Are You Praying?

 

During Lent many of us decide that we are going to work on our prayer life.  For some of us it is a matter of making enough time in our day to utter a prayer for those we love.  For others, it is a matter of asking “What is the prayer that needs to be prayed in me during this season?”  The thing I have learned over the last several years of observing Lent, is that prayer takes many forms.

 

A few weeks ago, I spent a day at a monastery.  I went there to pray, to get away from the noise of the city and the busyness of my life.  I packed up all my prayer tools--my prayer book and my Bible and my journal—and off I went.  After lunch, I decided to take a break from my schedule of prayer and I went for a long walk on the monastery grounds.

 

At the end of my walk I found myself at the foot of a cross.  Someone had begun a prayer garden with a cross in the middle of it.  As I sat there on a bench in front of this cross rising up out of concrete and bricks and stepping stones, a man in a white truck drove up.  He rolled down his window and in a thick Spanish accent asked, “Are you praying?”

 

I thought to myself, “Well I guess it depends on your definition of prayer.”  I told him I was just sitting and thinking.  So he got out of his truck, got some tools out of the back, and began work on the cross.  He asked if I liked his work.  He had been in search of plants to put at the foot of the cross.  Then he talked about a plaque he wanted to put in the concrete base that would make the area a memorial to his friend’s sons who had died.

 

We talked about what plants would survive the cold of winter and heat of summer.  We talked about how busy the friars were and that no one would have time to tend this garden.  Throughout the whole conversation, we stayed at the foot of the cross--the man on his knees digging in the dirt and me sitting on a bench.  It struck me in those moments that we were praying together.  In that brief exchange without knowing each other’s names, we joined our voices with the sound of the birds.  Our talk of plants, death, busyness, and the cross became a prayer for the earth, for his friend, for the friars and for each other.

 

My hope for us all during this Lenten season is that we will be open to the many ways God invites us to pray.