The Life of Prayer

WELCOME!!

Here's how to reach me:  I respond most quickly to texts (303-968-9812), please include your name. I respond next most quickly to emails ckelsey@iliff.edu And I often miss for days messages sent within Canvas (sad but true)

Expect to spend 3 1/2 hours per week praying and an additional hour per week on the other assignments for the course.

There is only one book that everyone needs - it is the reading for week one : Kyle David Bennet, Practices of Love: Spiritual Disciplines for the Life of the World (Brazos, 2017)

The assignments for the weeks two and three are practices taken from The Way of Discernment : Spiritual Practices for Decision Making by Elizabeth Liebert (Westminster John Knox, 2008).  You might want to read more of the book than we will be posting in Canvas, but it is not required.

The prayer practice traditions that you are discerning among and then practicing one of them are described on these Canvas pages:

Week 5 readings   Choose ONE of these to read and ponder alongside your practice this week.

Contemplative and Centering Prayer Wilhoit 2014.pdf    this is an evangelical challenge to contemplative introverted prayer

Prayer of the heart - on the Jesus Prayer 1995.pdf   This is an Orthodox priest's explanation of the Jesus Prayer

Week 7 readings   Choose ONE of these to read and ponder:

Rohr, Richard. Just This, 2018.  A collection of 2 to 3 page insights into a life oriented by contemplative prayer.

Fr Keating Centering Prayer.pdf

Nancy Reeves in Spirituality for Extroverts (And Tips for Those Who Love Them), (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008)

We are using the western definition of terms in this course.

In the western tradition, "contemplation" involves emptying the mind in order to make a space for God/Christ/Spirit to fill.

Nancy Reeves in Spirituality for Extroverts (And Tips for Those Who Love Them), (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008) p. 53 distinguishes between "introverted contemplative prayer" and "extroverted contemplative prayer" as follows:

"In what I now call introverted contemplative prayer, the person praying...uses something such as a short word, a mantra, or the act of breathing to focus the attention. If thoughts, feelings, or sensations from within or without are experienced, the person does not respond. If the mind wanders to something other than the focus, it is gently brought back as soon as the person realizes what has happened. ..."

"In extroverted contemplative prayer ... a focus such as those described  above may be used, or the person may sit in silence with a wordless longing for connection with God. Thoughts and feelings that originate within the individual are disregarded. When a 'divine touch' occurs, however, the person responds. Some of these touches are described as 'unconditional love,' 'delight,' 'an embrace,' 'the physical sensation of intelligent electricity,' and 'an awareness of a call or solution to a problem.' The experience of extroverted contemplative prayer can also involve sensations described as 'seeing a Light that evokes wonder and awe in me,' 'a quiet resting, like I'm floating on water,' and 'an awareness of loving Presence.' When these experiences occur, the person praying responds. Usually the response is an outpouring of love, gratitude, awe, or a relinquishing of worry or pain. If at any time the person becomes aware of thinking about the experience rather than being with it, the focus is returned to a longing for connection. For example, if a problem has been presented and a divine solution received, the person praying would not spend time at that moment sorting it out. That is for later. During prayer time the solution is accepted with gratitude, and the attention remains on the divine-human relationship."

Here are some introverted contemplative prayer practices:

1. Father Keating's description of breath prayer  Fr Keating Centering Prayer.pdf

2. counted breath for 20 minutes followed by 10 minutes of silence:   In this practice we allow paying attention to breathing out and in to help us let go of all the other thoughts and the hold they have on our attention. Sometimes this allows enough space for the Spirit to offer a gift; most times it simply frees us from anxious or judging or being in charge thoughts.

• Set a timer for 20 minutes so that you can do the practice without worrying about whether you are done or whether you will sit there for 3 hours. Let the timer worry for you. You might also want a pencil and scrap of paper within reach.
• Sit comfortably. Feet flat on the floor seems to ground this prayer well, but any position you can stay in for 20 minutes is just fine.
• Close your eyes and come to your center. Breathe in and out--that is "one." Breathe in and out--that is "two." Breathe in and out--that is "three." Breathe in and out--that is "four." Breathe in and out--that is one again. Breathe in and out--that is two again.
• Continue counting  from your breath from one to four until the timer rings.
• Thoughts of various kinds will definitely show up. When they do, notice that there is a thought, and then let it pass by for now. If the same thought or worry shows up more than once, write a word or phrase on your scrap of paper; that note will remind you when you are done praying, so you can let go of the concern for now. If the concern happens to be a person, rather than something you need to do, you can place the person into God's care for the duration of your prayer time and return to counting your breath.
• It is quite possible to think two or three thoughts at the same time. The cue that this is happening in this prayer is that one finds oneself counting "five" "six" (Cathie has gotten to "eight" before noticing). The counting continues even when that is not where our attention has been. So if you notice that you are past "four" don't judge or fix, just return to "one" and let go of the second thought. [Note that this involves three levels of thought: 1. counting, 2. the other thought distracting us, 3. noticing that we have gone past "four." How cool to see how multilayered our brains are! -- now, go back to letting go of thought...]
• When the timer rings at 20 minutes, reset it for 8 or 10 minutes and return to the deeper silence that has formed in the first 20 minutes. Simply be in that silence. You are in the presence of God. Simply be quiet. No counting, no expectations, no evaluation. Simply be and wait.
• When the timer rings the second time, pause to give thanks in a sentence. Move into the rest of your day or into sleep with gratitude!

3. The Jesus Prayer ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner." or: "Christ, have mercy.")

• This is a breath prayer and it works very similarly to Centering Prayer or counted breath prayer. The difference is the choice of focus word. In this ancient prayer one prays each phrase with a breath: "Lord Jesus Christ" on an in breath, "Son of the Living God" on an out breath, "have mercy on me" on an in breath, "a sinner" on an out breath. (You can reverse the breaths if that seems right to you.)  
• Or short version: breath in "Christ," breath out everything "have mercy."

Extroverted contemplative practices could begin with any of the introverted practices above, but let yourself move into responding to the Spirit as you feel what Reeves called "touches."

Another extroverted contemplative practice begins by focusing on your longing for connection with God. You might begin this practice with the first steps you used in  Discerning Prayer #2 Seeking Your Heart's Desire Easter, Monday and Tuesday practice, but rather than listing many desires, focus in on the desire to connect with God and dwell with it.

Here's a way to think about why a little scheduling of such prayer might be a good idea. This comes from Kathleen Finley, Savoring God: Praying With All Our Senses (Notre Dame, Ave Maria Press, 2003), p. 12:

"To put it informally, prayer is time to 'hang out' with God. but often, good quality 'hanging out'--whether with a friend or with God--may take a bit of planning and clearing the schedule to help it happen."

Cathie's comment about Contemplative Practices:

I have spent my life trying to manage my world through the many uses of words, including the things I say to myself in my mind.  It was an enormous gift to me several decades ago, to have a spiritual director who actually directed me to use counted breath prayer every day. I let go of words, and thereby let the Holy Spirit be in control of the moment. A scary blessing!

After almost a decade of the practice, I moved away from the exact pattern of it, but I still have the gift of breath-prayer memory in my body from all those hours. If you notice me leading prayer or entering into my own prayer, I almost always begin with an inhale and an exhale. On that exhale I usually travel all the way to the centered self where the Holy Spirit awaits me within. My hours of contemplative prayer built that pathway. They were a gift I gave to my future selves that I had no idea I was giving at the time.

Perhaps in this course you will be giving your future self the gift of such a pathway...

Week 5 reading:  Read and ponder alongside your prayer practice 

Examen Re-examined Weavings 1995 Douglas.pdf

Week 7 reading:

choose any two articles from this webpage:  http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-exam

About the practice of daily examen or daily awareness

Several different Christian traditions have a form of daily examen or self-awareness or confession. The practices are not limited to a particular time of day, though a regular time is expected (and easier to keep up).  If you are a journal keeper, this may be your practice.  Particularly when observed in the evening before sleep, the practice allows one to think through one's day, notice with gratitude the grace that has filled it and notice the moments that might have gone differently if one had been more attentive to divine nudges.

The Ignatian spiritual tradition (which is the basis of the Jesuit Order) has cultivated the Daily Examen and teaches it well. Here's a website which has multiple resources taught by Jesuits, from getting started to variations on the practice: http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-exam 

There are other Ignatian prayer practices on that website (as well as the picture just above!). Here's Cathie's short description of one of the early practices in the Ignatian Exercises (NOTE this practice is NOT daily examen, it's just a wonderful practice for engaging visual imagination and our emotions in our relationship with God):

We are all used to pictures of the Holy Land and illustrations of biblical people in Bibles and other books designed to help us get the historical picture of Jesus’ time.  This role for imagination in prayer is intended to help us begin to bridge the gap across time. To bring the relationships Jesus had with his disciples into our own world of experience. This practice was widely used in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and can easily be seen in art of the time. The art places biblical events into the location and clothing and kinds of relationships that currently existed.  The imaginative practice for visualizing scripture was described most completely by Ignatius of Loyala and continues to be part of the backbone of Jesuit spiritual formation.

 The Ignatian practice places oneself into a biblical story for the purpose of having a direct conversation with the living Christ.  In the Ignatian practice the person praying uses a familiar place in order to help them move into the imaginative world of the story. The goal is to come to a point of directly engaging in conversation with the living Christ – to say what we are feeling and to listen for Christ’s response to us in the emotional place we are currently located. Engaging in this practice in one’s own neighborhood invites the dimensions of feelings about that neighborhood to come into the conversation with Christ.  Stories that work easily: the Samaritan woman at the well; Mary and Martha; Christ walking on water through the storm; Christ welcoming children; the feeding of the 5,000.       

Here are the basic steps:

Name the story, perhaps reading it aloud from the text.  Then invite persons to imagine a very familiar place in their neighborhood similar to the location of the biblical story – for instance the woman coming to the well would be similar to going to the grocery store,  the storm might be a tempestuous committee in the neighborhood or a dark corner of the neighborhood, the 5,000 might be unemployed persons or children after school or whatever the large group in need is in your neighborhood.  You may want to suggest this setting so that folks don’t get stuck at this point in the prayer.  Invite them to imagine the familiar location, building it visually, hearing the sounds, smelling it, sensing their feelings about the place. Give them a minute to do this. With it well in mind then invite them to see the people, familiar people, as the other people in the story. Specifically invite them to choose someone they know well to be the face/presence of Christ, someone’s whose expressions they can imagine, whose laugh they know.  Now invite them to run through the story in their mind. They arrive in the place they have imagined and Christ arrives and they begin a conversation with Christ – what do they say?  What does Christ say in response?  Then what do they say or do?  Give them several minutes to run the story and to simply be in the presence of Christ.  Close by inviting them to return to where they are now when they are ready, saying whatever last things they want Christ to know.  When most everyone has returned, speak the Lord’s prayer together. Most people can then use a couple of minutes to write down what they especially want to remember from their conversation with Christ. Only then invite them to share what they would like to with each other.

             This practice can be used by individuals or in the context of small groups or in worship as the proclamation of the Word itself.

Week 5 reading:  Read and ponder ONE of the following alongside your prayer practice this week

Learning Ancient Rhythms of Prayer 2001 Xnity Today.pdf

Daily offices in the prayer book tradition 2013 Anglican Theo Review.pdf

What does the daily office do 1974 Anglican Theo Review.pdf

Week 7 reading: read and ponder the other two articles OR the introduction material in the version of the Daily Office that you have chosen to use. (See below for some of the many options)

About this practice

The life of monastic community is often built around the daily office. It is a cycle of prayers that is observed at specific times of the day. You probably will be able to observe the Office only two or three times a day; perhaps at awakening, at noon/lunch, and at preparing to sleep. Historically there have been six or seven hours, including rising in the middle of the night.

The Daily Office is built on a cycle of praying the Psalms. It is a set of prayers with structure and rhythm that matches the church year. If you want to know for sure that you have "prayed well" the Daily Office guides you directly, offering you words that may not fit the moment but which might help change the moment to respond to or fit the way God consistently engages the world.

Here are some versions of the Daily Office:

1. This is online access to the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer services for morning, noon and evening Link   And here is an explanation of how to use it: Link

2. An engaging introduction to the Daily Office by a writer who practices it: In Constant Prayer by Robert Benson (Thomas Nelson, 2008). This includes explanation of how and why to pray the office and has a simple version of the office as an appendix.

3. Phyllis Tickle, The Divine Hours. Doubleday, 2001 includes a cycle of prayers for the office.

4. Here is the Northumbria Community's Daily Office, which is Celtic Christian: http://www.northumbriacommunity.org/offices/how-to-use-daily-office/

5. United Methodists might be familiar with the series of Upper Room volumes A Guide to Prayer and A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants and other similar volumes by Rueben Job. These are each built on the form of the Daily Office, but set as one prayer session rather than at morning, midday and evening.

Week 5 reading: Read and ponder alongside your prayer practice this week:  

How to read Lectio divina in an English Benedictine monastery Irvine 2010.pdf

Week 7 reading:  learn more about the meditation practice you are using. There are some resources mentioned with each practice below. You may also find another resource more directly related to the form of practice you are using.

About this practice:

In this course we are using the western meaning of terms. 

"Meditation" in the western tradition uses a focus, usually a text. The purpose of the focus is to help us shift from our own thoughts to listening for God's thoughts--first listening outside of ourselves through the text and then listening within for the nudges that come from the Holy Spirit.

Here are three practices that use texts to focus being present to and listening to God/Christ/Holy Spirit:

1. Lectio divina    

see Link http://www.lectio-divina.org/ for one large set of resources for this ancient practice. Richard McCambly sees lectio as an approach in general. In contrast, many other practitioners and teachers of lectio divina teach specific steps. I quote Michael and Norrisey (Spirit and Temperament, 1991 p. here as one example:

"Corresponding to the four basic psychological functions, there are four steps to Lectio Divina which call forth the use of each of these functions. (1) Lectio uses the Senses either in spiritual reading or in perceiving the works of the Lord. (2) Meditatio uses the psychological function of Thinking (the intellect) to reflect upon the insights presented in Lectio. (3) Oratio calls forth one's Feeling Function to personalize the new insights so that one may enter into a personal dialogue or communication with God. (4) Finally, in Contemplatio one's intuition is used in order to coalesce the experience of the previous three steps. In this time of quiet one is open to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit which may come by way of new insights, new perceptions, or a new infusion of peace, joy, and love which is part of the mystical union of which the saints tell us."

(prelude ) Begin by centering your intention that this time be one of engaging with the Holy Spirit through the text.

(1) Lectio: Read the chosen text slowly several times, pondering each word and phrase in order to understand it as a text.

(2) Meditatio: Reflect on how the text illumines your own life, context, or wider world. Return to reading the text again after each connection or idea arises within you.

(3) Oratio: Speak or write your response to how your meditation addresses God's desire, view, or guidance to you. Respond directly to God rather than to the text. If you don't like what you have heard through the text, say so to God, and say why and say what you had hoped to hear instead.

(4) Contemplatio: Be still. Listen for an inner response from God. If words come, and they may not, write the words down to ponder later. Then return to listening or dwelling in God's loving embrace.

2. Augustinian reading

This is the name that Michael and Norrisey give to one of several early Christian ways of reading scripture that transposes the text so that it speaks directly to us today.

Some texts work better for this than others. For example, Isaiah 43 begins "But now, says the Lord--the one who created you, Jacob, the one who formed you, Israel: Don't be afraid, for I have redeemed you: I have called you by name; you are mine."  In an Augustinian reading we would put our own names into the text and hear the promise/declaration made directly to us: "...the one who created you, Cathie, the one who formed you, Cathie. Don't be afraid, for I have redeemed you..."

Texts that work especially well for this kind of reading include the following: Isaiah 43:1-5; Hosea 2:16-22; John 17; Ephesians 3:14-21; John 14:1-16; Matthew 5: 38-48; Isaiah 54:4-14; Philippians 3:7-16; Isaiah 58:2-14; Micah 6:8; Matthew 7:1-5; Matthew 18:21-35; John 8:1-11; Matthew 25:31-46; 1 Corinthians 13:4-8; Philippians 4:4-13; Colossians 3:12-17; Hebrews 13:1-21; 1 Peter 3:8-13; 1 John 4:7-21.

Use changing the address of the text as a way to hear God initiating a conversation with you about your life situation. This becomes prayer through your own responses to how you hear God nudging, so intersperse several points of listening into your practice before and after your own responses.

3. slow reading

Cathie has used this practice on the NT book of Romans. She spent more than a month in daily slow reading of the first three verses.  Since the amount of text you cover is not the measure of the prayer, you may want to set a timer for 20 minutes and not worry about time either.

Let a text suggest itself to you, such as a book of the Bible. Consider the possibility that you might slow read it for the rest of the term. The example here is Paul's letter to the Romans.

Begin with the first word of the first verse. Call to mind, without going to a search engine, what you know about that word or thing. In Romans the first word is the name, Paul. What do you know about Paul? How do you feel about Paul? What questions would you ask Paul if you could? How are you like or unlike Paul? What might God want you to notice about Paul?

Let any of these questions lead you into a direct conversation with God, as if you two are reading the text together, side by side. This conversation is the heart of the prayer.

If you have time, move on to the second word or phrase. In Romans this is "a slave of Christ Jesus." What does that phrase mean? How does it feel to use the word "slave"? What would it mean to use your own name in this verse: "My name, a slave of Christ Jesus"?

When the timer goes off, thank God for the time together and for any insights that might have arisen. Since you have deeply opened yourself to the divine leading in this time, you might want to look ahead for a moment and ask for blessing or guidance for the day or for the night's sleep. Close by affirming the presence of God with you in the hours to come, even if you are not directly focused on it.

The next time you return to slow reading prayer notice whether you are drawn to pick up where you left off, or whether you still are drawn to the words you have already read. There is no rush to finish verses in this form of prayer. The words are a launching pad for engagement with God. They can be the focus again and again until you are ready to move on. The reading goes at the slow pace that allows you to ponder with and converse with God, no faster and no slower.

For other practices that are forms of meditation, you might explore Ignatian imagination. It uses particular stories of encounters between Jesus and the people around him to help us encounter Jesus directly ourselves. See the website http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-spiritual-exercises for a description of the first exercise, or look at the bottom half of the Daily Examen or Daily Awareness page in this course for a short description of the practice written by Cathie.

This tradition of prayer has two separate branches - one engages the making of something visual and the other uses a visual tool made by someone else (an iconographer or a photographer, or other secular artist)

Branch One:  making as a prayer practice.  This is primarily a modern practice.  Two published resources introduce it very well:

Sybil MacBeth Praying in Color , 2007 is introduced on her website  https://prayingincolor.com  If you decide to purchase one of her books, I encourage you not to choose the coloring book because it provides you more structure and the point of this tradition is to let ourselves discover what emerges when we are unstructured.  They have created a number of spin-off books. I recommend the original 2007 text (also on Kindle) and investing in a nice artists pad and pencils or pens.  She describes how to use this form of journaling for several different kinds of prayer, including intercession, discerning your own heart or desires, and putting yourself in the presence of God. 

Ganim, Barbara and Susan E. Fox, Visual Journaling: Going Deeper than Words, 1999  This is my favorite version of "secular" journaling, by which I mean that it is not explicitly religious and is designed to listen to your interior self.  Since my theology holds that God may speak through that interior self, listening within is a form of prayer - particularly when what is heard is tested against one's tradition and faith community.

Branch Two:  using icons or other works as if they were icons

Choose ONE of the following to read in week 5 and the others in week 7. All three articles think about the use of icons from and Orthodox Christian perspective. Cathie's instructions below are a Protestant adaptation because you do not have the benefit of the Orthodox community as your context.

Touching God in His Image 2015.pdf   

role of icons in the Greek Orthodox church 2008.pdf

Sacred icon in contemporary world 2003.pdf   

There are many ways to pray with icons in eastern Christian traditions. Protestants tend to find they can use them as windows which allow us to notice the gaze of God/Christ looking at us and loving us. 

Praying With Our Eyes Open workshop handout 22jan09.doc  by Cathie describes four different roles for visual prayer and at least one practice for each role: 

1. as a focus: for conversation with God, for communing with justice saints, to perceive what God is doing around you, for praying for enemies
2. visually imagining scripture (this Ignatian practice is also described in the tradition of daily examen)
3. with an Icon as a tool for helping us notice that God sees us as we are in this moment AND love us as we are. This is the most difficult practice because the person praying releases control of the moment and receives grace freely, without any illusion of "earning" it, not even with beautifully executed prayer!
4. as a creative activity that allows the Spirit's activity to become visible to us (visual journaling, or praying in color) (see Branch One above)

Numbers 1, 3 and 4 might be especially helpful for someone who is feeling more drawn to discover physically active practices. Number 4 is particularly active.

Here is a photo of one of the oldest surviving icons in Christianity:

Christ Pantocrator. It was created sometime in the 6th century and was saved from destruction at the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai. The photo is shared with you by permission of skete.com where the brothers of St Isaac of Syria, Skete offer lovely reproductions of historic icons. This is a good icon to begin practicing with because it moves your eyes back to the eyes of Christ no matter where they wander. Cathie has printed it out on a color printer and used it quite happily. Here's the file so you can do that too: Pantocrator (Sinai 6th cent).jpg   Read the handout by Cathie "focus three" for more specific guidance in how to use this icon as a prayer tool.  You will use it to allow you to notice that Christ sees you, just as you are right now, and loves you. It's an amazing experience!

Here is something that showed up in my inbox recently. If you are trying one of the coloring practices, this might be of use to you:

Have you ever thought of coloring as a way to pray? Pick up your colored pencils or crayons and discover a creative way to slow down and focus on God. Sharon Seyfarth Garner invites adults to color mandalas as an easy, enjoyable, and tangible way to “be with God on purpose.” Praying with Mandalas blends the relaxing and contemplative practice of coloring with these ancient spiritual practices: Lectio divina (meditative reading of scripture) Intercessory prayer Centering prayer Examen (reviewing the day’s events to see where God was present)   Download a free mandala and try contemplative coloring today: DOWNLOAD

Praying with Mandalas guides you through heartfelt, hands-on experiences of prayer. Delight in the colorful, contemplative practice of praying with mandalas. ORDER TODAY Also available as an eCourse.

The course can be taken either for a grade or pass/fail. Please email Cathie if you want to take it pass/fail ckelsey@iliff.edu

This course will have you study the life of prayer as if it were a river, studying it by getting in and swimming, by experiencing it with many senses, giving yourself over to it. Only then, but surely then, it will have you reflecting theoretically and practically on what you have experienced.

I do not feel qualified to "grade" your prayer. So I'm not going to--even though most of your time investment in this course will be given to actually praying 30 minutes daily for the 10 weeks.

I am able to grade the following:

1. You will demonstrate attentiveness to how you engage your prayer life. I will grade this by noting your curiosity and reflective-ness about what you experience as it is expressed in your personal journal and in your "pearl of insight" contributions each week.

2. You will teach others the prayer practice that you use in weeks 4-10 to others in the video due in week 8. There is both history to each set of practices and there is your experience with the surprises and pitfalls of practice that can be used to help others find and grow in their own prayer relationship with God.

3. You will reflect theologically on your experience of prayer. This includes noticing what God must be like if God engages you in the ways you have experienced, and also what must be true about you as a human being in the relationship and as a part of the world. This is a primary task of the final reflection, but you will help yourself write this reflection through your writing in your personal journal.

4. You will be attentive to learning from the experience of others in your small groups and you will learn how to express attentiveness, curiosity, and encouragement for the prayer life of others.

Notice that those four items are also learning goals for the course.

Finally, please note that I will NOT be using the convention of certain percentages equal a certain grade (such as 90% and above is an A, 80% and above is a B, etc.).  I will use the accumulated points to see how students cluster and then I will assign grades by cluster.  I'm sorry that this does not allow you to know precisely where you stand at any given point in the term.  You might try considering this unknowing a spiritual practice. As in, "I know I'm putting in the work/prayer time, but I can't tell at the moment where that is taking me or how to evaluate myself. I guess I am being asked to trust the One who walks with me on this path."

Here are basic rubrics I expect to use in grading this term.:

Weekly postings:  out of 5 points, 4 points awarded for doing the required number of posts on time with basic attention to your colleagues in your responses. Fifth point awarded for really attentive, insightful responses to more than the minimum number of colleagues.  One point deducted for late posting.

Teaching a practice video: out of 50 points, 45 points awarded for meeting the expectations of the assignment, regardless of how sophisticated (or not) the technical aspects are. I will stop watching at 10:00 minutes.   There is real value in learning to be succinct! If you have more to say, you might describe in your word-post what a series of videos would contain and then make the video you submit be one of the series. Points deducted if the viewer doesn't know how to get started with the practice after having watched the video. Points added for welcome, insight, great use of technology or eliciting the thought "I should try that."

Cumulative journal entries:  out of 50 points, 45 points awarded for meeting the expectations of the assignment. Additional points awarded for courage, persistence, insight, connections to theological ideas, several "ah-ha!" moments.   Fewer points awarded for simply reporting what happened without pondering its meaning.  Missing entries deducted 5 pts per week.

Final reflection paper: out of 50 points, 45 points awarded for meeting the expectations of the assignment, in particular for noticing how your experience in prayer this term informs thinking about the nature of God and the inclinations or nature of human beings. This assignment requires stepping back and doing that kind of second order thinking. Fewer points awarded for simply summarizing  what you experienced and what you learned about prayer. Our experience in prayer can become the building blocks for our theologies. This assignment asks you to makes steps in that direction.

Life of Prayer planning grid Spring 2019.docx This shows you the complete workload plan for the term - though it does not specify the readings after week 3. Those will be found in the assignments themselves for each specific tradition. You will be discerning which tradition to work with in weeks 4-10 as part of learning discernment practices in weeks 2 and 3.

Cathie