PRAYER CORNER REVAMP

Dec. 2018

Living Room Prayer "Corner"

Every so often I write a post about my prayer corners. I change them around as often as I reorganize the living room, which is a very small space that is ruined with doors, windows and walkways. No matter where I put my recliner, it is in the way of a door, window or walkway. The present configuration is no different, and I think I have finally given up. As long as I live in this odd little apartment, I will just live with the set-up as it is and stop trying to find a better organization. The space is so awkward, it will never be comfortable or spacious.

When you enter my apartment, you will have to scoot around my recliner and the table I must have next to it. We will pray that your hips are more narrow than mine and you won't end up knocking everything off the little tables and onto the floor. Welcome to my world!

Now that I have resigned myself to this odd little piece of air, I decided to reorganize for the LAST time, and look forward to the day when I can leave here, hopefully to a house that I will buy from the proceeds of my writing. I have never had the money to buy any sort of home, but the dream still lives.

Whenever I buy a lottery ticket or think of what I might like to accomplish if I were to sell my book and/or paintings, I immediately think about a Catholic ashram where I might host several other senior religious women like me. It would be be an Indian style house of prayer that would rely upon the sale of art works for its income, and regular times of quiet and meditation in a quasi-monastic schedule. [We will have to be relatively flexible with all of this because of the vagaries of the human body as it breaks down with age.]

Because of my disabilities, I am physically unable to adapt myself to someone else's routine and premises, nor would I want to, as I tend to take charge under most circumstances, and religious institutions typically don't want that. I am alpha. It is my natural posture in relation to the world, and as far as I can ascertain, God has made me this way, and therefore it is good.

 

My Shrine table

In the Catholic Byzantine tradition, having at least one prayer corner in one's home is highly stressed as very necessary to the corporate spiritual life of the family that lives there. You can have dozens of icons or just a few, a big shrine table or just 10 inches square, as I have here. The point is to create a sacred space conducive to regular prayer.

I try to create sacred space throughout the entire apartment, but my joints have disintegrated to such an extent that I am not able to even keep it tidy. It is hard to feel all holy and elevated when the dust bunnies are the size of small cats. Especially important, to that end, is getting a special vacuum cleaner that will address my asthma as well as those dust bunnies and the peculiar requirements of cleaning a linoleum floor that is manufactured to look and feel like wood. Dirt and dust become wedged into the "grain." This apartment is so dusty that the walls around the heater vents are black with it. [After much research, I found an excellent vacuum that will both clean AND help me BREATH. My Amazon wish list is HERE ]

Invite the Lord into your home in a more visible way. Having a prayer corner creates a remarkable environment that encourages prayer. The visual reminders of the Lord and His saints leads you into it. You'll find that it is easier to find time to sit and meditate if you have a beautiful space in which to do it. I happen to have a lot of beautiful icons and statues that people have given me and that I have collected over the years, but you don't need all that. One picture, a candle, a set of prayer beads, set on a small table with a chair nearby: these are all you really need.

Try to remember that God is everywhere, including most especially in your home. There are many advantages to having at least one prayer corner in your home, but I won't tell you all of them. Discover for yourself.

God bless you all.