Praying with our Bodies

and a final invitation to join us on Sunday 25th February

Hi I’m Debbie, a spiritual director, writer and mother based in Glasgow. I offer stories, ponderings and gentle invitations to share a moment with your soul.

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Hello friends,

I hope this post finds you well and that the early stirrings of Spring are cheering your heart (for those of us in the Northern hemisphere at least). Today I have a Pocket Prayer for you and a final invitation for the In Between Online retreat that I am co-hosting this Sunday (25th February).

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I stand facing the camera with a small boy on either side of me, snowflakes falling outside the conservatory. I cup my hands and invite the kids to follow me. February 2021, and I was one of the many flirting with video to offer some input to our online Sunday church services. In the midst of home-schooling and caring for tiny twins, I was glad for the opportunity to throw some connection out into the world.

I had stumbled upon St Julian’s Body Prayer in my preparation, and I wanted to offer this practice again here as it is one that has continued to serve me in the years since. This is how I usually begin my own prayer time, and I have shared it in a variety of different settings from Sunday School to a Clergy Retreat.

St Julian of Norwich was a mystic, anchoress and spiritual companion who lived in the 14th Century. It is believed that she wrote the first published book attributed to a female author, she’s someone I’m keen to learn more about¹. The four words of this body prayer come from her writing: Await, Allow, Accept, Attend. The accompanying postures may have been added later, and I’ve adapted it further myself too.

Here’s Richard Rohr’s version:

AWAIT (hands at waist, cupped up to receive): Await God’s presence, not as you expect, hope, or imagine, but just as it is in this moment.

ALLOW (reach up, hands open): Allow a sense of God’s presence (or not) to come and be what it is, without meeting your expectations.

ACCEPT (hands at heart, cupped towards body): Accept as a gift whatever comes or does not come. Accept that you are not in charge. Accept the infinity of God’s presence, present whether or not you are aware.

ATTEND (hands outstretched, ready to be responsive): Attend to what you are called to, actions that God invites you to from this stance of openness.

I simplified it for the kids and have kept this version for myself:

Here I am God - Hands cupped before me

Here You are God - Hands reaching up

Here we are together - Hands cupped together towards heart

Here we go together - Holding hands out, palms up infront of me.

St Julian's Body Prayer with my helpers in 2021

There are times when prayer feels complicated. I’m stuck in overthinking with too many words, or I can’t find the will or a word start. The simplicity and embodied movements of this prayer have become muscle memory, a way to bring my whole self into prayer when I don’t know how to begin.

Do let me know if you give it a go!

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This Sunday (25th February) I am offering an online retreat alongside Fiona Koefeoed-Jesperson. This is a chance to pause and notice, name and honour the In Between places we find ourselves. Fiona has shared about it over on Ordinary Pilgrim, her Substack, where she notes that:

Lent is the in-between space of the Christian calendar. We enter the wilderness with Jesus and we wander there for forty days, reckoning with our mortality, our dust-ness, with absence of all we knew and held to be true. 

In-between: a wilderness journey

Click here to register (you can choose a ticket price to suit your budget £12/24/36). Come and take some time to explore the sacred liminal space in your life.

In between ancient faith and your own sacred story.

In between the comfort and the wild

In between the past and the future.

In between certainty and mystery.

With love,

Debbie

P.S. The Pocket Prayers section of my Substack is more faith-based than the other sections. If you don’t want to receive these particular posts, you can update your preferences in your settings. There are full instructions here.

1. I’ve not long started reading I, Julian the novel by Claire Gilbert and I have Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich on my to read list too.