Off-Kilter: Praying My Way to Life Management

Time has an odd quality to it these days. My newborn is now two months old, and though it seems she's been here forever, I can hardly believe how April and May have disappeared. With many things being new, and other things being busy, we haven't really settled into a routine yet, and I am feeling slightly off kilter. There doesn't seem to be enough time in the day for what needs to get done.

Many aspects of life need balancing, and I'm not sure how to go about time management. Then again, it's not just time management, it's physical bodies and actual spaces and a thousand tactile things, not to mention my own brain. I need life management!

Maybe there's a blog or a book or a planner or a magic schedule that could figure this all out for me, but the trouble is, those things aren't personally invested in my life. Helpful as they may be, they don't know the needs of our family, won't step in and finish the dishes, or soothe the baby, or read to my kids, or dry my tears of weary frustration.

So it's June 1st, and I would really like to feel less dizzy this month, but how?

I had an idea late last night. Now, it could be the smooshy wishful thinking of baby brain. Or it might just be a lightning bolt from heaven. We'll have to see. But this is what I thought as the baby finally settled into the bassinet:

Maybe I can pray my way through this. 

Yes, there is always the "Help me God!" cry that I know never goes unheard. But I've written before about a habit of prayer, the kind of prayer that punctuates and permeates the whole day. Habit has the power to change things. And even more, God has the power to change life.

Sadly, but perhaps not surprisingly, many of my prayer habits have fallen by the wayside lately. I need to pick them back up. I'm not sure exactly how this will work with the flexibility that a young baby requires. But I'm going to put this thing to the test. Is a habit of daily prayer possible at this stage? And does it have the potential to bring order to my whole messy life?

What gives me hope is that I won't be entrusting my days to some nebulous idea of "time management." I'll be entrusting them to God himself. And I know he is definitely invested in my life. Ok, maybe he's not going to scrub the pots for me, but at least I can talk to him while I do it.

What if I counted my day by prayers instead of hours? What if I could find a greater rest beneath the busy moments? What if I could see the to-do list through His eyes? What if I prayed my way to life management?

I'm willing to try. And I'm hoping to write a bit about how it all goes here. We've all heard that prayer changes things, but maybe you're a mom with a new baby and scattered thoughts and laundry that is literally never done, and you're not sure. Or maybe you lead some other kind of busy or fragmented or stuffed-at-the-seams life, and you're not sure. Can it actually change the everyday? Can it bring order to chaos and meaning to mundane and space to breathe?

Let's try it.

~

To read more about my journey of prayer, click here. 





~lg

A Pattern of Prayer: Finding a Groove

I'm trying to get into a groove here, with a rhythm, a pattern, a way to move through the day with prayer. 

{I am not a monk with hours of quiet contemplation, but a modern mom, held to the pace of a two and four year old and a hundred year old house in the country. I do not live by the chiming of a clock, though we have a flexible schedule that is the backbone of most days. Feeding the family, that is the reality around which the day revolves. And if I'm not careful, I can miss my own meal in all the preparation and serving and cleanup. I can miss my own meal. There is no end to the work, no bells to signal completion, no ticking off one box without adding three more, and it all can keep me running, running on hungry, and running down to empty.

I need to eat. Pause and break the bread of life, share this sweet communion. There is a time to wake, a time to work, a time to play, a time to rest. There is a time to eat.}

And so I imagine how I will translate the tradition of "hours" of prayer into my own moments of prayer, a movement of prayer, or rather of movement of self through the fabric of prayer.

This is the sketch in my head, rather like a line graph, with rise and fall and lots of scribbling, still in revision.

These are the moments I am learning to move into prayer:

1. Morning - A Gathering Prayer

"O lord, let my soul rise up to meet you as the day rises to meet the sun."*

Here is the gathering, the offering of the strands of my life, held out to be woven with God's own hands.
The reaffirmation to "Love the Lord my God with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my mind and with all my strength."
To begin the day in the light of His countenance.
To begin the day with the bread of His Word.

Before work, this worship.
Before my plans, His purpose.
Before movement, this deep breath.
Before feeding others, this filling up.

I gather manna fresh for this day, and pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." (Matt. 6:11)


2. Mid-morning - An Embracing Prayer

"Love thy neighbour as thyself." (Matt. 22:39)

Here I sit with the ones God has given me to love, sit with our morning snack and children's Bible, eating together.
Now is the time to spread our arms wide and embrace the needs around us, and carry our burdens to the Lord.
We pray for our neighbour and for ways to love them.
We spread our prayers into the world that they may go ahead wherever God may lead us.
We pray together, for others.
Here is compassion and intercession, and the faith of children.

"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." (Matt. 6:10)


3. Noon - A Rising Prayer

It is right to give our thanks and praise.

Here at the height of the day, the height of the clock, I lift my eyes up, turn my thoughts toward heaven, and raise my thanksgiving.

Hands are busy, tummies are hungry, but my heart turns thankful.
I name the blessings, great and small, treasures of this very day.
In the middle of it all, there is always something to be thankful for.

This motion lifts the mundane into a living marvel and makes room for joy.

"From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets,
the name of the LORD is to be praised." (Psalm 113:3)


4. Mid-afternoon - A Centering (Abiding) Prayer

"No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine." (John 15:4)

Here, by chance, I catch my breath and a cup of coffee at the same time. The day is in full swing, but we have built time for rest into it, and rather than find ways to amuse myself, I try to find ways to abide in Him.

I stop. Remember. Rest my soul. Rejuvenate.
Calm the chaos and center into the deeper reality behind these fleeting hours.
I reach down, root myself.
Make a knot. 

"She is like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in season
And its leaf does not wither;
And in whatever she does, she prospers." (Psalm 1:3)

I take root that I may bear fruit.

"Establish thou the work of our hands." (Psalm 90:17)


5. Supper Meal - A Celebratory Prayer

"One generation shall praise Your works to another,
And shall declare Your mighty acts." (Psalm 145:4)

All together now, we give thanks.
We speak blessing.
(We practice table manners.)
We rejoice.
We recount.
We feast.


6.  Evening - A Prayer of Release

Now, night falls, and it is time to lay aside the day.
Release its worries, problems, and work.
Release my grip on the things I cannot control.
Release my spirit to rest in His presence.
I unravel the things that threaten to choke, examine my living of this day and confess my sins.

Lord, have mercy, Christ have mercy.

I entrust my soul to His tender care and unceasing watch.
I entrust my body to the sleep He gives His beloved.

"When you lie down, you will not be afraid.
When you lie down, your sleep will be sweet." (Prov. 3:24)

~~~

I am a child learning to dance, learning to move in a new way. I am forming these often faltering steps - habits - that soon I hope will catch on to the rhythm and carry me along. More than that, I am reaching out in faith and finding a Father who is more than eager to move toward me.



* From Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals. Shane Clairborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Enuma Okoro. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010. 


~lg

A Habit of Prayer

As I work out what it means to become this person of prayer, I am drawn to holy people through the ages who marked their days and nights with regular “hours” of prayer. They trained desire into a discipline by putting on a habit of prayer.

A habit. It is what the nuns wear to mark themselves as those devoted to God. It is an outward sign of an inward state. And habits, the patterns of living we either fall into or form for ourselves, these too are outward forces which have the power to direct what flows within.

In my longing for a life of prayer, I need more than desire. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. It needs to be trained. It needs a path to follow. This river needs banks so my good intentions don’t disperse and dissipate to other ends. Habits create channels for the spirit to follow, without having the burden of decision, that initial inertia, to overcome each time. Habits can take affections and transform them into effective energy. A habit is not a burden, but a gift that grace makes into a blessing.

Perhaps, like my sisters, I can put on a habit of prayer at particular times of the day, a pattern that repeats itself with the sun’s rising and setting. Perhaps I can live by a different sort of clock, a different sort of time. Perhaps I can clothe myself with a second nature that, by force of habit, stays put no matter what the day brings.

It’s not the tyranny of ritual, but the freedom of rhythm. It’s the worship of God through and with time. I have been given a finite number of hours and moments, and perhaps by ordering them firstly through prayer, the rest will find their fitting place. Time management through prayer? I’m willing to give it a try.

~lg