I've been thinking a lot about lately about rhythm. Not just pertaining to music but my own life of prayer as well. It's easy for me to become less prayerful when I am confined indoors than when I am able to be out of doors. I know that you might be thinking that it really should be the other way around but for me it isn't.
We are starting the
fourth week of Lent and I feel like I am struggling more and more to make a sustaining prayer life. For me Lent is usually the time when I have a heightened sense of prayer and devotional time... but this year something is different. I haven't quite put my finger on it but it doesn't feel like abundant life... just an emptiness (yes I see the Christ connection to my emptiness
see Phil 2:7-8).
I used to think (and tried) that my prayer life would be best modeled after a monastic prayer style and though that worked for a time (and still do get much meaning from it, when I do it) I am beginning to discover that my spiritual life tends to find it's own rhythm within my present life circumstances. I believe that my prayer life was much better when I was in pastoral ministry than it is now. The difference is that my style has adapted to my increasingly more natural (think nature, creation) influence.
I am learning that there is no one way to prayer and I must be respectful of my own temperament, rhythm and seasons as well as that of others.
Maybe I will begin to reclaim my sense of prayer and find my rhythm as the seasons change from dreary winter to hopeful spring.
