Phyllis Tickle Responds
In a typical day, how do you use TDH or equivalent at this stage in your life and how did your daily practice of prayer work when you were in the labor-intensive, kids-at-home stage of life?
There's no question about this question: It clearly nails the pelt to the barn door. No wiggle-room allowed here!
Over fifty years of marriage and by the grace of God, Sam and I have produced seven children. One of our sons is deceased, but the others--two boys and four girls--have become so accustomed by now to my Benedictine schedule as to hardly notice. But as the question recognizes, children are not born forgiving of maternal routines. As a result, I did two things when they were young and living with us.
First--and every parent knows this trick--I spent a lot of time in the bathroom. Though I was there to pray and not to do the more customary things, there is something about bathrooms that makes them inviolate, even to small children. And the second thing...very important, I think...is what a wise Rabbi told me once. He said, when I asked him something very close to the question above about the realities of time and domestic duties, "Why, I have always taught and been taught that it is not the prayers we do not say that God cares about. It is the prayers we say that He blesses." Like many observations from wise rabbis, this one cuts two ways. It recognizes that sometimes stopping to pray would be less holy and less obedient and devout than would meeting a human need that can not wait. The Rabbi's axiom also acknowledges that prayer is not an obligation which bears punishment if violated. Rather, prayer is an opportunity that yields the blessing of contact with God.
I spoke above of my routine, but I suspect that that statement needs some clarification to be of much use to anyone reading this. Now, as has been true for almost four decades, I get up a few minutes before 6 each morning to prepare myself for the first (or Prime, as they are called) prayers of the day. Oddly enough--or humorously enough, for human habits die hard--oddly enough, I still observe this office in our bathroom. My ancient copy of THE SHORT BREVIARY rests on the bottom shelf of the bathroom reading rack as it has for years; and I slip into its routines and words and poetry as easily as I slip into the new day.
But fixed-hour prayer can not--indeed, should not--sustain the Christian life all by itself. Now that the children are grown and I can afford the luxury, I go back to bed after the 6 o'clock office and there, for an hour and a half, offer my prayers and petitions to God for my family, our church, the Church, for those whom we know to be in great joy or need or sorrow, for those who have asked for prayers and for some who have not. It is in that hour and a half, also, that I "hear" most of that day's conversation. That it, it is during that time that the Spirit speaks and shapes and suggests most. When the children were with us, that time of intense, personal prayer had to come at night, unfortunately, when I was too tired sometimes to pray or to hear. But the Rabbi's wisdom consoled me in this as well.
By 9 a.m. I am usually in my office, where I observe the office in an arm chair that sits beside my desk. On writing days when I do not go down to the office until after lunch, I observe the fixed-hour in an over-stuffed chair near my writing desk or, sometimes, kneeling or sitting on the floor. And so likewise throughout the day.
At 3 p.m., after the fixed-hour observance, I stop again for some fifteen or twenty minutes of private prayer where, once again, I hold up my family and my own soul for instruction and blessings and sculpting. I will repeat that routine after the office of Compline each evening and before lying down.
And one last word, especially to young mothers. By some illogic of human psychology (or of divine humor) which I do not understand, the expenditure of time in fixed-hour prayer increases the amount of time for the work at hand. If you do not believe me in this, believe the ancients. Or barring belief in them, try it for yourself for a week. One does not pray the offices in order to "gain" anything, including time. It just so happens, however, that more time is a by-product.
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