What prayer looks like
This is what prayer looks like, kinda.
I was sat in Chapel last night looking at my tattered prayer book. I bought it new when I arrived at Launde, as I'd transferred from Wales to the Church of England and they use a different service here. But this is how it looks now.
We have three Chapel services every day from Monday to Saturday, and one every Sunday morning; the clergy attend them all, taking turns to lead. That's 19 services a week, more than 80 a month or around 1,000 a year. I've been here for more than a decade now, so that comes to over 10,000 gatherings for prayer in that time (about 3,500 communion services and 6,509 services of Morning, Midday or Evening Prayer). I'm not at all of them, of course, but my work pattern means I've probably taken part in something like 8,000 of those, amounting to about 5,000 hours of prayer.
That's why the book looks like it does: like a pair of comfortable slippers which you've hung on to for years. Something in my soul has that same feel. It's been worn and shaped by the prayer, but in a good way. It's been one of the great gifts of the last decade, this constant immersion in prayer. Thousands of hours on, I still look forward to these shared times of worship.
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