Jesus told his disciples to pray without ceasing, which seems impossible since daily life demands so much of our attention. Most of us find it much more difficult to pray outside the temple, but praying constantly requires using profanities, words spoken not in church but in the secular space of daily life.

A good Lenten exercise would be to experiment with using non-churchy words in your daily prayer as a way to find a more natural and constant prayer-communion with God. Take a little time and reflect on a few of your most frequently used words and expressions as starting points for your prayer. What would your profanity prayer sound like?

Edwards Hays in A Lenten Hobo Honeymoon