Prayer: So Often The Perfect Thing

Trinity Church, Southport, offers everything that one would expect a solid, energetic Episcopal church to offer. But what we don’t usually find in our churches is a separate day for Healing Liturgy.

At Trinity, this takes place in the pretty chapel on Wednesdays at 11:00 AM. There are never more than about eight of us there. We pray together, The Celebrant reads the Gospel and offers a brief homily after which, often, we parishioners are invited to comment. This is a high participation service. A lay person does the readings of the day and a lay person leads the Litany of Healing.

After Communion those who wish to are invited to come forward to pray together for each other. For me this is the best part of this informal, cozy and friendly service. We form a circle with our hands on each other’s shoulders or backs.

 Sometimes the priest offers all the prayers in response to requests; sometimes we share that opportunity with one another. One of us in our circle always prays aloud for the priest.

For me, there is nothing more moving, more spiritually rewarding than, with our arms around each other, praying together for each other’s needs and concerns of the moment.

Last Wednesday I was not in great shape: family bad health news. The priest wasn’t there, so no Communion, but we put the service together ourselves. Four of us stayed at the end and my situation was wonderfully prayed for by three women, with whom I have prayed for years.  I was deeply touched and utterly relieved. I felt their arms; I felt their support, their caring and their faith surrounding me. Doubt and fear slipped away and I became more confident that I would be able to meet the challenge that was ahead of me.

I am sharing the experience of the Trinity Church Wednesday Healing Service, because it occurs to me that some of you might wish that there were a safe, confidential and supportive place you could go, where the focus could be essentially on healing prayer, including time for very personal prayer for the ones you love and for yourself. You do not have to be a member of Trinity Church. Everyone is welcome.

We all need to pray: for peace, for greater understanding of our differences, for releasing fear and hatred. Everything! Even if you don’t quite believe in the power of prayer, somehow the habit of doing it with a small, trusted group each week is both inspiring and healing. Faith grows.

If you would rather not go to a church, my suggestion would be that you form a group of your own and meet once a week to pray for whatever comes up in the group. So often we think we are not “good at praying” and I am here to say that that is nonsense! We can all pray. God, Universal Wisdom, Allah, Yahweh, Atman—whatever your words might be through which you acknowledge a power greater than yourself—does not give a hoot about perfect  sentences.

Only about our hearts.
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On this Memorial Day we honor all those who over many years have given their lives for freedom. Too many wars. Too many promising young lives ended abruptly. We pray for peace and an end to to the world wide concept that war is a sensible solution.

A Pivotal Person Can Save Your Life

Last night I dreamt about a pivotal person in my life, a person I haven’t thought about in years. Joyce. She was one of my college roommates. But that’s not the pivotal part.

In May of 1979 I traveled from Ohio to New York to attend a preview of my brother’s movie for television called Friendly Fire.

It was a low point in my life: my second divorce pending, I was forty-five years old, sleepless, skinny and despairing. I needed to leave the small Ohio town where I had spent twenty-three years-- married to two people--and where I had raised my three children. I knew I had to go, but I had no idea where.

In the New York hotel, I discovered a run in the only pair of stockings I had brought with me so off I went to Bloomingdales. I was staring at the various stocking options when I heard a voice. “Cecily! I can’t believe it’s you!”

It was Joyce, my six-foot tall, blonde, smart and funny roommate with whom, for four years, I had sung in the Vassar Nightowls. I had been a bridesmaid in her Washington wedding.

I hadn’t seen her for twelve years.

We hugged and exclaimed as women do when they are excited about seeing each other. Neither of us said OMG! because we didn’t say that in 1979, but it definitely was an OMG! moment.

We had lunch together and, at Joyce’s generous invitation, I spewed my falling apart life across our salads.

 When I had finished, Joyce said quietly, “come visit me in Bridgehampton in July.”

“Bridgehampton?” I asked. “Where is that?”

“At the far end of long Island. You must plan to stay two weeks.” Her voice was firm and definite.

“Two weeks? Joyce! No one should stay with anyone for two weeks, least of all someone who is a wreck! I’m no fun. I cry a lot.”

She grinned. “Two weeks.”

 With my kids well off into their summer plans, in July I flew east to spend two weeks in Bridgehampton, NY.

Joyce was right: right about it all. The vast Atlantic Ocean, the wide, bright beaches, and the interesting people-- the tiny farming town was full of writers and artists.

Joyce’s husband, Shascha, was a fine musician, a former Yale singer and the three of us sang as we did the dishes at night. We took picnics to nearby Sagaponack beach. I reconnected with writer, Jack Knowles, (A Separate Peace) whom I had known when I was nineteen, and began to meet other local writers who were friends of Jack’s and Joyce’s. We hung out at Bobby Van’s Bar, with Sascha or Bobby--a graduate of Julliard--at the piano. We sang, drank wine and laughed.

I loved the small town, the pretty Main Street with its two churches, the independent shops: De Petris’ market, The Bridgehampton pharmacy where Chip dispensed meds with a smile, and The Candy Kitchen where George, the proprietor, greeted everyone by name.

Bridgehampton worked its healing magic on me with the consistency and steadfastness of the tides and with the flare of a crashing wave, the droplets sparkling in the sun.

I began looking for a place to rent for the month of August—the busiest month of the summer. I was going to be on my own for the first time in twenty-three years and it had to feel safe and right. The agent and I found nothing I liked.

Near the end of July I called my brother to say “hello.”

“Where are you?” he asked. “I’ve called you at home and got nothing.”

“I’m in Bridgehampton,” I replied, and explained that I was with Joyce, had been there for almost two weeks, loved it and wanted to stay, but so far, I couldn’t find a house.

“I don’t believe this!” My brother exclaimed. “A friend of mine from advertising days in New York called me this morning to ask if I knew of anyone who might want to rent her farm house on Mecox Bay.

 Ces, I have been there.You would love it!”

He gave me her number.

I moved into Tina Raver’s house on the first of August in 1979 and I lived in that house for eighteen months. When I was divorced, I bought my own small house on Sagg Pond in Bridgehampton where I remained until 1993.

Call it serendipity? An accident of fate? That Joyce, unseen for so many years, was buying stockings in Bloomingdales on that Saturday? I call it God, Universal Intelligence, the Great Choreographer In The Sky, offering me a chance at a new life. And, Joyce, bless her forever, was the instrument.

All that was required of me was that I answer “yes.”

And then my brother in California finds me a house.

I knew that whatever happened after that—and there was to be so much!--I was in the right place and that a force beyond my knowing, a force I could trust, had led me there.

***

And you, kind readers, who were the pivotal people in your lives? I hope you are thinking of them now.