Making the Case for Trying The Divine Hours
I’ve been using a form of “fixed hour prayer” (set prayer at regular intervals through the day) called The Divine Hours, by Phyllis Tickle for nearly three years now. Here’s my story. I was dreading certain work days—those days in the office when I was pressed into the usual, “too much to do, too little time” mode. I badly needed some way to connect with God during my work day. If the God connection doesn’t work at work, then it doesn’t work, does it? So I brought The Divine Hours with me to work and began to use it in fits and starts for the mid-day prayers. Now it’s a part of my daily prayer: morning, noon and night most days.
I’d like to make the case for fixed hour prayer as the staple of a daily life of prayer; perhaps not for everyone, of course. But for many.
In her introduction to The Divine Hours, Phyllis Tickle provides a historical background to fixed hour prayer. That it is reflected in the Hebrew Scriptures (“evening, morning and noon-day, I will complain and lament….seven times a day will I praise you”) as well as the New Testament. That Jesus, as an observant Jew, would have observed periods of set prayer at regular intervals through the day. And that his followers continued the practice as alluded to in the Acts of the Apostles, with the first healing taking place as Peter and John were headed for their noon time prayers, and the “let the Gentiles in” vision of Peter taking place while he was observing afternoon prayers on a roof. Tickle sites The Didache, an apostolic era teaching manual, which recommends the use of the Lord’s Prayer three times a day.
As the church penetrated the Roman Empire, and that same empire, with its high literacy rate devolved into a state of widespread illiteracy, the practice of fixed hour prayer fell into disuse and was preserved in the monastic tradition of the church, and later the priesthood of the Roman church. Since then, it has been partly revived through the Book of Common Prayer (Church of England) but has remained largely dormant. Until just recently.
As a Christian shaped in my devotional practices by the evangelical wing of the church (I’m an incorrigible Jesus freak) I received the practice called “morning devotions.” My comrades would think of daily prayer primarily within this paradigm: take an hour or half-hour (less for beginners) preferably in the morning to read the Bible and pray, using mental or conversational prayer from the heart . This prayer would consist of intercession, thanksgiving, and praise. It would be spontaneous prayer. That is, expressing in one’s own words what is in one’s heart, directly to God. For the charismatically inclined, prayer in tongues in the devotional form, would be sprinkled like salt on fries.
Lurking just below the surface of this evangelical standard model is the mostly unspoken and therefore unexamined discomfort with “set prayers,” that is prayers which were made up by someone else for use by others. Even the Lord’s Prayer, which was also made up by someone else for use by others, would be viewed primarily as an outline for prayer. To simply take the words as they’ve been handed down to us and pray them as one’s own would be perhaps, according to this view, to miss the point of this prayer.
This discomfort is grounded on the undeniable reality that many of those raised in the traditional-historical churches of the Orthodox, Roman, Reformed, Lutheran, and Anglican persuasions, grew out of a childhood faith that emphasized the saying of set prayers, into an adult agnosticism, or into a tepid, dispirited faith. All too often, the evangelical practice of speaking out prayers of the heart or “just talking to God” was unheard of. At least, in my Episcopalean family, I never heard anyone pray like this. In my mind, and this is probably grossly unfair but a real impression nevertheless, there were Christians who went through the motions of prayer once a week by using set prayers, and there were these other Christians who spoke of having a relationship with God, expressed by just talking to him when they prayed. I left the ranks of the set prayer Christians to become an enlightened non-believer, then joined the evangelicals who just talk to God when they pray.
This discomfort with set prayers is imbedded in most of the stories of coming to faith that I’ve told myself countless times and heard from especially my baby boomer peers: that I (we) grew up knowing about God, attending church in a rote way, going through the motions of legalistic religion, but not knowing Him. And that now, through a spiritual awakening, have put off our childish ways, and extracted the baby (faith in Jesus) from the bathwater of all this inauthentic religion.
Don’t get me wrong: I believe these stories are so pervasive because they bear witness to real experience. It’s just that I’m no longer confident that the only thing we’ve tossed out is bathwater, or that the only thing we’ve preserved is baby.
So for decades, I soldiered on in daily prayer guided by the standard evangelical format. Not that I didn’t occasionaly pray the Lord’s Prayer as given, or sprinkle my spontaneous prayers with use of the psalms, or the prayers of the Apocalypse, or the Pauline prayers. But these were used only sporadically.
Of course, I will, as well I ought, be forever grateful for the permission, the appreciation, and the encouragement I received from the standard evangelical model of prayer to simply get on with the business of talking to the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. But here’s my, I hope, mild complaint: it wasn’t enough. The model is unnecessarily restrictive in it’s emphasis, and perhaps, not to put too fine a point on it, misses an essential point, which is this: we Christians are meant to practice something one might call Jesus brand spirituality, which begins with the notion that we would do well to follow in his footsteps in this matter of prayer. That if the daily bread of daily prayer for Jesus included the practice of prayer at more or less set intervals through the day and if this practice was continued by his first followers, we would do well to take notice, and consider this practice a good place to start if not finish, the practice of daily prayer.
To press my criticism of the evangelical standard model even further, I assert that for many people, including highly motivated people, it doesn’t work. In fairness, it should noted that the model I’m criticizing is a stripped down version of the evangelical standard model—one that doesn’t include the older evangelical practices like “the family altar” or an informal collection of specific things to do like readings from “My Utmost for His Highest” by Oswald Chambers. And the reason it doesn’t work is the reason so many good ideas don’t work: it doesn’t take human weakness into account. Most people, including born-again people, simply don’t have the motivation or self-discipline, or whatever else it takes to work self-constructed daily prayer into their lives.
Again, back to my baby-boomer solipsistic source of choice: autobiography. I am a pastor of the full-time paid variety. And have been for a long time. Which means I am paid to, among other things, put this stuff into practice in my own life (a not inconsiderable motivation, I am embarrassed to admit, though it should be obvious.) And I found it a constant struggle—the setting aside of this loosely formatted daily prayer time. And many of my fellows, also paid to put this Christianity business into practice, similarly struggled. And many, most perhaps, of my fellow believers not paid to put these things into practice, struggled more than I did.
And finally, the tipping point: over the past ten years, we’ve seen a much higher proportion of newcomers make their way to Christ with relatively little prior religious experience. People who are the fruit of secularism gone wild a few decades ago. I finally admitted to myself that the reason I didn’t conscientiously pass on my convictions about the value of daily prayer, had nothing to do with pastoral neglect. I simply knew in my gut that they wouldn’t be able to put into practice this thing. Not most of them—even the highly motivated.
An alcoholic would call this hitting “rock bottom.” A wonderful place for getting a grip and finding a little traction after much spinning of wheels. This is when I slowly, in fits and starts, began to introduce myself to the practice of fixed hour prayer. Based mostly on the psalms (duh!) and the regular use of the Lord’s Prayer (genius!) and sprinkling in of set prayers, titled bafflingly “collects” and more accessibly things like “Prayer for the Week.”
I started off with a little prayer book by Angela Tilbey called “Everyday Catholic Prayer”—misnamed I should say if by “Catholic” one means “Roman Catholic” because for the life of me, I couldn’t find the Rosary as I knew it, in this little book. But just as I got the hang of it, the book went out of print. A little divine humor, a little testing there. But then I stumbled into The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle. And now, three years later, I’ve hit a stride.
I should confess that it took maybe 18 months of steady practice before I got over the nagging thought that these set prayers amounted to devotional cheating. A little niggling voice that went “but what if I don’t feel like praying the Lord’s Prayer right now?” A voice that has largely gone away after being more or less ignored for those 18 months, give or take.
Now when newbie Christians asks me about how to pray day by day, I get a feeling of unashamed glee, and tell them about the Divine Hours, and invite them to our next ‘Introducing the Divine Hours Support Group” and find that, glory be!, the ones who try, get the hang of it!
So what is it about The Divine Hours that works as an aid to daily prayer?
1. It is a manual for prayer. A manual! Something that shows you how to do the thing you want to do, step by step. The Bible is not a manual for prayer. It contains the material for a manual, but that’s not the same thing.
2. It makes use of the Psalms in manageable portions. Some of the longer psalms are just too long for most or our attention spans in prayer. Just like we use snatches of songs and poems to express the need or the feeling or the response of the moment, The Divine Hours, provides us with digestable portions of most of the psalms (and shorter ones whole.)
3. It employs some dynamite prayers. Like the Lord’s Prayer. One time I was praying this prayer, just in the normal way—a cut or two above rote, maybe remote would be a better word, when bam! I realized I was praying in the actual thought forms that Jesus suggested I use! For this one moment in time, I was taking his suggestion. I was obeying him. Felt great. And still feels good.
And then some of these “Prayers for the Week.” Like my poet brother in law and Divine Hours afficionado Bill explained, “these prayers were crafted by poets, whose gift it is to put things into words so that we mortals can say the things that are inside of us, but don’t get expressed nearly as well, and then when we use these words, we find that we mean them more than we knew.” Only Bill said it better than that, being a poet himself. But you’re pickin’ up more or less what I’m layin’ down.
4. There is an artist’s hand in selecting and combining readings, refrains, and prayers. This stuff doesn’t come from thin air, these arrangements. And the compiler, Phyllis Tickle is more than a Religion Editor for Publishers Weekly. When I saw that the compiler was a journalist, I thought, “OK, a well connected, finger on the pulse of the world of religion sort, a market savvy kind of person. Not sure if that makes for a good prayer manual producer.” So I walked past the book several times, before finally shelling out the$27.50 retail price. But then as I used this manual, oh, the connections this lady forged between one thing and another. Then when I read her memoir, The Shaping of a Life, I realized Mrs. Tickle has been praying a lot for a long time. And these psalms, in particular, have been a major part of that prayer. And a near mystical kind of connection with what C.S. called the deeper magic behind the psalms, if you know what I mean. I say near mystical, because there was nothing in the memoir about rolling around on the floor or levitating, or losing her grip on reality, like the mystics of old, but just about everything else. So not certifiable, nothing to get the religious authorities alarmed (but only because they are mostly preoccupied with lesser dangers) but nearly.
And for those evangelicals like myself, who might be a little on guard at learning that Tickle is a well known Episcopalean (anglo-catholic wing, as far as I know),
don’t be put off. I think the woman may be a modern day Jonathan Edwards—one who views the mind as a window to the heart, heat and light, but light first, please. Like Edwards, she understands sin, but sees it as the providential opportunity for grace to abound. And though she’d probably dismiss the comparison, may end up, like Edwards as a leading voice in another Great Awakening. But of course, the Divine Hours is not about the compiler.
5. Which brings me to the real pay-off (at least for me) in using this manual. When you get into the rythym of this thing, God talks to you through these psalms and refrains and readings, like he’s just been waiting to get a word in edgewise, and now that you’re giving him half a chance, he’s got some things to say. Because it’s difficult to separate these times of prayer from all the things going on in your actual life. So in the middle of the day, as you’ve accumulated a half-day’s worth of irritations from the people who populate the planet along with you, there’s a little more meaning in praying, “forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us,” when it’s all so real and undeniably fresh. You haven’t been able to get into “separate from the world, church mode” as you walk from the parking lot into the sanctuary, because this kind of prayer is happening in your office, or in your living room or in your bed at night. Where most of the action is.
Call it serendipity, call it, “isn’t this spiritual dimension cool?”, call it what you will, but there is a lot more intersection happening between heaven and earth and one’s soul when this manual works it’s way into your life. At least that’s what keeps me coming back for more, day after day, and now, year after year.
6. Here’s my final reason for liking The Divine Hours. I think the book looks cool. Yes, I am a shallow enough person that this actually matters to me. I enjoy bringing The Divine Hours into Champions Gym, where I work out a few times a week. (It’s easy to use on the elliptical aerobic machine.) Living in Ann Arbor, a little bubble of secularism in the Mid West, When I bring my Bible to the gym, I’m aware that my fellow beef-cakes are thinking, “Bible Thumper! Beware.” The Divine Hours, on the other hand, is, as I said, cool looking. Like I might be something interesting and non-threatening—a Buddhist perhaps. Naturally, I don’t want to take this line of thinking too far. One doesn’t want to be ashamed of one’s Lord or His original source Book. But it is a real kick to have someone look at the Divine Hours and say, “Hey! What’s that?” without flinching.
So, if you’ve made it this far in “The Case for The Divine Hours” I must be getting close to closing the deal. A few process notes as you consider adding this spiritual discipline to your day.
First, remember a little unyielding fact of life regarding spiritual disciplines. You can’t launch 5 new spiritual disciplines in 5 months time, any more than a growing child could master toilet training, teeth brushing, feeding himself with a spoon, giving up his comfort blanket, and drinking from his own cup in a 5 months time. There seems to be an implementation limit to spiritual disciplines: think in terms of starting a new spiritual discipline “this year” not “this week.” If you’re like me, you’ll start things in “fits and starts.” Once you make peace with this process, you save yourself a lot of grief. Accept your good habit forming limitations and keep on pressing on. I think I might be on the verge of flossing every day—so there’s hope!
If you’re interested in trying out The Divine Hours, you may have noticed that you’re in luck! You are on the web-site that happens to be the headquarters on the world wide web for The Divine Hours. So you can try it out here. If you like it, you probably will want to invest in the books, which are easier to keep by your bedside, for example, than your computer. The entire year is available in three volumes. A cheaper way to tip your toes into the water is to use the smaller paperback versions for Lent and Advent.
When you get started, don’t expect to slip into using it four times a day, everyday (the maximum allowed in The Divine Hours format). Start where you feel the neediest. For me, it was mid-day on those days in the office to help me from feeling overwhelmed by the work to be done. To remember that there is, in fact, a God, and that everything is in his hands. For you, it might be the need to start out the day with God and you’ve failed miserably at the devotional practices you’ve tried. So try this instead. Or maybe you and your spouse are caught up in the “cares of this world” and you’ve not been able to even think about praying together. So you might want to try doing the night prayer together.
By the way, the night prayer is called “Compline.” Before you get too irritated by its being called something like “Compline” and “Why don’t they just call it Night Prayer?” consider this: maybe it’s called Compline to remind us neo-phytes that there’s plenty about praying that we don’t know, or that the church didn’t start last month and has this long history that we are most of us ignorant of, just as we don’t know much about our own family once you go a generation or two back. For myself, I like to think that I can interrupt my natural tendency to complain at the end of the day, with compline. It’s also OK to just be slightly irritated, but to let go and move on.