I am in the middle of the second week of the "Full of Grace" study by Johnette Benkovic (through the apostolate "Women of Grace"). The second week focuses on prayer. Vocal prayer, meditation and contemplation, all three types of prayer seem to ellude me most days. So, I was going to go find some sort of meditation podcast so that I could use it first thing in the morning. (A while back, I was praying the rosary first thing every morning...but as I am really not a morning person, I had a hard time focusing, and I became a human jungle gym for my girls as soon as they woke up as I attemted to pray with both of them trying to take my rosary to wear around the house...)
I found out that hubby must be having a similar difficulty with morning prayer. He's set up a folding chair in our laundry room (the closest thing we have to a quiet space in our two bedroom one bath house) and was trying to read something to meditate on. However, he hasn't had much success with that.
Fortunately for me, he had already found something to try out. The podcast is called "Pray-as-you-go" and is a 10-13 minute prayer and reflection time. Beautiful music, readings, reflection/meditation questions are all in it; the podcast is produced by the British Jesuits, so great accents, too (I have an unnatural love for British accents!)
So, I listened to my first one today (I actually don't think it was today's podcast...not sure which ones hubby chose to download, and since we have them on my old Ipod shuffle, there's no screen to tell me what day it was for!) Absolutely amazing! The scripture reading was (naturally, I don't remember the book, chapter or verse...I think it was from Matthew, but could be horribly wrong) about a person going out and sowing seeds, and then waking and rising everyday, until finally the harvest was ready. Then it went on to the parable of the mustard seed.
So, I was struck by how I need to sow the seeds for spiritual growth not by doing great things (I'm always tempted to give up if I can't pray "properly"!) but by doing small things. Getting up and attempting meditation every morning and accepting my imperfectness and what I am able to do will help me grow more than grand resolutions to pray X,Y, and Z everyday in a perfect (or close to perfect) manner.
Hopefully I will be able to remember that it can be small things that leads to a great harvest!
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