Morning Prayer 17/100. Forgetful

Forgetful

Forgetful

Forgetful thanks to my intense attention to a work assignment, I overlooked posting yesterday’s Morning Prayer. Or, what is now today’s Morning Prayer. About being forgetful. Spiritually forgetful.

So often I begin a day by reminding myself to pray frequently, to pray at the spur of the moment, to pray without planning, to pray for no reason, to pray and then to pray some more.

So often, about 8 o’clock in the evening, I figuratively pinch myself for not having prayed as much, as often, as spontaneously, as freely as I intended.

The human world gets in the way of that praying. Correction: that’s my human world that gets in the way, the human world I create and live in. My human world that includes all the wonderful, testing, exciting, trying, joyful, stressful elements I bring to it. It is my creation. Maybe I didn’t build the house Cindy and I love and live in, but we do create the comfort and the concern from our home. Maybe I didn’t charter Dell Computer, but I do manifest the stress and the delight I take from my work there. Maybe I didn’t design the body costume which my mind directs, but I do generate the fitness, the health, even the discomfort of my current sinus condition.

And I let all that “stuff” that I create as my human world get in my spiritual way. No doubt about it.

Here’s the good. The response to being forgetful is to be forgiving. Rather than the oft-used adage, forgive and forget, how about if you forget, forgive yourself.

Spirit and all that is spiritual pay no attention to time. They’re not going to disappear if I forget to pray or post or merely be still and know Spirit. Forgetting once (or several times) doesn’t penalize me by taking away future opportunities. Those opportunities are always there.

Don’t forget that!

Good Friend God,
When I forget what’s on my spiritual to-do list
I take relief that you do not forget.
You are always and all at once the Presence I AM.
You continually bless me with Christ Spirit
that reminds me to forgive when something is forgotten.
You bless me that my thoughts are my reality, my experience,
and you help me not forget that truth
by allowing me to know and share my thanks.
You gift me the power to pray with you by myself and with others.
As you set no prayer quota, forgetting now does not reduce
how many prayers we may yet share.
You grace me that this human world of people and situations
shows me that living out loud my love and faith
is The Way.
Thank you, Good Friend.
And so it is. Amen.

Tim

07/30/2015