Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

I’ve had something of an odd experience. I couldn’t think of anything to write about! Normally, I sit down and some idea percolates and then it’s a relatively quick exercise to flesh it out and arrive at an acceptable denouement.

Maybe it’s that I’ve been writing for the class I’ve been leading on Wednesday night, or the annual meeting, or the Bell and Tower, or preaching last week but I sat down to write this and drew a blank on what I should write.

The good news is that I don’t expect it will last long. Later this week or next week or maybe a little after if I’m unlucky, some new idea will pop up and I’ll get back in the writing groove. I don’t expect my periods of immense productivity to be the norm and, likewise, I don’t expect periods of relatively sparse output to be the norm either.

It’s rather like our spiritual lives, I suppose. Sometimes I sit down to pray and find it comes quite quickly, almost instantly. My heart knows what to say even if I’ve not been able to put it into words. As with writing, sometimes there’s something there waiting to come out and it’s easy to find the rhythm.

Sometimes it’s harder though. Maybe it’s been a while and I’m out of practice. Maybe there’s some deeper thing gnawing at me that’s blocking that sense of real connection with God. Maybe I’m annoyed with God or suspect he’s annoyed with me.

But, like with this bit of writing, sometimes the key is just to do the thing. Say the prayer. Head to church. Read the Bible. Do the thing. The routines of the Church are part of the disciplines that snap our prayer life back into shape. It’s the work itself, the intention, sometimes that is the thing itself not its deep profundity or perfection.

Our prayers may be no more perfect than some writing, exercise, or anything else we kind of slog through to get ourselves back in the swing of things. So here’s to just doing the things sometimes!

Yours in Christ,

Fr Robert