Prayers rising like incense…

This morning I checked in on a colleague who is in the midst of a deep grief chapter. In turn, he asked how I was and promised prayers for Kent as he moves through pain management, onto healing and eventually the rehabilitation of his knee and leg.

I was praying for him and his situation; he was praying for us. Suddenly I had a vision of layer after layer of colorful prayers crisscrossing, through and around time and space.

Years back, as I was preparing to walk the Camino De Santiago, one of my seminary professors was also gearing up to make the same trek. During one of our meet-up session, I asked her what she was the most nervous or concerned over. Her answer was immediate. The pilgrimage that we were set to undertake has a thousand years of prayers layered upon path and earth and stone. Could there be any better place to spend a month?

Thirty-six day and 560 miles later, I had added another set of deep sighs, thanksgivings and petitions to those yellow-arrowed-trails. Can you, will you, imagine all those spoken and unspoken prayers weaving color and texture and holy for the next traveler, and the ones after, and the ones after that?

I happened to be sitting along Water Street yesterday when the sirens began wailing, first responders rushing in. While my anxiety edged up with each new batch of emergency personnel, I did the only thing I know to do ~ Lord have mercy; Christ have mercy; Lord have mercy.

May our prayers, like incense, continue to rise up.

Pastor Leah