50th Anniversary of Shalem – 50-Hour Vigil of Prayer

How often do we have the opportunity to be connected in Holy Silence for fifty hours, joining our prayers and offering them to one another? How often are we invited into deeper presence with the Divine from which we may, with compassion and courage, faithfully live God’s dream into the world, into all of creation? Shalem’s 50th Anniversary 50-Hour Vigil of Prayer is an opportunity to do just that. Please join us for some – or all – of this vigil as we celebrate and give thanks for the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation, which in so many ways has touched our lives.

The 50-Hour Vigil of Prayer will be offered over Zoom from noon on Friday, October 6, through Sunday afternoon, October 8. Margaret Benefiel, Executive Director of Shalem, will open and close the Vigil of Prayer. In between, each hour of this Zoom gathering will be introduced by a member of the Shalem community who has been touched by the transformative offerings of Shalem. These prayer leaders represent the diversity of the Shalem community in age, gender and race, as well as in experience – from those who have supported Shalem for decades, to those who have just discovered its richness. Our prayer team hails from throughout the US, as well as Canada, Korea, Australia, South Africa, and The Netherlands. Each leader will offer an invitation into Sacred Silence that holds us all together as one. The one love held by the Holy One, life-giver, love-maker, source of justice and mercy.

You are invited to join this Fifty Hour Vigil of Prayer in any way that is right for you. There will be a Zoom link distributed to Shalem’s email list prior to the Vigil. As many people as possible are encouraged to join in the opening and closing session.

In between, there are various ways to participate. A list of those introducing each hour will be distributed. You might want to join a particular person’s hour or part thereof. Their recorded introductions will be presented at both the beginning of the hour and at the half hour. So, you can start your contemplative sit at either time. You may want to stay for the whole hour or just for ten minutes. You can come and go throughout the fifty hours of ongoing prayer as your schedule permits. You can participate even while you are not online, for prayer and holy presence have no boundaries.

The Zoom chat will be open. When you are online, you may type in your name and location as well as any prayers or thanksgivings. Whether online or not, simply hold Shalem in your thoughts and prayers, returning again and again to this spiritual presence, joining others, opening your heart to the Heart of God. Let us use this special time to celebrate with gratitude the gift of Shalem to us and to the world, this transformative community of compassion and courage and creativity. Our prayers are not only for Shalem but also for all of creation and for Shalem’s ongoing presence in it.

Thank you in advance for your joining us in this Vigil of Prayer. We shall be connected around the world in prayerful, powerful, holy presence, which embodies the heavenly virtues and celestial energies into the world through our prayers, our stillness, our actions, each radiating the love of the Beloved within us, among us, and through us. May it be so.