72 – Morning Prayer/Evening Prayer – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

Posted on by
Reply

Over the last several years I have come across a number of references to W. E. Sangster’s book “Teach Me to Pray.”  He recommends setting aside at least 15 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the evening for prayer.  You can a find a convenient summary of his outline of this prayer time at http://holybiblescriptures.org/tableschartsdiagrams/plan_of_prayer.html .  Let me mention some of his suggestions for that time:

Morning Prayer: Adoration, Thanksgiving, Dedication, Guidance, Intercession, Petition, Meditation.

Evening Prayer: Review of the Day, Confession, Thanksgiving, Before sleeping commit yourself to God.

In speaking of “meditation” he mentions, “It is good to conclude prayer, as well as begin it, with meditation: deep brooding on love, wisdom, beauty, joy, peace, freedom and holiness.”  Does “deep brooding” describe something of what meditation might mean?

Does it strike you as a good end of the day to pray, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”?

 

71 – Morning Prayer/Evening Prayer – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

Posted on by
Reply

“It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening.”  Psalm 92:2

This past week I came across a blog post by Mark D. Roberts in which he asked, “I wonder what would happen if you were to take Psalm 92:2 very literally. What difference might it make in your life if the first thing you did when you got up in the morning was to proclaim God’s unfailing love, and the last thing you did was to proclaim his faithfulness?”

( http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markdroberts/2011/10/30/here%E2%80%99s-an-experiment-frame-your-day-with-god%E2%80%99s-love-and-faithfulness/ )

Whether we call it “fixed hour prayer,” “The Daily Office,” “Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer” or some other name, it is about recognizing the truth the Psalmist spoke many years ago.  It is “good” when we take time during our day to direct our attention and words to God.  It is about finding a way, a practice, that organizes our day, not just around our job, our tasks, our errands, or our favorite TV shows, but around God’s call on our life.

What frames your day?  What do you want to frame your day?

 

70 – Daily Office – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

Posted on by
Reply

I grew up in a tradition that valued spontaneous prayer.  It would be accurate to say many in that tradition found little value in written prayers.  It would also be accurate to say  many found no value in anyone speaking those written prayers in a congregational setting.  More than once I heard the expression “dead words” applied to those prayers.  So how does someone from that tradition find himself attending daily Morning Prayer?  At a time when I could not find my own words for prayer, I did find my way to a church offering Morning Prayer.  Day after day I recited the prayers and Psalms and listened to Scripture with those gathered.  Over time I found I was not “merely” repeating “words” but praying.  By joining my voice with those in that chapel and joining my voice with others throughout the world in prayer, it seemed that whatever hindered my prayers was melting away and my prayer voice returned.

The Daily Office has value for me because I see it as place of sharing prayer with others, as a place of being supported in prayer by others and as a place of training (or maybe retraining) in prayer.

How might it fit in your prayer life?

69 – Daily Office – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

Posted on by
Reply

First, let’s look back to the suggestion from last week about setting an alarm on you phone or watch as a “call to prayer.”   Did you try that?  If so, what was your experience?  Did it annoy you or did you find it a good “break” in your routine?  I set an alarm on my phone for 3:15 in the afternoon.  I found that even though I set the alarm, it was almost always a surprise when it alarmed.  I was never expecting it because I seemed always busy with something when the alarm sounded.  But then as I silenced the alarm, I found it refreshing.  No matter what I was doing, I could pause for a moment, turn my attention to God and be in prayer.  For me it was good reminder that there is much beyond my busyness.

This week let’s think for a moment about the Daily Office.  There are a number of places you can find the order and form for the Daily Office.  The one I am most familiar with is the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church in the USA.  There (pp 37 – 146) you will find a form for Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Noonday Prayer, and Compline.

The Daily Office serves as a reminder that prayer is to fill our day.  That we are to take time during the day to turn from what we are doing and turn to prayer.  The Office does this is a “formal” way.  Many have found it an enriching experience to incorporate some form of the Daily Office into their day.

One online site for the daily office is http://www.missionstclare.com/english/index.html .

Take a few minutes this week to explore the Daily Office and see how it strikes you.

68 – Fixed Hour Prayer – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

Posted on by
Reply

How might you begin to practice fixed hour prayer?  You could try what a friend of mine did.  He set an alarm on his phone and each day when the alarm sounded, he took a few minutes to stop what he was doing.  In that moment you could remind yourself you are in God’s presence, you are God’s beloved, then offer what you were doing and are about to do to God.  It does not take a big effort to stop what you are doing and “interrupt” the day with a call to worship.

How about it?  Want to set an alarm on your phone or on your watch and see what happens?

 

67 – Fixed Hour Prayer – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

Posted on by
Reply

You may hear “fixed hour prayer” or “daily office” or “liturgy of the hours” or “morning prayer/evening prayer” but each speaks to having appointed times during the day and night to pray.  It is a regular and consistent pattern of turning ones attention to God in prayer.  If you will, it is a way of “interrupting” the course of the day to stop what you are “doing” and consciously, intentionally “be” before God in prayer.

Annie Dillard  writes, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.  What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing.  A schedule defends us from chaos and whim.  It is a net for catching days.  It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.” (from Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us” by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, p 225).

66 – Journaling + Lectio Divina – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

Posted on by
1

Some weeks ago (#36) I described Lectio Divina as a way of being with Scripture.  You may recall that Lectio Divina is often described as having four movements:

  • (1) Read/lectio, in which a passage is read slowly, often read several times, listening deeply, and listening for a word or phrase that draws you;
  • (2) Reflect/meditatio, a time of going deeper, being receptive, letting the Scripture to speak to you rather than you merely reading the words on the page;
  • (3) Respond/oratio, when you spontaneously respond to what you hear, giving voice perhaps in thanksgiving, praise, prayer or questioning;
  • (4) Rest/contemplatio, now you rest, you don’t force anything, you merely rest in God’s presence, and follow that sense of presence to where it leads.

Over the past few years I have found that Lectio is most fruitful for me as I journal with it.  And I have found for me the journaling is most natural when I journal on the computer.  I will have the passage for that time on the computer screen, I will read the passage slowly and listen for that word or phrase that attracts me.  I will type out that phrase, then I will wait, rest.  In that time of resting with the Scripture as thoughts, questions, ideas come, I will type them out.  I type everything that comes.  I don’t try to compose anything, I don’t try to type in complete sentences, I don’t try to correct grammar, I simply let flow to the computer screen everything that comes.  This most often is a time of going back and forth between reflecting and responding.  I never try to separate those movements.  I let them take their natural course as I hear the Scripture and let it speak.  Then there comes I a moment when I sense it is time to be quiet, to rest.  I stop typing and let silence lead me.

Journaling with Lectio might be worth a try for you.  If you are comfortable and relaxed in front of a computer screen, what I describe above may attract you.  Or you may want to have pen and paper in hand and journal with Lectio.  Think about finding the way that opens your spirit most to deeply hearing God’s Spirit.

65 – Journaling + Prayer – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

Posted on by
Reply

Some time back a friend pointed me to a practice that combines prayer and a form of journaling.  In the book Writing to God: 40 Days of Praying with my Pen Rachel Hackenberg provides writing prompts based on scripture to guide the reader to not only prayer in words or silence but in writing.  In describing this practice, Rachel writes,

“Praying by writing takes a prayer out of my head and makes praying a whole-body exercise: my creativity is sparked, my spirit fully focused, my muscles employed, my sense of touch and awareness of breath heightened. I felt more connected to prayer than I had ever experienced before.” (taken from http://www.paracletepress.com/writing-to-god-40-days-of-praying-with-my-pen.html )

If you want to “try on” this practice with Rachel’s help you can go to her web page  ( http://www.rachelhackenberg.com ) and sign up for her weekly-prayer writing prompts via email.

64 – Retreat – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

Posted on by
Reply

This week my mind is still much on retreat.  While a lot of my time last week at the retreat center was spent in small groups and listening to lectures, a day was set aside for silence.  The leader gave us some structure for our time of silence but wisely did not “over-structure” the time.

I wonder how many of us regularly and consistently take time for silence and solitude and retreat?   You do not need a “retreat center” to have a day long or half-day retreat.  There is value in physically “going away” to a place apart but we could create a retreat in many places.  The question is do we want to and do we?  What holds us back from moving out of the day to day routine?  Do we see no value in giving such time to God and waiting on God in that place of retreat?

What holds us back?  Are we too busy?  Are we too important and needed to go away?  Or do we not want to be quiet and listen?

 

63 – Retreat – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

Posted on by
Reply

This week I am away from my normal routine at a  retreat center attending a four day workshop on spiritual direction.  This seemed a very good time to think about a practice we have not yet mentioned, retreat.

Adele Ahlberg Calhoun in Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us writes,

“Retreats are specific and regular times apart for quietly listening to God and delighting in his company.  Retreats remove us from the daily battle into times for refreshing, retooling, renewing and unwinding….  Retreating, in the traditional sense , is not about gaining more information … not about getting away to get things done … not a way to catch up on our reading or email.” (pp 66 – 67)

Very often people go to “retreats” filled with “lectures, late nights, constant activity, and interaction.”  Calhoun points out such events are not a bad thing, but are not “a retreat from the busyness and distractions of life.  It is not a time set apart with God alone.” (p 67)

How about you?  Do you have a plan to remove yourself from the busyness of life and turn your full attention to God alone?