Pausing for prayer

The General Officers, the leadership team for the Sisters of Providence, met last week. Each day a different council member prepared and led the prayer. The day we reflected on the gift of Earth and everyone and everything that shares life on this planet I spoke of an appreciation instilled in me in my youth by my dad.

Particularly impressionable for me was his devotion to gardening. The garden was his church, in a sense, where he worshiped God as he tilled, planted, weeded and reaped the produce.

The new greenhouse at White Violet Center for Eco-Justice at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Ind., a ministry of the Sisters of Providence.

Our visit to the newly-constructed White Violet Center greenhouse on Thursday afternoon gave me pause for thought, again reflecting on Earth and the gift it is for me, for us.

How often I take for granted the Woods, many times passing up opportunities to intentionally be in this place, during the change of seasons, for example.

If prayer is communion with God, then being in God’s creation is a form of prayer. Reverencing all life is prayer. Living intentionally in order to preserve Earth is prayer.

Many are the opportunities to contemplate and pray daily!

Do you have similar thoughts? I’d love to hear them in the comment box below.

View a video of the construction of the new greenhouse.