conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

up before coffee

Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.

— Mohandas Gandhi

Prayer, suggests Thomas Merton, is as necessary as breathing. But, he says, it is a learned activity. It is not a function of the autonomic nervous system. "Prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and your heart has turned to stone." We can engage in liturgical prayer. And it is vital. It is true prayer. It trains us for the moment when we have lost ourselves, when the darkness of the world is finally revealed and the truly radical word of Christ is shown it's context: a world that killed the messenger.

I have found myself struggling with prayer of late. I have been forgetting to pray. By no means does this make me unusual. I realize this. But I have finally noticed that I have not been praying. Heh. Welcome to humanity, Tripp. I have been doing everything else except praying. So, this morning I returned to my icons...these are my friends in prayer.

The candles are lit. I have two. The mantle that holds the icons is in two parts, so it just makes sense to me. The Pantokrator is lit. So too is the Guardian Angel. Don't forget Mary. How can one have an iconostasis and omit Mary? Heh. Even a Baptist iconostasis needs Mary. I guess I am reaching out to God now, as Merton suggests, because it's all I know how to do...and because I cannot seem to do it.

In blogging this, I see some kind of desperation in my tone. That's not what I'm feeling. But I have sat down with my calendar. That's always a stunning revelation. "I agreed to what? When? With whom?! Wow." Ever have one of those days? I keep finding myself reshuffling. And then my work as a pastor always challenges me. There is seldom a day when I am not pushed somehow by the Holy Spirit...either on the Spirit's own accord or through the hands, comments, or affections of someone to whom I minister. And in all this it is easy, painfully easy to forget to pray. One would think that the opposite would be true.

But it is not. Years and years, generations really, of pastoral wisdom and experience suggests that the prayer life is first to go. I am nothing exceptional in this regard. And so I do what others do. I start again. I come back to God in prayer.

The mornings are best for me. The candles, the first perks of the coffee maker, all join me in praise of God. The sun will rise in the east. God arises this morning. And I reach out in faith.

"Thank you."

Posted by tripp at August 16, 2007 05:51 AM