Monday to Thursday nights at 7 pm. https://zoom.us/j/94951669774

The vespers group has been meeting regularly since April of 2020.  We started with a larger group than the small but faithful eight that continue to meet now.  What started off as a daily evening ‘ritual,’ as all of us would make sure that we were in front of our computers or phones at 7 pm, is now confined to four days a week, Mondays through Thursdays.

At the beginning we used the evening prayer from the ELW.  Then we switched to the Holden Evening Prayer, that all of us are familiar with, with participants taking turns in leading sections.  Later we got the recording of the evening prayer that was available as we recorded it for the mid-week Advent sessions and have been using that since.

A significant evolving of the prayer was in how these sessions that met for prayer and socializing during the shutdowns and isolation during COVID, very intentionally started discussing various issues that impacted our lives as individuals, as a faith community and as a nation. We have talked about racism, of environmental and climate issues, politics and right wing response to COVID protocols, various social injustices that is present in our own backyards, religious fundamentalism and bigotry, how we were coping during these challenging days and could support one another etc. etc etc., Of late we discussed the war in Ukraine from different vantage points, of ethics and specifically situational ethics, what is the common good that we talk about in these contexts, and so on. By the way, we also discuss sermons and sometimes the passage for the coming week, which in turn gives me ideas to think about!

I wrote these so that you could get a glimpse of what happens on vesper evenings! This is a time to collect ourselves at the end of the day and the Holden Evening Prayer really grounds us and allows us to focus on God, in the presence of the community that is present, in gratefulness in spite of everything.  It is a time to listen, honestly speak and be vulnerable, and be there for one another.  We get glimpses of and experience true community here. If you so feel to join please sign on using this link. https://zoom.us/j/94951669774

Pastor Philip