The Jesus Prayer

Dear Em,
I just read this book called Flunking Sainthood by Jana Riess (http://blog.beliefnet.com/flunkingsainthood/). I had my suspicions that the author is Mormon, and now that I've been to her blog I see that she is Mormon, but I still think it's relevant to those of us who are Lutheran, Catholic, Evangelical...whatever. Maybe even agnostic or Hindu or just interested in discovering God or attaining a higher level of enlightenment. She tries a new spiritual practice every month for a year (generosity, prayer, observing the Sabbath) and basically describes  how she fails to varying degrees at each one. She has a very funny, relatable (word?) style of writing, and the only Mormon belief that bothered me as I was reading was that she tends to discuss Jesus and God as separate beings (which, in the Mormon tradition, they are). But even that wasn't pronounced enough to make me definitely sure she was Mormon, so I think any Christian could read this book and enjoy and learn from it. In the end, she decides that even through failing at each of these spiritual goals, she's deepened her faith and her relationship with God. That her failure served as a reminder that we are all failures without God, so maybe failing - as humbling and human as it is - was even better for her than succeeding would have been. My favorite thing that she tried was to say the "Jesus Prayer." Have you heard of the Jesus Prayer? I like it because it's short and pretty much says it all: O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. (http://catholicism.about.com/od/prayers/qt/Jesus_Prayer.htm). That's it. I like to say it in my head whenever I have a sinful thought or do something that I shouldn't. So, I could really be saying it 3 million times a day, but I guess it's been more like five or ten. At my church, there is a lot of disdain for "rote" prayers because they aren't spontaneous or creative and therefore they must just be "vain repetition" (that's a quote from the Bible somewhere, isn't it? I think Jesus said it...or maybe St. Paul). But for me, it's intimidating to always have to make up my prayers from scratch, so then I avoid praying. I like this prayer because it's short and meaningful and when I say it, I do feel like it's helping me refocus on God and stop being an idiot.

P.S. My eyes drove me nuts at the swim meet last night! By the time we left my eye makeup was all over my face because I couldn't stop rubbing them. And my throat itched. We left as soon as Simon was done and I felt so much better inside in the A/C. I feel terrible that you have to endure this every year. I am such a wimp.

Happy Friday!
Love,
Al