First Day of Sabbatical: The Great Thing is Prayer...

Wrote Thomas Merton.   Prayer itself.  If you want a life of prayer, the way to get it is by praying.  We were indoctrinated so much into means and ends that we don’t realize that there is a different dimension in the life of prayer. In technology you have this horizontal progress, where you must start at one point and move into another and then another.  But that is not the way to build a life of prayer.  In prayer we discover what we already have. And you realize that you are already there.  We already have everything, but we don’t know it…Everything has been given us in Christ.  All we need is to experience what we already possess…If we really want prayer, we’ll have to give it time...The best way to pray is:  stop.  Let prayer pray within you…

On the brow of a mountain considered holy by many who have visited, I have stopped to let prayer pray within me.  I have slowed down to a human tempo from the fast-paced life I lead as Rector of a vibrant and flourishing parish in downtown Huntsville.  What’s been done has been done. What’s not been done has not been done.  And with this time for prayer, I let it be.  

St. Mary’s Center is a place I have known for prayer since the early nineties when I first started praying here on seminary Quiet Days.  It is a flowing well through which I drink the refreshing waters of God’s life and grace, renewing and deepening the contemplative practice of Centering Prayer.  It is time to reclaim that everything I have is gift.   I am always and already where I need to be if I would just slow down and consent to the gift of Christ within. 

And so prayer prays within me.  I realize that after the past six weeks of life my body is way ahead of my soul (which I think is still in California where daughter Sally just graduated from college!).  I will sleep well tonight.  What has been done has been done; what has not been done has not been done; let it be.   As I rest in the deep peace of Christ’s enfolding love, my soul travels toward home.    (written on Monday evening, 30 May 2011) 

Sunset on the Brow at St. Mary's

A Prayer for In the Evening

O Lord, support of all the day long, until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done.  Then in your mercy, grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last.  Amen. 

                       p. 833, The Book of Common Prayer