Practicing Our Faith: Embodying Meditation

This summer, we’ve launched a new series: Practicing Our Faith. This series highlights voices from within our community, sharing how each of us embodies spiritual practices in everyday life. Our Embodiment Sundays will offer guided ways to step into and practice each rhythm together.Rest is a gift from God. The practice of Sabbath began with God, who rested after creating the heavens, the earth, and all that is in them. In the same way, God invites us to pause from our work and responsibilities to rest, renew our souls, and remember that our lives are sustained by God's grace, not our constant striving. Anne Harris Carter is the newly appointed executive director of the African American Museum of Iowa. A graduate of Yale University, Anne had an extensive career in corporate leadership before joining Linn County Public Health in 2022 to launch the Office of Health Equity. She was born and raised in Cedar Rapids and lived mostly east of the Mississippi river before returning to her hometown. Anne is a life-long community advocate, enjoys playing violin, and is exceedingly grateful for her three adult children and three granddaughters.

Meditation is the prayerful practice of attending to God with the heart through Scripture, silence, or sacred words, not to gain information but to be present. Listen in to be guided into an intentional posture of attentiveness to God’s presence with Psalm 46:10.

Meditation is a way of attending to God with the heart, not merely the mind. It is a slow, deliberate turning toward Scripture, silence, or sacred words so that we might notice how God is already present and at work. Rather than striving to master a passage or produce insight, meditation invites us to linger, to listen, to receive.In a culture that rewards speed and productivity, meditation forms in us a different posture. We come not to accomplish, but to be, and to be with. We allow words of Scripture to echo within us, noticing what stirs, what resists, what invites. We consent to God’s presence, trusting that transformation often happens quietly, beneath the surface.Jessica Thomas, is a Licensed Esthetician, Registered Yoga Teacher, certified Peter Hess® Sound Massage Therapist, and has worked as a Radiology Technologist for over 28 years. Her work at ROOTSPACE Wellness is rooted in presence, compassion, slowing down, and helping people listen to what their bodies and spirits are carrying.

This Embodiment Sunday, we will engage the practice of the Prayer of Examen as a way of creating space to honor the complexity of the 4th of July weekend. Through the Prayer of Examen, we will notice where gratitude, lament, confession, hope, and faithful action are stirring within us as we gather separate, yet together in spirit.

This summer, we’re launching a new series: Practicing Our Faith. This series will highlight voices from within our community, sharing how each of us embodies spiritual practices in everyday life. Spiritual Practices are concrete activities to engage in to open ourselves to the transforming presence of God, and Embodiment Sundays will offer guided ways to step into the practice together. Embodiment Sunday guides are available on the digital newsletter. Sign up by scanning the QR code at the back table.Gratitude is more than a response to good circumstances; it is a way of seeing and being that helps us hold sorrow and goodness together, trusting that God is present even here. As a spiritual practice, gratitude slows us down, helping us notice glimmers of hope without denying pain or injustice. Jenna Jandik is a former first-grade teacher, current substitute teacher, and child mindfulness educator. She is married to her high school sweetheart, Cody. They met coaching soccer and continue to spend many hours on the soccer field cheering on their two sons. Jenna is a southeast Cedar Rapids native and enjoys being outside, creating at the ceramic studio, and loving on her people.

We’ve launched a new series as a spin-off of Stories Among Us with a focused theme: Practicing Our Faith. This series will highlight voices from within our community, sharing how each of us embodies spiritual practices in everyday life. Spiritual Practices are concrete activities to engage in to open ourselves to the transforming presence of God. Our Embodiment Sundays will offer guided ways to step into the practice together.Spiritual Practice Definition: Prayer WalkingPrayer Walking is the practice of praying while walking and intentionally being present with God in a specific place. As we move through a neighborhood, street, or community space, we keep our eyes open to what God is doing, allowing what we see and experience to shape our prayers. Rather than focusing only on our own needs, prayer walking invites us to join God’s care and concern for the people and places around us. It is a way of paying attention, listening for the Spirit’s leading, and praying with greater awareness right where we are. Kyrah Nitz is an Elementary Education student at the University of Northern Iowa. She is currently the Children’s Ministry Coordinator here at Wellington Heights Community Church and loves working with children and families. Kyrah grew up in Cedar Rapids and Marion and now lives in Independence, IA. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, listening to music, and cooking.

This summer, we’re launching a new series as a spin-off of Stories Among Us with a focused theme: Practicing Our Faith. This series will highlight voices from within our community, sharing how each of us embodies spiritual practices in everyday life. Our Embodiment Sundays will offer guided ways to step into, and practice, each rhythm together. Let’s be inspired to intentionally practice our faith.Spiritual Practice Definition: MovementThis week, we’re exploring the practice of movement. How caring for our bodies can become a meaningful expression of worship, prayer, and connection with God.Nick MundorfNick grew up in northern Linn County. He currently resides in Marion, Iowa, with his amazing wife, Gretchen, and two wonderful kids, Rory and Boyse. Nick graduated from North Linn High School and got his Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Upper Iowa University. He has been working in the financial industry for 19 years, and mortgages specifically for the last ten. In his free time, he loves to watch and support his kids' youth activities. He is also an avid runner and loves to golf.

The Day of Pentecost celebrates the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the fulfillment of God’s promise, the proclamation of the Good News, and the Church's birth and growth through the Spirit’s power. On Pentecost Sunday, we will be embodying the practice of Visio Divina. Visio Divina, or “holy seeing,” invites us to pray with our eyes. Check out the digital newsletter for the image to guide our practice together.

On this episode, you are in for a treat as Pastor Keeyon interviews his long-time friend, Antonio Byrd. Antonio walks us through his faith journey and highlights how important it is for us to bask in the unconditional love of Christ. That same love that enoucarges us to be one as we read in our scripture reading. John 17:1-11, CEB Jesus prays1When Jesus finished saying these things, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, so that the Son can glorify you. 2 You gave him authority over everyone so that he could give eternal life to everyone you gave him. 3 This is eternal life: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent. 4 I have glorified you on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5 Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I shared with you before the world was created.6 “I have revealed your name to the people you gave me from this world. They were yours and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8 This is because I gave them the words that you gave me, and they received them. They truly understood that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.9 “I’m praying for them. I’m not praying for the world but for those you gave me, because they are yours. 10 Everything that is mine is yours and everything that is yours is mine; I have been glorified in them. 11 I’m no longer in the world, but they are in the world, even as I’m coming to you. Holy Father, watch over them in your name, the name you gave me, that they will be one just as we are one.

As the season shift and many of us turn toward spring cleaning, this episode invites you to go deeper into a spiritual tending of the spaces we call home. Through gentle guidance and prayer, you’ll be led to move room by room, noticing, blessing, and inviting God‘s presence into the everyday places where life unfolds. This practice is great for individuals, families, or roommates!