Sacred pause
This space is an invitation to pause, to draw us into deeper awareness of the presence of God within and around us, to invite us to breathe a little more deeply recognizing our own humanness, and to awaken us to the depth of love in which we are held in Jesus. Our spiritual practice for this week is:
CIRCLING (CAIM) PRAYER
Circling Prayer comes to us from the Celtic spiritual tradition. In Scottish Gaelic, it’s called a Caim Prayer. Caim means a circle or sanctuary. As you pray, you might imagine a hedge of protection or encouragement around yourself.
The ancients would pray this prayer one of two ways: they’d either stand and extend their finger and turn in a circle, creating an invisible bubble around themselves as they prayed, or they would create a physical circle around themselves with rocks or sticks. As you explore this Sacred Pause in your own time, you might to try one of these “larger-scale” methods for praying a Circling Prayer (especially if you have any upcoming trips planned to the beach or the forest!)
If you’re short on time or space, you can also draw a circling prayer.
Start by drawing a circle on a piece of paper. Inside the circle, write the things you want to be kept close to you. Outside the circle, write the things you want God to protect you from. Here’s a quick example: keep love within and hatred without. Keep hope within and despair without. Keep peace within and anxiety without.
When you’ve finished, you can pray the prayer using the traditional Circling Prayer formula or you can invent something of your own!
