A liturgy, in the sense I mean it here, is just a small set of words you say to yourself on purpose. It is a way of arriving on time to your own life.
This is the one I am trying for Mondays.
Lord, the cursor is blinking and the inbox is full and the week has, again, opened its hand.
Steady me for the work that is mine. Loosen my grip on the work that is not.
Let me read carefully. Let me write briefly. Let me reply kindly.
When the meeting that should have been an email arrives, let me attend to the people in it, not the time it is taking.
When the page that should not have happened arrives, let me triage with both speed and gentleness.
Make me, in small things, faithful. Amen.
I do not say it out loud. I read it once, slowly, before I open Slack.
It is not magic. The week still goes the way the week goes. But there is a difference between the man who walks into Monday and the man Monday drags in, and over time, on small days, I have noticed which one I am.