Thoughts on Prayer...

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It seems that, as my life transitions from one season to the next, I must rediscover prayer.  I've experienced so many seasons since I first met the One who is love incarnate.

When I was a little lad, my father used to tuck me and my siblings into bed each night.  He would say good night and we would say our prayers.  They were mostly rote prayers that we had memorized (e.g. "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep...", "Our Father who art in heaven..", etc.).

Following a religious conversion experience over a decade ago I relearned how to pray.  I took off to an evangelical bibleschool in Germany and learned about praying with others and spontaneous, unscripted prayer.

In the years that followed I learned to pray in silence, to pray with my eyes and with my ears.  I learned to pray with the church throughout the ages.  I learned to pray the prayers of other as if they were mine - I learned to make them mine.  I learned to follow the guidance of the saints and martyrs of the church as I sought communion with God.  I learned the comfort of joining the great cloud of witnesses who came before me in a prayer unceasing.

Recently, my little sacred space for prayer that I had set up in my study was removed to make room for my newborn son.  I have found myself forced to rediscover - not in a major way, but in a logistical way, which is surprisingly challenging.  I had a place reserved for kneeling and for quietude.  It was a place where I could gaze upon the face of Jesus and simply be.  It was a place where I could ask for guidance, a place where I could bare my hopes and fears.  It was a sacred space that I could easily enter into.  It was very important to me and it's gone.

These shifts (both small and large) that take place during the various seasons of life often do indeed provide cause for relearning or rediscovering prayer.  I thank my God for them, for the chances to grow and face such challenges.  Christians are called to seek the divine face, to travel the road leading to greater and deepened communion with Him.  These changes, these challenges are opportunities to travel that road.  A road traveled by the heart rather than the feet.  We do not draw near, after all, by movement in place to the one who is present everywhere, but instead by a movement of the heart and of the will - this movement is only accomplished through prayer.

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Thoughts on Parenting: Deo Gratias...

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"And what happened, then? Well, in Whoville they say - that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day.  And then - the true meaning of Christmas came through, and the Grinch found the strength of *ten* Grinches, plus two! "

Last night, after we had put little Isaac to bed, my wife and I were having some relaxed adult time - watching ER and sipping on tea.  When all of a sudden, the little guy started to cry out great cries of fear and distress.  So I jumped up and headed into the dark of his room.  Though not being able to see him, I found him and gently lifted him up to my chest and reassured him, "oh, everything's okay... papa's here."  As I held his little body next to mine and his cries turned to soft whimpers, my heart almost exploded with love.

I've often been quoted as referring to love as "procreative": love grows; love spreads; love begets love.  I feel a lot like the Grinch.  I feel that fathering Isaac has caused my heart to grow.  Whereas the Grinch learned the true meaning of Christmas that day, I'm learning the true meaning of love.  Little Isaac, with his gifts of vulnerability and need, is teaching me.  Well, maybe it's more accurate to say that the Lord is teaching me through my care of, and relationship with, Isaac.  Nonetheless, I believe that my capacity for love - both in giving and receiving - is indeed growing.  When I met my wife and our relationship grew, I knew that I was in for a lifelong encounter with love.  I knew that my life was heading in a direction of the Divine, that love was to be the lesson I was to learn.  Isaac's arrival into our life has only confirmed that belief.  His arrival is a part of this journey of sanctification that we are on together.

Indeed, what a beautiful responsibility it is to be the parents of this guy - to be the ones who can provide comfort, reassurance, love, care, and tired arms to hold him when he is fussy or fearful.

My short experience thus far in parenting has also further confirmed one other truth: love and fidelity are inseparable.  To the extent that I have an unwavering fidelity to another - be it my lovely wife, or my little child - I am also able to grow in love with and for that person.  And the more that divine gift of love grows, the more unwavering my fidelity becomes.  I remember holding our fussy little newborn at all hours through the day and night.  Often as I held him and comforted him I would sing quietly a line from a song that I had heard on the radio: "I won't turn and walk away / you can count on me, you can count on me."  There is a beauty in that promise, a promise that I made to my wife on our wedding day, a promise that was made to our son on the day of his birth.

Isaac is sleeping now.  He is a picture of beauty, asleep in his crib.  I look at him with awe and wonder.  What a marvelous creation he is.  What a marvelous gift.

Words fail me when I look at him, when I hold him.  All I can say is: Deo Gratias (Thanks be to God)!

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