This evening we gathered for companionship along the way, for nourishment for our lives and souls, and we strung our beads, some of which we created last week out of clay, to create our own personalized Anglican Prayer Beads.
We all used olive wood beads from the Holy Land for our “Weeks beads” (the 7 between each cruciform beads). Seven is an important number in the Bible and symbolizes completion.
We also chose from a number of colors the spacer beads. It’s totally amazing how many different variations there were. No two were alike. Some used colors to represent the creation. Others picked colors which complemented their clay cruciform beads, while others chose colors which contrasted their clay cruciform beads. That’s part of the process of choosing and stringing your own beads – each string becomes your own and you see it as a way to express your identity and your particular way to interact with God.
Next week we will gather to pray the beads. Too often we come home from a bead making workshop with a beautiful set of beads and have no idea how to incorporate them into our prayer practice. We want to give everyone a chance to learn how to actually invite and allow them to make a difference in our lives.
We ended this evening with blessing our beads and sharing the Office of Compline together.
It was a wonderful and holy time together. Come and join us for our third session next Wednesday.