I've seen several blog posts about choosing a word to focus on for the year of 2013. This post from Becoming Peculiar sort of inspired me to do it as well. Several of her points resonated with me, and I felt like I could have written them about myself as well.
I've chosen the word 'prayer' for 2013. I'd been thinking over the last couple weeks as I've been learning about the season of Advent that I'd like to explore and learn more about prayer traditions. It's really only recently that traditional, written prayers have been pushed aside in favor of spontaneous prayer. I think that in an effort to get away from some of the older, 'outdated' traditions, churches have swung the pendulum too far in several areas and prayer is one of them.
I recently heard someone speaking badly about reading and using prayers which have been recorded by other people because it doesn't allow you to mean what you're saying, but I think there are great benefits to doing so. You may find the words you're trying to say, but can't formulate, or you may read what you ought to be praying even though you don't want to admit it enough to say it yourself. There are many prayers recorded in the Bible, and it has long been a tradition in the church to use certain written prayers. I think it's good that there is more allowance for personal prayers than there has been at various points in history by different church groups, but that doesn't mean we need to desert liturgy and written prayers. It's just the same as reading any other theological writings and gleaning from them. What better way to learn to pray than to read the prayers of those who have gone before us?
So in this year I plan to focus on studying prayers in the Bible, notably the book of Psalms, I want to explore and read written prayers, both modern and traditional, and learn about church tradition regarding prayers, and I think it's also a good exercise to write out your own prayers, so I'll try to do that some too. Through all this, I'd like to be more aware of what it means to be in a state of constant prayer, as well as being more disciplined about taking time to set aside for prayer. I find myself praying often throughout the day as things pop into my mind, but I don't really take time to set aside everything else and focus only on praying and then being still afterwards.
I'll try to blog about different things I read as I go along, I look forward to the journey.
3 comments:
This sounds wonderful! What a great thing, to devote a year to focusing on prayer! I love all the reasons you give for using written prayers. Like you say, spontaneous prayer is still essential; but I think we can benefit from using the prayers of saints who have gone before us.
@Kathleen | Becoming Peculiar
Thanks for commenting! I read this quote in the introduction to an Orthodox prayer book this morning which put it beautifully, "Often, we would like to pray but, distracted by the bustling world around us, or troubled by fear or sorrow, we do not even know how to begin."
This is excellent. What a lovely idea.
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