Last week at the Catholic Writers Conference Online, I’d sign into the chat room during early mornings for the virtual prayer group. We’d type the sign of the cross (+) and then the prayer leader would post a prayer, and when we were done with it, we’d post (Amen.) After that, we named our prayer intentions.
The first time I did this, I admit I was surprised and bemused, but later I realized that of course if God is omnipresent and all Christians are part of the mystical body of Christ, then there’s no reason to limit ourselves to being in the same room in order to pray as a group. We’re harnessing the power of a chat room, but in a virtual way two or three are gathered, and if God isn’t amused, at the very least I can’t imagine He’s offended.
The first thing that struck me was the sheer number of intentions: people in need of jobs, people in need of health, folks dealing with difficult individuals… More general ones, like the tsunami victims in Japan or those in danger of death today. For a moment, I felt inundated by all these personal universes bumping into one another. As the quote goes (rough paraphrase,) Everyone around you is fighting a great battle.
At one point, someone asked that we pray for world peach.
I didn’t blink. I’m a writer: I’m used to mentally editing everything I read, and there’s nothing spectacular about a typo. But then I thought: She just had us all pray for world peach. And while we all understand what she meant to pray for, technically speaking, we’ve just prayed for fruit.
Peaches, for the whole world. Or maybe just one big, world-nurturing peach.
I’ve asked before if God will retroactively reassign the pointers if we’ve accidentally prayed for the wrong thing, like when I prayed for Family 5I during the food basket drive, only the family I’d been assigned to was actually Family 5K. Which one got the blessings? You guys assured me it was fine, that God’s big and God’s smart, so maybe God blessed both of them.
But now I’m not so blasé. We gathered in the name of Jesus and prayed for World Peach. I’m not sure what’s going to happen next.
Well, peaches are good things. 😉
Either way, peach or peach, I think God knows our intentions, but this certainly adds a layer of humor that hopefully everyone will appreciate.
LOL, peaCE or peach. Ugh.
See, now I got you doing it too. LOL!
James and the Giant Peach?
I’m used to the standard Protestant method of the pastor saying, sometime around the general prayers, to add your specific prayers, and presumably everyone adds a few silently.
At my cousin’s Bat Mitzvah, the Rabbi did it differently. She looked around the room slowly, so each person had a chance to say something out loud. After each one, there was a few seconds of silence before she moved on. It felt like we were adding our prayers to theirs, rather than vaguely supporting something we didn’t know about.
I’ve done it both ways, but in the chat the requests were just flying in, and all at once, so it felt so much more immediate to me.
maybe peach is the state of everything being just peachy?
though i suppose fruit peach could solve the main problems in a lot of areas of the world. give them peach like manna… solves hunger, solves exploitation of those desperate to feed their families, totally resets a lot of economies…
Moreover, each peach contains within itself the potential to make hundreds of other peaches. And as each peach ripens, the tree is drawing water up from the ground and filtering it, in effect turning impure/non-potable ground water in communities with no clean running water into peaches filled with liquid that can be consumed.
That won’t work in every part of the world, though. I doubt they could grow peaches in Siberia.
I like God as the Maker Of Peachiness too.
love it, Jane. Thanks.
Love it? But the deep world-changing depth of this deep question…**snicker** okay, even I can’t keep it up. Fine. 🙂 Here, have a peach.
By it’s fruits you shall know it – okay, Jane…if it suddenly rains peaches throughout the world I’ll know who’s to blame!
wow — I love that! I wish I’d thought of it. 🙂
Or maybe it’s “by their fruits…”. Either way, we know who the culprit is!
I love you! You wrote “if God will retroactively reassign the pointers”, and if you have ever programmed, you know why I love you! (If not, ask the Patient Husband or Ivy. But I suspect you know, even if you have never programmed…)
My Patient Husband used that a long time ago and I thought, “That’s so amazing…” because it works for so many things.