A Review of "In Constant Prayer"

I was delighted when "In Constant Prayer" popped up as an option for a review on booksneeze.com and immediately requested a copy.  Prayer is one of my favorite topics, and by far the most helpful book I've ever read on the subject (Living Prayer) was also written by Benson.  He has become one of my favorite authors, and this book, like all the others of his that I've read, was excellent.  "In Constant Prayer" is part of The Ancient Practices series, exploring the ancient traditions of the church and whether they are applicable to modern culture.  In Constant Prayer examines the tradition of fixed hour prayer, or praying the offices.

Benson writes in a style that engages the reader, and, though I've never heard him speak, as I began to read, I could "hear" his voice - the familiar (and now much beloved) voice and tone from his other books begin to draw me in, and couldn't help but smile.

As an introduction to praying the offices, this is fabulous -engaging and easy to follow, while providing enough history and narrative to draw the reader into the idea of joining in a millenia old concert of prayer.  I did found myself wishing for a more examples of the actual structure of the offices, but am confident that I'll be able to find these in the recommended titles that Benson included at the end of the book.

This book is well worth the read - both for those who already believe a life of prayer is important, and for those who are just beginning to wonder if perhaps there is something to the idea of praying regularly, joining with the saints.

note: In Constant Prayer was provided to me at no charge by booksneeze.com.  I was not required to write a positive review.  All opinions expressed here are my own.

Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 172

Today's Daily 5:

1. waking up after a rough night and realizing that my usual escape for the weekend starts today
2. a nectarine for breakfast
3. birds actually singing in the trees on the university campus
4. finally (after several stops) finding a place that could process my student loan documents.  there should be money arriving in my bank account in about a week or so, so that I can pay off the line of credit with which I temporarily paid my tuition.
5. made a new recipe for dinner, and made the cake for tomorrow's new recipe attempt.
6. realizing that the sting I was expecting wasn't in some things.

Weekend To Do's

Just because I feel the need to write this stuff down, somewhere, preferably public, because I have a thing about saying publicly that I'm going to do something and then not doing it, that tends to lend to actually accomplishing the items on my list:

• yoga workout at home on Friday
• yoga class on Saturday
• bake an Almond Joy Cake using the recipe a friend who knows me well sent my way
• go to the post office to get student loan documents processed
• finish reading and write a review for my latest booksneeze book
• make significant headway on, if not finish, making notes on a reading project I completed a while back
• budgeting
• finish up the Greek assignments for this week
• update my resume and apply for some jobs
• watch the newest episode of Grey's Anatomy and transcribe the monologue
• watch the newest episode of Private Practice
• do some online research to create a term paper topic/thesis statement for one of my history classes (is it bad that I'm leaning towards choosing a topic solely because there's a Monty Python quote that I'd like to work into the paper?)
• Finish up the reading from this week for my random introduction to social sciences class
• Make some progress on reading the latest travel memoir I'm tackling - I have a time limit on this one since it's borrowed from the library.
• Attend a ladies gathering with some women from my house church and other house churches

Those are the big things.  A couple of them are totally flexible.  Some of them absolutely have to get done.  But really, I'd like to manage some productivity and get most if not all of these done over the course of this afternoon, evening, tomorrow and Sunday.

Technological Friendships

Those of you who know me well, or who have been reading here for a while know that my closest friends are scattered around the planet.  It's a rather inconvenient way to conduct friendships, when you can't sit and sip tea together, and give and get hugs.  But, we make it work, thanks to technology.

Yesterday I spent two hours talking to one of my closest friend on skype.  We even had video.  Most of the time we can't be together in person, and, as we talked, we were actually experiencing two different days.  It was Thursday afternoon for me, and Friday morning for her.  But, thanks to skype, we shared a meal - I'd just finished lunch, and she was having a late breakfast, and we hung out and laughed for two hours or so.

And, one of the things we talked about was this - how thankful we are for technology and the way it allows us to maintain friendships.  We can email and know that the other is going to get the message the same day.  We can use text messages or facebook.  We can phone and skype and know that we'll have a decent connection - the ability to hear each other and maybe even see each other.

And I'm so thankful for that.

Thankful that I can share the day to day stuff of life with my dear ones who are so far away.

Thankful that I can quite literally have a coffee date with a friend on another continent.

Thankful that technology lets these far away people that I love stay in contact with me, and me with them.

It means a lot when your dearest ones are scattered primarily at great distances from you, to know that there is a way to stay more easily connected.

I'm thankful for it.