“No one sees a flower, really. It is so small it takes time. We haven’t time, and to see takes time … like to have a friend takes time.” That’s a quote from American artist Georgia O’Keeffe. Given that many of her paintings were close-up “portraits” of flower anatomy, she has a hard-won authority on painstaking attention to detail.
Friendships are expensive. Relationships require lingering in silence; they demand that we become a contemplative of sorts. There is nothing more valuable than relationships in this life. Behind every strong marriage is thousands of hours of shared meals and ideas, banter and, yes, even bickering. When we visit the elderly in nursing homes, their most precious possessions are often pictures of loved ones or drawings from great-grandchildren.
Someday our world will shrink to the size of the bed we lay in. On that day, all we have is what we’ve built. If we have poured out our time and our very life liberally, it will be felt by all who accompany us.
In Psalm 90 we read: “Lord, help us to know the shortness of our days that we may gain true wisdom of heart.” To know that one’s life is fleeting is the first step to living well.
The most important treasure we can secure for ourselves on a daily basis is building a deep and honest relationship with God. Like physical exercise, a little bit in the beginning with a gradual increase in attention and devotion will see growth in intimacy over time.
If we don’t listen when our children or friends speak to us because we are too distracted or focused on productivity and efficiency, we will notice fewer and fewer meaningful conversations. To be obsessed with “crushing goals” comes at a high cost: there are always people in our life who will feel the ripple effect of our choices. We need to be connected to God in prayer in order to sacrifice the right things at the right time.
Father Mark Goring is a priest with the Companions of the Cross order in Ottawa. He has written a concise 40-day prayer guide booklet that is refreshingly simple and achievable for anyone with a sincere desire to build a relationship with God. The booklet is called Treasure in Heaven: A 40-day, Ten Minutes a Day Prayer Guide. It is a wonderfully brief little guide for anyone embarking (or re-embarking) on a journey into God’s Heart.
In order to know oneself and to understand God’s will for any particular moment, we must be praying. There is just no other way to say it. If we are looking for specific healing from past wounds, we must be praying. If we want to feel something other than anger and bitterness, we must be praying. The example of a Christian who does not pray is so often more damaging than if he were not a Christian at all.
We need to make full use of our freedom. Today, many of us have the freedom to wake up and fix ourselves breakfast. We have the freedom to choose whether we pray or log onto social media. We can choose to visit our grandparents and hear their stories. We can choose! It’s amazing how much power we have to choose!
But with every day that passes, our capacity to choose shrinks. “Truly, truly, I tell you, when you were young, you dressed yourself and walked where you wanted; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” (Jn 21:18)
If our spiritual muscles aren’t used, they atrophy. Left to our own devices, we can become cemented in habit. People may drift away from us because we are aloof and emotionally absent. We may fall prey to depression or fear of the future. All of these things make prayer more difficult and create more handicaps for us. Not to mention the decline of our physical health as we age.
We cannot count on a stable future with perfect conditions for nurturing our faith. Prayer is not a hobby for later in life. It is a lifeline! And it’s as simple as giving God your heart and all its cares every day. It is an essential part of living peacefully in “a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world.” (Phil 2:15)
