Use your time to pray.

I wanted to add an extended quote from the book that I just finished reading titled, In Constant Prayer.  (Read my review here.)  This quote comes after the author discusses the loss of that tradition of seeking God through prayer.  Just prior to this quote he makes this statement,

"Sometimes it occurs to me that I am a member of the first generation of followers of Yahweh in six thousand years for whom the offering of daily fixed-hour worship and praise and prayer -- a tradition practiced and treasured and passed down to us from the Hebrews to the apostles to the early Christians to the fathers and mothers of the faith who sustained this church we now call home -- is no longer deemed a necessity or an obligation or a duty or even an opportunity."

In case you are unfamiliar with what he is talking about, he is referring to a tradition called the Daily Office.  According to this Lutheran website, the Daily Office is defined in this way:

Services of prayer offered at established times each day. Already at the time of Jesus, set times for prayer were customary (Acts 3:1). By the sixth century, eight services of prayer, which included psalms and readings from Scripture, were observed in the monasteries. Since the Reformation, this schedule has been simplified to three times of prayer: morning (Matins), afternoon/evening (Vespers), and close of the day (Compline).

To my understanding, and according to this book, this is a very good definition of the Daily Office.  The one idea that struck me, whether it was because I wasn't aware of this fact or because I thought that this was purely a monastic invention and ritual, was the heritage of this daily prayer.  This book has left me thinking about my own lack of prayer in all new ways.

Since I would like to share this dilemma of the conviction of my lacking prayer life, I share this quote with you.

We who will get up and walk, or even run miles in the mornings, not to mention those of us who are not willing to wait for there to be light to see the bottom of the flag or for the frost to go away before we tee off; we who will haul ourselves through our neighborhoods in the dark to make sure that we have the box scores as quick as we can -- for all kinds of reasons, including some good ones, I suppose, we will not, cannot, do not rise in the morning to greet the dawn with a song of praise on our lips, as did those who went before us. 

We who will stay up late to watch the televised version of the news that we heard on our drive home at six, who will TiVo enough must-see television that we have to stay up late to keep up, who will not go to sleep without reading a novel, who will burn a candle at both ends and in the middle if we can figure how to get it lit, will not end our days with praise and worship and confession and blessing. 

We will not do these things in the name of love or discipline, devotion or worship.  We will not even do it for selfish reasons, or even as a reliable way of self-actualization, to put it in its least favorable context -- which, in our Western American twenty-first-century, self-help, and consumer-driven culture, is astonishing.

There were some ideas in this book that I didn't agree with, but I have to say that this particular statement was right-on, and left me deeply convicted at the things that I am willing to sacrifice to do and the things that I have not sacrificed for that I should have.

In Constant Prayer - Book Review

In Constant Prayer (Ancient Practices Series) by Robert Benson is the first book that I received through BookSneeze.

I liked this book.

In Constant Prayer is one book in a series of books called The Ancient Practices that explores many of those ancient practices of the early Christians.  This book in the series, written by Robert Benson, is meant to be a study of the practice of praying the "daily office."

If I understand it correctly, the Daily Office is the practice of praying a set number of times each day.  This practice brings to mind certain monastic settings.  Images of  monks getting up to say their morning prayers, meeting together to say their afternoon prayers, and seeing each other again to say their evening prayers before they head off to their cells.

As far as the author is concerned, Robert Benson is really a very good writer.  As I read through this book I found each page to be enticing and entertaining, but also very personal.  He opened up his life, in small ways, to reveal his desire to pray, his encounters with the daily office, and his understanding of this ancient practice.  I felt compelled, as I continued through the book, to consider taking up this particular practice.

I did find the book lacking in two specific ways.  One was a lack of specific historical examples.  He would make comments concerning the historicity of this practice, but the actual examples to validate the claim seemed to be strangely lacking.  The second area where I found this book to be lacking was in its use of scripture.  Other than at the beginning of chapters, I don't recall one Biblical quote with a reference.  There were passages that were alluded to, but the only reason I knew that was because I recognized the scripture.  Frankly, without proper historical footnotes and scriptural references, this book falls into the category of opinion.  In no way is it improper to write (or read) a book of opinions, but to really sway this particular reader, I need some validation.