In the chaplaincy program, the interns take turns offering a morning devotional. There have been prayers from various sources, and the chance to respond to them. One time I sang a song I wrote from scripture.
This week I read a children's book. Grandad's Prayers of the Earth is a precious story about a boy who learns about the conversations that
happen in nature all around us. The water dancing across rocks, the wind cooing through the trees, the reach of branches into the sky. His grandfather gently guides him to the joy of birds as they praise their Maker, and the unity of your cold breath in winter as it connects us to the air.
His grandfather attributes prayers of the earth with actions, like generosity, gratitude, and hope. This makes them much richer to me than the endless monotony of a to-do list
that I can fall into.
I love that these prayers are all around the child, yet can lay hidden. His grandfather helps him find them, like jewels in the soil that deserve to be washed off and held up to the light. For most of his childhood, he takes his grandfather's word for it, because he trusts him.
Then his grandfather dies.
For a while, the young man is deaf to the whispering prayers. He misses
his grandfather, and the loss makes praying feel empty.
Then one day he is walking in the woods, and he hears them for himself. And realizes that his grandfather is not so far away.