The rhythms of daily prayer and the church year have been a deep part of my spirituality for most of my Christian life. The Psalms, in particular, have been the best prayers for me.
In his book, Psalms: The Prayerbook of the Church, Bonhoeffer wisely counseled: "If we are to pray aright, perhaps it is quite necessary that we pray contrary to our own heart. Not what we want to pray is important, but what God wants us to pray. If we were dependent entirely on ourselves, we would probably pray only the fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer. But God wants it otherwise. The richness of the Word of God ought to determine our prayer, not poverty of our heart". I've always been skeptical in relying upon myself to pray. I know my own heart -- its anger, greed, envy and lust. So I know simply praying -- as so many have urged me over the years -- "to praying whatever is on your heart" isn't the best practice. Instead, allowing the Psalms to become my prayers has been one of the most valuable treasures in prayer. These words open up my words to a wealth of experiences that would probably otherwise go unnamed and unspoken. My heart is simply too small.
Praying the Psalms gives my days a unity they'd otherwise lack. Because, for example, I learn how to forgive my enemies and pray for them in the Psalms. In our world, it's so easy to harbor and nurture anger. We're not exactly encouraged to confront enemies in love, to pray for them and forgive them. That kind of language requires a discipline I've only found in praying the Psalms.
Morning prayer gives my day that kind of unity. In praying through the Psalms for today, I've already been pushed to name the ways I squander my time, the temptations I give into, the weaknesses I have in holding anger, and my lack of courage is relying on God's loving-kindness. And I've been reminded of Paul's wisdom that shaped the monastic communities so much: "Whatever your task, work heartily, as serving the Lord and not men". (I think of the beautiful advice in Brother Lawrence's Practice of the Presence of God.)
Bonhoeffer called the Psalms "the school of prayer" in his Life Together. "The Psalter is the vicarious prayer of Christ for his Church", he wrote. And I think he's right. Everything I know about prayer -- all the praying I've done -- has come from Psalms.
This is why, I think, the Psalms became Bonhoeffer's prayers while he was in prison: "I read the Psalms every day, as I have done for years; I know them and love them more than any other book. I cannot now read Psalms 3, 47, 70 and others without hearing them in the settings of Heinrich Schutz. It was Renate who introduced me to his music, and I count it one of the greatest enrichments of my life" (Letters and Papers from Prison). And again: "For the first twelve days, during which I was segregated and treated as a felon -- up to now the cells on each side of me have been occupied solely by handcuffed men awaiting death -- Paul Gerhardt was an unexpectedly helpful standby, and so were the Psalms and Revelation".
What strikes me so much about Bonhoeffer isn't that he was hung by the Nazis. Thousands were killed every day. It's that he wrote and prayed and talked about Jesus and loving one's enemies and prayer everyday while in prison. He died as he lived.
In the end, we find a man whose heart was after the ways of God in the face of a complex and challenging culture. The daily practice of dwelling in and receiving guidance from the Word of God, with an emphasis on praying the Psalms with and in Christ, brought life in the Spirit which enabled his nonviolence and forgiveness. Christ is the Lord of all, I can hear him say, no matter who else claims authority. We can only learn and confess that in praying the Psalms.
Over the years, folks have asked how I structure my prayer life, looking for some great theological wisdom, I guess. But my praying has always been the Psalms. I learnt that from monks and theologians and saints. The Psalms proved a good teacher to my teachers -- like Bonhoeffer. I can't improve on that.