Today is the beginning of a new little project I have started, called “Stay at Home Liturgies.” Essentially, I am writing them to practice praying with intentionality. Come back on the next few Mondays and Fridays if you would like to practice them with me. I would recommend reading them out loud and slowly, only after you have taken a deep breath and are sitting down somewhere comfortable. A liturgy isn’t something to check off the to-do list, but instead something to digest and be transformed by.

In our mandate to stay at home, many of us have come face to face with an experience we try pretty hard to avoid: silence. We fill our days with any kind of activity or distraction to maintain a life that doesn’t have to deal with silence and what it brings with it. But there is so much good to be found there, so here is a prayer for all of us who are needing to embrace it:

Stay at Home Liturgies

To be Okay with Silence

When we slow down like this, we realize:
How much noise there is
How loud our lives are
How many thoughts we have
How much we fill our days and minds and ears to avoid it ⎯ or You.

In silence we worry about what we are (not) producing, accomplishing, or proving.
In silence, we worry about what You might (not) say.
When silence surrounds us, we worry about what might (not) happen.

May we find silence beautiful and comforting, like a warm hug from an old friend.
May it not scare us but invite us to make room for You and the kind things You want to speak over us.

Help us remember that silence is where we can meet with You, our Creator.
It is where we will be changed, strengthened, fortified for what a day might bring.
Make silence our brave space for transformation.

Like Elijah, help us see that You are not always in the loud, but often in the quiet, stillness.
Keep us from filling our lives with distraction, and help us pursue silence as a way to know You and be known by You.

“Let me hear in the morning of Your steadfast love, for in You I trust.
Make me know the way I should go, for to You I lift up my soul.”
Psalm 143:8