Places of Prayer (Director's cut)

What helps you get into a heart-position of prayer? Where are your places?

This is actually a redone version of a video I posted in 2007. Back then, I wrestled and wrestled with the upload process, and kept getting the error message, "A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation." (I'm not making that up!)

But now with the latest iMovie, it's a snap; click click and it was published! …But that's not the reason I redid it. iMovie now has a video stabilization feature. I made this video by holding a camera at arm's length while walking. Chances are you never watched the whole thing because it was found to induce seizures and motion sickness. But thanks to iMovie, it is now watchable!

The funny thing is that this was my response to our church's short-lived experiment with YouTube. Our pastor posed a question, and asked for responses, which were shown during the worship gathering. Most of them consisted of sitting people down in front of a computer in the church office and hitting record. The two that weren't were just silly; fun, but silly. Mine was a genuine attempt at interacting with a question ("How do you connect with God?") in a visual way. It was never shown. Maybe it wasn't shown because the original video was herky-jerky, but I doubt it. The reason I was given was that "It was too long."

Really? Two minutes? I still find that odd. It leads me to believe that the church wanted to create a cool phenomena ("You can have a direct voice in our gatherings via computer!") and was not really interested in promoting genuine interaction. As I wrote in Listening as a Spiritual Act, that is not listening, so please don't call it a conversation.

…Well, so back to my original question: What helps you get into a heart-position of prayer? Where are your places?

Comments

[Sami]

Wow, it's a big difference in the video!

More importantly, I like your point. I always find it easier to pray while I am walking. I can focus better. If I'm just sitting there, my mind is all over the place, or I fall asleep :)

Driving is also a good place of prayer for me. Any time that my mind can kind of stop racing and I can think, then it is easier to pray.

[Jon Reid]

Sami,

I hate prayer meetings where everyone is expected to be still and speak in turn! I have to pace. Also, when my mind wanders, I don't feel a need to thrust it out and "get back to praying" — I take it as either something I am concerned about, or something the Lord is bringing to mind. Either way, it's something to pray about.

And oh yes, driving is a good one. I have a "Prayer" playlist on my iPod of tunes that put me in a prayerful mind. Or sometimes, I'll be driving along listening to the radio, and feel a prompting to turn it off and pray instead.

[Helen]

Hi Jon, the video worked great. Up close and personal there, in your hot tub. :-)

What helps me pray - hmm I have to quiet my heart and I usually pray in tongues for a bit. I talk to God everywhere. Singing praise songs gets me connected. I usually pray in my bedroom.

[Jon Reid]

Helen, don't worry. I had my swim trunks on. :-)
I do find praying in tongues helpful, but had kind of forgotten about it lately. Thanks for the reminder!