Help
With Your Rule
Can I Hop to Another "P" ???
Dear Holly,
Some friends and I have and are reading your book. I believe it's going to change my life. However, I find myself wanting to jump ahead. We are only on the first P and after a month of trying what I thought was reasonable, I find myself not successful ( accomplishing the prayers ) and jumping to your routine charts. Is this a good idea? If not what should I do?
Signed, Frustrated in Fort Worth
Labels: About a Rule of Life
posted by Holly at 2:44 PM
1 Comments:
Excellent question! :-)
Your first task when working out a mother's rule of life is to come up with a basic schedule covering all the 5 Ps. This means that you are going through the 5 P questions, in order, and working out initial answers to your questions. There will come a time, in the future, when you will get to the 'heart' of the 5 Ps and begin a meditative reflection on all your life.
For the time being, take 10 minutes and see what times you want your prayer in every day, and what types of prayer you want to do. The move immediately to the 2nd P - when are you going to get up? go to bed? do your teeth? Write down your basic answers.
Go through all the questions in an evening or two - this is your first run...
MEANWHILE - when I began my rule, I was simultaneously doing up my 'room analysis' of every room in my house - setting it up in a reasonable fashion - cleaning out stuff - getting those initial chore charts written down.
Then, based on these initial routines, I just kept my notebook open on the kitchen counter and began to record what wasn't working and why.
For example - if no one fed the cat - I'd write that in... If I had't thought about the weekly compost cleanout, I'd record that to include on someone's chore chart.
If my prayer time wasn't working,I had to examine it. I had initially planned a mid-afternoon session - and this I was NEVER able to pull off! There was always too much happening in the afternoon. So, for a while, I put it down as 'optional' and then after a few years, stopped writing it in.
And to tell you the truth - I have never solved the upstairs bathroom clean completely in the 5 years I have been on my rule! There is something about it which just baffles me!?!?!
So yes, you've got your prayer ideas. Hop around through your other Ps now. Get your questions answered. Do up a tentative schedule, and then spend the next month or so examining what is working? what is not working? why?
And if you need additional help, send me an email. God Bless!
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