Edgartown's town clock, two blocks from my home, visible from every east-facing window; an anchor of sorts.
On December 6, 2014 I wrote in my journal, "Okay, I've decided to start with the Daily Office 2X/day...We'll see where this leads.
I was skeptical at first, wondering if I'd have the discipline to stick to it, and I'll admit that in the beginning I found having my mornings and nights (I opted for 9am and 9pm) interrupted to be a little annoying and tried to get through each session as quickly as possible.
But almost three months later, I have to say: I have come to look forward to these scheduled appointments with God. In fact, as part of this year's Lenten practice, I have added 12:00 to my schedule.
The thing that's helped the most is my phone. My phone happens to have a great alarm app. I can set it up to ring at the same time every day (I've set it up to alert me ten minutes before prayer time; I hit snooze so I can come to a stopping point in whatever project I might be involved in), I can label the alarm (Morning Prayer, for example), and can choose the ring tone (I chose a gentle bell sound, such as one would hear in a monastery, perhaps). I've also got a Daily Office app on my phone (Laudate, which also has a lot other cool stuff). It's all very handy.
There are many reasons why I love praying the Daily Office.
For someone who would love to be at Daily Mass but does not have that option at the moment, it keeps me connected with the Church. At first I was lackadaisical about adhering to the exact times - the alarm would ring and I'd turn it off, finish whatever I was doing, and maybe a half hour - or more- later, would tend to the prayers. At some point I realized that if I prayed at the prescribed times, I was joining my prayers with every other clergy, religious, and lay person who happened to be praying at that time - world wide - so now I am much more strict about staying on schedule. And though I do occasionally miss a prayer, I have missed surprisingly few.
For a person who works mostly from home, whose day is largely unstructured, I find that being accountable to something 3x/day offers much needed structure and discipline in my life. Something to show up for. I work much better with deadlines and structure, I find. It's amazing, for example, how much I am able to accomplish in those ten minutes between the warning bell and prayer time.
The big thing, of course, is these prayer times - which consist of a hymn (for which I enjoy making up tunes) a few psalms, seasonal responses, and a short reading - are encounters, in poetic form, with our own humanity: our ups and downs, pleadings, lamentations, and celebrations; ultimately, these prayer times are actual, personal encounters with Christ. Not only do the psalms happen to be the prayers and songs he chanted in the temple when he walked the earth, but he is also the author of them. When I pray or sing the psalms, I am literally praying and singing his thoughts. And instead of rushing through, I have come to savor each session, often even thinking, "Oh, it's over already? That was fast."
I can actually feel the Daily Office transforming me. Instead of God's being an abstract thought in the back of my mind, God is concrete, in the forefront of my thinking; the words of the psalms and the discipline of showing up for the prayers slowly taking root and growing into better actions and better thinking and creating an armor against what often seems like an insane world. Interestingly, especially now that I'm praying 3x/day - analagous to three meals a day - praying the Daily Office is reminiscent of keeping kosher; the discipline and the way that following the dietary laws always made me feel connected to God in a tangible way.
This is just what the doctor ordered.
