Retreat Above the Bookstore

If I try to play catch-up, I will be at it forever, but I do have a couple stories I want to tell from around the time of the Death of the Laptop.

Right before, I went on retreat with the Daughters of St. Paul in Alexandria. Their ministry is evangelization of and through the media. They have "book centers," where they sell Catholic stuff. So when I went on retreat with them, I got to stay above the book store -- up a little hidden staircase into a maze-like living space.

Normally, when I am on retreat, I go out into the middle of nowhere. This retreat took place in the city, which meant we had all the noise and bustle of NoVA outside the walls. We took advantage of this location on Saturday afternoon, when we went for a prayer walk.

I had never done anything like that before. We walked through the city and people-watched and prayed for the people we saw on the walk. It's a type of intercessory prayer I've never thought of before, and it made me understand a little better how God calls us to hold the world up to Him in prayer. We saw a good variety of people, as tend to hang out in Alexandria, and ended up along the water-front and at the Torpedo Factory Art Studio, another good place for that type of prayer.

Later that night, we "prayed the news": watching the evening news and afterward offering prayers for the people and situations brought to our attention there. Both of these prayers focused so centrally on other people and offered a way to do the work of social justice -- as long as you believe in the power of prayer. And the power of prayer was one of my take-home points for the weekend.