How Common Prayer?

On March 31st, I began recording my morning and evening prayers and posting them on SoundCloud.  As I said then, my hope was that we might find a way to pray together, as one, in common, using the gift of electronic communication.  Gone, at least for now, are the days when George Herbert could ring the church bell, and the villagers within earshot could come to the church for prayers.

It’s been almost three months, and I feel called to assess how this ministry is going, and for that, I need you reading this.  For I assume that if you’re reading this, you’ve at least shown some interest in what I’m doing, and perhaps have listened at least once.  From the stats on SoundCloud, there are a few of you who regularly participate in this electronic common prayer, and I am very grateful for your support.

I would like to see more participate, and to encourage that, I would truly appreciate any constructive critique you might be willing to offer.  This cycle of going through the entire Psalter, and the narrative reading of scripture, has sustained me spiritually over many years, and it has slowly changed me, I think, into someone less defensive about my own beliefs, more trusting in God’s grace, and more at peace in this broken and divided world.

But more and more, I believe that I am called to make my solitary life of prayer more common.  I want to share the spiritual benefits of my prayer.  But more and more, I want to learn what will make it more possible for others to share in a life of prayer.  And if that means changing my practice of prayer, I am ready and willing to do that.

So what do you think?  I love to chant and appreciate the saying that the one who sings prays twice.  I’ve tried to use simple chants that I have memorized over the years.  How has that worked for you who participated?  More recently, I’ve stopped chanting the Lord’s prayer and the prayers of the day, realizing that that I might have gone overboard.  What do you think?

I’ve used entirely contemporary language, including for The Lord’s Prayer.  This morning, I decided to go back to the traditional form for awhile.  I have used the Common English Bible for the scripture readings because I believe that it’s more important to understand what the scripture is saying than how it sounds.  But I can certainly appreciate the need for beauty in our worship.  Would you like to hear more thees and thous?

Is there enough silence for meditation and reflection?  Too much?  Not enough?  If you haven’t figured it out, you can click on any part of the stream and skip the silence if you like.  But what mix of word and silence would you like?  And what about the words?  What I do is an abbreviated version of Morning and Evening Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer, which is why I always call it A Morning, or An Evening Prayer.  Would you prefer that I recite the whole service?

Or is even what I’m doing now too much?  Do you not have time to spend even 20 minutes in the morning and evening?  Are the psalms and scripture readings and canticles and prayers all too many words?  Might you prefer something shorter, like Phyllis Tickle’s The Divine Hours, which you can check out here and here.  Or would a form of morning and evening prayer from the Saint Augustine’s Prayer Book be more suitable for your needs?

I’ve thrown a lot of ideas out there.  I just want to communicate that everything is on the table.  I don’t want to do this alone.  We need common prayer as much in the 21^st century as it was needed in England when the first Book of Common Prayer was published in 1549.  Help me make our prayer more common, and more holy.