Put down that book and pray

I've been learning (experiencing) as a Protestant inquirer into Orthodoxy that this is a classic Western Christian approach. My father is constantly raving about the latest book/author he has read, only to find a new book three months from now. It is a symptom of a largely rational faith (oxymoron?). I suppose the Orthodox could fall into the same trap with reading Saints or contemporary works.

You can know everything about a person and yet not know them at all, like a baseball player's stats. Move, breath, and share bread with them, and you might begin to know them.

This is why I find St. Therese of Lisieux's approach so helpful. Few people outside of the cloister have three, four, five hours a day set aside just for prayer; but we can make everything we do a prayer, and grow in holiness that way.

Decades ago a friend would say, "I was praying about you yesterday at the mall." What he meant was that he was thinking about me. I dismissed that as did others to whom I would mention it. But years later I realized that God is always watching and listening and we would be wise to be aware of that. If we behave -- think, say -- as if He were not in the room, we separate ourselves from Him. If we acknowledge His awareness reverently in all we say and do, is that not prayer?

Where do we draw the line on prayer? Must it be a spoken, formal address? Is a hymn a prayer? A worship song? What makes words or feelings not prayer? Perhaps the key is in our focus and awareness on/of Who is listening as we experience the communication.

True, Jesus did remove Himself from his companions so that He might pray without distraction. Even so, I am convinced He's listening always.

Concerning "Praying without ceasing", for the Orthodox, this is where the Jesus Prayer, otherwise known as the Prayer of the Heart comes in.