Streets and Hot Sauce

On the way to 5 Senses to Prayer Book 2 - #34

Today we explore our local community prayerfully with our sense of smell. The places we live have a distinct smell, which we often don’t realise until we’ve been away and come back again. Perhaps the place we visited had a noticeably different smell to home or perhaps we noticed the familiar on our return. These distinctive smells that mark a local community come from a combination of many smells combined.

I’ve thought about this a couple of times recently.

We’re in a cold spell with clear days and if I can get outdoors for a walk I head to the beach. The light on the water is different in winter than summer especially at sunrise and sunset. If you missed last week’s post I had photos of one of my favourite beaches at Graham’s Beach on Awhitu Peninsula, on the Manukau harbour. When we got out of the car last weekend we were hit with the smell of holidays. This is the place we call ‘the beach’. (It’s a kiwi thing to say, ‘the beach’. ‘The beach’ is widely aknowledged code for ‘getting away’, ‘taking a break’, ‘rest and relaxation’, ‘switching off’.) The smell is distinctive - a sensory reminder that immediately pushes our nervous system into a relax mode.

Big Manly Beach at Sunset in July

I live at another beach on another peninsula at another part of Auckland where people like to holiday. This is my favourite beach. Big Manly on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula. This is the place I call ‘home’. A place I’ve known as long as I’ve had memories. I haven’t always lived in this place called home but before I lived here I holidayed here for months of every year. The smell is distinctive here too - it’s the smell of familiarity, comfort and safety. I went for a walk one evening during the week, down to the beach to see the sunset, and by the time I walked past all of the neighbours, the light was fading to darkness. As it gets dark, the visual sense is subdued and my sense of smell seems to take over. There was a comforting smell of meals being prepared, roasts and curries and comfort food. A different smell this time of year to when it’s summer, yet still the smell of my community.

The first prayer today invites us to explore our local communities with our sense of smell. I’ve used variations of this prayer in sensory based worship, particularly when we lived and worked in central Auckland and our church was right by the main road with transport and shops and restaurants. We had a whole worship experience once where we walked around our community stopping for different station worship experiences as we went. Adapt this prayer to suit your own place. The intention is to use our sense of smell as well as our other senses to explore what is around us and to pray for our neighbours as well as ourselves.

He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

Matthew 22:37-39 (NRSVUE)

The second prayer is a hot sauce prayer. Depending on your spice tolerance this might or might not be for you. One thing for sure, smelling or tasting spices generates a sensory reaction. Our nervous system receives plenty of information from tasting something spicy. I’ve used hot sauce for a confession prayer but this could also be adapted to a prayer of gratitude or to pray for others. I’ve had this prayer in draft form for quite some time, and I’ve finally finished it. If you’re a paid subscriber and have access to comments I’d love to hear your thoughts on this prayer.

May our God be with you

On the journey

Caroline

---

Street Smells Prayer

Sense of Smell – Intercession (I.SM.6)

Go for a walk in your community around the time of day when your neighbours are preparing their breakfast or an evening meal. Take in an area where your local shops are located. Walk past bus stops, train tracks and eateries. If you live near the sea or a park walk through nature. As you walk, let your nose register the smells of your local area. Is there a distinctiveness you notice? What smells are familiar and what smells feel out of place? Contemplate the smells of your community and extend your thoughts to the people of your community. As you walk, pray for the people of your community. Pray specifically if you know of specific needs and pray generally as you contemplate this area where you live.  Not all that we smell is good, and not all that we see is good. Pray for the things that are not good in your community where you’d like God to intercede and help others.

Further suggestions and adaptations on using this prayer

Prayer Station

This could work as a prayer station if your gathered together experience is in a suitable place that you can set out a map for a short walk.  Provide the prayer and invite participants to go out and pray it and come back.

Individual

This is a prayer you might use when you get home from work or when you walk to the bus or train each day. Alternatively, if your only time for walking in your community is on the weekend, use this prayer as you get your exercise.

Small Group

Take the whole group for a walk around the community.  Talk beforehand of the things you’d expect to smell and see.   You could encourage participants to walk and talk as you go, but when you pause, ask for silence and suggest that participants pray silently while you have stopped walking.

Large Group

Ask your group to close their eyes and take them on a prayer walk in their imaginations.  Start from their home.  Talk through walking around their community and pausing every so often so that participants can pray for their own community.  From your gathered together experience, challenge individuals to go for an actual physical prayer walk when they are home.

Visual Images - Static, Projected, Live Props

·       The community in which you live, work or worship