The naked God quest

Yesterday was wonderful. Today slightly less so. Small daughter has acquired chickenpox from somewhere so is cross, itchy, grizzly, and spotty.... Church was out of the question as she will be contagious until the last of the spots crusts over - which of course means no outings at all for the rest of the weekend.

However, I managed to get out tonight to lead the second of our contemplative services. This time we were using Anglican prayer beads which we'd made during the week. I was fairly nervous as I've never  led a service using the beads before. They have been part of my own prayer for many years now, firstly the Catholic rosary and now the Anglican prayer beads - and still the rosary sometimes - but I've never prayed with them in public before. However, it all seemed to go okay and God had a few ideas part-way through the service about rearranging the songs I was using, and finishing with the "Lord, it is night" prayer from the Night Prayer service in the NZ Prayer Book. I was using a verse of James K Baxter's "Song to the Holy Spirit" for each of the cruciform beads, and left everyone to do their own prayers for the week beads.

Came across a quote I liked tonight:

...'religious who stayed [in orders] got in touch in a new way with the real meaning of religious vocation, the naked God quest at the centre of their hearts' (Sr Sandra Scheiders IHM). The Naked God Quest. I like that.