What is the Point of Prayer?

January 8, 2018 Mike StPierre

It's cool to know how to pray. It's nice to read books about prayer. It can feel good to pray. Underneath all of this is a more fundamental question- what is the point of prayer?

In this recent episode of Praying Well, I provide a five minute answer.

Answering the question (about the purpose of prayer) is very, very simple and yet we've made it complicated. It's become complicated because of the new "mindfulness movement" and because of apps like Headspace. Mindfulness and meditation are good but need to be seen as a means to an end. They make you more aware and alert.

“A spirituality without a prayer life is no spirituality at all, and it will not last beyond the first defeats.”

— Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB

What mindfulness doesn't do, since it's not grounded in any religious tradition, is link you to God. You can be mindful all you want but when you are faced with a moral decision or when life gets hard, you realize that it's God that's needed above all.

Consider the words of Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB who said, "A spirituality without a prayer life is no spirituality at all, and it will not last beyond the first defeats." She's talking about mindfulness and meditation without God.

I see prayer as having one ultimate goal: intimacy with God. Sometimes, this will include words and at other times listening. Mostly, it involves showing up and being with one another. When I greet the Lord each morning, I make myself present to the One who has already been waiting for me. He is there and enjoys being with us.

Why would it be any other way? Like a human relationship, our friendship with God is built on trust, showing up, surrender, listening, talking and ultimately union with Him.

Should You Pray in Public?

January 2, 2018 Mike StPierre

A lot of people want to separate our lives- work during the week and have fun on the weekend. Or, pray on Sunday morning and watch football on Sunday afternoon. It’s as if we have various “buckets” that we do things in and there is no crossover from one bucket to the next.

Except that that’s a fallacy which, if we’re honest, we know isn’t our experience. For example, if we are upset about something in the morning before we go to work, chances are we are going to be affected during the day. Or, if you fall in love, this sense of intimacy with your lover is going to be with you throughout your week.

In other words, we live one life rather than a series of separated lives. Pope Paul VI called this the “unity of life”- a synchronized experience of letting God into all parts of our busy schedules.

This brings us to today’s question- should you pray in public? The answer is YES. Let me share a story of something that happened to me recently on a plane. Across the aisle from me was a Jewish man and he was saying his morning prayers. I was moved by how seriously he took his prayer and how reverent he was about it. If he can pray in public, with leather bands around his head and his hands, surely a Christian can do the same. We can bring our “unified life” with us, even into public.

How can you do this? Here are some suggestions:

1. Pray before a meal. Make the sign of the cross, pause for a moment, and thank God for the gift of sustenance.

2. Pray when you see a car accident. Turn off the radio and pray, out loud, a prayer for the person involved.

3. Pray when you travel. Before you start the car, get on the bus or hop a flight, pray silently that God will provide you with a safe journey.

These are just three ways that you can pray in public and here’s the good news- no one will make fun of you or persecute you. It’s ok and it’s good.

What to do When Your Prayer Life Falls Apart

November 18, 2017 Mike StPierre

If you’re reading this, you have some affinity to prayer. Either out of curiosity or a desire to be a better practitioner, each of us has some sense of “praying well”.

Unfortunately, praying well isn’t as easy as we might like it to be. This may be due to inconsistency or a lack of confidence or an inability to focus. Whatever the case, we want progress and if you’re an American, you want fast progress that you can measure.

But, as 14th century mystic Meister Eckhart indicated, much of the spiritual life is about subtraction, not addition and certainly not measurement. Our efforts can fall flat when we don’t “see” progress. ‘

As Eckhart says, “God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself in so far as you are a created being made and let God be God in you.” At first glance, this can sound like the stuff of fluffy spirituality, sort of like a “let God be God” approach to life.

But look deeper at the quote.

Prayer, as a means to an end, is just that- a lever through which a relationship can grow. Our relationship with God uses prayer as a means of communication and intimacy. When our prayer life falls apart, we can fear that our relationship with God is faltering as well.

I can relate to this through a recent personal story.

As I am the early riser in our family, morning dog care has become my responsibility. While I don’t mind the chore, it has wreaked havoc on my morning routine. Instead of coffee, a Bible and a journal for 30 minutes, I’m taking out the dog, feeding him and then making sure he doesn’t have an accident. It’s an odd process- feed, wait, watch, wait some more. This doesn’t make for a calming morning routine.

Lessons learned

First, a settling reassurance from God that this “season” won’t last forever. Having had Ace (our puppy) for a month, I can see that the strong foundation of prayer which existed before Ace has propelled me through this time of regrounding a morning routine. Quite amazingly, I haven’t gotten discouraged and have found other times during the day in which to pray. Not ideal but better than nothing.

Second, and this is thanks to some wise counsel from my spiritual director, I’ve been able to reframe my morning routine into a prayerful experience. This is the funny part of the story. I am what you might call “kitchen challenged” but thankfully, I married a woman who is a wonderful cook.

Over the years, my attempts at cooking dinner (or any other meal for that matter) have been greeted by polite tolerance from my children. Still, I dabble occasionally and keep trying to improve.

In the month since we’ve had Ace, I discovered a chunk of time in the morning (30 minutes) which used to be reserved for morning prayer. As the adorable and demanding puppy has now claimed that time slot, I wondered if I could use the rest of the 30 minutes for something else.

Why not make a hot breakfast for everyone?

The first thought of this was hilarious. Remember, I can’t really cook that well. But, when people are tired, they will eat almost anything. So, without fear, I ventured into the kitchen and decided to re-use what had been my morning routine into cooking.

The results have been decent and on some days, rather wonderful.

Blueberry muffins.
Bacon.
Pancakes.
Cranberry muffins.
Sugar cookies.

After a week, the kids are now asking what the next morning breakfast will entail. It’s become a game of sorts.

Another discovery from this is the awareness that I might be able to use this time of cooking as a time of praying. To be fair, when you are busy in the kitchen you are typically stirring, measuring and paying attention to your ingredients. But, with some intentionality, you can (as I have) turn this simple act of cooking into a pure act of praying.

Here's how it works

Here’s how it works: first I put out the ingredients, then I put on my Dad Apron, then I make the sign of the cross and ask God to turn my cooking into praying, then I go to work. The final product, even if imperfect, is something wonderful.

I won’t go so far as to say that “God and I cooked this for you” but you get the point.

What I’ve learned is that yes, there are times in your life when your prayer life really falls apart. This will happen to each of us at some point. If it hasn’t yet hit you, I dare say “get ready”. When a mom has a baby, things get crazy. When you get into a car crash and have to recover, things get crazy. When you are traveling or on vacation, things can get crazy.

If you can let God turn the crazy into something new and different, you'll be ok.

By taking the long view and then reframing how I thought of prayer, things have now settled and I’m finding new rhythms for prayer. New spaces are opening up in my day that I didn’t see before. God is being God in me and I’m learning, once again, to graciously get out of His way.

And of course four children plus a puppy are getting to enjoy fresh muffins each morning.

Ready to Reduce the Noise Around You?

Download the FREE PDF, "5 Ways That Noise Wreaks Havok on Your Prayer Life."

One Clever Way to Chart Your Personal Growth

March 7, 2017 Mike StPierre

Productivity expert Carson Tate uses a wonderful tool to categorize folks according to their personal style of working.

The Arranger

The Planner

The Visualizer

The Prioritizer

You can take the test here. The book is even better as each chapter lets you just zoom in on the strategies that match your particular style. As an avid book scanner, it was nice to be able to breeze through each chapter, not feeling guilty about it.

I'm a Planner first and a Visualizer second. My wife is an Arranger to the max.

Typically, when you take any assessment like Tate's (or Disc or Myers Briggs, etc.) it just gets filed and you move on. I decided to do something different this time around. I wanted to savor the assessment and link it to other measurements like Disc, Meyers Briggs and Enneagram.

What if I could design a personal growth "tool" of sorts? And, what if I could make it look nice?

The latter part was important to me. Yes, I've written (in the past) my goals and posted them on my office wall. Yes, it's worked. What didn't work was the utilitarian vibe- I needed something stylish, something with some class.

Enter Canva.com.

I use Canva daily (yes, daily) for reports, flyers, brochures, social media graphics and anything else in between. It's nearly free and makes even the most basic designer look like a pro. What if I could take my productivity style, along with a few other growth metrics, and create something out of it for my office? Using Canva, I finally could.

Step two was to find a template in Canva that matched my office's aesthetic. I chose a "resume" design- very simple and easy to manipulate.

Step three became more difficult as I had to limit the information to one page. The temptation in these things is to make it complicated. Not this time, I told myself...

The final product included the following:

Mission statement
Productivity style
Myers Briggs indicator
Disc rating
Enneagram rating
Quarterly goals
Spiritual growth target
Audacious career goal

Here's what the final product looks like in my office:

The value of this process was twofold. First, it memorialized what I'm working on right now. Second, it made personal growth much more than just a few ideas on a scrap of paper. When you make something look nice, it gives it dignity and a proper place.

Think- Baron Fig notebook as opposed to a cheap $1 version.

You can do this too. It's that easy. I've created a template for you to use for yourself. It will save you about 15 minutes. If you're familiar with Canva and want to do it on your own, that's ok too.

Here's the download:

Free Personal Growth Template

Get your copy of the personal growth template.

The real question is this: how are you capturing and honoring your own growth goals?

The Smartest Way to Greet the New Year

December 29, 2016 Mike StPierre

The top business books of the past year.
The top ways to keep a New Year's resolution.
The top habits for losing weight in the New Year.

I'm overwhelmed already!

With all of these "top things", what's a regular person to do? If you are a "3" on the Enneagram (more of that here) then setting goals is like a best friend to you. On the other hand, if you are more relational, more free-spirited or just plain hate goal setting, all of these "top things" can be ignored quickly.

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Perhaps a more measured, and I propose more fruitful approach to ending one year and then beginning the next is to take a half day to yourself.

Get somewhere quiet and it should be a place you enjoy. This can be as simple as your favorite coffee shop or an out-of-the-way nature spot. Bring something to write with and maybe your laptop.

Look back over the past year and ask:

1. What was awesome this past year?
2. Any regrets?
3. Which relationships are healthy right now?
4. How did I grow spiritually?

Next, look forward to the next year and ask:

1. Business: what needs attention?
2. Physical: how can I be even more healthy?
3. Spiritual: what can I read daily to keep me growing closer to God?
4. Emotional/social: which relationship needs some love?

The results of this half-day-away experiment may surprise you. Who knows- maybe your findings will even coincide with some of the "top things" that are trending on the internet as we speak!

Christmas is Over: Now What?

December 26, 2016 Mike StPierre

I was driving around our neighborhood a few days before Christmas. The kids and I were admiring the many different ways that folks decorated their houses: lights, blow-up cartoon figures on the front lawn, and many of (apparently this year's hot product) the new-fangled spotlights that put faux holly leaves on your house. Weird and cool at the same time.

Then, it hit us- all of it would go away in the days after Christmas. Sadly, things don't last forever. The decorations would come down. The songs on the radio would end. The Salvation Army bell would stop ringing at the grocery store.

Christmas is like that. You get pumped up and the anticipation almost kills you. The day happens and everything is great. And then you wake up the next day and everything is so "regular" and ordinary and normal. The party is over. It's easy to feel blue as a result.

So I'm thinking that you have two options when it comes to Christmas:

1. You can celebrate the day over and over again. This would be difficult. You can't afford to buy gifts for every day of the year. The wrapping paper bill alone would put you over the edge. Imagine a ham or turkey day after day! You get the point- this option isn't tenable.

or...

2. You can tap into an ancient practice of what is called the "octave" of Christmas. Let's look at this option as much more realistic and actually far more satisfying than if you were to celebrate December 25 over and over again.

An octave is something that is celebrated for eight days. In the Christian tradition, the octave comes after Christmas and people of faith, theoretically at least, celebrate Christmas for eight days. I admit that I've known very little about this for almost my entire life. And then I did some digging for research.

From what we know, octaves began somewhere in the 4th century. Circumcisions were typically performed on the 8th day after birth. Baptisms have been associated with octagonal "fonts" or spaces in which the water is placed with the baby's head is dipped in water.

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There's something special about eights apparently...

Knowing the history, how could you celebrate Christmas for eight consecutive days? Again, this is not about gift-giving for eight days.

Octave celebration is something that is much more spiritual than commercial. It can also boost your productivity because you're acting intentionally rather than reactively. Here are some easy ways that you can celebrate Christmas for eight consecutive days:

1. Take time off from work. Resist the urge to get back into the fray of work.
2. Do not do any gift returns for a week. Avoid the crowds. It's ok to wait.
3. Watch a Christmas movie after Christmas. If nothing is on tv, rent something.
4. Begin a gratitude journal. Online, in a paper notebook, whatever.
5. Sleep in.
6. Do something special with friends. Go out to eat. See a movie. Be with those you love.
7. Go somewhere memorable. Into the city. Into the country. Somewhere you can make a memory.
8. Read. Anything for pleasure.
9. Get outside in nature. Think of that place that you absolutely love and go there.
10. Do not take down your Christmas decorations. Ignore everyone else in your neighborhood. Be countercultural by keeping your decorations up.

For bonus points, you can also make an investment in your spiritual life in the days after Christmas. Many churches have extra services and they would love to see you. If there is a very holy person that you've been wanting to talk with, why not give him/her a call just to talk? If you can't do that, you could probably send an email.

So that's it! You don't need to be glum in the days after Christmas. Sure, the holiday is over but that doesn't mean that your celebration needs to end. By participating in an octave-approach to Christmas, you'll become more contemplative, happier and less stressed.