Prayer

The following originally appeared in my “Journey to Orthodoxy” article, but in recent editing I removed it, feeling as though it were part of another story. I expounded upon it’s content today and decided to post it as is, although perhaps someday it will appear somewhere else, transformed again.

One of the main tenets of Orthodox life is prayer…prayer in the morning, prayer in the evening and even midday prayer which I haven’t managed to conquer yet!

Archpriest John Breck sums it up this way in the preface to, The Bible and the Holy Fathers:

Prayer is the essence of the Christian life. Repeatedly Jesus invites His disciples to “come aside” for a time, to enter the inner world of silence and converse with God “as with a friend”.

To respond to this invitation as it is addressed to us, we need to preserve a proper balance between two forms of prayer, liturgical and personal. The one must inform the other. If they are not a reflection and extension of the worship of the gathered community, personal devotions all too easily deteriorate into self-centered appeals to an idol of our own making. For the liturgy not only praises God; it also reveals Him as He is. It teaches us about Him as it communicates to us His very life. On the other hand, communal worship that is not leavened by inner prayer of the heart, by a constant invocation and exaltation of the divine Name in the depths of our personal being, is not worship at all. It is lifeless ritualism, to be condemned as vain repetition.

Obviously, the work for an Orthodox Christian doesn’t stop once the feet cross the threshold from Church to the outside world. It almost seems to me as if we are to become prayer, with each beat of our heart becoming an offering to God. I spoke of this new way of prayer in my journal and how it was changing me…making me:

When I first began my journey into Orthodoxy and started picking up on some of their “prayer” habits, I balked. “How can a scripted prayer come from my heart?” It didn’t feel natural. It felt stiff and stilted and anyone who knows me well knows I have a bit of a “free spirit” that doesn’t like to be hemmed in. I am also willing to give anything a try…and so I said the prayers. What I found was not that my prayer life became more scripted. The opposite is so. For me, it became bigger, bigger than me. A whole new world of freedom opened up.

Before I used such prayers I would wake up in the morning knowing I needed to pray but not knowing what to say. I would say the same things over and over essentially inventing my own “script.” However, I always felt as if I may have “left something out.” I felt awkward with God…as if my need to treat Him like Santa Claus was somehow undignified. I am now finding that reciting prayers that pretty much cover the bases free me from that awkwardness and guilt. I don’t feel as if anything important is missing from my prayers. I also don’t have to search for something to say. No longer am I afraid to approach God because of etiquette issues…I find myself continuing the conversation all day long. I start with those written prayers to get the ball rolling, to enter into God’s presence, and then it is ever so much easier to talk to Him more extemporaneously, at least for me. The big stuff is out of the way. I never knew it would happen this way.

I also am finding a deep appreciation for the “Jesus prayer.” When my son is covered in poop, my daughter is screaming for whatever she needs RIGHT NOW, the dog is barking, the sink is overflowing, I can’t find my shoes and all my marbles are lost I can still manage to say, “Lord have mercy.” It calms me down because I know He hears, and responds. Such a simple prayer, such vast rewards for God and for me!

My prayer life has changed. I struggle.

Yesterday morning, I attended the Sisterhood meeting for my parish at Holy Cross. The topic of today’s seminar was time management. An exercise involving a pie graph was used to show us how much time we each spend in different areas in our life such as rest, leisure, work, romantic involvement, family time, spiritual pursuits, etc. I remarked that I felt our spiritual lives should be the outline of the circle enclosing every facet of our lives and thereby allowing God and the Holy Spirit to be all encompassing, rather than just a piece of our lives. Obviously, this is very difficult for one who has two young children.

Kh. Frederica was in attendance and remarked on how she had handled her own prayer life as a mother with three young children. When Fr. was an Episcopal priest, his office was at a church some distance from the family dwelling and so she was alone for most of the day. Instead of having one focused prayer time a day, she divided up her prayer time into short segments throughout the day. These segments were scheduled in and lasted somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 minutes at a time. Kh. didn’t elaborate, but it seemed she would simply say an “Our Father,” or other prayers in the morning, at noon, in the afternoon and before retiring. What she seemed to find is that her heart was turning to God more often during the day as she looked at the clock expectantly waiting for her next prayer time. In this manner, her prayer life began to infiltrate every aspect of her life. Some days, things might get hectic and she would miss a prayer time, but, she still felt her heart turning toward God even in the midst of missing some time with Him. Paradoxically, she still had the time with Him as her heart still turned towards His face. Kh. also has the habit of waking in the middle of the night for an extended prayer/devotion time since becoming pregnant with her daughter 27 years ago. I doubt you’ll find me doing that!

At any rate this was an incredible idea for me. For some odd reason, I had the idea that I had to get up and pray as many prayers as possible first thing in the morning. I would often stand on my aching feet, which always for some reason hurt more in the morning that at any other time of day, and pray for at least 20 minutes, sometimes 30. I relied on this method to carry me through the day until my evening prayer time which I share with my husband. It doesn’t even make sense when I’ve though of it. If we have our houses blessed yearly because we “fall away” wouldn’t it make sense to have prayer throughout the day as I tend to “fall away” in my human nature as I go along?

Hearing Kh. mention her method sort of opened my eyes to a new idea, one where prayer might not seem so burdensome, as it often does at 6:00 in the morning. I started this morning with this new method and will continue. I actually was able to get out of bed at around 5:20 and expected that I would have solitary prayer time. My daughter had different ideas and asked me to come up and sing to her…she also asked me to pray for her. I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere!

I pray that God will become the circle that encloses my life and my heart and thereby breathing life into me and my family.

Lord have mercy….