praying
HAVE YOU PRAYED about this?
Martin Luther King Jr. and his compatriots in the Civil Rights Movement could emphatically say yes. They prayed before boycotts, before marches, and covered every nonviolent, disruptive, anti-racist action they took in prayer.
Pete Hegseth could also say yes. He prayed at the Pentagon in April as the U.S. initiated an inhumane and nonsensical war in Iran. Hegseth called for God’s blessing on the U.S. military action, inviting God to move with vengeance and anger. (Oddly, his prayer closely followed a scene in the film Pulp Fiction.)
Every now and again I have to stop and take stock of my prayer life. And when I do that, sometimes I have to share what it's like to realize that how I pray has somehow managed to change without my conscious intention to do so. This is one of those times.
My prayer life has slipped away from me again in that I seldom if ever sit down with The Hours or my breviary and pray. It just doesn't happen. I arise in the morning and work begins. I move about my day from task to task, moment to moment, until the day is done. Idle time comes upon occasion, but not with any regularity. And Lord knows this summer's travel schedule has kept me hopping. Such a schedule keeps my brain busy as well. So, right. Explicit time for prayer is in great shortage.