A Bead and a Prayer

Several years ago our son, Isaac, who is now twenty-four spent a year in France and Switzerland. During that time he lived in two Christian communities, Taize http://www.taize.fr/ and Grandchamp. http://www.grandchamp.org/ I went to visit him for a couple of weeks at Taize and while there he gave me a very simple rosary which he had been using as a prayer focus. The prayer beads of the rosary aren't very Protestant, but I was touched. As he handed them to me I felt a surge of power as though God's Spirit was passing into me. I wrote about it in my journal at the time and then forgot about it, until recently.

I was sorting through the usual debris of my bedside table when I discovered the rosary. As I handled the cross and the beads I felt that "charge" once again, and recalled how I had first received them. Taize is a place of constant prayer and while I was there I felt bathed in Christ's love.

Perhaps I was nudged into my house-cleaning as a reminder that I don't need to travel to France to experience that loving presence. It was good to email Isaac in Montreal and share this story with him.