Remembering to pray

        Yesterday was a strange prayer day. I did fine with my morning routine but then a friend and her two children came to visit. We had a wonderful time walking the beach and having lunch, but I got caught up in the moment and so prayer and God disappeared from my consciousness. Now, that’s not a bad thing (it actually happens a lot), but I am trying to pray without ceasing, which is mighty hard to remember to do. It’s the remembering that’s the problem, not the desire.
      I’m reading (for the second time) “The Way of a Pilgrim” written in Russia in the nineteenth century by an anonymous pilgrim who wanders about the country side saying and studying the prayer of the heart, also know as the ‘Jesus prayer’: “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me.” The idea is to say/think the prayer continually so that it becomes part of you--going from something you repeat in words to something you say in your heart.
     The idea intrigues me, actually appeals to me, and so I say it whenever I remember. It helps me become calm and remember God and my purpose. It also gets me out of all that right brain thinking, or as I say, it gets me out of my head. Again, the challenge is to remember. One of my best remembering times is when I wake up in the middle of the night. Saying the ‘Jesus prayer’ helps me stop thinking about all that’s going on in my life and thus I fall back to sleep more easily.