Sunday Worship

I spend most Sunday morning in my craft room meditating.  Yes, you read correctly, meditating. I find that one of the the best ways I can communicate with God is through art.

I take a piece of scripture, a quote from something I read, or a reflection on something I struggled with in the past week.

I am a good Catholic.  My relationship with God is  the most important thing in my life.

Being Catholic in Denver is nearly impossible.  In this city of nature and crystal worshipers, with the most lame Catholic parishes of anywhere I have lived, I haven't found any "place" I want to worship.

Of course it doesn't help that I am an extreme introvert.  I don't need or want a community to pray with.  I finally came to that realization about 3 years ago, when I tried another church only to find that after 6 months I couldn't stand it. This had been a pattern of mine for years.  I couldn't take the gossiping and busy-body-ness.  I don't like making Christmas stockings for nursing homes. 
And I don't like the constant pleas for more and more money to sustain a building.

I have explored my introver nature for years.  I have learned to honor it.  but until that epiphany 3 years ago, I hadn't really settled into it comfortably.

Now I am so comfortable that the first thing I do on Sunday mornings is go into my craft room in my pajamas, reflect on the week, maybe search for a text.  Then I start a page.  And while I am creating it I speak with God.

I keep my pages in a Scrapbook.  I got the idea from an article in Scrapbooks Etc. magazine http://www.scrapbooksetc.com/ which then let me to a book called Scrapbooking Your Faith by Courtney Walsh,http://www.hampdenfph.com/.  I have three books so far.  they are my personal prayer books.  I can use them to pray from, when I need a lift, or face a struggle I had once thought I had already conquered.

Catholics may ask, what about the weekly Eucharist.  Well, the idea of receiving the Body of Christ weekly only came around in 1917.  Before that it was thought to be something so sacred and holy, the Eucharist should be received only a couple of times a year.  I have come to believe in the latter. I believe the way we recieve the Eucharist at Sunday Mass is so cavalier and routine, that we no longer see the mystery and holiness.  I once read that if we truly believed the bread and wine were being transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, we would crawl into the church on our hands and knees.

So I crawl on my hand and knees into the sacred space of my craft room, and talke with God and create for God.

How do you pray?