I have been enjoying Scot McKnight’s blog Jesus Creed. It is a little hard to keep up with though. Sometimes I wonder if he has sidelined his teaching and research just to blog. I enjoy the depth and breadth of his writings on the emergent phenomena, the books he’s reading, and the discussions on theology in general. I also appreciate that he spells his name with one "t" like my brother.  

He recently did a series on the Echoes of N.T Wright. You can read them (here, here, and here). He covered Tom’s new book Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense. In the third section, he mentions some of Tom’s thoughts on prayer and the notion that in prayer heaven and earth are overlapping. It is this latter idea that really resonates with me.

The last segment or rhythm of the "dojo" that we went through in our community was focused on prayer. One of the suggestions was to "pray the hours" (e.g. at some time during 6-9am, 12noon, and 6-9pm) or set your watch to chime on the hour and make it a point to say a prayer on the chime. For my practice, I decided to choose the latter. When possible I’ve also tried to incorporate my body into the prayer somehow by getting down on one knee. It gets a little tricky during the work day if you are in a meeting or talking with someone. I’ve found though that even in those circumstances a short prayer under my breath works.

This week, I’m going to try to say this pray that I derived from some of the Tom’s thoughts that Scot was commenting on in part 3. It incorporates Tom’s version of the Jesus Prayer and the Shema. Here it is:

Son of the Living God have mercy on me a sinner.
I will love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength and
I will love my neighbor as myself
for there are no commandments greater than these.

I decided to make the Shema a bit more personal by using "I". For me, making it personal invokes a greater sense of commitment for me than using the command form. And hearing "Son of the Living God" helps me to connect with the idea that God is living, present, and active in the world.

Tags: jesuscreed, Scot McKnight, prayer, NT Wright