This is from a journal entry from earlier this month, on July 9. This is part of what I’m calling Challenge Week here where I run and rerun several posts this week to help motivate me and also maybe, in turn, help motivate you.
Two months ago, I put a sticky note on my mirror “10 minutes a day.” Like other promises to myself, to God, this one has gone unfulfilled even though the note is still there.
Just last week I made a commitment to walk at least 30 minutes a day. I made it two days and then promptly lost the energy.
This morning I awaken and read the antiphon in the invitatory in today’s Office of the Readings. What does it say?
“Come into the Lord’s presence singing for joy.”
Then throughout Morning Prayer, the word “joy” continues to come up. In the hymn:
Make us the servants of your peace,
Renew our strength, remove all fear;
Be with us, Lord, throughout this day,
For all is joy is if you are near.
The canticle (from Isaiah 12):
With joy you will draw water…
Then Psalm 81:
Ring out your joy to God our strength,
Shout in triumph to the God of Jacob.
which also part of which was the antiphon.
And finally in the second reading from St. Ambrose on an exposition of Psalm 118:
My father and I will come and make our home with you. Let your door stand open to receive him, unlock your soul to him, offer him a welcome in your mind, and then you will see the riches of simplicity, the treasures of peace, the joy of grace.
That 10 minutes a day where I could “let [my] door stand open to receive him, unlock [my] soul to him, offer him a welcome in [my] mind” I have not been doing. Pete Towshend’s song, “Let my love open the door,” the lyrics come to me. I am not allowing God in each day — even though I read Morning Prayer. It is rote. I am not allowing it, the words, to enter me, embody me, embolden me to continue my day.
Lord, let me give you 10 minutes a day to allow you to enter.
_____________________
Whether or not you are a Christian or even believe in God, do you give yourself 10 minutes a day to recollect your thoughts, to center yourself? Do you open yourself up to listen and not speak for 10 minutes? If not, maybe it is something you could try today just to see what happens.
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It dovetails nicely with what I was trying to tell you earlier.
Its exciting.
God is doing something. I don’t know exactly what yet, but I see it coming and its awesome.