Trying to pray. . .

So, I’m going try something different.

I had a personal, private blog for almost four years. It was something that a couple close friends suggested I do. At the time, I was still rather recently divorced and feeling an overwhelming sense of sadness while I was also trying to figure out how to live me life in a new place, around new people and in a new job. That blog was a place where I could rant and rave when I needed to; mourn when I needed to; try and figure out dating and relationships; sort out what may make my life better and more full. I very intentionally did everything I could to conceal my identity because, at the time, these weren’t thoughts and ideas I was willing or able to share with other people I knew. The anonymity of that site allowed me to explore aspects of my life that I just didn’t feel safe to explore other places.

However, some of the things I didn’t write about as much were my faith, spiritual practice, social justice commitments, vocation etc. In order to stay anonymous, I stayed vague but staying vague made it more difficult to work on some of those things through writing even though I began to realize how helpful a tool writing was for me.

So, I’m going to try to start a new blog. This one is going to mix all that I hadn’t written about before in with some of the same themes some of you may have read about before. It will still be a personal blog although, like the Facebook page some of you may have found this through, by its very nature there will be times the streams of the personal and the professional will cross. It will be an experiment and a little bit of a risk, too. If it works, great. It not, good enough. I’ll take it down. We’ll see how this goes. . .

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Part of the reason I’ve decided to do this is my prayer life has gone a bit off track. For the past 10 years or so, I did something called “Praying the Hours.” If you want to find out more about this, go ahead and check out this link: http://www.explorefaith.org/prayer/prayer/fixed/index.php . Essentially, this was a Benedictine practice that has regular breaks throughout the day for sitting, reading a few psalms, and praying. It has been a great practice for me until recently. Some of this, I’m sure, has to do with moving to Seattle, starting a new job and not establishing some sort of pace of living life, yet. What’s equally possible is that this form of prayer was more of a transitional one that worked for awhile. I think I need to try something different.

I have some glimpses of what that may look like but I’m not sure about anything, yet. I know that it needs to involve a different kind of attentiveness to mind, body, spirit and surroundings. In the past, taking pictures of where I was and seeing what caught my attention has helped quite a bit. I do yoga pretty regularly and think that this practice could be integrated for into my spiritual life but realistically its just stretching for me. I am trying to make more places for just sitting and thinking in my schedule by keeping my calendar a little less busy, delegating more and having chunks in my schedule that are intentionally left uncommitted. Part of this is also starting to mean having there be only 2/3 times in a day when I check my email or make phone calls. I really do like gadgets and love having the ability to have a phone, email access, a document creator and calendar all in my pocket but there’s obviously a down side, too.

I was reading an article titled “iPod Spirituality” in Presence (a magazine about spiritual direction - www.sdiworld.org ) by a guy named Chad Thralls. Its an even handed article about the intersections between spirituality and technology (including one of my favorites www.pray-as-you-go.org ). One of the challenges he lifts up is what the blogger Linda Stone calls “continuous partial attention.” I soooo get this. The electronic connections I can have or, more importantly, might have at the moment something buzzes or beeps makes it more difficult to be connected right now. I can’t tell you how much time I’ve spent in front of the computer looking from my email accounts to my facebook page essentially waiting for a response while, at the same time, texting on my phone or talking on my phone while listening to music. Although I can do all these things more or less adequately at the same time, I don’t take enough time to do any of them well. I recognize that Attention Deficit Disorder is a real, psychobiological problem for some people but sometimes I wonder if the bigger problem isn’t the multiple distractive dis-order that has accumulated in our lives. Its like trying to work with a messy desk. The problem isn’t as much about what there is to be done as much as being overwhelmed by what could be done. So, you end up staring at the desk, feeling a little overwhelmed and distracted. I think this is part of the problem for me.

So, I’ve been trying to pray or, more accurately, trying to figure out how to pray. We’ll see how this goes but having this little bit of writing done for today is very good first step. . .