Categories: theology-philosophy
Date: 27 March 2010 14:25:05
The last chapter that I read this week was praying the Franciscan way. In many ways, this is what I currently do when I do pray. The How Great Thou Art post was very much along those lines. The beauty of nature is the one thing throughout my life which has always made me believe that there must be a creator God. I always find nature inspiring and emotional.
I pray ‘arrow’ prayers if I see an accident or an emergency vehicle going past. If I encounter someone or something, I will quite often say a ‘help them God’ prayer. The only thing I don’t do is any sort of prayer involving myself and what I need. This is mainly due to my thoughts about myself though, and my ‘unworthiness’ for anything.
And so we come to the day before Palm Sunday. The last day of no Facebookness. And yes, my entire Lent has been so empty because of the lack of it!! I’m really rather impressed with myself that I’ve managed it. Which in one sense sounds ridiculous, and for anyone who didn’t know how much time I spent on there, also sounds ridiculous. After all, it’s only a website! I look forward to my friend ‘eating her head’ tomorrow, as this is what she said she’d do if I managed it (she is clearly one who <i>does</i> know the extent of my addition!!). But has it made any difference to how I will ‘use’ it from tomorrow on? I’m not sure. I guess the only thing is has done is made me realise how much more relaxed an evening I have when I don’t spend the entire of it on the internet, and how nice it is to read or do a jigsaw. Hopefully this is something I will endeavour to do more often.
The second part of my Lent ‘doings’ was obviously the prayer bit. I’ve read about half of the book rather than the whole book. I have no excuse for not reading it all – it’s just pure laziness. I’ve struggled, as usual, with all the same questions I always have, and will probably always continue to have. I have tried, however, to pray a bit even though I’ve felt empty and nothingness so much of the time. I wish I had managed to read further, although am not sure how much further benefit would have been had anyway.
I have definitely learnt that it’s not important how you pray, and that you don’t even need to use words sometimes. I’ve had the chance to read and find out more about different styles of prayer, and if I ever get round to it, will find out even more.
My current main struggle is as much to do with the lack of ‘feeling’ I have. I am finding it difficult to explain this though! I assume this is linked to the depression (begun to unintentionally type ‘desperation’ then, maybe that is what I mean!!) and associated medication. I know I do really need to get back to the docs to sort this... but... yes.