Day 5: Scientific Doxology

It feels like God has been reading my blog because when I turned on Spotify to listen to my new podcasts, the episode that came on what almost a direct response to my previous two posts -- It was called Scientific Doxology and was a conversation with a scientist who saw his work in science as a form of praise.  He discusses how that framework for thinking about work shapes his work and his days. As I listened I could almost hear God whisper --"What if we took the concept of prayer and the concept of how we spend our day and we combine them --- What if the busyness of the day became a prayer?" In full discloser, I didn't finish the episode, which I've linked, but it was enough to get my mind rolling.

Could the ordinary busyness of our days over time form a liturgy of prayer?

If so, I have the lament sections nailed. 

Lord have mercy (on this messy house) 

Christ have mercy (on these children who are driving me nuts).

In seriousness, I think an aligning of the heart with the work God has given me in a day and letting my actions become a movement that connect me to God could transform the simple doing into sacred doing.

When I reflect on life, I can sense moments where this happens. When I deeply connect with one of the kids, or pull out a well of patience on a day when everyone seems to be melting. When I stay up with a sleepless child and lean into their needs rather than rolling over and mumbling in my sleep. When I stay up making a birthday cake or let yet another corner of my house surrender to the project of the day and dive fully in to learn about the bug or plant or element or whatever it is so we can experience and learn together. It is deeply purposeful and in those moments, I know I am exactly where I need to be. 

I experienced this also in work. In building our startup and showing up with couples who struggled with fertility. I held them in my heart during every board meeting, when I was writing articles for our website, when I was building our test kits, when I was meeting with the app developers. There was a prayer in my heart in all the hard work that made it feel like church. 

It isn't so much what I'm doing but what is in my heart in the doing. When I connect deeply to the work of God that is played out in my life, it easily transforms my days into a series hymns. When I feel far from God or when my life feels out of step with what God is doing in the world, I find every reason to complain and find distractions to fill my hours.

I wish I could say that I spend most of my time connected to God's work in my life -- but I'm not great at this. I have definitely had seasons where it was so easy. And so many others when I've been restless, seeking, agitated. Wanted God and life to be easier to understand, wanting some sort of instruction manual for how to align myself and my life to the Divine. To be fair, I think this is exactly the lifelong work of monks, priests and nuns who explicitly move out of life in society to devote themselves to the practice of aligning the living of life with the holy rhythm of God. Even as I fall short, I think returning my mind to this as a practice could help center me and help me prioritize what I get to and what I let go of. 

 In this season, I find myself entering middle age. My children are growing. My community is changing. My career is on standby mode. I sense life change somewhere on the path ahead of me but it is obscure and hard to grasp. This concept of life doxology could help me navigate the waters to understand better, where do I go from here.