Karen Alford
CBF Field Personnel in Togo (West Africa)
As I was growing up, I was taught to say grace dutifully before meals and then to pray diligently before bed, thanking God for the day and proactively asking guidance for the next. Thank goodness some things change! Now, it is not about duty. Some days it’s about needing a lifeline, someone holding the rope; other days, it’s about expressing gratitude. Sometimes my prayer is meditating in deep silence or just my word from centering prayer, welling up again and again as both an offering and an anchor.
Sometimes, I journal my prayers of lament, writing with anger, passionately arguing with God as to why God is wrong. I usually start the morning singing scripture verses or hymns to my guinea fowl, ducks and rabbits as I feed them and clean their pens before getting ready for work. Sometimes, I make up the music to a verse of scripture that comes to mind; sometimes I borrow from Taize or the Christian chants of Darlene Franz. My animals seem to enjoy it, sometimes adding their own riffs and choruses.
I love how the music and words stay in my head, playing on loop, forming the soundtrack for the day. At the wound care clinic, I lead a short devotion and prayer before we get started and then offer a silent breath prayer for each patient I treat. Before bed, I usually journal the ancient practice of the Ignatian Examen, where I reflect back on my day and where I felt closest to God and where I felt the farthest. I finish the practice by listing at least five things from that day for which I feel gratitude and, if I am not too sleepy, I spend awhile practicing the Buddhist breath prayer Tonglen. On the in-breath, I breathe in the suffering of specific friends/family/beings in need, or even entire groups of people, animals or regions of the world. Right now, it’s the people of Ukraine; other times have included the Amazon rainforest; a dear friend fighting cancer; even polar bears. On the outbreath, the Holy Spirit alchemizes their suffering and sends back to them the healing light of Christ as love, peace and well-being.
My favorite prayer time though is my early morning runs with my dog through the nearby fields and farmlands. The rhythm of my feet hitting the dirt path blends with the sound of the woman hoeing in her field, or the man boring holes in the red palms to capture the fermented sap used for distilling into the local whiskey, sorogbe. As the sun crests the horizon, the world wakes up to the songs of birds, the distant sound of cows mooing, the occasional bleats of goats and roosters crowing and the sound of Jax happily panting, mixed together like a gentle blessing of peace going out to all people, to all creation, for yet another day.
Pray...Give...Go.