Seven Sacred Pauses

Did you know that, before Covid, I used to host retreats? I’m thinking about moving that way again, but I have changed, so much, just like we all have. I still have that seed buried deep, but it’s got some germinating to do, before I see what it looks like now, in this new season.

Be Still retreats, which is what I did before, were structured around Seven Sacred Pauses. Seven Sacred Pauses is a book by Macrina Wiederkehr that outlines a specific practice of praying the hours. There are many many books on “praying the hours,” which just means praying at the seven times of day traditional for christian monastics. Wiederkehr and other writers have written about how to translate the meaning of these different prayers for people who do not live in monasteries or abbeys. These markers, or pauses, help you slow down and find moments of mindfulness in your day and infuse your daily rhythms with meaning.

My boys and I were reading yesterday, the biography in Holy Troublemakers of Danya Ruttenberg and she says that when you are looking for rituals to root and enrich our lives and religious practice, the cool thing is we don’t have to make them up from scratch, because people have been developing meaningful practices for thousands of years, and we get to join in that stream, that living community.

So I used to teach these pauses, with my friends, at retreats a couple times a year, butI’ve always struggled to integrate them to my life. I am not naturally an organized routine person. I struggle to keep a regular rhythm from day to day, even though I know that it helps me and my neurodivergent kiddos. I used to set alarms on my phone that went off every day, but even though I had them on there for months, I always seemed to be in the middle of something whenever they went off. I was never in a good space to pause, and so I never really built the habit.

But this last school year I talked about the prayers with the kids in my Sunday school class, and I made these little cards for them to take home. Recently I have been craving some more mindfulness, but I needed a better way for it to fit into and structure my life, and I think the cards are going to help. Here’s how I have stuck the cards all over my house wherever I am starting something at that time of day. Let’s walk through it.

Awakening Hour

I like to say my Awakening Hour verses and mantras while I face my eastern windows with the sun pouring in and do a sun salutation, so I taped it to the middle of my bunny yoga poster. This artwork is created by Brian Russo, who has a treadless shop, but it has fewer prints. I just printed this own off of Pinterest when I was reading The Lazy Genius Way and making things easier for my future self and starting small. This is my best habit for starting the day. The rest of these are a work in progress, but this is my favorite. I also like to let the sun wash over me like Joy Prouty describes in Practicing Presence.

Blessing Hour

This is taped to our school shelf, so we can start the school day with a prayer for blessing our hands/work. We pray over our hands as a symbol to bless all of the work we will do that day. Wiederkehr refers to the Kahlil Gibran idea that work is love made visible. When we work hard at school, make beautiful and interesting things, or do chores to care for our home and family, we are making Creator’s love visible and real in the world. Many days this is quick and simple, and every once in a while we slow down and talk it over again.

Hour of Illumination

This one and the Twilight Hour are by the dining table so we can refer to them with our meal time prayers. The hour of illumination is to remind of us of God’s abundance and strength and fullness. We relish their light and remember that we live in their strength not only our own.

Wisdom Hour

I put this note at my desk for the mid-afternoon slump. It is called the wisdom hour because, when our to do list is inevitably longer than our work day, we pause to ask: What is the most important thing for me to finish today? And we ask for peace about whatever is left undone until tomorrow.

Twilight Hour

Once again at the table, we express our gratitude to one another for the opportunities we have had throughout the day to give and receive love. I had these friends in college who used to ask, “Should we say grace, or just say what we’re thankful for?” They gave us the opportunity to adjust the possibly stale dinner prayer, said by one person, with routine words we had maybe become numb to, and instead as a community to life up all that we were grateful for that day, returning us to the heart of the ritual instead of the rote habit. We are also working on a habit of lighting candles at dinner when we can remember to set them out after scrubbing it. Every ordinary part of our day can become sacred and holy when we take the time to pause and assign it meaning.

The Great Silence

In every household, monastic or familial, even as kids get older and don’t go to sleep as early, there is a time of day when we stop talking and turn inward. It is a special liminal space where work touches rest, and noise touches silence, and light touches dark, and community touches solitude, and so we look back over our day without judgement and look for God’s presence. We offer up our blessings and challenges as our life’s curriculum. We can metabolize a lesson from the good and the bad, and then let it go in peace. I keep this card in my bedside table.

The Night Watch

In monasteries people take shifts for getting up in the night, and we don’t have to do that in our homes. Everyone needs all the rest they can get to be their best selves, but inevitably we wake, for a bathroom trip or nothing else. So I have this taped above my nightlight by my bathroom window, with a little bolder and larger text so I can see it without turning on the overhead light. When I studied the founders of the Moravian Church in seminary I learned that they kept a prayer watch going, in shifts as a community, for over 100 years. When they were questioned by others for why they didn’t drop the night shifts, they said those were the most important of all. It is in the dark hours of the night that people suffer and struggle the most. So it is in the night that is most important to send out our prayers of intercession for those in pain or worry. I first read this book when I was pregnant with my son, and often restless in the night. My grandfather had recently died and I knew my Granny was alone and struggling, and so I sent my spirit out to fight with her.

Habits take time, and the most important step is to keep going, even when you are doing badly. I don’t remember any of these every day. It is an imperfect process, but I am growing into this rhythm, and every time I do remember to grab a pause and recognize the meaningfulness of this moment and the beauty of every day I am blessed. I hope you will be too. You can save and print these to hang in your own sacred spots.