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Knowing I would be extremely busy today and not have much time to myself at all, I decided to set myself the challenge of spending the same amount of time I dedicate everyday to prayer in short bursts throughout the day by using 'arrow prayers'. Some of you may not know this term, which is just a fancy way of saying short prayers, a few seconds long at a time, throughout the day, regarding things you see, do, touch, hear and any thoughts that may come to you.
I found this not particularly effective as a means of prayer; not having a set time to sit down and pray, meant that I relied on my memory and any prompts much more, so ended up spending much less time in prayer, and felt quite empty by the end of the day (so did an extra 30 minutes of intercession after 'lights out'!). I think if I were to do it again, I'd have a physical reminder of prayer, so that every time I looked at it, I would remember to pray. However, I'm not sure this would work all that well either, as I already have a physical reminder of God, which is semi-successful!
I also found that having short prayers meant less opportunity for in-depth expression, less chance to listen to what God has to say to me (rather than my just telling him random facts) and focussed all my prayer into intercession or commentary, with less thanksgiving and remorse.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not advocating not using arrow prayers at all, as they can be incredibly beneficial and allow us to feel that God has more of an insight and activity in our lives than a scheduled block of time in each day, but I certainly do think personally, that I can only use arrow prayers in conjunction with a more disciplined, dedicated time of daily prayer.
As it's St. David's Day today, and I haven't done any prayerful art yet this lent, I decided to use the time listening to praise and worship songs in Welsh, and putting a collage together of my favourite places in Wales. So I found a number of images of my favourite places and icons of my favourite things in Wales and put them together into an e-poster while thanking God for my joyful memories and the many Welsh things He has blessed me with.
The images represent Snowdon, Bangor pier (a place I spent many a happy time with some wonderful friends), a puffin on Skomer Island (my mum's favourite bird in one of her favourite places) and Marloes (which is special to our family). I also used images to represent Bangor Anglican Society film nights, Welsh cakes (the only dessert I like to cook), a Celtic cross, one of my favourite altar tables (at one of my favourite retreat centres - St. Beuno's), a Welsh dragon and my favourite Welsh castle - Castle Coch. (I also used Welsh colours and the flag of St. David as background).
I loved my prayer time today, feeling really creative and buoyant, so much so, that it must've been one of my longest prayer times this season, and I was almost late for the following Eucharist! I think prayerful art is something I need to create space to return to much more often!
Having had many conversations in the last few days with friends in many countries, I decided to use Lee's globe as a source of inspiration for prayer tonight, and let my thoughts and prayers wander as I spun the globe, connected by geographical proximity, a curiosity to find out more about countries I don't personally think about much, and following my line of thought regarding similar people groups and political concerns.
I found that I actually had a lot of food for thought, that I didn't need to open my 'Operation World' book or surf the news as I had many requests and thanks based on my experiences of living abroad, conversations with friends scattered all over the globe and a general knowledge of some of the things happening in different locations from previous reading and conversations.
Much of my prayer tonight were requests, concerns and silent lifting up of situations and places that I know are hurting and need God's peace and love, though I spent the last 5 minutes literally hugging the globe, and remembering that even in the darkest and most difficult times, God is still close, whatever we may feel, and that His love is truly never-failing.
And friends who I don't see so often, know that as I went to bed tonight, I was praying and thinking of you all.
Today I had a bit more time, so decided to use my new book that I got for my birthday (the inspiration for my 40 days = 40 ways to pray) to see what suggestions it had to offer, and the first one I saw that I liked was to get a bowl and a pile of beans, and each time you put a bean into the bowl, you hear a satisfying 'thud' and thank God for something in your life.
I don't have any beans, but I do have a heart-shaped vase filled with paper stars (the ones all little girls make thousands of in Singapore, China and other such places), so I tipped them all out and spent the afternoon putting them back into the vase as I thanked God for all sorts of things in my life, from friends to my android phone, gardening to Elliott Elifant.
I was surprised by how good it feels to not just use short simple thanks prayers (e.g. before you eat, before you go to bed, when your car starts etc.), but have a concentrated time of thanksgiving and blessing-counting. Perhaps not something I'm going to do everyday, but certainly something I will try to do on a weekly basis.
I went to a prayer meeting today, one of those 'traditional' kinds which involve lots of people praying together, sharing concerns and talking about their recent spiritual lives. I used to lead several of these myself, in my various roles of 'Prayer Sec', 'Prayer Co-Ordinator' and 'Prayer Leader'. People also used to ask me to pray for them as they said I was a good pray-er. Whatever that means!
I used to thrive in prayer gatherings, inspiring myself and others to spend a decent amount of time in prayer, and I used to do 'crazy' things like organise prayer pub crawls that would last for others, and involved a solid few hours of spoken prayer for all kinds of things. We even did a prayer outreach once, praying for people who walked past us in the school halls, really freaking them out!
I've found I've changed a bit since I last went to a prayer meeting, and don't find planned praying together as exciting as either spontaneous group prayer, or praying by myself. But it can be helpful to share concerns, to know that others are praying for, and with, you, and that you can support them in this very meaningful way. It also helps to feed ideas off each other, and you're very much aware of the scripture 'where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them'.
Not quite sure if being attentive is a form of prayer; different groups argue both ways. But there is something quite amazing about when you actually see God at work in quite an obvious and, in some ways, dramatic manner.
Today was going to be a stressful day - teaching a large group of mixed-level (absolute beginner to intermediate) Nepali women, none of whom have gone to any school for more than 5 years in total, and many of whom are retired; and finishing with a group of people I'd been struggling with weekly for a few years. But just listening to what God had to say, trusting him in faith, and following his lead, meant that I couldn't have worked things out better, even if I'd been writing my life as an intellectual activity.
There's something jubilant, buoyant, eternal and ethereal about the praise and worship that follows such a time of closeness to God. And there's something powerfully peaceful where childlike trust in our heavenly father transforms even the most confused and seemingly difficult situations.
Not sure whether this is really a form of prayer, or just something fun I did today, but it's what I used as a basis for my prayer time, so am going to write it up anyway.
So, some of you may know that I'm currently exploring my calling and what I might be doing in the future, of which a part is to read books advised by 'experts' I see on a weekly basis, spend a lot of time in different forms of prayer, and try out different aspects of a possible future career.
One of the books I was given is due to be returned this week, so I spent a large portion of today reading the advice it had to offer, and meditating on what various things stated meant to me. So my prayer time today was a kind of three-way conversation between me, God and the author of said book.
I learnt a bit more about the identity and content of the career I'm looking into, and discovered that I have examples of how I have already undertaken and achieved much of the assumed criteria that one who takes such a role has to have. It was quite fascinating all in all, and a tremendous encouragement for the things I've already done, as well as increasing still further the hope I have about maybe someday finding the boundaries of my calling.
