In Constant Prayer

The last few days I have been reading a book called IN Constant Prayer by Robert Benson, its definitely an interesting book.  Robert Benson is an Episcopalian, and truly at the beginning of this book, I struggled with moving ahead, his ideas are very liturgical and it felt like I was being influenced to become Catholic.  Of course not long after that I realized he was Episcopalian, to which I was highly relieved-ha-ha.  But as I continued to read I soon found out I had a lot to learn from Mr. benson.  His main thesis if you will was found in Paul's statement, "to pray without ceasing."  Through the books entirety he illustrates with vivid detail this importance and what this truly means. 

In the early days of Christianity Paul's readers would have understood this statement.  Benson describes this with the idea of the seven prayers of the day that the Jews would do.  Each one different and each one reflective of a different aspect of God and a different way to respond to him.  It truly is a beautiful thing, he goes on to show that eventually over time this idea of constant prayer through the day disappeared.  It started with Constantine, when Christianity became the nations religion.  This obviously was very  exciting and liberating at the time.  But this sacred practice of prayer over time depleted due to the religious freedom and lackadaisical lifestyles that ensued.  And really this sacred practice never has caught on again. 

Toward the end of the book Benson goes through a discourse of how we all have plans in life, things that we aspire to do, or are doing,  These things some common in nature like moving, require a certain amount of time to prepare for and time to take to accomplish.  But all of us no matter truly what stage of life we are in have to plan for things, we have things that are set in the future and have to prep for them ahead of time.  But majority of us never plan on improving our spiritual lives, we never sit down and take the time to clearly determine what it would take to improve our walk with God.  Most of us will make commitments at some retreat that we go on and year after year we will make the same thing, but never follow through on it.  And truly for most of us is because when we get home we don't have a plan to put these into action.  His suggestion is to these not on a retreat but in the mundane times of our lives.  To paint a picture of where we would like to be with God in the future, and then plan how to get there.  So practical and simple, but if we actually did it we would be blown away. 

This idea of planning our spiritual lives was so mind-blowing to me, because I am always looking for ways to change my life and I make plans to do so, but I never think about where I would like to be with God in a year, and how to get there.  And the act of doing it is simple.  If you want to learn to play an instrument you need to pick it up and try it out, the simple act of actually following through on something can be the start to becoming a very talented musician and in this case a closer walk with Yahweh. 

Overall the book was intriguing and his idea of praying without ceasing has given me a lot to think about, and I look forward to understanding what the book of common prayers is really about, and not some Catholic thing that is empty is repetition, but something of greater value with greater purpose than I have truly understood.