SEASHELL NELL

This is my Camino. Welcome.

24. The exercise of prayer

“What do you think is the most affective form of exercise?”

The question was posed to me by my sister, a student of athletics and medicine at the graduate level.

I started suggesting a list to her, “Aerobics? Swimming? Triathlon?”

Finally, she gave the answer, “It’s the one that you DO.”

Oh, of course. How simple.

***

Sometimes, on Tuesdays, I go to the circus gym, to swing from ropes and silks so that, on Wednesdays, my shoulders will be sore and my abs a little tighter.

Sometimes, when I go, I perform an awful workout. I can’t pull myself as well as the other people, my core gives out before I can complete a movement, I never quite nail any movement, and I leave tired.

But, I call my sister, and I tell her, and I say, “Well, a bad workout is better than no workout, right?”

***

On Saturday I was at a workshop and a woman asked, “How do you pray?”

And I thought for a second, and said to her, “Do you want to know the best form of prayer?”

And she said, “What?”

And I said, “The one you do.”

In a world of Taize chants and Latin mass and rosaries and novenas and Bible studies…pick the one you’ll do. And, remember: even a bad prayer session is better than no prayer session.

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