this country and praying, hmmm?

One morning, at our Bible Study group--we are five women who've been getting together at some un-godly time of the morning for more than fifteen years--when talking about prayer requests, someone said, "Pray for our country." And it struck me that I didn't know what that meant, what were we praying for.

The five women in this particular group had different political views and we were coming up to an election--so were we going to be praying for a Republican view or a Democrat's view, in effect canceling out each others prayers like we would each others votes. Were we praying that the United States would be richer than, stronger than, mightier than, smarter than other countries.

Were we praying that our country would believe as we did- middle class, middle aged, midwestern women who believed fairly simply but strongly in the overwhelmingly predominant faith of our families and communities.

Are we reminding ourselves to pray that God's will be done? How do we know it's not being done now, how will we know what it is when it is done--how is my discernment of God's will better than your discernment?

Sometimes the simplest of things can just set me going for quite a while.

I don't know what to pray for...for our country. And while I've spent probably far too much time thinking about this, I keep thinking about the Bible verse that says

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans." Romans 8:26

Commonplacing

Thomas Jefferson liked to spend time alone, reading and taking notes on what he read. He called it "commonplacing". I had never heard the term before so when I looked it up saw that it referred to copying passages or quotes from things you're reading and a commonplace book would be a notebook that you wrote them in.

I've been doing this for years but didn't know it had a name other than "oh, I better write this down so I don't forget it". As I've been cleaning the attic this weekend I've found some old notebooks and folders with bits and pieces of commonplacing in them. I definately tended toward the religious and absolute when I was younger. I'm not sure how I would characterize what I copy down now.

The Ipad and computers keep teasing with apps and programs that will lift and save the quote or text for you but I haven't really been able to do more than hightlight text yet. Regardless, I think the act of writing it down, copying the words and the author of the words, putting it side by side with the other jottings in my current commonplace book, is more satisfying, more real. It just feels good to write it down.

Now, Thomas Jefferson, when he was copying a passage, if he thought he could improve it, he would copy it with his changes included. I think you have to be Thomas Jefferson to get away with that.