New Quotation of the Week:

I have been pondering prayer (nice alliteration!) this past week. Currently my life is so full, so rushed, that I hunger and thirst for prayer, for an extended time (a few days, or more than a few days) of silent retreat where I can bare my soul before Christ and let Him work in me.

But in the meantime, I try to pray the Morning Office of Prayer in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer which takes half an hour or so. On the rare days that I don't even have that much time, I rely only on Phyllis Tickle's wonderful Divine Hours series which consists of three volumes, Prayers for Summertime, Prayers for Autumn/Wintertime, and Prayers for Springime. These volumes take us through the entire year, allowing four times of prayer each day: Morning, Mid-Day, Evening, and Compline. Basically the prayers are simply Scripture with a few exceptions, most of which come directly from the Book of Common Prayer. These prayers become my lifeline to retaining my sanity, and perhaps my humanity so that I don't morph into a pack of wolves or something.

So it's from this desire for prayer that I found this scribbled sentence in my Quotation Journal. Although it was written or stated by a man who respected Christ but not His followers, and for the latter reason, did not desire to convert to Christianity. However, his statement about prayer is all the more powerful:

"Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening."

-- Gandhi, quoted on Twitter by Rev. Bosco Peters of Liturgy New Zealand

Gandhi is quite right. Prayer should unlock our souls each morning as we prepare for the day ahead of us, and it should lock up our minds as the last thing we consciously think before closing our eyes to sleep. Now, as always, there is the "rub" of obeying the Nike slogan: JUST DO IT!