Wise Woman from Park Run

The wise woman from Park-run.

I was bemoaning my slower times at Park-run to a wise woman the other day. She listened patiently as I prattled on about the burgeoning time it took me to get around the lake. “Is it my age?” I wailed. “Is it my technique?” I moaned. I pleaded desperately. “Will new shoes make me go faster or a different breakfast?”

The wise woman listened compassionately to my pathetic tale of woe. She smiled graciously and incisively replied

“What if Park-run is not about the blood pressure or a personal best time? What if it is just about ‘doing and being’? What if it is just about putting  yourself in  the best possible place and just living the moment? Allowing everything else to just dissolve away. Would that be such a terrible thing?”

I thought about these astute and perceptive questions as I went to Evening Prayer later that day. Often it’s just mutter mutter, grumble grumble. There are no choruses of angels, bursting into glorious song. No beatific visions of St. Michael or Our Lady. The Archangel Gabrielle has so far declined to accept my generous invitations to show up and sit down beside me.

So what if I applied a similar philosophy to my prayers? What if prayer wasn’t having weird religious experiences in psychedelic colour with 5d surround sound, transmitted on the 7G network?

What if prayer was just placing myself in the best possible space and place and allowing the possibility of God to do His thing? Perhaps prayer is not about me trying to get a personal best while babbling through the psalms and scratching my head at the incomprehensible readings?

I shall always be grateful to the wise woman from Park-run. Maybe my personal best is actually when I am going slowly.