Daisies and prayer tents

This is Post number 700!  Linking to Lakota's Tah Dah tuesday and Annie's Make a month 2012!  I hadn't made anything for a few weeks!  I have a little project I want to attempt (hopefully this will be my make for next week) and I thought I would experiment by making this card first before I put it into practice!  The card was simply achieved by means of white and yellow acrylic paint and a flower punch- I punched a stencil into a moussaka box and used it to paint the flowers above. Simple but cute.  I still had some white acrylic left so I used it up by beginning these cards below in the same way.

On Sunday the 30th September, it was Back to Church Sunday, a day on which churches welcome anyone who might have gone to church and not been for years or anyone new to come back for a service.  At my church, as well as the service, we were having a sort of open hall with stalls and stands telling about what we do and what there is in the church- in addition, there was a big buffet lunch, face-painting, games and the choir was going to sing.  My priest seems to like doing everything last minute, so I was asked and sort of volunteered to put together a prayer tent.  It was going to be outside in the garden originally, so I had a 4-man tent I was going to use though because of the potential rain, it was moved inside. There remained the challenge of creating a nice, cosy, quiet zone in a noisy, high-ceilinged room, where people could pray.  With the help of my creative friend M.  we made use of the playgroup's rainbow parachute to create a tent in the corner of the hall, we managed to tie it to a pulley-rope to raise it to the ceiling and then hook it onto various hooks on the walls- we then manage to anchor it to some chair-legs.  Immediately and surprisingly, there was a sense of quietness and being able to find a quiet place with that.  We got some carpet and laid it down with a variety of pillows from my house.  Chairs were draped with crocheted blankets, A bench set out as well with cushions, so people could feel comfortable in different ways praying etc.

I set out a sparkly book as a prayer journal (with ideas for what people might include in their prayer

such as what they wanted to thank God for, to ask him about, to praise him for and to say sorry for) with a big pot of different pens.  A big pile of different coloured postit notes so people could put up short messages and prayers on the wall, a 24-7 prayer guide, I managed to buy some ESV bibles for people to read and/or take away, some were on the carpet as well. 

I didn't manage to take any good photos of it, these were part of the process, but for a first time of creating a prayer-space, in quite a difficult space to do it, it was ok.

If and when I do it again, there are some things I would include.  It was rather basic, but it was a start and nice to try to create such a space.  It would be nice to have more ideas on the walls- I got some great ideas from the Orison website (a really fantastic resource which Rach is part of, really worth a look and investigate!)- a world map, it would be nice if it could have been a bit darker with some tea-lights, a bubble column would be fantastic for the post-it notes, i would be nice to have more ideas for prayer on the walls- I had no printer access and nothing would stick with the blue-tack to the walls.  Although there weren't loads and loads of visitors, there were certainly some, who were much appreciated and it was nice to meet them and to welcome them to the church. On the whole, even though the space was very basic and not totally what I would have liked to have create, people seemed to really appreciate and use the space.  There seemed to be people in there all the time, the journal had some long entries in it, as it was nearing the end, there seemed to be a large group praying together, who apprecated the larger space the hall afforded. 

Creating a quiet sanctuary for prayer and meditation is all you need as a starting point.