A great enemy of good living
7.21.2011 | All Blog Posts, Contemplation and Meditation, Prayer and Relationships
I wonder how differently we’d tread this sacred earth today if our praying taught us to do this:
“Not to run from one thought to the next, says Theophane the Recluse,
but to give each one time to settle in the heart.”
From Thomas Merton’s journals
How would you treat the clerk at the grocery store? Your child at the dinner table? Your spouse? Balancing the check book, paying bills online? Driving? Talking with a friend? Arguing with a foe?
Our distraction, the scatter of our thoughts, our inability to concentrate, our hurry and worry . . . all this is a great enemy of good living, of spiritual awareness, of holiness.
7.26.2011
Hey Chris,
Thanks for the talk on Saturday and I wanted to ask regarding this post if you had thought of “life is prayer” in terms of “life is Pastoral Care” in the sense that as we are in prayer and as Jesus shines through us, His care comes out in our encounters with the world around us. Just a thought.
Also, a comment after Sunday’s sermon: “I never thought of all of life as prayer before. That’s a great way to look at it.”
7.27.2011
Yes, well, prayer is as natural and simple as breathing. In fact, breathing is prayer is we are awake to the reality that the Great Breath is within us. St Paul teaches that the Spirit prays within us. And so, united with Christ through the Spirit, Christ is praying in us and through us. We are then more than mere agents of Jesus Christ, we mediate the very presence of Jesus Christ. Some may be scandalized by this, but if so, they cling to a religion that is form only (2 Timothy 3.5), and they deny the living power of Christ in us. Some also might argue that if everything is prayer, then nothing is prayer. That too misses the very nature of prayer from the biblical writers and Christian history, and prayer for them is an act, a duty, a religious job, rather than an abiding (John 15) in the presence of God continually (1 Thess 5.17).
Glad your folks “got” your sermon.
Good talking with you…but too short:).