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Anglican Beads

Rhythm of beads, by Archbishop Michael Peers

page 1

This is an embarrassing column to write. I want to write about prayer, but I will sound as if I am writing with no experience at all about it.

However, I am emboldened by remarks of a friend and colleague, Rowan Williams, Primate of Wales, who spoke quite naturally of his experience of not praying in the mornings because he has to get a child to school. If he can be that candid, why not I?

For more than ten years I have been going on retreat at a monastery, normally for six days, twice a year, and I wonder why I waited so long before I developed this pattern. Two things are constant joys - first, the rest and the silence, second, the daily pattern of community prayer. Other aspects of the retreat vary depending on what is pressing, splendid, tiresome or urgent in my life at the moment. But one problem always surfaces towards the end of a retreat. I know that each good event in life is what it is, and doesn't have to be more than that. But (I think wistfully) it would be great if there were some carry-over from the retreat, something that would affect the rest of my life. And especially if it could help with prayer. And this time I just may have found something. It's something so simple, so low-tech, that I blush to name it. Beads. People of many faiths have prayed with beads since time immemorial. Orthodox monks and nuns carry them on their wrists. Muslims use them in their daily prayers. Western Christianity developed the very structured prayer called the rosary. But the way my director spoke of using beads was rather simpler and more engaging. He suggested that I use the beads on the long daily walks I customarily take on retreat. Find a simple prayer and repeat it over and over, counting a bead each time.

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