As I’m working on this course, I want to make helpful assignments. One is to think about praying. And I realized that this may be helpful to readers of 300 words, too.

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I am an extemporaneous pray-er. I can simply, together with a family, start talking to God. And laugh in the middle as I forget names.

But I am also a written pray-er. For each Sunday at the hospital, I write a prayer. Preparing it ahead of time allows me to think about the week and the hospital and the situations we’ve faced. I can think about the texts we have just read in the service. I can think about confessions and assurances. I can find the right words to give to people as we talk to God. I can be prepared in case I’m coming from a crisis.

One of the books for the course, Prayer in the Night, is an extended reflection on one short prayer from the Book of Common Prayer. During the dark days of the pandemic, this was my prayer every night as I went to sleep. Words written centuries ago, giving me words in which to immerse my fears from work.

In the last few years, Douglas McKelvey wrote prayers for all kinds of situations (Every Moment Holy, Volume 1 and Volume 2: Death, Grief, and Hope). Others have written prayers and collections of prayers. Even me. And all these echo the prayers of scripture found in the Psalms and elsewhere.

For this course, we will write prayers, too, for situations in the lives we actually have. Some of the situations sound like this:

• When visiting with someone one last time before they die.
• When asking God’s blessing on a genetically ill child.
• When asking God to guide a newly married couple.
• When providing a bag of groceries at a food bank.
• When asking God’s protection for students going on a trip, knowing that last year, a student on this same trip was killed.
• When asking God to guide a congregation in decisions about the future which may include closing.

You’ll write and submit seven prayers choosing from this list or your own need. We won’t grade them, but we may comment them. Or borrow them.

There’s not a length requirement, but probably longer than Psalm 117 would be great, and certainly not as long as Psalm 119.

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Next week I’ll share a little more of how I think about public praying.