I had the pleasure of attending the Chicago Up/Rooted meeting last night (an Emergent Cohort). We had a really great conversation, and I very much enjoyed meeting the other participants.
An interesting tradition of Up/Rooted is closing the meeting with the Lord’s Prayer. My new friend Helen Mildenhall, who also attended the meeting (along with her dad, who is visiting from Oxford, England), brought up some of her concerns with this practice over on her blog.
I’m still chewing on my thoughts/response to Helen’s response, but the actual recitation of the Lord’s Prayer brought back a very poignant memory for me, and I would like to share it with my readers. (Please note, my sharing of this story should NOT be taken as a response to Helen or to Up/Rooted’s practices. It is just a memory that was stirred last night.)
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On August 15th, 1999, my father died whilst we were having lunch together at a downtown restaurant. Two days later, we held his wake (i.e. a “viewing”) at a suburban funeral home.
Several friends (including my first husband, from whom I was then separated), came to the wake to pay their respects. My friends and I were to go out for pie following the viewing, so they stuck around until the wake had ended. None of them were Christians (they ranged from agnostic to openly Neo-Pagan), so I was a tad uncomfortable when the minister asked the family and remaining guests to gather in front of my father’s casket for a short devotional.
My friends did not protest, however, and we joined hands as we formed a half circle in front of the minister. The minister read the 23rd Psalm, and asked us to bow our heads and join him in the Lord’s Prayer. I lowered my head and shut my eyes, hoping that my friends would not be too offended by this. As the minister started to pray, I joined in, but expected to hear nothing from the rather large string of friends on either side of me.
But then I heard their voices, praying.
I looked up in surprise, and I saw my friends with their heads down, eyes closed. They were praying the Lord’s Prayer with me. Each and every one of them.
Stunned, I closed my eyes and returned to praying. I never said anything to any of them after this, and they didn’t say anything to me. I know that what they did wasn’t orchistrated. They just all independently decided to pray with my family and myself. What possessed them to do this, I will never know.
What I do know is that I have never felt so loved in my entire life.
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This is without a doubt one of my favorite posts of yours, Lainie.
And that’s sayin’ somethin’.