Someone asked me earlier this week how I'd spend my ideal day.
That got me to fantasizing (no, not like that ...) about what an ideal day for a Christian might be. So, first a timetable:
6am Getting up to say Morning Prayer
6:30 Reading/study
7 Breakfast and showering (probably not at the same time)
8 Administration (emails and the like)
9 Reading/study
11 Evangelism (probably online)
12pm Midday prayer
12:15 Lunch
1 Reading/study
Okay, I'll stop now.
I'm getting bored even just typing it. And I can see how unfeasible all this is. The ideal is that I would get up early to pray, to do some study, to deal with all my admin in an hour, and to punctuate the day with regular prayer times. Is my ideal of the Christian life actually this monastic? Probably! -- but all this assumes that I don't share a life with my wife or our fur children, that I don't actually have work to do on occasion, that I don't check Facebook far too often, that I don't spend time on Netflix. So this vision of my ideal life as a Christian is far from realistic. But that's my fantasy.
So let me excavate another layer. When it comes to saying my prayers ... well, I am impressed by those whose context allows them to attend Morning Prayer (or similar). I have found, twenty years that saying the Daily Office has been part of my life, that saying Morning Prayer by myself is far more stultifying than I care to admit. These days I say "Prayer in the Midday" but I do feel guilty when I miss it. The Daily Office is really something that should be done communally because without the presence of others, it's all too easy to abandon it or to feel that it's a pointless exercise. But that is my fantasy.
I need to go further.
When I was in seminary, I made a prie-dieu to use. In the intervening years, of course, it's been lost amongst all the moves. As has my copy of Daily Prayer that I used as a student. I'm "old school" enough that I still need a hard copy of the Daily Prayer office; digital formats just simply don't work with me. I find the need to have something material to make me feel "connected" to the Word who became flesh -- hence the desire for a prie-dieu in a small corner of my home and a that old leather-bound copy of Daily Prayer I had. There's really no room in our home for a prie-dieu, anyway, and I can't justify spending all that money for a Daily Prayer book when I have two fine copies of the Book of Common Prayer now. But, like I said, this is my fantasy.
I also fantasize about maintaining -- no, being -- a stable, pious presence on social media. Aside from blogging, the only other social media I really do with any consistency is Facebook. Sometimes I get caught up in pointless discussions, and sometimes I have been called out and/or shamed for not having a view that someone else has (thank you, polarized American culture wars). And so I attempt to maintain a peaceful, Christlike online presence where people will know me by my serenity and occasional nuggets of wisdom. But truth be told, I'm just as likely to share something funny (cats are always funny -- unless they're scratching at the door at 5 am to wake you for no reason -- but I digress). And usually I'll share a few articles I've read from some other source (back to politics again). Needless to say, once I've done so and have been on the receiving end of yet another diatribe about how wrong I can be, I regret Facebook and wish, once again, that I could be that stable, pious presence on social media of my fantasy. For indeed, that is my fantasy.
So where do all these fantasies lead me? What can I say? All I can say is that I remain as determined as ever to walk by the Spirit and live under the lordship of Christ, ever-grateful that God is gracious. And this is not so much my fantasy as it is my reality.
So, in all honesty, this is what my reality probably looks like:
That got me to fantasizing (no, not like that ...) about what an ideal day for a Christian might be. So, first a timetable:
6am Getting up to say Morning Prayer
6:30 Reading/study
7 Breakfast and showering (probably not at the same time)
8 Administration (emails and the like)
9 Reading/study
11 Evangelism (probably online)
12pm Midday prayer
12:15 Lunch
1 Reading/study
Okay, I'll stop now.
I'm getting bored even just typing it. And I can see how unfeasible all this is. The ideal is that I would get up early to pray, to do some study, to deal with all my admin in an hour, and to punctuate the day with regular prayer times. Is my ideal of the Christian life actually this monastic? Probably! -- but all this assumes that I don't share a life with my wife or our fur children, that I don't actually have work to do on occasion, that I don't check Facebook far too often, that I don't spend time on Netflix. So this vision of my ideal life as a Christian is far from realistic. But that's my fantasy.
So let me excavate another layer. When it comes to saying my prayers ... well, I am impressed by those whose context allows them to attend Morning Prayer (or similar). I have found, twenty years that saying the Daily Office has been part of my life, that saying Morning Prayer by myself is far more stultifying than I care to admit. These days I say "Prayer in the Midday" but I do feel guilty when I miss it. The Daily Office is really something that should be done communally because without the presence of others, it's all too easy to abandon it or to feel that it's a pointless exercise. But that is my fantasy.
I need to go further.
When I was in seminary, I made a prie-dieu to use. In the intervening years, of course, it's been lost amongst all the moves. As has my copy of Daily Prayer that I used as a student. I'm "old school" enough that I still need a hard copy of the Daily Prayer office; digital formats just simply don't work with me. I find the need to have something material to make me feel "connected" to the Word who became flesh -- hence the desire for a prie-dieu in a small corner of my home and a that old leather-bound copy of Daily Prayer I had. There's really no room in our home for a prie-dieu, anyway, and I can't justify spending all that money for a Daily Prayer book when I have two fine copies of the Book of Common Prayer now. But, like I said, this is my fantasy.
I also fantasize about maintaining -- no, being -- a stable, pious presence on social media. Aside from blogging, the only other social media I really do with any consistency is Facebook. Sometimes I get caught up in pointless discussions, and sometimes I have been called out and/or shamed for not having a view that someone else has (thank you, polarized American culture wars). And so I attempt to maintain a peaceful, Christlike online presence where people will know me by my serenity and occasional nuggets of wisdom. But truth be told, I'm just as likely to share something funny (cats are always funny -- unless they're scratching at the door at 5 am to wake you for no reason -- but I digress). And usually I'll share a few articles I've read from some other source (back to politics again). Needless to say, once I've done so and have been on the receiving end of yet another diatribe about how wrong I can be, I regret Facebook and wish, once again, that I could be that stable, pious presence on social media of my fantasy. For indeed, that is my fantasy.
So where do all these fantasies lead me? What can I say? All I can say is that I remain as determined as ever to walk by the Spirit and live under the lordship of Christ, ever-grateful that God is gracious. And this is not so much my fantasy as it is my reality.
So, in all honesty, this is what my reality probably looks like:
