Pray as You Go

“The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter…I possess God in as great a tranquility as if I were upon my knees...” ~Brother Lawrence, born Nicolas Herman, French Carmelite monk (1614-1691)

The spiritual based personal finance class was filled to overflowing. Couples, singles, even moms bringing their adult children, had come to wrestle with the issues of a bad economy and some bad financial decisions along the way. The parish center living room was large by living room standards, but not large enough for this group.

Even so, we found room somehow. Using a combination of portable chairs and clever manipulation of the seating arrangement we managed to fit everyone in, with a little space left for a single aisle.

It was Thursday evening and I stopped by the living room to check in with our coordinators Deborah and Daniel. Deborah, a cradle Catholic and Daniel, a Baptist, made for an interesting teaching combination. Both were always infectiously enthusiastic and thoroughly prepared.

Peering in through the open door I saw Deborah busily doing makeup work with a couple who had missed class the week before. Daniel was carefully and methodically placing each chair into the customized arrangement.

Not wanting to disturb them, I left for an evening meeting, deciding to check back by email the next morning. The thought of Daniel putting out all those chairs by himself bothered me, however. We have staff that does this sort of thing.

The next day Deborah sent me her usual Friday morning update. I responded in kind, complementing them on the wonderful job they were doing and giving them a status on the class kits we had ordered. “Daniel doesn’t need to set up the chairs.” I concluded. “Our maintenance people can do that for you.”

Within the hour I had a response from Deb covering some additional details. The email ended with a simple statement: “Thank you for the offer, but Daniel would like to continue to put the chairs out himself. As he puts each chair in place he says a prayer for the person who will be seated there that evening.”

Most of us envision prayer as a formality; something which is only done at specific times, in particular situations or under certain circumstances. We are accustomed to invocations at large events, or saying grace before a meal, or the prayers we say at Sunday services. Otherwise, prayer is pretty much excluded from our daily, “real world” lives, relegated to the back waters of our spirituality.

There are many reasons for this. We are afraid what people might think if they “caught us” praying. Or, grasping for every second we can spare, we see prayer as too time consuming. Perhaps regular prayer was simply never suggested to us, never occurred to us, or we never thought we had license to pray outside of church.

Whether we realize it or not, prayer is an important part of our daily life. It connects the sacred with our otherwise secular world. It infuses God into our daily lives. It sanctifies our day.

It also connects us to the lives of others for whom we pray. Daniel connected himself to every member of the class by praying for them. This undoubtedly had an affect upon the way he taught them and his relationship with them.

Often, we hoard our gift of time thinking we have to carve out blocks of it to give to God. This is not necessarily so. Daniel, by praying as he set out chairs, was multi-tasking in a very special way. His gift of prayer was doled out over time, not in blocks, but in continuous precious pieces.

God calls us to pray constantly, not just when we are in church; but when we are driving to work, cutting the lawn or even setting out chairs.

Pray as you go!

Dear God: teach me to pray all through the day.

“Accustom yourself gradually to carry prayer into all your daily occupation - speak, act, work in peace, as if you were in prayer, as indeed you ought to be.” ~François Fénelon, French Roman Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet, and writer (1651-1715)

© 2011 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.

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