Roy’s Sunday Letter for January 12, 2025
INSIGHT ON WRITING PRAYERS AND THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY
Prayers and Other Notes: There are two mentors I consider personal heroes. The first, my grandfather, who left his east Texas tractor each Friday afternoon then entering a small hut on the side of the barn. He would use two stiff fingers from repairing too many tractors to peck out a letter to his three kids living far from rows of corn and cows to milk. His original and two carbon copies to be read in Houston, Ft. Worth, and Kilgore. At age 7 and 8, I read every one. I wrote about my grandfather in my published collection of stories, “Letters from the Farm.” As an Executive Director, 40 years later, I sent a weekly update letter to board members of nonprofits in Amarillo and Santa Fe. As retirement was here in Santa Fe writing seemed a natural progression. This led me to a cathartic moment that so much of my letters, notes, stories, and prayers began with a farming grandfather and his own Friday Letter.
The second mentor is Malcolm Boyd, an Episcopel priest serving the inner city of Detroit in 1964. Boyd began writing short prayers on witnessing elder isolation, violence with few resources. As a somewhat lost college kid, I purchased his book of prayers and still have his thin, worn book today. In 2016, now in Santa Fe, writing my own stories, including Walking Prayers, was a series inspired by Boyd so many decades earlier.
Building and Experiencing Community: My first experience of community was in the 1970’s with peer campus ministers in N. Carolina. Jim, my mentor and 1st boss, brought us together in an annual three-day retreat at In the Oaks, an Episcopel retreat center in Black Mountain. The opportunity to talk, listen, confess and plan showed me the look and feel of community.
In 2025, our sense and experience of community will be different. What is important about coming together in a common purpose to you? Would your community be a neighborhood, a faith center, or a social cause as a community garden or a broader community approach to food or housing scarcity?
We know living in isolation from each other is not healthy. We strengthen each other in the same way as In the Oaks, 1972. Talking, listening, and sharing our stories is how we together build and live in community. Find others who share your passion, your fears and your joys. Join with others in creating a community of friends and peers. Together we face the unknowns of our 2025.
Roy, grandson of an east Texas farmer
Still feel deeply kin as you name these three persons who entered your bloodstream as they and you have entered mine.
My grandfather who was only Baptist pastor who would remarry a person who was divorced in a 5 county area, permission to riff prayers from Boyd and recent old student who said she brought that to her Episcopal church and gives me credit. And Jim Greene who rarely preached except cross legged on floor once a year at Oaks, his “preaching” mainly swimming upstream in a denomination rapids, pulling up a few campus ministers out of the stream for mouth to mouth and return.
So good to feel your words; one way of feeling you.
Jim gave me grace so many times.
I chased In The Oaks all my life through decades rbof groups, retreats, and more.
We are both still here, continuing are we not….
It’s a gift to have roots & community. I was born on a military base, in a Navy family. We moved 16 times before I graduated high school. I didn’t know about church, best friends, a community, grandparents or mentors. In retrospect, that transformational life just kept going. In my 60’s now, I haven’t moved in 3 yrs. So happy. I realize now, I poured my heart out to the fullest wherever I was and savored the possibility of grounding. The bouncing around was fate, resilience training, I suppose. The gift of it has been global connections in communities that overlap and expand heart centered projects. Worth it!
Friend Sue, you have shared your history and impact on your life in the best of ways.
You are resilient, you are brave, showing courage.
We are glad we were your last on the road stop before 3 yrs of goodness.
You encourage me to show-up next Sunday……whatever we do we do together. RB
This week in Fort Worth has taught me what isolation is all about. I so missed my community of friends and volunteers by being shut up in the house and alone with my thoughts. I found myself becoming less communicative and more withdrawn. Looking forward to joining my community tomorrow and reaching out to everyone. We need each other to make ourselves whole.
Beth and I share your weather limited view out the window.
Good to restock Saturday and be around shoppers at Central Market.
Good to turn book pages
Watching LA burn hard, terrible.
We 3 will be social together soon,,,,important ritual in our lives.
Love reading about your mentors. Made me think about mine. Helped make us who we are today. Continue to grow in thought. New mentors along the way. Thanks Roy for your thoughts on a cold Sunday morning.
Debbie, I think we absorb each who grow us up into our pores and skin.
Their grace and wisdom creep back to us as needed, whether we know or notice.
Good memory thoughts, greatly appreciated.
Roy, Your story about your grandfather’s letters resonated with me as I have been going through old photos and memorabilia from my parents. Some of the real treasures are the letters written regularly from family members to each other, simply describing how they spent their days. Many of these were life on farms or the small town happenings, describing a way of life that no longer exists. I wish we still wrote letters, but who has time to read them?
Good thoughts well received.
In some ways I am just following my grandfather around 50 yrs. later.
My role is to slow mail notes…..then let go, no expectations of response.
Yes, I do receive complaints of “can’t read your writing.”
O well, the role of the creative!!
Keep reading and sending comments….all makes m e the better on this end. Roy
A mentor, perhaps a high school track coach. A HUMAN that left us “spellbound” . He fathered, he mentored, he was admired, he taught us life lessons, we trusted him, perhaps because of his intense humanity he built one of the best track programs in the state of Texas. He was loved, of course we loved him. His soul
emitted a truth that made a difference.
Peter…..I will have to give space in me for spellbound…like the words intense humanity.
You have known someone special, and he is now a part of you. Thanks for sharing this minter and inspiring person. Whatever we do, we do together……and that is the goodness.Roy
Today I wrote a letter on behalf of the staff at Assistance Dogs of the West to FBI Director Christopher Wray. Each member of our team will add their signature as a stamp of gratefulness to him and his support of the Crisis Response Canines for the Victim Services Rapid Deployment team. I am struck by the pupose-driven, good people who are my work community and who believe we are creating more hope in the world, one dog at a time. Love you.
Right action steps on your part and role.
I doubt you will need stamp and envelope next yrs….Those with hearts and vision not part of kissing the ring.
RB
Roy, thanks so much for the thoughts on your grand dad. My Pap-pa didn’t write much.. was a man of few words.. kept a very large garden, perfect rows and always weeded and clean.. he would have me drive him down the farm to market road, to the beer store, in his ’66 model Impala station wagon. I was 13, but it was only 11 miles. not the perfect or eloquent mentoring, but fostering trust, responsibility, adventure ……. Mam-ma sure pitched a fit about this event…… I have a picture on my office wall, of them both. Your positive thoughts reinforce mine about them and their mentoring. Keep writing Roy.
Lots of Comments on grandparents….so important to so many.
They lived on farms, raised crops, animals, and grandkids.
I wrote a story in 2020 about a grandfather who put tires on cars in Detroit assembly line.
Grandkids did not feel or show same respect as you and I experienced.
Keep working that shoulder…..in hot tub, not ice bucket.
Writing about the LA Fires for this weeks SL…..the humanity of it all is beyonds words, but I write from heart and see how it reads….
Roy