One Dog, Two Cats, and Four Attempts to Pray

"Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long." Psalm 25:5 

When I decided to undertake this project, I knew before beginning it that there would be days things just wouldn't work out in a way as conducive to my plans as would be ideal. I've had enough practice at the kinds of prayer discussed in Live Prayerfully to know that some days, praying at the traditional times of the day isn't difficult to do. Other days, it won't happen unless we're committed to doing so ahead of time. I thought that yesterday was going to be one of the easy days, but some others around here weren't on board with my plans.

We are visiting my in-laws, and they had generously offered to take the kids for the day so that Kara and I could have the day to ourselves and enjoy their country property. That's why I thought it would be one of the easy days to get my times of prayer in. About mid-morning, I wanted to have some time of praying without words, and it was one of those opportunities to do so somewhere that the place matches the activity perfectly, as there's a lake that I could look over all alone while sitting on a porch swing. I sat there, started getting my mind to quiet down, and it was glorious. Everything around me was still, and it was just what I needed to increase my awareness of being in God's presence... for approximately 90 seconds.

After that delightful minute and a half, my dog-in-law, Lucy, was equally delighted to realize that someone was in her yard. (By the way, she just celebrated her first birthday, complete with gifts and a birthday card from my nieces and nephew.) After she discovered me, all situational silence was gone. She was very able to communicate something along the lines of, "Hey! Let's play! I have an idea- throw this stick! Hey! Let's play! I have an idea- throw this stick! Hey! Let's play! I have an idea- throw this stick! Hey! Let's play! I have an idea- throw this stick! Hey! Let's play! I have an idea- throw this stick! Hey! Let's play! I have an idea- throw this stick! Hey! Let's play! I have an idea- throw this stick!"

So, I threw the stick then moved on to something else and would look for another opportunity for quiet later in the day.

And later in the day, when I thought I'd found that opportunity, enter my cats-in-law, Jack and Annie. In the afternoon, I went to an apartment that is on the property to sit down alone with my prayer book. Again, it went well for about 90 seconds. Then, as you see in the picture above, Jack decided to sit down alone in my prayer book, and I had to keep my hat on because I was never confident in what Annie was planning above me.

Thankfully, because of the relaxed schedule yesterday, I was later able to find another room free of any species of pets-in-law and was able to have nice, unrushed times of praying with other people's words, praying without words, and praying with my own words.

I'm sure that Lucy, Jack, and Annie won't turn out to be the biggest obstacles I encounter in my attempts to live prayerfully throughout this entire year. Yesterday helped me realize the importance of being pre-committed. If I hadn't been, I easily would have blamed the animals for getting in the way of my attempts to pray for the day and gone on to other things without ever making it back around to prayer. If I'd done that, I would have missed out on some good time.

The obstacles will continue to come. My guess is that most of the rest of them won't have as much fur.

For example, I already know that tomorrow will be another category of challenge, as we'll be setting out on a 17 hour road trip with two preschoolers.

[This is the 3rd post from A Year of Living Prayerfully.]

Two Days In To My New Experiment

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.Psalm 25:1 

I'm two days into this new project. I have mixed senses of excitement about it with a bit of apprehension about my ability to follow through on it. I have a long, outstanding track record of thinking up great projects. The record gets a bit less stellar on which of those I've ever begun. The record is cringeworthy on the projects that have been completed. But I'm hoping that the public commitment here on the blog helps me to follow through on things this time the same way it did with setting a deadline for finishing the book. The positive side of my two-days-in feelings about this idea are also legitimate. I feel certain that I will be a more prayerful person a year from now than I am today, and that is bound to have good effects of some sort.

But back to the apprehension for a moment. Part of that comes from my realization that, yes, it seems like a good idea to do this, to follow my own advice to the farthest reasonable limit by committing myself to praying four times per day in the three ways of prayer from Live Prayerfully. But four times per day every day for a year is, well, a lot. Even this morning, on day two, I woke up realizing that it was time to pray, after having prayed just before bed last night, and the thought that entered my mind was, "Pray again? Didn't I just do that?" But I suspect that any very structured discipline feels that way when we're either getting into it or getting back into it, and the sense of constancy about it is certainly part of the point.

(And just to be clear so that hopefully you'll still read it once it's available, nowhere in Live Prayerfully do I try to get people to do things to the extent I'm doing them. I suggest three ways of prayer- praying with other people's words, praying without words, and praying with your own words- and the guides to prayer in part two of the book include four opportunities for each day of a week to do so. Hence the structure of this experiment. But in my own practice of these things in the past, I've never taken advantage of every opportunity. It was a daily habit, but not a four-times-per-day habit. So, trying to follow through on my own advice to this extreme is what I hope will provide the content of these posts- hopefully some of them will be insightful, and I'm sure that others will be just plain humiliating.)

After previously describing this project as being intentionally legalist, Robert Pelfrey commented that I'm not being legalist, just Methodist. It was a great point, and makes me feel more comfortable going about this the way I am. John Wesley and his early Methodists will always be among my all-time heroes, and they got their name more or less as an accusation of being intentional legalists, in the sense of giving themselves a method for their spiritual lives and committing to stick by it. As I mentioned in my response to Robert, if the dictionary defines legalism as "excessive adherence to a formula", which very much describes what I'm doing this year, as a committed Methodist I am in good company with my ancestors of this branch of Christianity. Giving ourselves a method of opening up to God and then following it in a community of others is what Methodism at its best is about.

But if you're a Methodist, have ever been a Methodist, or have ever even known a Methodist, you'll likely notice the dissimilarity between the kind of method I'm undertaking throughout this year and the method that you have seen, practiced, or been taught. Or, better, the dissimilarity between the method I'm choosing and the lack of a method in what you've likely seen in Methodism. It's more than safe to say we've lightened up a bit since our founding.

If I am swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction, that's okay, but if it ends up being a good thing, hopefully I can pull some others of you along with me.

[This is the 2nd post from A Year of Living Prayerfully.]

A Year of Living Prayerfully

Live Prayerfully (my first attempt at a real book) is almost finished, and should be available before the end of December. So, I'm giving myself a new project. I think it will be a good exercise and should also provide some interesting material for the blog for a while. Here's the idea: that for a full year, every day, I would plan everything I do around following what I say in the book. I'll push my own advice to its farthest reasonable limits and see how it holds up. I think this is a good idea. We'll see.

Some issues that I'm eager to pay attention to as I do this:

• In order to accomplish this for a full year, I'm going to have to be somewhat of an intentional legalist about it. (Basically, my rules boil down to being that I will have to pray four times each day and to incorporate three kinds of prayer into those times.) In the Christian circles of my background, anything that hints of legalism is to be unquestionably avoided, but I wonder if I might find it to be a not-so-terrible thing. (Obviously I won't be legalist in the sense of thinking that my status with God is dependent on my praying four times a day, but in the dictionary sense: "excessive adherence to a law or formula.")
• Will arranging my life around these times of prayer, every day, turn out to be a hindrance to getting necessary things done, or will I find that the necessary things still get done in a way less dependent on me?
• At the end of the year, will I be relieved to be free of the commitment, or will I never want to go back to life as I had known it before making it?
• And the biggest question: Will living prayerfully for this year make any difference- in me? in those around me? even in the world?

This year of living prayerfully begins this week, since we are now headed toward the first Sunday of Advent (the beginning of the liturgical year), and I plan to post 2-3 times each week. I will follow the guides to prayer from Part Two of Live Prayerfully, which are adapted from The Book of Common Prayer, plus other prayers that focus more on the respective seasons of the church year, such as this one, which I'll be praying repeatedly to prepare for this first Sunday of Advent:

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Trying to Cross the Finish Line

As writing has become something at which I want to try to make a more serious effort, I've spent more time reading writers who write about writing. One of the things that has stuck with me from the things I've read that is proving to be true in trying to finish this project is that it's tough to cross the finish line and have the project be completely done. It's easier to move on to what I want the next project to be, or to find something (anything) else to occupy my attention than it is to put the finishing touches on this and have it available for anyone in the galaxy to see.

I'm glad I made the decision a few months ago to say on this blog that I'm writing the book and to give myself a public deadline for getting it finished. I probably won't quite meet that deadline, but I'll be within a few days of it, so it served its purpose of keeping things moving.

So I think I can... I think I can... get this finished. It's not that it's all that difficult to do- the most challenging part of writing it has already been behind me for a long time. The hard part, as those other authors attested, seems to be crossing that line from "I'd like to write a book," or "I'm trying to write a book," to "Here's a copy of it."

My First Real Endorsement

After posting the fake endorsements last week, I'm pumped to have my first actual endorsement of Live Prayerfully. Wil Hernandez is several things for me: a spiritual director, friend, teacher, and all-around encourager. One of the reasons I enjoy every conversation with Wil so much is that he really knows his stuff, and he's tied together a passion for learning, for teaching, and for helping others grow. Among the things he does are to direct Spring Arbor University's Master of Arts in Spiritual Formation and Leadership and helping others continue to benefit from the wisdom of Henri Nouwen through the Nouwen Legacy. Wil was the first person I asked for an endorsement, and the first one to send one to me. It's an honor. (Plus, I really like what he says- any connection made between a cookie jar and prayer is a winner in my book.)

"Prayerful living entails both intentionality and spontaneity. Daniel Harris's work shows what such a combination looks like in concrete fashion! Here's a no-frills piece that brings the cookie jar of prayer into the lower shelf---accessible, relatable, and doable. Harris's memorable three-point outline captures succinctly the essence of how to live prayerfully while his corresponding guides demonstrate well its practical outworking. Definitely a helpful tool for beginners and practitioners alike!" Wil Hernandez, PhD, spiritual director, retreat leader, and author of a trilogy on Henri Nouwen

[Fake] Endorsements for My Book

I'm putting in a lot of time on the manuscript of Live Prayerfully in an effort to try to meet my deadline. While doing so today and working on some formatting issues, I thought it would be helpful to designate a front/back of a page where I hope people's endorsements of it will be printed. The only problem is that so far I have no such endorsements, as I'm not quite ready to start asking for them. But, since I needed some filler for those pages, I entertained myself by making up my own endorsements for the book and attributing them to whomever I wanted. Just incase any search engine ever comes across the names on this page, let me be clear that none of the people here ever said anything like this.

And the fake endorsements for my book:

“This is, unquestionably, the best book I have ever read.” St. Paul, author, half of the New Testament of The Holy Bible

“Daniel Harris is cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool.” Dallas Willard, author, The Divine Conspiracy

“Wow, and I thought I was smart. After reading this, I really don’t know what to do with myself.” M. Robert Mulholland Jr., professor emeritus, Asbury Theological Seminary

“ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYandZ. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYandZ. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYandZ. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYandZ. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYandZ.” Robert Pelfrey, dean, School of Everything Cool

“You know, I am continually amazed at how smart I am. I mean, I really dazzle myself.” Daniel Harris, author, this book

“Wow, and I thought Bob Mulholland and I were smart. After reading this, I really don’t know what we're going to do with ourselves.” N.T. Wright, the leading Bible scholar in the entire world

“I really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really like this guy.” Kara Harris, wife of the author

“Dang. I wish I’d written this.” John Wesley, founder of Methodism

“How many more of these should I come up with? I mean, it’s fun to do this, but I’m starting to feel a bit convicted. Dear God, may no lawyer ever come across this page.” Daniel Harris, author, this book

“Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah.” Jorge H. Lopez, pastor, MegaFrater

“Every year, millions of books are published. Honestly, for 2012, this is one of them.” General Spokesperson for The General Public

And The Cover Is...

I enjoyed working with a bunch of talented folks at CrowdSpring over the past couple of weeks to get a cover design done. After 145 submissions from 23 different creatives, I chose the design pictured above by Roy Migabon (CrowdSpring Creative ID: LioArtimis).

There hasn't been much happening here on the blog, but that's because I'm working toward my self-imposed deadline for this book! (I still don't like deadlines- but's it's kept things moving.)