The Daily Office

In a March blog entry, I wrote about my participation in a Power of Full Engagement Course. One of the main benefits of this training is that it requires you write a new story; a story that describes who you must become to achieve mission success in your life. I wrote my new story and went to work on establishing a few new rituals that would help bring alignment between my new story and my day-to-day living out of this story. One area of my new story - being a man of prayer - had been particularly hard to achieve until I discovered the daily office.

My first discovery of the daily office was while reading Brian McLarens recent book; Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices. Finding our Way Again is the first in a series of eight books that will be called The Ancient Practices Series. The books will be written by eight different authors, reflecting on the practice and application of spiritual disciplines. The next book in the series; In Constant Prayer, by Robert Benson. As Robert Benson says, “At some point, high-minded discussion about our life of prayer has to work its way into the dailyness of our lives. At some point, we have to move from talking about prayer so that the marvelous that is possible has a chance to appear.”

This being the 30th day of my practice, I now feel that the ancient practice of the daily office, is a wonderful ritual for help bring alignment with my new story. If your interested, more information can be found in the The Devine Hours section of explorefaith.org.