Hearing things

Today I went to Sacred Space and the Scripture passage was Luke's version of the Lord's Prayer (Luke 11:1-4). What timing, since I just went to that seminar on the Lord's Prayer. And when I went to Living Space, the commentary on the daily readings, the teaching was very similar to what I had heard--that is, use the Lord's Prayer as a pattern for your own prayer. It's almost like Someone is telling me something.

I also noticed it said that yesterday's reading was the story of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42), so I took a look at that, too. It contrasts the choices of Martha--distracted by the tasks that kept her busy--and Mary--sitting and listening to Jesus. I feel that God is giving me a sense that I need to spend more time in prayer and specifically listening for what he has to tell me, but I am distracted by my own activities. I think of how I could carve out one or two half-hour segments for meditative prayer, but I haven't done so yet. To my shame, I know that if I could take a half-hour from my work day for this, I would gladly do it, but when it comes to taking a half-hour from reading a novel or spending time on the web, or blogging, then I'm less willing.

Or taking a half-hour off my sleep in the morning. The trouble is, I would need more sleep, not less, to do this praying. Right now, if I sat and focused on prayer word and synchronized my breathing to it, I know I would be asleep within ten minutes. In order to pray better I need to get enough sleep at night.

I keep praying to pray better. Meanwhile, I'm up late again. I scheduled stuff into my google calendar, I caught up with friends on Facebook, I went and left a comment on my sister's CRC blog (I had forgotten my user name, of course, so it took me ages to log in just to leave a brief remark), and I wrote this blog. I am very, very sleepy. I will go straight to bed, and I know I'll fall asleep quickly, and I imagine I'll have a hard time waking up tomorrow morning.