Friday, August 25, 2006

2.4 hours?

A couple people have commented that 2.4 hours seems like a lot to spend in meditation, prayer, or whatever.

I think so too. In fact, my doc and I laughed about it and decided 10% of waking hours was a better goal to shoot for. And even that, something to shoot for, not something to expect to achieve immediately. A goal to train for.

Even that seems like a lot.

Maybe you do it like athletic training... increase by 10% a week.

However, I easily spend 3 or 4 hours a day on email, blogging, mapping my running routes, looking up sports nutrition and athletic injuries and training programs on the internet. My athletic training and goals could easily be a religion.

Nancy asked about multi-tasking.... meditating while swimming, etc.

We're on the right track here. Except when I'm swimming I think, one, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. Running: One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Biking: One, two, three, four. And so on.

Sometimes while I'm running, a song with the rhythm of my cadence will play itself in my head: "Now there's RED-haired BLUE-ticks all O-ver the SOUTH; LOVE got me IN here and LOVE got me OUT." That's a good one... Big Red the hound dog, trained by a prisoner, who used the dog to escape. Good song. But I could be ruminating on a Psalm as well as a redbone country song. But the Psalms don't have that catchy rhythm.

2.4 hours.

Why not 24? Why not 100%? In everything give thanks. Pray without ceasing. Offer your body as a living sacrifice.

Make every moment of life a prayer.

Why not?

Is it possible?

3 comments:

Cliff said...

Ellie..is this 2.4 hours a day? I assume so..b/c 2.4 hr a week si nothing.

A lot is very subjective. Does it give you the spiritual fill you need?

In fact, most of the ppl in my fellowship (myself included), very rare we spent 2.4 hr given to spend on prayer, devotion, meditation. Even an hour a day is not even doable.

When Christian is consider to put God first and everything else....is it justifable to say there ain't enough time to pray and worship??

I don't think the length of time is a matter in this case..it is the quality that you gain from the time.

Ellie Hamilton said...

I'm not actually going to try to spend 2.4 hours a day... just pondering whether such a thing would be possible.

I'm thinking that if everything we do, we do for God... whatever you do, do it heartily as unto the Lord, for it is the Lord God you are serving... then we end up with 24 hours a day.

But as for time spent exclusively in prayer, devotion, meditation... you're right, even an hour a day is pushing it. This morning I spent about 15 minutes.

Nancy Toby said...

Why don't you consider it "prayer" when you're actually doing a repetitive mantra to yourself? That *IS* meditation. You don't have to be making a personal plea to the Big Guy in order for it to qualify as prayer/meditation, you know. Unless you have different personal rules than many of the major religions out there.