I have always been drawn to quiet places, especially places where I can hear flowing water. There is something about water moving over stones that settles something inside me. Perhaps it is the movement. Perhaps it is the sound. Perhaps it is simply being surrounded by something God made.
Nature has always helped me become quiet before God.
But this morning, I didn’t need flowing water.
I simply needed a place to sit.
Our parish has created two outdoor spaces for prayer and meditation. They are simple places, set apart from the activity of the church, where someone can sit for a while and pray.
This morning, I went to one of them.
As I sat there, I thought about how often Jesus did the same thing. The Gospels tell us that Jesus regularly withdrew from the crowds to pray. Sometimes He went to a deserted place. Sometimes He went up a mountain. Before important moments in His ministry, He would step away from everyone else and spend time with His Father.
Jesus knew the value of getting away.
Perhaps we need to learn it again.
I sat there for a while this morning and prayed. There was nothing particularly extraordinary about it. No great revelation. No dramatic moment. Just some quiet time with God.
Eventually, a friend came outside to check on me.
I smiled when I saw him. I suppose he wondered what I was doing sitting out there alone.
I was praying.
When I eventually went back into the church, I noticed something.
I felt at peace.
It wasn’t a feeling I had gone outside looking for. It simply seemed to be there when I came back inside. And as I walked through the doors, I began thinking about those two little places outside.
I wondered how many people would sit there and pray.
Then another thought came to me.
I wonder if they feel the presence of the Lord the way I do.
I know they probably won’t.
We don’t all experience God’s presence in the same way. What brings me into prayer may not do the same thing for someone else. I may find God in the sound of water or the quiet of the woods. Someone else may encounter Him in a Scripture passage, a Rosary, a sunrise, a song, or simply sitting quietly with nothing but their own thoughts.
God knows how to meet each of us where we are.
Maybe that is part of the beauty of these prayer spaces.
They don’t tell us how to pray.
They simply give us a place to do it.
Someone may sit there for ten minutes and say a Rosary. Someone else may open the Bible. Someone may sit there because life has become too heavy and they don’t know what else to do. Someone may sit there without saying a word.
And perhaps someone will simply sit there and discover that the peace they were looking for was not really in the place at all.
It was in the presence of God.
We cannot manufacture that presence. We cannot build a prayer space and guarantee that everyone who sits there will have some profound experience.
But we can make room for God.
That may be what our parish has done.
We have made a little room for people to step away from the noise of life and remember that they are not alone.
Jesus went away to pray.
Maybe these spaces give us a small opportunity to follow Him.
I keep thinking about the people who will sit there in the days and years ahead. I wonder what they will bring with them. Joy. Grief. Questions. Gratitude. Fear. Hope. Perhaps burdens they have never told another person.
I wonder how many prayers will be whispered there.
I wonder how many tears will fall there.
I wonder how many people will sit there for a few minutes and then walk back into the church carrying something they didn’t have when they went outside.
This morning, I carried back peace.
And now I find myself wondering if someone else will find it there, too.
Perhaps that is what a place of prayer is meant to be.
Not a place where we go to find God.
A place where we go to remember that He was already there.
Jesus went away to pray.
Perhaps, sometimes, we simply need to go outside and sit quietly long enough to remember that we can, too.