Slowly Slowly Praying

Prayer has become a mystery over the years to me.  So I thought this morning should I just slow down?  Should I say less audibly and let heart issues sit silently?

I've used books on praying the hours.

I've read Richard Foster's wonderful book on prayer.

The scriptures are sprinkled all the way through with wonderful prayers of priests, prophets, kings, and women who knew their own hearts well.

I've tried praying the orthodox Jesus prayer over and over.
 
Of course Jesus himself went to the lonely places to pray and one time got a little perturbed at his disciples that they couldn't watch and pray for even an hour...they fell asleep.  I've fallen asleep as well at times.  I don't think Jesus meant for me to look at my watch while I pray.

So why is it I find prayer such a struggle?

Why do I practice the absense of God so often?

Is it really possible to pray without ceasing?

It's a two way commune some say...

So sometimes I just listen.

Stapes

Recently I observed real human bodies, peeled, sliced every which way.  It was a Chinese exhibit at a nearby museum.  Chinese people had offered their bodies upon their death to be observed in nakedness beyond all nakedness.  It was fascinating and strange at the same time. 

Yet one of the exhibits kinda stuck with me a little more than some others.  They had an inner ear with an arrow pointing to the smallest bone in the human body.  The stirrup or more formally the stapes.  I probably was dozing or staring at Becky(my Jr. high crush) when this interesting factoid was dispensed from a droning science teacher. 

I got to thinking...What's up with God putting a tiny tuning fork looking bone in the inner ear?  The sounds from without get a leg up to make it to our brains.  They "cowboy up" to transmit waves of sound to the human processor.  Is there marrow flowing within this cute little piece of pysiological saddlery?  Why bone at all?  Why not a more flexible tissue?  Just wondering.

I wonder if it might be some transcendent shadowing in God's design.  It is important to hear, and something solid is a physical metaphor for how God wants us to hear all that he has created...but more importantly, hear Him solidly. 

I do want to hear God.  Sometimes I hear distortions...maybe it's wax build up.  All the busyness of the life God has set before me becomes white noise if my spiritual tuning fork is disabled.   I know that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God(which, by the way, can divide even the bones from marrow).  If I get my foot in the stirrup from the get go the sound waves might not crash down so hard and silence the still small voice in my life.  I can hear God in and through the family around me if I que-tip the things that build up in my life.  Through confession and honest interaction with God and others.  
To live in the moments with grace and love the little stirrup does it's transmitting in a healthy way.