Getting Up REALLY Early for Work - Part 2
We're talking about those of us who get up really early for work each day. Last time we talked about my neighbor Jack who got up around 3 AM for years. My owm wake up times have changed based on various jobs I've had, but never at 3 AM! In fact, when I graduated college, I took a shot at trying to earn a living as a musician. Like most musicians, I had what we used to call a "day job" while I was trying to earn enough playing my music. That didn't work out, but there was a stretch of years where I'd work all week at a day job, then work all weekends playing weddings, bar mitvahs and such. Sometimes I'd start those on a Friday night, with two gigs on Saturday and two on Sunday, getting home late Sunday night, only to get up for work Monday morning. I wasn't a fan of getting up early, but I did what I had to do.
I don't play weekend gigs any more, and my current work doesn't require it but generally I get up early now no matter what because it's a good time to be with God. In fact, at one point I used to get up at 4 AM because I had to leave at 6:30 to get to my office. I had already started a morning discipline of prayer, meditation, and study, which, when combined with a bit of morning exercise, pretty much meant I had to get up REALLY early to fit everything in before I left for work. Frankly, I don't recommend 4 AM. It was a bit of a drain. But I also have to say that those quiet moments with God before the first light of day helped me to look forward (sort of!) to getting up early each day.
If you're not already getting up early to spend some time with God, I highly recommend it. It's just the best way I know to develop the habit of prayer, before work sucks you in to its relentless demands. All I know is that if I didn't spend those early moments in prayer - which can take the form of formal prayers, talking to God, reading some good spiritual work, studying your Catholics Faith - there's be a huge empty hole in my life. I realize that work done for the greater glory of God will serve as prayer just as surely as saying the words of the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory be to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. But you should try making time early for God each day, if you're not doing so already. It's just the best way I know to develop the habit of prayer. To encourage you in this worthy endeavor, take a moment to read these thoughts from Dr. Alexis Carrel:
I don't play weekend gigs any more, and my current work doesn't require it but generally I get up early now no matter what because it's a good time to be with God. In fact, at one point I used to get up at 4 AM because I had to leave at 6:30 to get to my office. I had already started a morning discipline of prayer, meditation, and study, which, when combined with a bit of morning exercise, pretty much meant I had to get up REALLY early to fit everything in before I left for work. Frankly, I don't recommend 4 AM. It was a bit of a drain. But I also have to say that those quiet moments with God before the first light of day helped me to look forward (sort of!) to getting up early each day.
If you're not already getting up early to spend some time with God, I highly recommend it. It's just the best way I know to develop the habit of prayer, before work sucks you in to its relentless demands. All I know is that if I didn't spend those early moments in prayer - which can take the form of formal prayers, talking to God, reading some good spiritual work, studying your Catholics Faith - there's be a huge empty hole in my life. I realize that work done for the greater glory of God will serve as prayer just as surely as saying the words of the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory be to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. But you should try making time early for God each day, if you're not doing so already. It's just the best way I know to develop the habit of prayer. To encourage you in this worthy endeavor, take a moment to read these thoughts from Dr. Alexis Carrel:
“If you make a habit of prayer, your life will be very noticeably and profoundly altered. Within the depths of consciousness a flame kindles. And man sees himself. He discovers his selfishness, his silly pride, his fears, his greed, his blunders. He develops a sense of moral obligation, of intellectual humility. This begins a journey of the soul toward the realm of grace. Prayer is a force as real as terrestrial gravity. As a physician, I have seen men, after all other therapy had failed, lifted out of disease and melancholy by the serene effort of prayer. It is the only power in the world that seems to overcome the so-called ‘laws of nature.’ The occasions on which prayer has dramatically done this have been termed ‘miracles.’ But a constant quieter miracle takes place hourly in the hearts of men and women who have discovered that prayer supplies them with a steady flow of sustaining power in their daily lives. Too many regard prayer as a formalized routine of words, a refuge of weaklings, or a childish petition for material things. We sadly undervalue prayer when we conceive it in these terms, just as we would underestimate rain by describing it as something that fills the birdbath in the garden. Properly understood, prayer is a mature activity indispensable to the fullest development of personality – the ultimate integration of man’s highest faculties. Only in prayer do we achieve that complete and harmonious assembly of body, mind, and spirit which gives the frail human reed its unshakable strength.”
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