Tai chi has been called a “perfect exercise!” Based on Qi Gong, tai chi is an ancient Chinese mind-body practice that involves controlled breathing and movement exercises for the cultivation of your energy. It involves gently flowing strengthening and conditioning movements which increase flexibility, promote relaxation, and enhance health, strength, and balance and it has been described as a form of moving meditation. On Sunday, many WCUC members enjoyed this mind-body exercise led by our own Ellie Horwitz. Some loved it so much, there’s talk about putting together a class in the near future. If you’re interested in this, please contact Joyce DeGreeff.
Nan Gibbons, Director of Young People’s Music @ WCUC, shared her gifts in musical leadership with the people of all ages on Sunday after worship by offering an introduction to drumming. From age 8 to 90’s+, we made music in community, learned a few new skills, and most importantly had fun connecting with one another through this ancient spiritual practice. As Nan puts it: “Drumming is easily accessible and engaging, opens hearts, and connects us in prayer. In a guided drum circle, many small simple parts join to create complex beautiful patterns.” This was certainly so on Sunday.
Our first friendship gathering was filled with lively conversations, storytelling and laughs, and a spread of snacks and beverages. We had so much fun hanging out that we barely had time for the games and puzzles! There’s always next time. We meet on Wednesdays in the church parlor from 10:30am – 12noon once a month. Upcoming dates are: November 9th and December 14th. Please join us – the more the merrier!
A return to weekly walking prayer is one of the many “back to normal” blessings experienced by our church members this fall. Alternating between the path at Walden Pond and the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail path in West Concord, the prayer walkers enjoy a time of sharing followed by a walk in nature that is meant to connect us more deeply with God and one another. Both paths allow for short or longer walks, and for those who prefer something a little more stationary, the Labyrinth in the Welcome Garden at church is also an option.
Walking Prayer meets every Monday morning @ 9:30 a.m. in person as weather permits. In case of inclement weather, we also now have a Zoom option – a silver lining left over from more intense pandemic days. Newcomers are always welcome! If you’re interested, please be sure to email joycedegreeff@gmail.com to get on the weekly mailing list.
Enjoy these throwback pictures of walking prayer throughout the seasons…
Spring is finally here and the walking prayer group is enjoying Walden Pond once again. We meet on Monday mornings @ 9:30am for sharing and a blessing, followed by a walking meditation. Newcomers are always welcome! Email: joycedegreeff@gmail.com for more details.
This week’s blessing:
Present Moment
All is quiet on the [path] this early [May] morning.
Forsythia cry out their colors while the mist still enfolds them.
The [pond] has nary a ripple and the trees stand silently.
Only bird songs break the bonds of the tranquil breath of dawn.
Inside of me it is quiet. No forsythia are blooming there, but I feel the aura of stillness and the beauty of calm waters.
It has been so long since silence rested her wings in my heart. The earth has gathered me in her arms, rocking all my weariness to sleep.
Months of running and stumbling are lain down beside the wooded path;
I lift only beauty of the present moment, and when I place it in my heart all my life looks differently to me.
WCUC’s walking prayer group has resumed its in-person meetings on Monday mornings beginning at 9:30am. Alternating weeks between the Welcome Garden and Walden Pond, this is a group of fellow travelers who come together to share life’s challenges and celebrations, enjoy the company of friends, and walk in nature to absorb the beauty of creation and listen for God’s guidance.
Quaker author and activist, Parker Palmer, writes:
“When the world’s heartbreak threatens to take me down, it helps if I can remember that this is not the only world to which I belong. Like every human being, I have “dual citizenship.”
I’m not talking about another country, or a world we create with wishful thinking. I mean the vast and very real world of nature that stretches from our bodies to all the life around us, then to the stars, and on to the immensity we call the cosmos. I mean a natural world so vast that we can never do the harm we have done on earth.
Remembering my “dual citizenship” is not an effort to evade the world of human heartbreak. By understanding that I belong to a cosmos that has seen it all, embraced it all, and folded all of it into what is, I have a better chance to “see life steadily and see it whole”.
When I can look at life that way, I’m better able to engage creatively with the here and now, neither crushed by a sense of inadequacy nor lost in fantasy.
Rooted in the serenity of that cosmic reality, return to the heartbreak of everyday life to contribute whatever you can to healing and peace.”
Scenes from our walk this week:
Newcomers are always welcome! Please email Joyce DeGreeff (joycedegreeff@gmail.com) for more information.
March 14, 1860, “Walden Ice Melted,” from the journal of Henry David Thoreau
“As I stand there, I see some dark ripples already drop and sweep over the surface of the pond, as they will ere long over Ripple Lake and other pools in the wood. No sooner has the ice of Walden melted than the wind begins to play in dark ripples over the surface of the virgin water. It is affecting to see nature so tender, however old, and wearing none of the wrinkles of age. Ice dissolved is the next moment as perfect water as if it had been melted a million years. To see that which was lately so hard and immovable now so soft and impressible! What if our moods could dissolve thus completely? It seems as if it must rejoice in its own newly acquired fluidity, as it affects the beholder with joy.”
Prayer:
God of the March winds, blow over us and play in ripples over what is beginning to melt inside of us. Dissolve what has been glacial, and sweep tenderness into our frozen hopes, softness into our brittle moods, fluidity into our spirits, joy into our hearts. We have lived for so long with this winter in our souls. Promise what is essential has not gotten lost; gone underneath the surface, perhaps, but still strong currents, rushing rivers, living waters deep and running, waiting for spring. Amen.
Rev. Andrea Castner Wyatt, at the time (2002), Assoc. Pastor, First Congregational Church, UCC, Holliston, MA
Epiphany is a good time to ponder where we are in our journey. As we travel into this year, where do you find yourself on the path? Have you been traveling more by intention or by reacting to what’s come your way? What direction do you feel drawn to go in during the coming weeks and months? Is there anything you need to let go of—or to find—in order to take the next step? In the coming months, what gift do you most need to offer, that only you can give? (Paraphrased from Jan Richardson’s Painted Prayerbook)
Blessings and traveling mercies to you from the Walden Walkers on this Epiphany day. We look forward to walking with you in 2020 – in body, in Spirit, and in prayer.
For Those Who Have Far to Travel An Epiphany Blessing
If you could see the journey whole you might never undertake it; might never dare the first step that propels you from the place you have known toward the place you know not.
Call it one of the mercies of the road: that we see it only by stages as it opens before us, as it comes into our keeping step by single step.
There is nothing for it but to go and by our going take the vows the pilgrim takes:
to be faithful to the next step; to rely on more than the map; to heed the signposts of intuition and dream; to follow the star that only you will recognize;
to keep an open eye for the wonders that attend the path; to press on beyond distractions beyond fatigue beyond what would tempt you from the way.
There are vows that only you will know; the secret promises for your particular path and the new ones you will need to make when the road is revealed by turns you could not have foreseen.
Keep them, break them, make them again: each promise becomes part of the path; each choice creates the road that will take you to the place where at last you will kneel
to offer the gift most needed— the gift that only you can give— before turning to go home by another way.
As temperatures drop and daylight hours become shorter in these cold winter months, the prayer walkers remain determined to keep coming together to share, to walk, to pray, and to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation in the company of one another.
For all who could use a little more warmth and light in their lives right now, this blessing is for you:
Blessing for the Longest Night
All throughout these months as the shadows have lengthened, this blessing has been gathering itself, making ready, preparing for this night.
It has practiced walking in the dark, traveling with its eyes closed, feeling its way by memory by touch by the pull of the moon even as it wanes.
So believe me when I tell you this blessing will reach you even if you have not light enough to read it; it will find you even though you cannot see it coming.
You will know the moment of its arriving by your release of the breath you have held so long; a loosening of the clenching in your hands, of the clutch around your heart; a thinning of the darkness that had drawn itself around you.
This blessing does not mean to take the night away but it knows its hidden roads, knows the resting spots along the path, knows what it means to travel in the company of a friend.
So when this blessing comes, take its hand. Get up. Set out on the road you cannot see.
This is the night when you can trust that any direction you go, you will be walking toward the dawn.
As we walked together on this holiday Monday, we were mindful of the Native Americans who lived and cultivated this beautiful land in Concord far before European settlers arrived here. Until the early 1600’s, the land was originally inhabited by the Pennacook Indians (a Wampanoag tribe) who named the area “Musketaquid”, which is an Algonquin word for “grassy plain.” The Pennacook cleared and cultivated the fertile lands, growing beans, corn, squash, and pumpkins, hunted in the fields and forests, and fished in the Concord and Merrimack rivers. One of the first tribes to encounter European colonists, the Pennacook were decimated by infectious diseases unwittingly carried by the newcomers. (www.historyofmassachusetts.org)
Today we celebrate the people who first called this land home. We remember the struggles and tragedies they endured. We honor their place in and contributions to the shared story of America.
