Now Offered at Two Times, in the Eastern Time Zone please email with your preferred date
Cost is $50
Do you want to learn how to write prayers and liturgy? Psalms and Calls to Worship? Confessions and Personal Prayers? This Zoom Workshop is designed for all levels and experiences for people to engage in prayer writing–using the scripture as your guide.
Led by Katy Stenta, Pastor, Writer and Educator
Who is ready for the next Liturgy Workshop?
Join me for a peaceful, hands on writing experience
For more information to sign up, email Katyandtheword at gmail.com. Titled “Liturgy” indicate which date you want
Katy Stenta is a regular contributor to Sermonsuite, RevGalBlogPals, and is published in Enfleshed, Presbyterian’s Today and Outlook. She received her undergraduate in English and History and Minor on Philosophy at Oberlin, her M. Div. and MA in Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She is all but dissertation for her Doctorate in Creative Writing as a Public Theologian at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She also writes personal prayers regularly at katyandtheword.com.
2024 A year of erasers Cloud watching And Companionable silences May your journey be light burdened Your books be easy to read And shows easy to watch (Or easy to put down if they are not)
May you have permission to fail To cry To take comfort
I hope you have the good kind of phone calls And comforting visits And good boundaries
And may you taste something amazing And feel at home in your body And sit with beloved ones
I hope you feel enjoyment in something fun May you be silly for no reason And I hope that 2023 is not about what you do But that you are able to be your full self And be safe And healthy And in community
May you touch the new year With a sense of who you are And with a sense of wistfulness
Because we are worth who we are Becoming May your blessings increase in the New Year
God, I am praying for a boring year after Wars on Terror Great Recessions Housing Collapse A Pandemic
And those were only the large scale events
I pray for an uneventful new year with uninteresting times and very precedented events
I pray for peace in your personal life your home your town and city and country
I hope that thing seem corny and maybe not normal (because what is that anyway) but ordinary enough that pieces of trust can be built up again
I pray that this year does not feel like a bludgeon but comes in like a lamb and out like a lamb
I pray that there are moments of rest spaces of sanctuary places of healing and times of rebuilding
I pray for a prededented year full of laughter at jokes you may have already heard smiles with friends you have time to see and book and shows you feel comfortable enough to revisit, with glee
I pray for comfort for safety in the known for rituals that you love– your favorite haunts your tastiest meals your places to just be
I hope you are able to repeat yourself without fear
But most of all I pray that you have an uneventful New Year
Amen.
Feel free to use/adapt/Share with Credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
God of Chronos and Kairos You know the calendar the timetables the budgets the to do lists and all the holy moments the smiles the blessings the hellos the goodbyes the transitions the deaths the baptisms the caretakings the laughter the hugs the holy moments of silences somehow you sneak kairos–God’s time in the midst of the chronos–measurable time
As we enter into this practice of trying to talk about both Grant us your Holy Spirit so that we can savor that you work in both Chronos and Kairos And open our hearts and minds and spirits to feel your presence in all the kinds of time that exist In the name of Jesus Christ– who entered Chronos, so that we might experience Kairos better, we pray. Amen.
Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta “KatyandtheWord”
You know God, as my husband takes down the Christmas tree Christmas eve (quick before we get distracted) and the relations make their way home and the songs and candlelight fades
that we need time to sink into Christmas because Christmas is a journey.. I say this not to tsk about Advent vs Christmas vs Epiphany But to think about deep rhythms of the body, winter and the universe
And how we need a good couple of weeks of Christmas-tide to rest think and pondering
There is so much journeying and pondering at Christmas
not to mention comforting of one another
Yet we seem to burst onto the scene in joyfulness and glory and demand a quick wrap up with the wise ones before we rush home
I wonder how wonderful it would be if we gave one another the time of slow and fruiting Christmas with a full couple of weeks of rest
(I thought this especially during Covid “Shutdown” what if we emphasized a quiet holiday time home protecting one another?)
How I long for a time of cozy recovery built in to our culture Tricia Hersey suggests we snatch this kind of of rest whenever we can
So I pray that you steal some cozy restful comfort and recovery this holiday-tide
And if you have not I hope that you build it in As I imagine
Jesus longing for Peace for all as he lay with his parents snug after all of the festivities
Feel free to use/adapt/share with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta “KatyandtheWord”
Pride and prejudice archive. The days between Christmas and New Years. A woman reading by the fire, another reclining on the couch, the third writing. all look languid.
@Kim@tech.lgbt in Norway, ‘up and not crying is a not uncommon response to “how’s it going” type questions, and I fell like that’s a very reasonable standard to hold oneself to especially nowadays
I have experienced so many longest nights… the scary longest night of childhood– too scared to cry out for help in the dark too scared not to The sheer powerlessness of not knowing what to do
The longest night of giving birth the pain, the trying to breath, trying to talk everyone trying to help, feeling like no one is trying to help I’ve not been Mary, but Good God the pressure I have experienced that longest night
I have experienced the length of ten millions hours Of the bedside wait for a beloved one to die imminent, and yet too long the wondering if staying is the best thing to do or not, the talking without response– the simultaneous hope that they know you are present but that they don’t, because then they aren’t feeling any pain
I know the powerlessness of longest night moments of parenthood Of sitting on the couch laughing so you don’t cry Because you don’t know what to do next, as your child is anguished and alone– And you Cry right in front of them “I am here” As they are crying about how alone they feel
I have felt the chilliness of the Longest Night of being alone– how cold it feels to have no friends what it means to be laughed at every time you speak shunned, and ostracized The awkwardness of being your neurodivergent self And realizing there is no other way to be
And then again during the isolation of Covid where we all, kept each other safe briefly
Before all the wars resumed
I have not experienced every longest night, but I have had to pick what bill not to pay I have stand in the grocery line with WIC Praying that all of my credit cards do not bounce I have had long payment plans with the IRS, And preached to help the poor knowing that I am actually being self-referential
When I think of the Darkest night of the Soul and Jesus, with his guts spilled out on the cross I feel like I understand a little more when I had to relearn how to walk how to eat how to defecate after surgery–and feel the worst pain ever to recover (And it makes me wonder about If Jesus walked to Emmaus because he had to relearn it, And if he didn’t eat, because he couldn’t yet)
The longer I live The more I understand the Longest Nights and I think, we need time to sit in silence grief loneliness charity
with one another Because humans experience Longest nights And I believe God sits with us and cradles us and sings us lullabies until the dawn arrives again.
Happy Solstice The Shortest Day of the Longest Fucking Year of Our Lives
Please feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta “KatyandtheWord”
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