Judith Valente's Blog: Mindfulness in the Age of Twitter - Posts Tagged "easter-eggs"
A Thousand Prayer Eggs
Some of us react to trauma or the injustices we’ve endured with anger. Others withdraw and sink into depression. My friend Pat makes art. Pat is a survivor of clergy sexual assault. This Lent, in search of personal healing and reconciliation, Pat decided to create 1,000 “prayer eggs” similar to the traditional brightly-colored Ukrainian Pysanka Easter eggs.
Pat is a Benedictine Oblate, a lay associate of a monastery, which is how we met. She paints each of her eggs individually with either a traditional symbol or one of her original designs. She has given away about 300 of her creations so far.
“The eggs are my doorway to prayer, and the most fertile prayer time I have is when I go to God through art,” Pat told me.
Pat’s assault took place some 40 years ago, but the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings last fall revived the trauma. Many, including a majority of the U.S. Senate, refused to believe Dr. Christine Ford’s accusation against a powerful man. “Just as the person who attacked me,” Pat says, “warned me years ago no one would believe me because he was a priest.”
Pat already had a tradition of painting eggs at Easter and praying for the people who received them. This year, her work took on a larger purpose. “I was not interested in making my story public, but after some time elapsed, I realized that in order to be whole, I was going to have to reconcile somehow,” she said.
Her reconciliation was “a pretty huge thing,” she adds, because she blamed her attacker’s entire order for what happened to her. “Then I asked myself, what would St. Benedict expect me as an Oblate to do?”
Each egg Pat creates is a prayer for someone who has endured sexual assault or abuse. The work is also her way of healing. “I hope in some way I’ve touched others by letting them know they are a child of God and they are worth more than they know,” she says.
The mother of seven adult children, Pat works on her project five hours a day, seven days a week, from 7 p.m.to midnight, after she finishes teaching art.
She says eggs are the perfect medium for her message because they represent both wholeness and new life.
Pat’s inspiration was the story of Sadako Sasaki, a child who endured the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and then took on the quest of making 1,000 paper cranes as symbols of peace. Sadako died before she could reach her goal, but thousands of others took up her cause. Pat hopes others will follow her lead by offering prayer eggs, or something similar, to those who need support.
So far Pat has given her eggs to people in nursing homes, to a Jesuit community, and to the monastery where she is a lay associate, often mailing them out at her own cost. She says, “I would never charge for the eggs. Never. They are prayers.”
Pat sent me two of her prayer eggs, one with a painted sunflower, the other with a circle of figures holding hands. They are the centerpiece on my dining room table this Easter.
Today at Palm Sunday Mass, we will pray the words of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Pat’s eggs remind us that we are not abandoned.
As Holy Week begins, can we think about what woundedness in our own lives needs healing? Is there a special prayer practice we can do this week to let others know they are not alone?
May we also remember to pray in a special way in these coming days for all abuse and assault survivors, including Pat, who is a model of Easter love.
Pat is a Benedictine Oblate, a lay associate of a monastery, which is how we met. She paints each of her eggs individually with either a traditional symbol or one of her original designs. She has given away about 300 of her creations so far.
“The eggs are my doorway to prayer, and the most fertile prayer time I have is when I go to God through art,” Pat told me.
Pat’s assault took place some 40 years ago, but the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings last fall revived the trauma. Many, including a majority of the U.S. Senate, refused to believe Dr. Christine Ford’s accusation against a powerful man. “Just as the person who attacked me,” Pat says, “warned me years ago no one would believe me because he was a priest.”
Pat already had a tradition of painting eggs at Easter and praying for the people who received them. This year, her work took on a larger purpose. “I was not interested in making my story public, but after some time elapsed, I realized that in order to be whole, I was going to have to reconcile somehow,” she said.
Her reconciliation was “a pretty huge thing,” she adds, because she blamed her attacker’s entire order for what happened to her. “Then I asked myself, what would St. Benedict expect me as an Oblate to do?”
Each egg Pat creates is a prayer for someone who has endured sexual assault or abuse. The work is also her way of healing. “I hope in some way I’ve touched others by letting them know they are a child of God and they are worth more than they know,” she says.
The mother of seven adult children, Pat works on her project five hours a day, seven days a week, from 7 p.m.to midnight, after she finishes teaching art.
She says eggs are the perfect medium for her message because they represent both wholeness and new life.
Pat’s inspiration was the story of Sadako Sasaki, a child who endured the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and then took on the quest of making 1,000 paper cranes as symbols of peace. Sadako died before she could reach her goal, but thousands of others took up her cause. Pat hopes others will follow her lead by offering prayer eggs, or something similar, to those who need support.
So far Pat has given her eggs to people in nursing homes, to a Jesuit community, and to the monastery where she is a lay associate, often mailing them out at her own cost. She says, “I would never charge for the eggs. Never. They are prayers.”
Pat sent me two of her prayer eggs, one with a painted sunflower, the other with a circle of figures holding hands. They are the centerpiece on my dining room table this Easter.
Today at Palm Sunday Mass, we will pray the words of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Pat’s eggs remind us that we are not abandoned.
As Holy Week begins, can we think about what woundedness in our own lives needs healing? Is there a special prayer practice we can do this week to let others know they are not alone?
May we also remember to pray in a special way in these coming days for all abuse and assault survivors, including Pat, who is a model of Easter love.
Mindfulness in the Age of Twitter
In my blog, I focus on thoughts based on my new book (published from Hampton Roads) How to Live: What the Rule of St. Benedict Teaches Us About Happiness, Meaning & Community as well as from my previ
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