Listmakers, extraordinaire!

I am a listmaker. I make no apology for it. I get up with a list and I add or subtract what I get done or want to get done. I do feel a little strange when I put down to take a bath since that is a given. I write down what I need to get from the store and what I need to do during the week. It works for me. Some of these tasks are mundane; some are monumental.

Benson says that many people are listmakers but they never put anything down about their prayer life or daily office. Maybe, to them, that is also a given, or maybe it is something that they will do if time is left over after their listing. Or maybe, the act is somewhere between the mundane and the monumental. He adds: "We are unwilling, it sometimes seems to me, to leave anything in our lives to chance except the way we live out our lives in communion with the one who gave us life in the first place. It seems odd to me." Are we living out our prayer life daily or are we waiting for a contemplated surge of the divine before we schedule it again? It seems odd to me.

VERSICLE: "Can you not wait one hour with me?" Jesus of Nazareth
VENITE: "On hearing the signal for an hour of prayer, we immediately set aside what we have in hand and go with utmost speed, yet with gravity, and without giving occasion for frivolity. Indeed, nothing is to be preferred to the work of God." The Rule of Saint Benedict
COLLECT: (Formal prayer/corporate prayer)
Teach us, O God, to put Thee first on the list of required things to do in our daily lives; help us to lift the daily to the divine by the pleasure of so doing diligence. Let us not be weary in well-doing but to be faithful to the task. Let us press on daily to the prize of the high calling in Jesus Christ. Amen.
CANTICLE: (Hymn of praise) "How Tedious and Tasteless the Hours"
How tedious and tasteless the hours When Jesus no longer I see!
Sweet prospects, sweet birds and sweet flowers, Have all lost their sweetness to me.
The midsummer sun shines but dim,
The fields strive in vain to look gay,
But when I am happy in him,
December's as pleasant as May.

Reading of the Scripture/Message (Daddy's): "Getting Along with People"
Text: "Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsman and my herdsman, for we are kinsmen." (Gen. 13:8)
Introduction:
Men adjust themselves to physical surroundings.
Social life demands the same.
Learn a lot in school but not much about this.
Here is a great field for all of us.
1. There is trouble -- home, business, social world, class strife, color.
2. We ought to make it our great task to get along with people.
Don't have to get along with everyone -- Elijah and Jezebel.
George Washington and Benedict Arnold.
Class we don't like that much.
3. Opportunity and ability confer obligation
4. Every person has his/her worth.

Daddy used to say repeatedly at home when tempers flared, "I like my people to get along".
He was not a part of the temper fit; he was a part of the calming.

What is my prayer for the day? I pray today, Lord, that you will help me be a part of making that list and checking it daily to see if I am about the business and, that being said, to see if it carries over into my daily life of meeting all people who and where they are. Teach me to respect even those I disagree with and this includes all family members. Amen.