FLOW

friday dispatch: on the loss of left-brain spirituality

“Prayer Time”

If you had asked me ten years ago whether I expected prayer to get easier or harder over time, I am sure I would have said “easier, of course.” Twenty-three year old me was praying, well, a lot. I was basically convinced that it was a sin if I didn’t take my prayer time on any given day—as in, I absolutely remember confessing the sin of not taking my prayer time to priests on several occasions. A few of them were level-headed enough to ask me, “so, who told you that’s a sin?” … but in my zeal I dismissed their objection as a sign that they weren’t really that serious about holiness. They probably wore Hawaiian shirts when they were off-duty, and were therefore disqualified from giving ME spiritual advice.

Okay, maybe I’m being a bit hard on myself. But I’m sorry to say this isn’t much of an exaggeration. I was told by a priest at one point that I, a lay woman in graduate school, needed to pray not one but TWO holy hours—that’s sixty minutes, times two, in the presence of the Eucharist—every. day. AND, on top of that, I really ought to be praying the rosary, daily, attending Mass, daily, doing 30 minutes of spiritual reading, daily, doing an examination of conscience, daily. I mean, my God, I should have qualified as a third-order religious with that lineup. Maybe even second-order, if that’s a thing.