Many people have wondered about my prayer schedule.

I have told people that I loosely follow the Benedictine rule, and that is true. I divide my prayer life into Matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers, compline and the great silence.

I have also said that prayer is part of my flow schedule not my hardline schedule. That is also true particularly for terce, sext none, vespers and compline. Each day finds those prayer times landing at different hours depending on what is in my hardline schedule.

Some days, like yesterday, I can get through prime and terce before my day really even starts. Some days, like today I am up and out of the house before the sunrise and I will be on the go until noon with very little time in between meetings or tasks. Squeezing in a ten or twenty minute break for prayer gets difficult.

Days like today, I try to front load with prayer before I go out the door. I start rising around 2 A.M. so that I can get a few hours of deep prayer in before the day starts. Then if I can after my busy morning I will retire to my room for another time of waiting prayer and the Word.

I also try to close out each night with a time of evening prayer and then a settling in prayer as I lay my head down on the pillow each night.

Each day is different. I have never been able to standardize the time and remain consistent. Making prayer part of the flow of my life, rather than an anchor I force myself to observe religiously has worked for me.

IF YOU PRAY OR MEDITATE, WHAT WORKS FOR YOU?