot has now officially had a Rhythm of Life as its central spiritual focus for four months, where before the Bishop of London, we committed to it as an expression of how we should live as disciples of Christ. At that event, every member of the community were given a book for spiritual reflection, and prayer beads to assist with personal prayer – to assist in the embodiment of the rhythm into our lives.

Well, drawing on a number monastic models of prayer, the Moot Community has developed a ‘prayer journey’ using the Moot Prayer beads to allow people to immerse themselves spiritually into the ROL. The danger of creating a ROL – is that it can just remain words on a page, like a doctrine of belief. Ticked off, but not lived. This is not the purpose of a rhythm of life, which is more about being a constant challenge, something that needs to be faced, explored constantly – something that requires a commitment. A great image for this, is the idea of entering a river, and immersing yourself in the water and moving out into the current, so that the current takes you places outside of your control. We are called to immerse ourselves in the rhythm in a similar way. A way of being led by the Spirit for spiritual exploration and the belief that this enables us to become more human.

To help with this, we have created a prayer journey with the prayer beads divided up into the 6 sections of the beads. For a copy of this to down load, click here.

Last night in a workshop – we explored how to do this type of prayer meditation using prayer beads reflecting the rhythm of life. We explored the idea of focusing on one of the small prayer bead prayers in one day. So for example with the opening Prayer of Presence – prayer number (1), to explore this in the morning, explore it during the day, and exploring it in the evening – and writing down reflections as an act of prayerful response. To then move on to Presence small prayer bead (2) in day two and so on. This way you can be taken on a journey with each area of the Rhythm of Life in a whole week. Alternatively for those with very busy lives, you may want to stay with a small prayer bead for a couple of days or for a week, depending on your life style and personality type. There is no right way to do this, other than the need to engage and immerse yourself.

For those who missed the workshop, we are going to do a revised smaller version of using the prayer beads with the ROL probably on the Friday evening of the weekend away. We will be doing the workshop again for those who did not attend, after Christmas.

If you have queries, thoughts or reflections on this – those who attended – and are now trying out using the beads in your spiritual life, please do add your comments.

Stations – Places for pilgrims to pray

admin — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 02:00:00 +0000

I was rather chuffed to pick up a copy of a little booklet at Greenbelt for a mere two quid: Stations – Places for pilgrims to pray by the late Simon Bailey. As the title suggest it is a series of meditations based around familiar places, some obvious, other not so:

• In a church: Porch, door, font, space, nave, window, arch, organ, pulpit and lectern, altar, dark corner, behind the curtain, box for gifts, prayer board, anywhere, churchyard, spire/tower/cross and outside.
• In your home: Door, living room, kitchen, dining room, stairs, bathroom and bedroom.
• In your town/city/village: road, shop, pub, town hall, park, school, church, hospital, gutter, telephone box, factory and station.
• In your body: Your ears, your eyes, your mouth, your insides, your feet, your hands and your mind.

Each meditation follows a simple structure:

1. description of the place
2. words to pray
3. words to think about
4. someone to pray for

Beautiful. The booklet is available from Cairns Publications who also appear to do a whole range of other stuff that may be worth looking at including other prayer resources. Interestingly they also have a Small Pilgrim Places project encouraging a network of places as ‘breathing spaces’ for prayer and meditation.

Tags: Simon Bailey, Prayer, Stations, pilgrims, everyday, place, places