The desire is thy prayers; and if thy desire is without ceasing, thy prayer will also be without ceasing. The continuance of your longing is the continuance of your prayer.
- Saint Augustine
Finishing, says Muller, is a myth. We never really finish. There is always one more thing to file, one more meeting to attend, one more project. So, waiting to rest may be foolish. The wisdom of the "ancient" Sabbath is that it begins when sundown begins. If that is 4:30 in January, then you stop working then. It does not begin when you are done getting up hay. Nope. So, you plan ahead for the Sabbath, you prepare for it. Well, that is my take anyway.
Later he quotes Nouwen. I love Nouwen. Nouwen takes a little riff off of the words "absurd" and "obedient" According to Nouwen, the Latin root for absurd, surdus, means "deaf" and the root for obedient, audire, means "to listen." Listen to God, says Nouwen, or your life becomes absurd. I could pick nits, but I like this notion.
This brings us to the end of the chapter and the exercies on prayer. I am thinking that I need to re-encounter noon prayers. Richmond Hill has noon prayer servcies. I loved 'em. Seabury had a noon eucharist, and though it was sometimes a bit much for me, stopping in the middle of the day to pray was always a good thing. No matter where I was in my work, I had to stop and pray.
Usually duing these services I would remember something I had forgotten in my haste to get other things done. So, in that way, it made sense. But Nouwen's thinking holds true as well. My life tends to get absurd if I don't listen. I am out every night doing something. I am not able to remember what that was two days later. I rush and rush and rush. It is absurd because I can get to a point where I cannot even tell you how I am spending my time. But if I listen, am "obedient" with its new meaning, then my life begins to take shape, begins to be somthing I can manage, that does not manage me (See: AA First Step). I can pay attention to my needs, my friend's needs...and, of course, God's desires for me.
This is true enough that I am finally going to begin a noon prayer service at Community Church at least two days a week. This is mostly for me. My administrative guru may join from time to time if she wishes. So too may anyone who cares to. But, yeah, mostly it is about Sabbath for the office.
Now, go ye therefore to Megan's blog and talk about self-employment.
Get thee to Cristopher's blog to talk about daily prayers.
I definitely resonated with the section of your posting about being out every night doing something, and getting rushed to the point where I can't recall what I did a couple of nights ago.
I've noticed lately that I feel very rushed from the moment my alarm goes off in the morning. I think the particular timing of my alarm interrupts a dream cycle -- I tend to wake up already feeling like there's a lot going on inside my head, and already tired from it!
Posted by: Megan at January 30, 2007 12:02 PMI think I first learned the "myth of finishing" and how to leave work unfinished when the girls were small. A sick baby needed to be held and rocked, even if the house was in utter choas, and the sermon not yet written. If the school bus dropped them off at 3:15, then I had to get up and walk out of the office at 3, even if I was right in the middle of something with papers strewn all over my desk. Being present to their needs often felt like a kind of Sabbath discipline: setting aside my busy-ness, my "urgent" agenda. And (however amazingly)the church survived! It's been a challenge for me to relearn those same lessons in order to be present to my own inner life and to God now that they are grown and gone.
Posted by: Carol at January 30, 2007 12:41 PM