While spending some time in quiet prayer yesterday at Our Lady of Victory Church in State College, I made up a new word - "PRAYERCRASTINATION". It's a lot of fun to say, and it's even more fun to do!"What is prayercrastination?" you may ask. Well, I would say it's merely wasting time with God. I certainly didn't make this up, in fact that's one of Henri Nouwen's definitions of prayer. Another equally memorable take on prayer that I love comes from St. Teresa of Avila, and it too has a way of washing away many of our dry, formulaic, and weak notions about the nature of authentic Christian prayer. Teresa writes, "Prayer is conversation with Him whom we know loves us."
Time and time again, I find myself painstakingly working to develop the perfect plan for my prayer. I get wrapped up in the attempt to control every aspect of the experience and, like a spiritual Goldilocks, I search for the prayer porridge that's just right. But oftentimes my heartfelt efforts to orchestrate the perfect prayer time has a rather curious and dismal result: I don't pray at all! It's the age-old scourge of allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good - of insisting on the 100% solution when 50 or 60% is all God might need from me right now in order to do His will in and through me.
I know the thing that seems to be most helpful for me in this regard is to keep remembering that "wasting time" with God is always a good idea, no matter what's going on in my often crazy life. After all, in truth, not one minute spent in prayer is a minute really wasted at all.
So drop what you're doing today for a little while, whether it's five minutes or an hour, and PRAYERCRASTINATE with the One who made you, who loves you, who just wants to spend some time with you!
