Friday Morning Spiritual Practices

General Assembly 2009 Event 3001

Chaplain: Rev. Danielle DiBona.

Every morning at 7 a.m. a small group gathers for informal worship led by a General Assembly (GA) chaplain. The room is available before and after the service for quiet meditation, and the volunteer chaplains are available at all times for personal emergencies or pastoral care during GA.

DiBona led us in a quiet prayer to the spirit of life and urged us to take care of ourselves, take time to relax, greet people, or watch the crowds as they rush from one meeting to the next. "We are a spiritual community," she said. "If we can't fill our souls, why are we here?"

She asked for reflections on our GA experience. "I sing a lot louder when there are so many people in the room," one person offered. "I like to move when I sing. It's joyful to be able to move and not feel so self-conscious," another said. GA is a cross-cultural experience, mixing east and west here in the center of the country, DiBona remarked.

"It's Friday, and I am fried!" exclaimed DiBona. "I wonder if you are, too." She delivered a brief message of love and care: love yourself and love each other.

A volunteer from the small congregation led us in several rounds of the familiar song "Come, come, whoever you are." [Singing the Living Tradition, #188.]

Dibona closed with a quiet prayer and meditation: "Keep each other in your hearts, minds, and souls. Go in peace, go in love, go out and change the world."

Reported by Mike McNaughton; edited by Jone Johnson Lewis.