A poor life this, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
These are the closing lines of W H Davies’s so simple poem, Leisure.
I bet I’m not the only one to be brought up sharp by this. Could this be a Lenten discipline: to take time?
Mary Oliver’s simple lines in Praying might help us to take time in the everyday – just to wonder and wander in prayer. Prayer doesn’t have to be difficult.
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.
Photo credit: Vilseskogen
Grits and Grains 
Yes.
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Thank you for this David. You know I’m reading Sam Wells at the moment. His chapter on prayer is, I think, describing the sort of prayer you are offering here. He says:
“The issue with conventional notions of personal prayer is that they use God rather than enjoy God. The intention is to get the outcome required; God is simply the best means of securing it. Here I have sought to portray a notion of prayer that truly enjoys God. Enjoyment is presence, attention, mystery, delight, participation, and partnership all enfolded together… God is present to me; attends to me; sees the mystery of me; delights in me; participates with me; is in partnership with me. This is what it means for God to enjoy me.”
“Wander and wonder” might become my Lenten discipline.
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