Prayer of Heart and Body is a spiritual practice and approach to Christian contemplative prayer and growth that:

• involves the whole person... body, mind and spirit; and the whole community...political, economic, social, cultural, and natural environment;

• combines gentle body stretches and yoga postures called "Body Prayer", with Christian meditation or, centering prayer as some prefer to call it;

• is taught and practiced from a Christ centered, biblically based perspective and draws primarily from the richly embodied Christian tradition of contemplative prayer,

• is ecumenical and borrows from the traditions and practices of other religions;

Long term benefits of the Prayer of Embodiment practice may include: improved physical health, harmonizing body, mind and spirit; better balancing of various aspects of one's life; integration of the social, political and earth dimensions into Christian contemplative prayer; positive change of unjust and oppressive social systems and structures.

Originally, Prayer of Embodiment was known as "Prayer of Heart and Body."  Prayer of Heart and Body is the creation of Father Thomas Ryan, a Paulist priest, retreat leader, author and current Director of Inter-religious Affairs for the Paulist religious order headquartered in New York city. Two of Father Ryan's more popular books are "Prayer of Heart and Body" and "Disciplines for Christian Living." Jim Dickerson learned the PHB practice from Father Ryan while Tom was Director of "Unitas", an ecumenical retreat center in Montreal, Canada Jim incorporated PHB in his existing spiritual disciplines and began to teach it to other's in the D.C. area and beyond.

The Purpose of New Community Prayer of Embodiment Mission group is:

• To provide a place of belonging, participation and accountablity for those seriously desiring to grow in their love of God, others, self, society and creation, thereby becoming more attuned with God who is embodied in all the orders of life;

• For group members to support each other in their life, work, spiritual journey and to hold each other accountable for individual and group commitments;

• To help group members and other practitioners integrate and practice P of E in their lives, relationships, work, and citizenship.

*  To share the P of E practice and its benefits with other people who are also seeking a deeper relationship with God and a more substantial spiritual practice as a means to better cope with life's difficulties and live a more balanced, spiritually aware, compassionate, Christ centered life.

• To help organize and conduct periodic P of E workshops, classes, groups, retreats and events.

• attend weekly group meetings from 7:30am. to 9:OOa.m. on Tuesday mornings at 614 S St. NW. The meetings consist of 30 minutes of stretches and yoga postures; 30 minutes of silent meditation (scripture reading included here) and 30 minutes of personal sharing among group members.

• spend at least one hour alone in quiet prayer each day, incorporating stretches/yoga, centering meditation and scripture reading into this time. Journaling and other spiritual reading is also encouraged as well as longer periods of body prayer and meditation.

• write and submit a spiritual report to the group's spiritual director at each meeting. The report includes what one is "most and least grateful" for during the past week, whether or not one kept the daily prayer commitment and any other issues or insights one would like to report on. In some cases, verbal reports may replace written ones if writing is too difficult.

• each member takes his/her share of responsibility and leadership for the good functioning, maintenance and nurturing of the group and its life together. To this end, each member commits to exercise his/her gifts and be a fully present, accountable and participating member.

• members commit to attend at least one spiritual retreat per year and use their gifts in carrying out the groups mission and purpose.