Celtic Prayer

This week we read a selection from The Path of Celtic Prayer: An Ancient Way to Everyday Joy by Calvin Miller, which focused on prayers to the Trinity. Miller says when we pray, we usually give our big concerns to God the Father and thank him for the good things that happen in our lives. When we pray to Jesus, it's the more personal things, like our wishes to do well on exams, or the health-problems in our families. We hardly acknowledge the Holy Spirit because we have a hard time distinguishing Him from an It.

The Celts, according to Miller, directed their prayers to each member of the Godhead. One example Miller gives is:
"I lay me down in the love of my Father. 
I surrender my body to rest in the love of my Savior.
I trust my life in sleep to the Spirit who fills me with life." 

 I love the parallelism here that draws equal attention to each member of the Trinity. To acknowledge God, Miller says, one should acknowledge Him as he is, a triune being. No matter what flavor, each church service prayer I've participated in focused on one or two members of the Trinity, but never all three at the same time. The Holy Spirit is the one I personally hear the least about. When I do hear about Him, it sounds like He's some sort of force rather than a personal being. When we pray, it's rarely to the Holy Spirit, but about him, and the topic focuses on something like evangelism. Shouldn't we acknowledge the Holy Spirit in other areas of the Christian life?
 
In practice, Miller suggests we write down our own prayers, like some of the Christian Celts did. Honestly it was a concept I had never considered before. I grew up in a church where none of our prayers had ever been written down, and probably never will be. Writing down my prayers always felt a bit formulaic and forced. Most of the time it's hard enough to keep my attention focused on God long enough to get a sentence out, let alone an entire poem! I've kept a prayer journal in the past, but never for an extended period of time.

Despite my spotted history of "composing" prayers, here's my shot at an exercise from the chapter (bolded/italicized words are mine):

God of all that is and was and shall be,
for this day and its fullness I give you thanks; 
Thank you Father for the Earth and for its endless beauty.
Thank you especially for time alone and for time with friends.

Thank you, Son, for, your example of obedience
to your Father which taught me faithfulness this day
as I endeavored to be kind to newcomers at church.

Thank you, Spirit, for your infilling of my life,
I especially thank you for your presence today
as you walked with me through my loneliness and anxieties

Father, give me sleep tonight, so that my praise in the morning may
be a good example of Corban to visiting high schoolers tomorrow. 

Son, wake me in obedience tomorrow so that I may
love every person I come into contact with, offline or online 

Spirit, offer me your presence tomorrow so that I may
 be a light to those that don't know or acknowledge you.

Amen. 

Okay, maybe it wasn't so much as a poem as a structured prayer. Writing out this exercise did remind me of my daily devotions, where I do write out short prayers based on what passage I read. (I follow the SOAP Model: Scripture, Observation, Application, & Prayer.)  Perhaps the concept wasn't as foreign as I thought.

The Before

In case anyone hasn't heard: I'm going to the British Isles in...103 days, 12 hours, and 11 minutes (as of typing this sentence.) I'm pretty excited to go to a place I've only dreamed of going to for several years now. However, I'm fairly certain that the England/Ireland/Scotland of my imagination is much different from the real thing. For instance, I have some known misconceptions about the three places:

Scotland: Every guy wears kilts and chews with one side of his mouth open. They have beards and those hats that look like berets except they have a fuzzy ball on top. When a Scottish man stands, he poses. There are no women in Scotland. It's always foggy, if not slightly chilly. Every Scot at least knows someone who plays bagpipes, or flute/fife. People there don't live in houses; they live in castles, especially run down ones. In fact, there's hardly any people in Scotland at all, just a lot of sheep.

England: This country has three time periods:

• the prehistoric age where Arthur was king, Merlin was his Secretary of Awesome, and Guinevere was...very pretty. Rome stopped by for a few visits but never stuck around long. They might have built a wall somewhere. 
• the Elizabethan era where Henry VIII made a terrible husband of himself and always won in divorce court. Bloody Mary killed a bunch of Protestants before tea, then died. Queen Elizabeth I took the throne after dying horses tails the color of her hair. She didn't have any love interests because she was too busy taking over the world and thumbing her nose at Spain. Speaking of thumbing noses, Shakespeare was Queen Lizzie's tea buddy and spent most of his time in the Globe Theater holding his pen artfully against his lip and nose between lines of his plays. 
• the era of World War II: where C.S. Lewis was a genius college professor and never slept because he had so many wonderful books to write. In his "spare" hours, he would drink with J.R.R Tolkien at a local pub and discuss profound topics like how many dwarves does it take to carve out a cavern and what Christ's favorite food was. (Hint: It wasn't blood sausage.)

 England has not aged since Lewis' death. People there still smoke pipes, still say things like "by Jove!" and "Great Scott!" Every guy wears thick and long trench coats everywhere and nice shoes. The girls wear skirts that at least go down to the knee and no one will ever see them in pants. Men still smoke pipes and do nothing but sit around and discuss the meaning of life. The Beatles, J.K. Rowling, and James Bond all came from some other England. Yeah, that one. Oh, and England is a continent, a rather massive one, in which London, Oxford, and Canterburry dominate. English people do not rap.

Ireland: Everything in Ireland is green. Besides the rolling green countryside, Ireland has a university and innumerable pubs. No Irishman or Irishwoman lives in a house or a cottage. They live in the pubs and drink. They also tell bawdy jokes. All Irish people play musical instruments quite skillfully.