In and Out Trying to be Devout

Life presents many opportunities to forget and to remember things.

Telephone numbers, addresses, names, faces, birthdays, and anniversaries are often on the memory carousel within the brains of most human beings. It is a fact of life. We are in a state of starting and stopping tasks, arriving and departing from different places.

This morning I resumed reading Introduction to the Devout Life by Francis De Sales. I had begun reading it several months ago. With great enthusiasm I read the Translator’s Introduction, then the Dedicatory Prayer and Notice to Reader, then The Author’s Preface and then finally I read the eight chapters with building interest.

In my zeal, I neglected reading and understanding the table of contents. Being in a rush I jumped into the book without planning how to learn the lessons of the book. At the time stopping and doing eac meditation sounded great. At that time I must have been a lunatic in search of an asylum.

I created a very rigorous regimen of reading one meditation a day, and then sitting quietly contemplating on the topic. I downloaded some nice chimes to monitor my meditation time. My mind was too cluttered with clamoring thoughts and I was neither prepared nor able to focus my mind on one topic for longer than a second or two. Somewhere during the second or third meditations I came up with the idea of capturing my meditation thoughts.

Well, reading of the book stopped. Each day I read only the the chapter which related to the meditation topic. With each advancing day, meditating became harder and harder. My ability to focus was on holiday. So, at some point the book was returned to the book shelf and I too went on holiday.

But, something in the book remained in my mind, swirling and bubbling in my gray matter. I was still interested in reading the book. I just had to decide upon a time. Since I was going to New York I decided this would be the perfect traveling companion.

And so I began reading this book again. I skimmed through the table of contents and then read the chapters and through the chapters describing the meditations.

Reading was an enjoyable experience, I had to force myself to concentrate several times because of people of talking loudly on their cell phones, because of a silly violent movie, and because of the sound of the rain and the other vehicles on the interstate.

Later, I will do the meditations. After I finish reading the entire book.

Life presents many opportunities to stop and start, forget and remember, pray and pray.