My Portable Choir Stall

By Nancy Shuman -
It is morning in the monastery.  Sister silently enters the chapel and takes her place in a choir stall, a chair made exclusively to be a place of prayer. 

As the hours move on, Sister will come back and back to the choir stall.  Mid-morning, afternoon, evening, just before bedtime… here she returns to chant praise, participate in Mass, pray with Scripture, meet hour after hour with God.  Sister begins and continues and ends her day here.  She answers the bell’s call to prayer when she feels great and when she has a headache.  She comes to the choir stall when she feels close to God, when she's distracted, and when her spiritual life seems barren and dry. 

I have learned that, in the cloister of my heart, I, too, have a "choir stall."  Mine is a portable place of prayer, traveling with me to supermarket, airplane, mall.   I can "sit down" in this prayer-chair regardless of surroundings, seeking God's touch upon my life and on the lives of those around me.

There are no bells to call me to the choir stall.  I must build reminders into my own life.  For me, discipline is quite difficult; therefore, I find the following practices helpful.  Actually, I find them personally necessary if I hope to keep my life focused and on track..... (continued at The Cloistered Heart)

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