Kids, Santa, Jesus, and Why We Pray

Something I've prayed this week:

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen. (Prayer for the Third Sunday of Advent from The Book of Common Prayer)

Several times during the past week, I've driven past a church near our house which has a sign that says, Do your kids know Jesus like they know Santa?

Though I can't say for sure, my hunch is that the author of the sign wants parents to be able to say yes to the question, and if that hunch is right, I'm certain the words were posted with good motivations. The church wants parents to help their children know that Christmas is more about Jesus than it is about Santa.

But it got me thinking and I'd like to put the question a different way:Parents, do you know Jesus like you know Santa? I wonder how many times an honest answer would be yes, and I'm convinced a yes response to that question is common but tragic.

Unless I have been badly informed, "knowledge" of Santa is limited to things along these lines:

• Stories and poems about him in books, videos, etc. These are inescapable. We seemingly can't go anywhere or look at anything without seeing the big fella in red. My original approach as a parent regarding him was that I'd try to ignore him and hope my kids never noticed him. It didn't work. It's more likely that they could go through life without noticing me than without noticing him.
• Other people's claims to have seen him or interacted with him ("You serious, Clark?") I can remember leaving Christmas Eve services at church as a kid and on the ride home hearing Paul Harvey give a news report on the radio about where in the world's sky that the sleigh had been spotted. This wasn't just any voice relating this news. It was Paul Harvey. He was to be trusted at least as much as the preacher.
• The evidence- especially the stuff he gives us Cookies disappeared. Every tiny sound after dark on the 24th was surely what hooves on the roof would sound like. And then, of course, there was the stuff he left behind- the gifts to me attributed to him. Indisputable.

So I wonder how many of us may have been badly formed and actually, we do know Jesus like we know Santa, with our "knowledge" of Jesus being limited to things along these lines:

• Stories and poems about him in books, videos, etc. To some degree, these too are inescapable. If anyone ever bothers to wonder about the origin of terms like Good Samaritan or hypocrite, or things like why we number our years the way we do, or any of the abundance of crosses we see all around us (I saw one today on the back of a truck paired with the silhouette of a naked woman), they will trace them to ancient stories about or told by Jesus. But we only largely only know those things to the degree we choose to investigate them. Otherwise, it's more likely that we could go through December without noticing Jesus than without noticing Santa.
• Other people's claims to have seen him or interacted with him All kinds of people claim to have had all kinds of experiences with this poor man who was born in a small village two millennia ago. Some of these people are as trustworthy as Paul Harvey. Some others of them are preachers, so one would expect them to lay claim to these kinds of things. (That isn't a knock on preachers- there was a time in our culture when they were implicitly regarded as trustworthy- it's a cultural fact that this is no longer the case.) Many others of them are the ordinary kind of people you and I interact with every day.
• The evidence- especially the stuff he gives us Perhaps someone is able to deal with stress better than they were before being a Christian. Or, a few even have those fortunate experiences of a loved one having a medically inexplicable recovery. Others find meaning and purpose for their lives. Many find a deeply needed sense of forgiveness. All kinds of gifts come our way which get attributed to him.

But here's the point: None of the things listed above are the same as knowing a person. If it is not possible to know Jesus in a completely different way than kids know Santa, I am wasting my time in my attempts to live prayerfully this year, because in the end this isn't about blog posts, or habits, or even prayer itself- it's about following up (in a real and gut-level honest way) on the claim that so many have made throughout these last 2,000 years: We can know him.

[This is the 6th post from A Year of Living Prayerfully.]

Prayer and Hurry

By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us,to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.Luke 1:78-79 

A few weeks ago I was helping my son get dressed, and it wasn't one of my finest moments as a father. One of his greatest abilities is to dilly-dally, and some days [he reminds me way too much of myself when he does so and] my patience doesn't hold up for long. About halfway through the process that was taking five times longer than I thought it should, I was getting such a sense of hurry to get on to the next thing that I gave in to it and was more harsh with him than I should have been.

Unfortunately, that's not a specific memory of one instance a few weeks ago, but a general memory of countless times. And they don't just take place when I help him get dressed. And it also happens with people besides him. Plus when I'm by myself... Really, there's no limit to the times when I've had that sense of needing to hurry to get on to the next thing. What happened a few weeks ago was that I noticed the sense of hurry and started to wonder where it was coming from.

There's no real reason for me to have it- I'm grateful to have one of the most un-hurried schedules of anyone I know. Seriously, I can compete with a good percentage of the geriatric population. Most of the time I'm not running late for anything, but the hurry is just a result of my desire to get on to the next thing instead of paying attention to what it is I'm doing at the moment. I realized how often I have that sense of wanting to get on to the next thing, not just when I'm helping my kids get dressed, but all of the time. Instead of paying attention to this thing, I've noticed an almost constant sense of wanting to get on to the next thing.

I was part of a good Apprentice Group discussion yesterday about hurry and how much of an enemy it is to living our lives well. It was based on a chapter from one of the Apprentice books, in which James Bryan Smith says:

Hurriedness is an inner attitude that is not necessarily caused by outer circumstances; boredom is one of its symptoms. The solution to the problem is counter-intuitive: being present where you are...

What's really happening is that we aren't paying attention; we aren't living in the present moment. And we do that because we think the present moment isn't interesting...

Hurry sickness is the number one spiritual illness of our day...

No wonder we have the attention span of a ferret on a triple cappuccino...

The average parent spends twice as long dealing with e-mail as playing with his or her children...

The most important aspects of our lives cannot be rushed. We cannot love, think, eat, laugh, or pray in a hurry...

In our spiritual life we cannot do anything important in a hurry...

God never calls us, as Richard Foster likes to say, "into a life of panting feverishness."...

Jesus lives his life in perfect rhythm, the proper tempo, at all times. He will not be rushed. He never does anything in haste...

Ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life...

Hurry is not part of a well-lived life.

(The Good and Beautiful God, Chapter 9)

Thankfully, over the last couple of weeks, since I began this experiment, I've noticed the unnecessary hurry diminishing a bit. I've noticed myself more able to pay attention to this thing, rather than constantly wanting to get on to the next thing. And while I've certainly had too many times of attempting to pray in a hurry, the structure of this project fosters a deliberate, attentive, good kind of slowness in me. Pausing four times per day to pray with other people's words, and once per day praying without words and with my own words, these practices are helping me to pay attention to this thing rather than the endless cycle of only paying attention to the next thing.

I think, and I hope, that the end result of this after this year won't be that I move at a sloth's pace in everything, but rather that I'm simply able to pay more attention.

[This is the 5th post from A Year of Living Prayerfully.]

Advent 2

Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.- Prayer for the Second Sunday of Advent from The Book of Common Prayer

I am now more than a week into this year-long experiment. Though there have been a few small challenges to the way that I'm trying to arrange each day around the ways of prayer described in Live Prayerfully, so far I'm very glad to be doing this. To this point, the challenges have all boiled down to small tests of my intentions to pray in these ways, in situations when by habit, I normally would have put off a time of prayer because of some inconvenience and probably not gotten back around to it.

I shared an example of this from one day last week in the previous post, describing my unexpected feline and canine companions in prayer. After writing that, I knew the next couple of days could also be unfavorable to my plans, as we had to get through a 17-hour road trip from Missouri back to Texas. Particularly with two preschoolers in the car, the trip is already guaranteed to be long, so pausing four times each day to pray and make it any longer didn't seem like a kind option for my family.

Plus, I like to be the driver on road trips, so even though I could find opportunities while driving for praying without words and praying with my own words, opening up my prayer book to pray with other people's words while going down I-44 at 70 miles per hour also didn't seem like a kind option for my family.

Yet thankfully, another very good option presented itself, as Kara was happy to read the prayers aloud for me and we were able to pray them together.

In the last paragraph of the conclusion of Live Prayerfully, I say:

One more thing: I said in the Introduction that a prayerful life is meant for everyone. Here in the Conclusion I want to add to that statement and say: a prayerful life is meant for everyone, and none of us becomes prayerful by ourselves. Perhaps the synergy that surpasses that of putting together practices of praying with other people’s words, praying without words, and praying with your own words is that of putting these practices together with others. It might be on a retreat, in a small group, or with your family, but the only way we are meant to live prayerfully is to live prayerfully together.

Although I am convinced that is true, to this point in my life I have only practiced it to a minimal degree. If one of the main things that comes out of this year is that I'm forced to put that paragraph to the test by living prayerfully with my family and others with whom I cross paths when it's time to pray, I expect that all of us will be a bit better off for having done so together.

[This is the 4th post from A Year of Living Prayerfully.]

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."