Thursday, September 21, 2006

Anglican Prayer Bead Confirmation Experience

I sat on the beach at Tenby making knotted Anglican Prayer Cords for our
Confirmation Group - there are two adults (63 yrs and 38 yrs) and 3 young
people (12yrs). On our last session before the service, we had a practice and
then spent some time with God.

We started with an explanation and then we sang. We said the Lord's prayer on
the Cross, 'May the words of my mouth' etc on the invitatory bead, 'Jesus Lamb
of God, have mercy on me, a sinner
' on the single beads - they repeated after me
rather than have it on a bit of paper, then on each group of seven beads, we prayed in
turn for the world, the church - worldwide, our parish, congregation, the
people that had told us about God; our family and friends - the people who
loved us, we loved, who encouraged us to be here; ourselves - our journey with
God, the service; and then back to the invitatory and Lord's Prayer. We
finished with anointing and another song.

It was a really good time together with God - there was that quiet and stillness
and unwillingness to move or break the silence which comes from having been in
the presence of God. Chandy