Calm and quiet

"The best way to start praying is actually to stop praying" - another quote from Pete Greig's book "How to Pray". Sounds a bit Zen, doesn't it? But it makes sense, if we understand prayer not as an extension of all our other activity, but as something quite different which requires a re-setting of our mind and our senses. Psalm 131 says it:

My heart is not proud, Lord,

my eyes are not haughty;

I do not concern myself with great matters

or things too wonderful for me.

But I have calmed and quietened myself.

I am like a weaned child with its mother;

like a weaned child I am content.

I notice the sense of humbling which is involved in coming to prayer. All those great and important things which I think I'm meant to be doing, and which I don't really understand anyway, are to be left, put aside, forgotten, as I sit quietly and allow my soul to come to rest, like a child. And sometimes they include all those worthy causes and needy people for whom I know I ought to pray. The weaned child is content to be with its mother, and nothing more is needed.