Week of Guided Prayer: Day 3

Today has been a somewhat disappointing day for me; I found it really difficult to concentrate and to spend any time at all with God. This was perhaps surprising as I had this afternoon free - but instead of catching up on work as I intended to, I "wasted" an awful lot of time browsing the internet, watching documentaries and talking with friends. I guess the stress at my lack of productivity must have been eating at me throughout the afternoon, and coupled with my busy morning and general tiredness, I didn't end up spending nearly as much time in contemplative prayer as I would have liked.

Perhaps this is a good time to talk about methods. Methods is a shorthand which I use to talk about things which help me to pray well; a lot of them have been suggested by my spiritual director for this week, but I've picked up a few more just from experience and have tried to discover which methods work for me and which don't.

  • One of the most important aspects of prayer which needs to be addressed is structure. It is possible to pray deeply and meaningfully both with relatively rigid structures (e.g. hymns, readings, written meditations) and with no structure at all, but I find a balance really helpful.
  • It's perfectly OK to not actively communicate with God at all; sometimes it is helpful to just be in his presence. This is one of the most important things I have learned during this week, and is useful to keep in mind especially if you're the kind of person who feels like they should be doing/achieving something all the time (I know I am).
  • Prayer doesn't have to happen at fixed times, in fixed places and with particular physical aides; prayer can happen at any time, including periods of time when you're busy doing something but have an idle mind. For me, this includes cycling to lectures, making meals or drinks, shopping or just before bed.
  • Daily podcasts can be very useful at focusing prayer and provide a useful starting point - for this week I've been using www.pray-as-you-go.org.
  • Distractions during prayer are not only "allowed", they're important! If you're being distracted by something, it might be something that's bothering you - I know I'm often bad at working out what things are niggling away under the surface. Ask God about your distractions! Let him know they're bothering you - see whether he has any ideas.
I'll probably come up with more ideas in the fullness of time, but today was definitely a useful exercise in coming to terms with the fact that my prayer often feels futile and artificial. I often feel as if I'm reaching out blindly, or waiting for something that will never happen, an insight that will never come. Gradually, I'm coming to think that this process of agnostic waiting defines not only prayer, but such a large part of the human experience.

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