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Fitting Prayer in a Busy Life

My Monastery is Silver

How do we in busy urban Australia, worrying about two jobs, children, mortgage and school fees, maintain an active spirituality? How do we satisfy our hunger for the infinite?

My monastery is silver. It tracks through the suburbs from Surrey Hills to Melbourne. It is the 8.25. Being husband, father, brother, office worker, mortgagee, smothers me with demands. God’s powerful presence in prayer is equally insistent. Life consists in integrating and answering the demands of these two belongings.

How and where can I pray during the working day? How do all my activities as father, husband, son, brother, worker, interweave with this deeper belonging?

It starts. Bring in the paper and the rubbish bin, put on the kettle, feed the cat, make the lunches, borrow train fare from the kids, sign that note, pull up the doona, shave, find a pair of socks, where’s a hanky, pack that bag, put in those bills and cheques, defrost the sausages, rush for the 8.25, think up that agenda, remember to make those calls.

During the morning busyness the ear half listens to the news summaries: Bosnia, Cambodia, Burma, South Africa, Somalia, Tibet, Bougainville, unemployment. Between 6.40 and 8.10 the heart sinks lower and lower, almost to despair. There can’t be a God in a world like that!

Life seems so frantic, the news so profoundly disturbing, the two so unconnected. The challenge to survive neutralises the challenge to respond to humanity. Our lives can feel shallow, our hearts despair.

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This article first appeared in Australian Catholics. It is reprinted with permission of the author, Terry Monagle. Copyright © 2002.