Episcopal Press and News
Episcopal Women Are Asked to Share Their Prayers
Episcopal News Service. May 7, 1999 [99-065]
(ENS) Are there some Episcopal women who know a good prayer for a child's first day at school? A litany for the healing of physical abuse? A meditation for a displaced homemaker? There is room for all of these prayers in a new project launched in April by the church's Council for Women's Ministries.
These kinds of prayers, and many more, will be collected in a book of inclusive prayers for women that will make its first appearance at next year's General Convention in Denver.
"It's such an exciting project," said Ann Smith, director of Women in Mission and Ministry. "Women's prayers are like women's stories; they are sometimes reluctant to share them, but when they do they resonate with other women's experiences."
Smith and Elizabeth Geitz, an Episcopal priest and author of Entertaining Angels, Soul Satisfaction and Gender and the Nicene Creed, already have sent out the first requests for submissions to the project and have counted a few early replies.
The idea for the project came from an ecumenical women's book of prayers distributed at the World Council of Churches' Decade Festival last December in Harare, Zimbabwe. Called Sing Out New Visions: Prayers, Poems and Reflections by Women, the book was produced for the Justice for Women Working Group of the National Council of Churches by the Commission for Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, aided by grants from the Lutheran Brotherhood Foundation and the United Methodist Church.
A book by Episcopal women became a focus of discussion at a meeting last winter of presidents and chairs of Episcopal women's organizations, Smith and Geitz explained.
"Our intent is twofold," Geitz said in a letter to be distributed to women throughout the church. "First, to lift up the ways women speak to God in prayer, and in so doing, to reveal ourselves to one another and to the church at large.
"Second, to help those women in our society who are victims of violence by donating all profits to the Episcopal Women's Foundation."
The money received will be given to programs and projects that address the issue of violence against women and girls, she said. "This dual nature of the project ignites our imagination and satisfies our soul as we reach out to those women in our society most in need of the tender touch of God's love," she added.
Geitz said she, Smith and Marge Burke, chair of the Committee on the Status of Women, are seeking a variety of prayers written in inclusive language -- collects, psalms, litanies, mantras, guided imageries, poems, meditations, rituals, graces, blessings, personal and corporate prayers, as well as prayers for specific people, occasions and issues. The overall theme will be prayers for a woman's life cycle.
Some of the topics might include women's friendships, relationships, menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, miscarriage, menopause, suffering, comfort, healing of all kinds of abuse, separation, divorce, remarriage and death.
In addition, they suggest, there could be prayers for unsafe neighborhoods, for pregnant teenagers, for widows, for women who pave the way, for lesbians, for women in the workplace, for caregivers, for the acceptance of change, for affirmation, or for nearly any subject a woman may feel is important.
Smith said that diocesan contacts, leaders of groups and persons in church networks would be asked to help coordinate submissions, which will be sent to Marge Burke, 120 Simonds Road, Lexington, MA 02173. All submissions must be double-space and typed.
The deadline for submissions to collectors across the church is June 15. The designated collectors of the material will do an initial screening. Their final deadline is August 15 -- a firm date, Smith said, because the book's production demands will prevent any later cutoff time. An editorial board will review the prayers for inclusion in the book.
"I hope that people will see this as a confirmation of their own prayer life," she said, "that they can see that 'My prayers count, my prayers are good, too.' There's often a tendency to leave all that to people who are theologically trained."
She added, "It also gets at the idea that prayer is just for Sundays and in a church. Religion isn't just on Sunday, it's a way of life."