Musings: Notes From My Daybook

Tonight I launch a study of prayer at Northlake. Hopeful and nervous, ill-prepared and excited, I've been re-editing a course schedule and preparing handouts all through the early morning. When I say ill-prepared I mean that everytime I have worked on the curriculum this summer I have this strong, unsettled feeling of how much there is for me to learn.

Which in turn brings hope. Each week throughout the fall I plan to introduce some aspect of prayer to a group of people who want to grow in their prayer life. Each week will also bring time for us to practice prayer--together. The plan is to create a laboratory of learning. Ideas and practice, chalk board and playing field, melding theory into praxis as a community. So though I am the facilitator I expect to be a learner as well.

Because, after all the books and after all the scriptures, there still remains the vital element of practice--the practice of prayer in the contexts of real life. There is a lot I still need to learn, but I've learned enough to know that prayer can not be studied in the academy and thereby hope to have mastered it. Prayer, like medicine, is practiced. And I'm excited about the practice of prayer in community.