The Virtual Abbey

Pray When the Spirit Says Pray!

2012-07-17T10:14:00.000-04:00

Our Music Director (@Rob_Mus) is also a member of our prayer team. He quotes a Spiritual to call our attention to a revival of sorts.

You've probably noticed that shortly after Pentecost, prayers from @Virtual_Abbey started showing up again on Twitter.

As our Abbess noted back in March, at the beginning of Lent, many members of our prayer team were in “advanced burnout mode.” As a prayer team member, I can confirm this was very true!

As we began to emerge from the Easter season, some of us felt moved to begin tweeting prayers again. Oddly, several of us got into prayer-tweeting mode at the same time. (Maybe not so odd, this is the Holy Spirit we are talking about!)

As always, this prompted a discussion behind the scenes. We asked each other lots of questions:

Do we want to go back to a strict schedule?
Do we have the physical and psychic energy to do so?
Is it OK to have an irregular schedule?
If so, do we need to agree to who tweets when?
Is it OK for each of us to tweet when the Spirit moves us?

We decided, for now, at least:

It’s OK to tweet as the Spirit calls us.
We will always tweet the proper office for time of day we are called to tweet.

And we discovered that the Spirit is a pretty good scheduler. Only once or twice have two people felt called to tweet on the same night. Even then, the Spirit advised us to look before tweeting. You've probably noticed mostly Morning and Compline prayers, but occasionally there have been Noonday or Vesper tweets.

Once again we invite you to join us in prayer. And if you feel so moved, we welcome your participation in the life of @Virtual_Abbey. If you would like to lead prayers, or participate in another way, contact us by:

posting a comment on this blog, or
communicating with us via DM to @meredithgould or @Rob_Mus.

May we always:

Sing when the Spirit says Sing, and Pray when the Spirit says Pray! Amen.

Image: Taking Flight, a Pentecost installation of St Paul's Episcopal Church in Greenville, North Carolina. Found at Episcopal Church & Visual Arts.

Easter Sunday 2012

2012-04-08T00:00:00.000-04:00

He is Risen Indeed!

And we're on (indefinite) sabbatical,

but you may still contact us on

Twitter by pinging @Virtual_Abbey.

#PBWY

Holy Week Blessings from The Virtual Abbey

2012-03-31T15:55:00.001-04:00

Hosanna!

Book Review: The Love of Eternal Wisdom

2012-03-27T10:26:00.000-04:00

by Sue Tanida ( @angelicinsights )

This Lenten season, I have been finding spiritual nourishment through a book called The Love of Eternal Wisdom: A Revisioning of Saint Louis DeMontfort's Contemplation on Divine Wisdom by Rabbi Rami Shapiro. Yes, you read that right--by a Rabbi.

As someone who studied the French language for many years, it has always made sense to me that certain words are masculine and others are feminine--and they have nothing to do with physical gender. In the French language, Wisdom is feminine.

I love the language that Rabbi Shapiro evokes in his "revisioning"--not a translation, but a sharing of what the Rabbi hears when he reads the text itself. As Rabbi Shapiro says in his introduction (page vii):

I remain true to the original. Wisdom is a "woman," God's Daughter, the feminine divine so clearly revealed in the bibilical books of Proverbs, Sirach, and the Wisdom of Solomon. I also remain true to De Montfort's love of Jesus as the human incarnation of Wisdom, and to his devotion to Mary as the ever-recurring presence of Wisdom on earth and in heaven.

It reminds me of Dame Julian of Norwich, whose Divine Revelations proclaim that Jesus is Mother. This thin tome bridges the Old Testament Wisdom and the New Testament Jesus in a refreshing way:

156. Second, Jesus died not for saints but for sinners.
Wisdom incarnated not on behalf of the powerful,
but on behalf of the powerless.

I recommend this book as a way to expand your mind and heart about the nature of Jesus and of Wisdom. One does not have to believe in a "goddess" or go outside of Christian tradition to explore the divine feminine--it can be found in a male body, in the form of Jesus. I find this a fascinating realization--and one that resonates with me.

The book is available for a $5 donation, postage paid, from Wisdom House, 229 E. Litchfield Road, Litchfield, CT 06759. You can email Sister Rosemarie Greco at rg@wisdomhouse.org to order and send a check.

Due for a Change or Maybe Complete Transformation

2012-03-17T11:40:00.000-04:00

O Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going,
I do not see the road ahead of me,
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
from a prayer by Thomas Merton

The "I" in this well-know prayer by Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, should really be "we" and "we" refers to @virtual_abbey.

We always go through a major something during Lent. We began during Lent 2009, when founding Abbess, Raima Larter (@raimalarter), decided to tweet the Daily Office as a Lenten discipline. A community formed; the prayer team expanded. We got onto Facebook during that Advent and started this blog. By then, we had ~ 1,900 followers and had launched nearly 14,000 tweets into the Twitterverse.

During Lent 2010, we entered into another discernment process about our structure and our mission. I was voted in as Abbess. Our prayer team shifted a bit and grew, as did what we offered.

Observers, like Tami Heim (@tamiheim) noticed what we were doing and added our story to, @StickyJesus: How to Live Out Your Faith Online, her book with Toni Birdsong (@tonibirdsong). Carol Howard Merritt (@carolhoward), author of Reframing Hope: Vital Ministry in a New Generation, invited me to talk about our growth and challenges on God Complex Radio.

And then came Lent 2011. And another discernment process. Did we want me to continue? What did we want to do about prayer team attrition? (You can track the history of our conversations by review posts tagged " announcements.")

Now, it's Lent 2012 and while we have come to consensus about where we are as a prayer team, we have no idea how@virtual_abbey will survive on Twitter. Over 4,000 followers and more than 50,000 tweets later, we're in advanced burnout mode. Still, about this we are sure: praying the Daily Office satisfies a spirit-and-heart filled need for this enduring, structured prayer form.

While we may be a virtual abbey, we're also a real community of real people who, despite our love (and sometimes deep craving) for monastic life, have secular roles and responsibilities. We love and support one another online and off. At this point, most of us have met IRL (in real life). Still, we're tired. Tapped out. Did I mention advanced burnout?

In virtual reality, three years is an admirably long time for a virtual community to thrive and survive. Will @virtual_abbey continue? Should it? If so, we need your help. What would that look like? Only God -- and perhaps you -- know the answer to that! Options include transferring the accounts and tweeting responsibilities to another informal or even formal group...letting it fade into Great Silence...or?

Here's how you can help:

Put your proposals into a comment on this blog.
Communicate with us via DM to @meredithgould.
Participate or lurk on the #pttalk chat on Twitter this Thursday, March 22 from 11:00 AM-noon ET, where I'll be twinterviewed by folks at the Presbytery of Twitter about virtual communities of real faith in general and the @virtual_abbey in particular.

Will you help guide us? We're open to whatever is next. Thanks be to God!

Benedictine Life in 42 minutes and 3 seconds

2012-03-02T14:50:00.000-05:00

Ash Wednesday, 2012

2012-02-21T18:00:00.002-05:00

Our Lenten Journey Begins . . .

Book Announcement: Getting #Married

2012-01-05T23:50:00.004-05:00

Getting #Married: Using Social Media to Celebrate the Sacred
Plowshares Publishing (2011)
Paper: 64 pgs.
Direct from Createspace. Also on Kindle.

Yes, I'm promoting my newest book here on our community's blog, but not just because it's out. I want to highlight how praying with @Virtual_Abbey helped me realize the power of using social media to celebrate the sacred. True: the decision to use social media during my recent wedding to Dan Webster (@RevWeb) was rooted in my experience with @Virtual_Abbey.

Years of sharing prayer and then lively conversation in between prayer times convinced me that virtual community is real community. I've seen relationships develop beyond tweets and end up generating emails, phone calls, and visits IRL (in real life). I've seen those relationships help everyone involved grow in faith and reverence for the sacred -- along with coffee and chocolate, of course.

And so, when Dan and I got engaged to be married, I knew I'd be tweeting about it. Dan, what a kidder, came up with the hashtag #3xCharm, because both of us were previously married. We figured Facebook would be a good place to issue invitations. (Save a tree!) The suggestion to live-stream the ceremony came from Brenda Finkle, currently on hiatus from the Prayer Team. And so forth and so on and on and on . . .

As it turned out, most of our current Prayer Team attended IRL, many meeting one another for the first time. On the morning of my wedding, Brenda Keller, editor of this blog, supervised my hair and make-up situation. Virtual Abbey founder and former Abbess Raima Larter and long-time prayer participant Penny Nash served as chalicists during Holy Communion.Our Virtual Music Director, Rob Passow, served as Cantor. I believe with all my heart and mind that this happened seamlessly because of our years sharing virtual prayer.

So why the book? You'll find more about this in Getting #Married, but I was astonished by how online tools made it possible for people to attend without schlepping to Baltimore. When I went back to review hashtagged tweets, I was further amazed by the level of participation. And as a sociologist, I couldn't help but notice how 21st century technology was helping us reclaim everything good and right about celebrating Christian life in community. Just had to write about it and Getting #Married: Using Social Media to Celebrate the Sacred is the result.

What? Doesn't everyone write a book within days of getting married? I do. And did.

2012: Gazing Back and Looking Forward

2012-01-03T14:00:00.000-05:00

Interested in getting more involved with the Virtual Abbey community? We'd love to have you join our Prayer Team. Contact us via Twitter (@Virtual_Abbey).

Prayer endures. God never changes. People? It's always something and we've had plenty of something this past year. For this year's State of the Virtual Abbey post I'm making a good faith attempt to: "Look back but don't stare."

Simply put, we experienced major losses this year when long-term, much-loved community members went on hiatus from the Prayer Team. All reasons for taking time-out made total sense and we bid them adieu with as much grace as we could muster. We welcomed new people, who always show up in the fullness of just-in-time.

We also did some much-needed re-configuring and rescheduling. Brenda Keller (@BrendaAKeller) took on the blog and is keeping it simple so we can focus on our core purpose: offering prayer via Twitter. In September, we returned to offering Compline only for the foreseeable future. Want this to be different? Let us know and volunteer to help tweet it!

Did we have any fun? Of course! Conversational antics in between times of prayer continued on Twitter. All are always welcome to butt right in. Most of the current Prayer Team showed up in real life (IRL) to attend my wedding to The Rev. Canon Dan Webster (@RevWeb) on November 11. Lots of fun for all involved, including those tweeting from home.

The future? We're probably due for another round of deciding if we want to continue with the Abbess/Abbott structure and who should be in that role. Seems we engage in this conversation during Lent. God only knows what else will end up on our agenda for 2012. Whatever comes our way will be handled with prayer and love on Twitter. Thanks be to God!

Pax max,
Meredith

Christmas Blessings from The Virtual Abbey!

2011-12-23T23:59:00.000-05:00

O Holy Night . . .

Painting: Jennifer Smith Greene

December 23 (O Antiphon): O Emmanuel

2011-12-22T11:59:00.001-05:00

O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster . . .

O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver,
the hope of the nations and their Saviour:
Come and save us, O Lord our God.

December 22 (O Antiphon): O Rex Gentium

2011-12-21T23:59:00.001-05:00

O Rex Gentium, et desideratus earum . . .

O King of the nations, and their desire,
the cornerstone making both one:
Come and save the human race,
which you fashioned from clay.

December 21 (O Antiphon): O Oriens

2011-12-20T23:59:00.000-05:00

O Oriens . . .

O Morning Star,

splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness:

Come and enlighten those who dwell

in darkness and the shadow of death.

December 20 (O Antiphon): O Clavis David

2011-12-19T23:59:00.000-05:00

O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel . . .

O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel;
you open and no one can shut;
you shut and no one can open:
Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

December 19 (O Antiphon): O Radix Jesse

2011-12-18T23:59:00.000-05:00

O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum . . .

O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples;

before you kings will shut their mouths,

to you the nations will make their prayer:

Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.

December 18 (O Antiphon): O Adonai

2011-12-17T23:59:00.000-05:00

O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel . . .

O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel,
who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush
and gave him the law on Sinai:
Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.

December 17 (O Antiphon): O Sapientia

2011-12-16T23:59:00.004-05:00

O Sapientia, quae ex ora Altissimi prodiisti . . .

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other mightily,
and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.

It's the O Antiphons time of the year . . .

2011-12-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

Ready or not, here come the "O Antiphons" on December 17. Chanted through December 23, these prayers serve to prepare us for the birth of Our Savior. We'll offer them at Vespers and invite you to contemplate the images here along with the prayers traditional prayers we'll be tweeting.

December 11: Blessings on the 3rd Sunday of Advent from the Virtual Abbey

2011-12-09T23:59:00.003-05:00

Rejoice always.

Pray without ceasing.

In all circumstances give thanks,

for this is the will of God for you

in Christ Jesus.

(1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18)

December 4: Blessings on the 2nd Sunday of Advent from the Virtual Abbey

2011-12-03T01:00:00.002-05:00

Behold, I am sending

my messenger ahead of you;

he will prepare your way.

(Mark 1:2)

November 27: Blessings on the 1st Sunday of Advent from the Virtual Abbey

2011-11-27T10:30:00.001-05:00

Be watchful! Be alert!

(Mark 13:33)

Image: The Annunciation, John William Waterhouse (1914)

Want to Join Our Prayer Team?

2011-11-11T11:21:00.002-05:00

Advent is nigh upon us and that means we're doing what we agreed to do during our most recent discernment adventure: we're revisiting assignments and preferences. As is typically the case, some are feeling the need to rotate off the schedule for a liturgical season or two.

How about you? What are you feeling called to do during Advent (beginning November 27) and Christmas (beginning December 24)?

Care to join our Prayer Team to tweet Compline (Night Prayer) for those seasons? Is your heart, mind, and spirit saying, "yes" right away? Do you need to pray a bit about making this short-term commitment?

In either event, please know you are most welcome to join our team during any season -- liturgical or yours! We'll teach you how to use social media tools to share the blessing of Night Prayer that gives rise to tweets like this one:

Please contact me, Meredith Gould, via email to start the conversation about getting more involved.

Pax max,
Meredith for The Virtual Abbey

Virtual Centering Prayer Retreat

2011-11-10T01:29:00.001-05:00

by Sue Tanida ( @angelicinsights )

I'm sure many in the Abbey community have seen the blog posting that introduced Centering Prayer by the Rev. Dan Webster which can be found here.

The Spirituality and Practice folks are running a virtual retreat for a month on Centering Prayer led by the Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault. I decided to enroll in it to stretch my comfort zone in prayer--and because I found the practice of Welcoming Prayer, which I took a similar retreat on, so valuable.

Please stay tuned for a review of the retreat after I complete it, but I thought it would be good to announce it while there is opportunity to join in the live Practice Circle and ask questions of Mother Bourgeault.

I have already learned much in the first week. For example, there is an illusion that one should be able to stop thoughts in centering prayer or in meditation. So many of us think we can't "do it right" because the thoughts keep coming! Trying to stamp out thoughts is pretty futile, but the idea of Centering Prayer is to notice and release those thoughts, feelings and sensations to God as they come up. Since this is a time of year when many of us get winter blues (or worse), this is a great practice to take up now. How much mental pain or sadness can we release to God? How much holiday rush and stress, or loneliness can we give to him?

I invite you to join me.

Visions

2011-11-09T17:15:00.000-05:00

Photo by: Raima Larter

May your unfailing love be with us, Lord,

even as we put our hope in you.

Psalm 33:22

November 1: Blessings on All Saints from the Virtual Abbey

2011-10-31T10:30:00.000-04:00

O all you holy saints,

rejoice in the Lord. O all.

You have been chosen as God's inheritance.

Rejoice in the Lord. Glory be. O all.