I read this tonight in [Re]Understanding Prayer by Kyle Lake and thought you might want to too.

"Henri Nouwen said that when prayer becomes a way of life for you, it does not mean that you think about God in contrast to thinking about other things, or that you spend time with God instead of spending time with other people. Rather, it means to think and live in the presence of God. As soon as we begin to divide our thoughts into thoughts about God and thoughts about people and events, we remove God from our daily life and put Him in a pious little niche where we can think pious thoughts and experience pious feelings. Our instruction in 1 Thessalonians 5, 'pray without ceasing,' then finds new meaning."

It reminds me of a thing we did one Wednesday night last semester at UBC. We were in the midst of a series about the fruits of the spirit, and that night we were talking about peace. We walked into the room all quiet-like and instead of listening to someone talk, read words on a screen. We were told to take a piece of paper that had been given to us and write on it all the things that had been stressing us that week. Then, instead of throwing the paper away or setting it on fire, we were told to just bring those things to God. That when we pray, not to clear our minds of all distractions and focus only on God, but to bring all that stuff to God, letting God give us peace in everything, not just in "a pious little niche" of our lives.

That's cool. So is the name "Henri" with an "i."

Whoa, so I just googled Kyle's name and found it on Wikipedia. Interesting.