Under the snow, stuff from last year’s garden remains that will have to be cleared away so Spring will have the blank space it needs to operate.

In the brain, it’s all four seasons of the year every day as certain patches lay fallow, others flourish, others are in full bloom, and others decline. Not everything is going to be fully underway all the time. If one feels like writing, he can do that instead of focusing on music for awhile, or maybe one feels like drawing (finally inventing a good graffiti tag, for instance) instead of anything else.

Several types of prayer are common, and familiar: classics (Our Father), less familiar (Memorare), obscure ones found in old prayer books, individual formulas one creates by linking Scriptural texts, private prayer (Rosary), common prayers said in unison at Mass, lectio divina, spontaneous prayer, petitions, thanksgiving.

It can all add up. During Mass, petitions are offered, with reference sometimes made to the prayer concerns of the congregation. When one starts naming names and praying for certain situations, it can be hard to know where to stop. Think of all those people at work, their difficulties and problems. A word might be said about those things, and if one doesn’t, is it because he has the shortcoming of not caring enough about that person’s thing, or thinks it’s not a big enough problem? If one prays for peace and justice in Nigeria, how can one leave out the Congo? And that’s just for starters. At what point do you think you’ve singled out every specific issue big enough, or just lump them all together into one region of the world? If one has prayed for a place every day for years, as have so many people in the place itself, and everywhere else, with no signs of things ever getting any better, at what point does one think he’s done enough? And, what has he actually done, and how is it that that much of whatever one has done is enough?

Just because one prays those petitions doesn’t mean one is doing that with the intention of drawing God’s attention to something, or is attempting to persuade God to take action. The formula of the prayer is automatic and the mind is complex enough to appreciate that one doesn’t exactly mean it like that, nor does he think God thinks he does. A prayer is answered if it successfully predisposes the person to a deeper engagement with the issue of concern. If one prays for the hungry every day, it becomes harder to neglect opportunities to provide practical assistance in service of that cause. There’s the answered prayer.

Petitions are a means of awakening one’s conscience. But they can also be a 15-minute daily recitation of a long list of things. It’s hard to remember them all, and it’s difficult to say while one is busy with the other chores of the day, and they’re stressful to say when one is rushing through them to get to the rest of one’s daily prayers, which include other questionable exercises which are also difficult to recite efficiently, which he likes to say before some other prayers. All told, including the prayer books in the morning, all this can last five hours on an easy day, eight hours on a difficult day.

The whole program began small, but has gotten bigger, and massive, over the years. Many of the exercises began when he had a much different life. He had much time on his hands. Now, he has no such time, partially because so much of the day is spent on the same activities one has maintained for decades.

For what purpose? The idea with prayer is that it’s a constructive activity that deepens one’s spiritual life, and helps him be a better person. But habits are imbued with an inertia, and become difficult to dislodge. It can be easier to stick to habit than to question the habit, and investigate whether that has been time well-spent. Is it really necessary to spend 15 minutes reciting petitions when one is pretty sure there is no need or benefit there? Must one reject altogether that entire form of prayer? One can always pray for somebody or something with honesty and sincerity, and that is enough.

Some people might have the problem that they don’t pray enough. Others have the problem that they don’t sleep enough.

Who has the problem that they’re not good enough? When one grows up with the story that all those people are the goats, and they’re destined for the everlasting torment created for Satan and his angels, and others are destined for the eternal banquet on the mountain with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it ‘s hard to shake the idea that some people, maybe a lot, are just rotten. Maybe some of us! Because all those people in the story are going to Hell, and it’s so scary that someone can spend several hours a day his whole life saying all kinds of prayers for anybody and everybody.

But if it’s being a better person that someone is after, a good way of getting there could well be not getting up so early to say so many more prayers , and instead try to get enough sleep so one has the energy and focus to make good, well-considered decisions.

All the prayers you can say won’t make you a good enough person, and if you are a good enough person, you won’t be downgraded because you don’t fulfill a quota of prayer. None of us can say he hasn’t deserved some punishment at one time or other, and no one can say he is no good at all.

How does one really become a better person in his family, his work, his neighborhood, his life? When too much looking inward causes a skewed perspective outward, it’s time to look outward more thoughtfully, and see what one can do in one’s inner life to restore a better balance.

Although the mental landscape is covered with things: things that have been there too long, things that need to be moved into the compost pile, triumphs, partial successes, and some experiments in progress, it remains one’s private place where, if one looks, one continually finds opportunities to try new, and better, things.