Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

I live with nuns. They gather for prayer at least three times a day. How is it that last week I missed every time, not able to show up even once to pray with them?                  

Life is too busy. Too much work; too many commitments; too much travel. Sound familiar? Let’s hear it, lay people! I can’t be the only one feeling like this. Are we too busy to pray together?

I suspect clergy aren’t off the hook either. While they have opportunities to lead prayer daily or weekly, I bet it sometimes feels more like work than nourishment for their own souls. But at least their schedules are organized around regular opportunities for communal prayer.

That’s what I wanted when I started living alongside a monastic community. I pray better with others than alone. Well, let me rephrase: I show up better for prayer when I show up with others. I pray alone, too – at home, on the train, while writing in a journal, listening to certain tunes on the iPod. But for me, communal prayer grounds my spiritual life in a way private prayer cannot. I guess that’s why I still go to church and resonate with our Anglican/Episcopal tradition of common prayer.

The heart of prayer may be one’s union with God, but for me, the discipline of praying comes from union with others. Prayer is a practice. I need to show up regularly to communal prayer so the Spirit knows where to find me.

Most of us lay folks have a hard time fitting communal prayer into our lives. One of my friends has a tough job doing street outreach to homeless folks from 5am to 1pm daily. She used to take a “lunch break” at 8:30 am at our church, joining a small group for simplified Morning Prayer and silence. But her work routine changed and her new boss doesn’t understand her need for a break to pray and center her day. Many folks do not even live near their churches and must spend time traveling to and fro with jobs, kids, or other commitments. Sometimes we can’t alter the constraints of our lives and need to adapt within them, fitting in prayer however we can.

I thought that living alongside nuns would help this dilemma. With scheduled prayer three or four times a day, I’d have no excuse not to show up! Well....

There comes a point when we must look at our own excuses. We must own our own choices and priorities. Usually when there is too much work to do, I keep working and go home late, skipping Vespers and Compline. When I’m distracted or stressed, I sit at my desk to eat lunch, instead of going downstairs for noon Eucharist. I feel like Paul who says “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Romans 7:15).

Or, as my younger friends like to say: “Fail!”

But we’re in Lent. A good time to face our failures, engage in self-examination, and recommit ourselves to practices that get us closer to God. For me, it’s about reordering my days and choices to get back to evening prayer (at least once a week!). I wonder how your Lent is going? How are you finding time to pray and be still?

Thankfully, God sometimes acts even when we don’t. By some twisted prayer God helped me get to chapel yesterday. I was home, sick. Not terribly sick, but enough to sleep most of the day then roll out of bed to join the Sisters in prayer.