Pray Without Ceasing

While scouring the world-wide web tonight, I came across this excerpt - Merton is on my list of authors to read.

From Thomas Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation:

The requirements of a work to be done can be understood as the will of God. If I am supposed to hoe a garden or make a table, then I will be obeying God if I am true to the task I am performing. To do the work carefully and well, with love and respect for the nature of my task and with due attention to its purpose, is to unite myself to God’s will in my work. In this way I become His instrument. He works through me. When I act as His instrument, my labour cannot become an obstacle to contemplation, even though it may temporarily so occupy my mind that I cannot engage in it while I am actually doing my job. Yet my work itself will purify and pacify my mind and dispose me for contemplation.
Unnatural, frantic, anxious work, work done under pressure of greed or fear or any other inordinate passion, cannot properly speaking be dedicated to God, because God never wills such work directly. He may permit that through no fault of our own we may have to work madly and distractedly, due to our sins, and to the sins of the society in which we live. In that case we must tolerate it and make the best of what we cannot avoid. But let us not be blind to the distinction betwen sound, healthy work and unnatural toil.

I began to understand this truth several months back - but I think it's the kind of thing that one goes on learning to understand forever. I remember asking myself what the heck I was doing here in Winnipeg, pouring coffee and carrying burgers, not learning, not really changing anything, not moving on to the next task in my life, just existing. At some point, though, I realized that there are things that must be done in life: I have to work, so that I can pay my rent and buy groceries; at home I must wash my dishes and laundry, and sweep the floor. And God is not, cannot be excluded from these most mundane and intimate parts of our lives. He provides me with employment, with a home, and must therefore, be assigning me the responsibilties and duties that accompany such privileges. In a way, He has entrusted these tasks to me, and by fulfiling them, I am obeying him no less than if I were to spend an hour on my knees in prayer or serving the homeless at His command.

I was once asked at time of day I set time aside to pray in the Spirit. My answer? While I am occupied with the most commonplace things. Walking to work, walking home, organizing, cleaning, scrubbing, sorting, cooking . . . I want God to be involved in every aspect of my life - not merely the time I set aside and devote to pursuing my relationship with Him and growing stronger in the knowledge of God. Even our Saviour learned a trade - how many times must He have lifted His heart to His Father while painstakingly shaving wood from a table leg. God has created us as beings who must travail to survive - Let us do everything as unto the Lord.