For more than a decade of my life, the third Thursday of June had a special significance. It was marking day, a day when we didn’t go to school so the teachers could put our final grades on our report cards. Starting noon the next day was glorious summer vacation, more than two months with no bells to summon us to classes and no schedules to keep to. Freedom!

Little did we realize that one day we would leave school and enter a world where for the next forty or fifty years our lives would be just as rigidly scheduled and controlled. And then would come glorious retirement with no more schedules and no more alarm clocks. Freedom! Ha! Every day I examine my calendar to see what doctor I have to visit and check my pill box to make sure I’ve taken all the right medications at the right time.

I read a portion of the monastic Rule of St. Benedict each day. Much of it is about schedules. When do you eat, sleep, pray, what psalms are to be read on which day. I have come to appreciate this kind of religious scheduling. It may just be me, but I need to be very intentional about setting aside time for prayer and spiritual reading or it doesn’t happen. I can’t trust just doing what I feel like or my relationship with God gets neglected.

Doesn’t scheduling time for prayer make it something mechanical? Not at all. It actually helps integrate prayer into life. Give it a try.

Read Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne