waking up to prayer

Yesterday was the first day of our summer break from the routine of public community prayer. Generally, our pattern of daily prayer has more or less followed the pattern of school holidays, with regular breaks in the rhythm. Last year, though, I opted out of the summer break (apart from a couple of days during the Stories of Hope and Home camping trip), and we have continued to pray, here in this space (and occasionally elsewhere because "have facebook will travel") throughout the year.

On 16th March 2020 we began livestreaming morning prayer. A small community gathered. Since then I reckon that's a total of 353 times of prayer of which I have missed only a handful due to commitments elsewhere.

So yesterday was the first weekday since last February when I could have had a lie-in (needless to say, didn't!); the first weekday, more or less, when I have not woken up to pray with others.

I love the rich variety in my life and the fact that no two days are exactly the same. I know that I would not be suited to a 9 - 5 lifestyle. But I do also appreciate the importance of routine; the points which hold everything else together, the frame on which the rest of life can hang. Maybe all, or at least many, of us need both of these things: structure and variety.

I have long valued our rhythm of prayer, for reasons I often find it difficult to articulate. This past year and a half, perhaps more than ever, I have been grateful for the constancy of it. When everything else had to be reinvented, multiple times, often at short notice, there was, always, prayer.

In the midst of the storm, this has been my anchoring point. 

I am very grateful for its existence and very grateful for those who have shared in it.