Time to Pray

RantWoman was reading a blogger who wrote of having "time to pray" because of being unemployed. RantWoman's first reflex is to ask the question on behalf of this Friend and all working people of all station everywhere: since when is it desirable for everyone to be so busy that just as a matter of course there is no time to pray?



RantWoman suspects that if she thought about that point for a millisecond longer, she would get to a world on the edge of ecological collapse, desertification, global warming, and vast swaths of other problems traceable in some way to overconsumption, greed...



Who do we have to blame but ourselves? And how can we demand such time obligation of others?



On the other hand, RantWoman respectfully submits that anyone who does not have time to pray has not spent enough time aboard Metro. RantWoman has been trying to think of a kinder way to say this, but time to pray happens all the time for RantWoman:




--Get on a bus with Thwack the Badly-behaved white cane on the job. The handicapped section is cluttered with bags, baggage, mobility devices, immobile masses, and heaven knows what else. The space is already overflowing with some incipient crip fight turf war. It is a total dice roll whether or not one will find a seat before the driver zooms off. Time to Pray!


--Get on a bus on an unfamiliar route, even better if it's a once-an-hour bus to maximize the consequences of missing one's stop. Tell the driver which intersection one needs to get off at. Ask the driver specifically to announce that. "Where's that?" Time to pray!

--It's Sunday and the passenger loads are lighter. Unfortunately, this means the bus schedules run "hot," that is ahead of schedule. Time to pray if one is trying to catch the bus, or as another rider put it in terms of her general simplicity philosophy, "just tithe and pray."

--By the grace of God and really good bus legs, make it to a seat toward the back. This will save having one's feet walked on by everyone getting on and off the bus, but it will bring one still other passenger encounters, baby gangbangers, all youth and awkwardness and foul mouths, and awkwardness of word and action. What a perfect opportunity to practice world peace in the form of sensible and constructive adult presence! ? ! Time to pray!

Once in awhile RantWoman does rather forcefully seize time amid the hustle, bustle, clatter and weird smells to center, to be grateful, to think worshipful thoughts in the directions of multilingual family dramas going on live or by cellphone around her.

Alas, RantWoman cannot even leave the bus on the bus. One time at a retreat, another Friend meant to act out Meeting for Worship; RantWoman--and several other participants one by one joined the skit adding different bus-related visuals until the poor Friend trying to worship found herself on a bus trip she had never planned. RantWoman supposes one's faith journey is like that sometimes.