We know we shouldn't complain about the weather when we have friends in Eastern Washington, Montana and New Hampshire who are covered, literally covered, in snow and sleet and other nasty winter weather, but we are complaining a little bit. Today it is cold, cold, unlike normal March weather, but we do have sunshine. Jim was just told to raise the front window shade because the cat wanted to bask in the unusual sun coming in that window. Welcome Spring! Please come.
Yesterday Jim and I were discussing how busy we are since we retired. It is amazing to me that we find any time to relax since we have so many activities. And, we can't get it all done. I've jokingly said I want to tell people I left town and not go--just stay home and do stuff here that I can't get done otherwise. We were in Seattle yesterday; I had a diocesan meeting and Jim went shopping at the boat store. We had spent the night with Libby, having a great dinner out and looking at her photos of her trip to New Zealand. She brought me four hanks of marino as a present and I plan to make scarves for our treat. She brought Jim this wonderful marino long underwear shirt, softer than cashmere and tiny, tiny threads. Wonderful for sailing in cool weather.
Our new interim preached a sermon about the new "fangled " idea of taking on something for Lent, but I had written the following piece before that. Too bad, I liked the learning that went on!
A Prayer Life
1Thess 5: 16-18 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Sometimes I don’t think I’m very good at praying. I pray, but sometimes it seems like a long list of “I wants and I’m sorrys.” And, there is always the order and kind of prayer to be concerned about. Where do you do it? And what form does it take? I worry about doing it right so it will be most effective. You know, if you approach in just the right way, God will be more likely to listen and respond. As Lent begins this year, I am trying again to add something, that sacrifice of adding something spiritual to my life rather than giving up something. This year I am making a commitment to prayer in a different way.
In Phyllis Tickle’s book, The Shaping of a Life-A Spiritual Landscape, she shares her spiritual history from her young days as a newly wed to the beginning of her married life with her first child. As I was reading it for our Book Group, I kept finding places where she led the reader to how and what prayer is in her life. Those examples were imbedded in her story, from finding her mother in prayer each afternoon to being caught praying the Psalms before teaching her classes at her place of employment. Not only did she pray, but she was always on the look out for a process of prayer. In the end she says she found a breviary, a book of the daily office, like our own daily prayers of Morning Prayer, Noontime Prayers, Evening Prayer and Compline. As I read and studied her book, one specific idea about prayer jumped out at me.
Phyllis was having a discussion with her neighbor, Mr.King, an elderly retired missionary.
One day she asks him, “ What do you think really happens when we pray…?
‘Happens’? he repeated. ‘I guess the best answer is ‘What was the Mount of Transfiguration?’
‘You mean we are transformed?’
‘Good heavens, no that’s not at all what I meant!’…’What I mean is that prayer is a place, and Peter and James and John just happened to catch Jesus while he was in it.’…You can’t go there as long as you don’t recognize that the spirit works, because it’s made of spirit.”
That made me stop in my tracks. A prayer place was different than I had imagined. Before I read her book, I would say prayer happened in a quiet, reverential place, like churches and prayer groups and monasteries and synagogues and mosques and convents and all those places where spiritual people gathered. Those were the designated prayer places. And, of course, in my living room every morning when I have my quiet time. It seemed to be in places we set aside or in places of great drama. Hospitals and emergency rooms come to mind.
But that’s not what Mr. King said. He said we are praying because we are in a place where the spirit is. Where is the spirit? Everywhere, right? In me and you and in everyone who wishes to acknowledge the Holy Spirit’s life in them. So, at any given time, I am in prayer. My actions are a prayer, my rest is a prayer, my life being lived is a prayer. Some days my prayers are better than other days, but it is all a prayer.
That doesn’t mean I can give up on my Lenten commitment, but it does mean I should start to recognize my life is more than just walking through my days without any acknowledgment of that prayer going on. Now if I’m talking to a woman at the pool about her hip surgery and I say, “I hope you feel better soon,” that’s a prayer. And, if I say, “Have a good day,” to the lady in the check out line, that’s another prayer. If I serve a meal to someone, if I remember to do my husband’s laundry, even if I remember to be quiet and think about the beauty of the day, it’s all a prayer. If I accept the Holy Spirit is with me, then it is all a prayer.
My Lenten sacrifice has changed. Now rather than going into a quiet place to read a prayer list or pray prescriptive prayers, I am challenging myself to become aware and tuned in to the many times each day I am given a chance to pray, using the Holy Spirit within me to reach out and for others. I’ll still have my quiet time each day, I’ll still attend services to meet the community with whom I worship, but for Lent I will dedicate special attention to the prayer I can become to the world around me. Maybe it’ll become a habit after six weeks!
Blessings on our friends and neighbors. The Whidbey Wagners
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