For Being the Limbs of Christ: A Song

Nov 18

Dinah Roe Kendall, “The Good Samaritan,” acrylic on canvas (1994)

It’s one of the funnest things in the world when a musician turns your written prayer into a singable song. That’s what Paul Zach did with my prayer “For Anxious Children at Bedtime,” which I wrote during the early months of the coronavirus, and I still have children come up to me and sing his lovely melody back to me.

It’s also what Jon Guerra has done with one of the Celtic prayers that will show up in the book that Phaedra and I are publishing with Intervarsity Press. It’s a prayer that I’ve titled, “For Being the Limbs of Christ.”

Jon wrote a lilting melody for a song that everybody at the Laity Lodge retreat, “Sensing Jesus,” would sing at the start of each session. He taught it to us over the course of three days and, with the four-part harmony that he’d written for sopranos, altos, tenors and bases, it just got more and more beautiful as the voices in the room became more familiar with the music.

It also offered the group a chance to sing in response to the invitation that Lore Wilburt and I offered to them, namely, to offer all of their body, along with all of their senses, up to God.

I’ve included a few video clips from the retreat here in addition to the sheet music that Jon handed out to folks at the retreat. Here you’ll see and hear Jon and Val as well as the wonderful Amy Crouch.

I’m also including here the full text to the prayer itself.

So grateful to Jon Guerra and his generous heart to serve the Body of Christ.

“A Prayer for Being the Limbs of Christ”