It's Thanksgiving in the U.S. tomorrow, a day of eating, connecting with family and friends, and, presumably, being grateful. I suspect that, at least among the people I know, gratitude is mostly a vague, generalized awareness, mainly that the busy holiday season is upon us. This holiday for many people means an annual ritual of travel, cooking, watching football, overeating and shopping--and nothing more.
I wish everyone could be silent for a while on this day, savor the moment, and truly feel thankful, especially for the things we take for granted. Isn't happiness found in being mindful of the present?
Being grateful is essential to my life because, amid personal struggles, political turmoil, and world-wide violence and corruption, I need to stop and think positive thoughts. I need to remind myself of simple things--the intense blue of the sky between two pine trees as I look out my window, or the light as it comes into the house in the afternoon...I am grateful for the beautiful lakes that dot my area of Florida and the touches of autumn in colored leaves on cool days.
I am grateful for the friends and family who write or call us at this time of year. I am grateful for those times in the day when I don't feel the pain of arthritis and become irritable or sad about my health. Of course, I am grateful for a rich store of memories--of students going back 50-plus years, of trips, of family gatherings by many who are no longer around. Above all, I am grateful for my wife, Lynn, and her brilliance, her hard work, her constant support and boundless love.
I am grateful to have had a retirement from university teaching that has allowed me to write and speak and keep learning new things, thanks to the internet and related technology. And I am grateful for so much more....
Gratitude is for me the essence of prayer, and I like to think that in each moment when I recollect something to be thankful for, at any time of the year, I am talking to God, connecting myself to my inner life as well as to the community of people I know and remember. It's hard to imagine real gratitude without a belief in God.
And it's hard to imagine happiness without gratitude.
Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
Monday, March 5, 2018
Food and contemplation
A chilly spring morning finds me trying to pray, to reflect on what Ron Rolheiser has to say about prayer, and finally to try to understand what he means by saying that living contemplatively means that our lives are not trivial, unimportant, or anonymous.
When I think of the ordinary tasks of the day, I turn to my love of food and the way I enjoy Lidia's Italian cooking show on TV because she is so natural and well grounded, just as food (even shopping) keeps us grounded. I think of her as I cook and I value the time I spend in the kitchen, with the ordinary, everyday details that make up a life, from chopping to cleaning up the sink.
To work with food, to read about it (no wonder there are so many cookbooks and magazines devoted to recipes, so many restaurant reviews) is so fundamentally human; somehow doing so connects us with the earth, with creation, and with others around the world who are also chopping, cooking, eating, savoring the flavors that nature so bountifully provides.
I used to think of cooking as a creative thing, and it is; now I see it mainly as a spiritual act that reminds us how earth-bound attention to the present really is. The life of prayer and contemplation is not vague and abstract and other-worldly; it is rooted in the goodness of everyday, in the creation of which we are a part.
To cook and to eat what we prepare is in a sense to be in communion with Mother Earth and with God's creation. This realization is itself a prayer and a reminder of how the little, ordinary things of daily life are holy, are universal and timeless; and that our humble daily tasks, which may seem tiresome or boring, are important reminders of how important everything we do is and how important every moment is.
So our lives, even if spent doing ordinary things at home, are far from unimportant, trivial, or anonymous--if we see them mindfully.
When I think of the ordinary tasks of the day, I turn to my love of food and the way I enjoy Lidia's Italian cooking show on TV because she is so natural and well grounded, just as food (even shopping) keeps us grounded. I think of her as I cook and I value the time I spend in the kitchen, with the ordinary, everyday details that make up a life, from chopping to cleaning up the sink.
To work with food, to read about it (no wonder there are so many cookbooks and magazines devoted to recipes, so many restaurant reviews) is so fundamentally human; somehow doing so connects us with the earth, with creation, and with others around the world who are also chopping, cooking, eating, savoring the flavors that nature so bountifully provides.
I used to think of cooking as a creative thing, and it is; now I see it mainly as a spiritual act that reminds us how earth-bound attention to the present really is. The life of prayer and contemplation is not vague and abstract and other-worldly; it is rooted in the goodness of everyday, in the creation of which we are a part.
To cook and to eat what we prepare is in a sense to be in communion with Mother Earth and with God's creation. This realization is itself a prayer and a reminder of how the little, ordinary things of daily life are holy, are universal and timeless; and that our humble daily tasks, which may seem tiresome or boring, are important reminders of how important everything we do is and how important every moment is.
So our lives, even if spent doing ordinary things at home, are far from unimportant, trivial, or anonymous--if we see them mindfully.
Sunday, February 18, 2018
Learning from suffering
What can I learn about suffering? That has become the spiritual question for me in recent weeks while recovering from my first hospitalization for a serious, complicated illness.
I have reminded myself daily of the inescapable fact that life involves pain and suffering; that millions are suffering around the world; that many people I know have major health challenges; and yet I remain trapped in my own mental delusion that I am unique.
I forget that my faith teaches that love redeems the horrors of life, and so I reach out to others and welcome their good wishes and prayers, their phone calls and visits. I feel less isolated, which is one of the key aspects of suffering.
What else have I learned? To take each day at a time, refusing to worry about the future. To appreciate simplicity: the little things I do in my home each day (cooking, e.g.) are important somehow in the bigger picture of my life. Every task, however humble, has some meaning. I am being tested in mindfulness: full attention to the present moment.
I value the sun, the trees, the flowering azaleas here in Florida, the light as it streams through the window, the music I can access and all the other entertainments that can distract me from my discomfort.
I try to cultivate humility (a tough one) and acceptance of my human frailty. I tell myself, quoting a line from Rilke, that no feeling is final. The present headache or feeling of panic will pass. I have, after all, the most loving and wonderful of caregivers in the presence of my wife Lynn. If prayer fails, she is there, smiling, comforting, helping me laugh.
And so I remind myself to be grateful for so much, for that fact that I am home healing and not getting (I hope) worse, that I am surrounded by love, that I have faith in God that is being tested and generally found to be solid.
Gratitude--and my sense of being connected to many friends, and to others in pain--are probably the key lessons I am learning. But the struggle goes on, as it must, day by day.
I have reminded myself daily of the inescapable fact that life involves pain and suffering; that millions are suffering around the world; that many people I know have major health challenges; and yet I remain trapped in my own mental delusion that I am unique.
I forget that my faith teaches that love redeems the horrors of life, and so I reach out to others and welcome their good wishes and prayers, their phone calls and visits. I feel less isolated, which is one of the key aspects of suffering.
What else have I learned? To take each day at a time, refusing to worry about the future. To appreciate simplicity: the little things I do in my home each day (cooking, e.g.) are important somehow in the bigger picture of my life. Every task, however humble, has some meaning. I am being tested in mindfulness: full attention to the present moment.
I value the sun, the trees, the flowering azaleas here in Florida, the light as it streams through the window, the music I can access and all the other entertainments that can distract me from my discomfort.
I try to cultivate humility (a tough one) and acceptance of my human frailty. I tell myself, quoting a line from Rilke, that no feeling is final. The present headache or feeling of panic will pass. I have, after all, the most loving and wonderful of caregivers in the presence of my wife Lynn. If prayer fails, she is there, smiling, comforting, helping me laugh.
And so I remind myself to be grateful for so much, for that fact that I am home healing and not getting (I hope) worse, that I am surrounded by love, that I have faith in God that is being tested and generally found to be solid.
Gratitude--and my sense of being connected to many friends, and to others in pain--are probably the key lessons I am learning. But the struggle goes on, as it must, day by day.
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Loneliness as Poverty
Speaking in 1975 about the many people who are unwanted and forgotten, Mother Teresa, who was made a saint officially today, stated, "Love them. Loneliness is the greatest poverty." She knew of what she spoke.
News accounts of the darkness she experienced often register surprise, that someone so close to God, so holy, could have been depressed, lonely. Yet how could she not be?
First, surrounded daily by dire poverty, hunger, neglect, and an uncaring world--and by the duties of running a large community of women. Then the isolation she must have experienced as the mother superior, with no one to confide in, no intimate friendship to relieve the burden of constant work.
Can we love God if we have no human love in our lives? That is a question someone like Mother Teresa must have dealt with.
So naturally, worn out emotionally, she turned in her prayer life and often found, apparently, an emptiness, a dark night of the soul; this, for the great mystics, is often a prelude to light, the negative way leading to the positive way. That is, the sense that God is absent and unknowable and distant is the first step in finding, through contemplation, the opposite: a sense of the presence of a loving God.
This process is found in the late poetry of T. S. Eliot, who was widely read in the mystical tradition of Christianity, and many others, including Thomas Merton, have discussed these states of the soul.
Part of the process surely is emotional, the feeling of being alone and unloved: even though many people admire you and praise you, do they know you? Do they listen to your innermost self? St. Teresa of Kolakata, as she now is, had a confessor and used her personal writing to express a poverty greater than material want: the feeling of being unloved.
Surely part of her greatness, as with many other saints, is that she suffered inwardly, feeling, like Jesus on the cross, abandoned by God, and unable to pray, even to believe for a time. Ultimately, it seems in the end to have brought her closer to God.
Knowing about this darkness makes Mother Teresa all the more human.
News accounts of the darkness she experienced often register surprise, that someone so close to God, so holy, could have been depressed, lonely. Yet how could she not be?
First, surrounded daily by dire poverty, hunger, neglect, and an uncaring world--and by the duties of running a large community of women. Then the isolation she must have experienced as the mother superior, with no one to confide in, no intimate friendship to relieve the burden of constant work.
Can we love God if we have no human love in our lives? That is a question someone like Mother Teresa must have dealt with.
So naturally, worn out emotionally, she turned in her prayer life and often found, apparently, an emptiness, a dark night of the soul; this, for the great mystics, is often a prelude to light, the negative way leading to the positive way. That is, the sense that God is absent and unknowable and distant is the first step in finding, through contemplation, the opposite: a sense of the presence of a loving God.
This process is found in the late poetry of T. S. Eliot, who was widely read in the mystical tradition of Christianity, and many others, including Thomas Merton, have discussed these states of the soul.
Part of the process surely is emotional, the feeling of being alone and unloved: even though many people admire you and praise you, do they know you? Do they listen to your innermost self? St. Teresa of Kolakata, as she now is, had a confessor and used her personal writing to express a poverty greater than material want: the feeling of being unloved.
Surely part of her greatness, as with many other saints, is that she suffered inwardly, feeling, like Jesus on the cross, abandoned by God, and unable to pray, even to believe for a time. Ultimately, it seems in the end to have brought her closer to God.
Knowing about this darkness makes Mother Teresa all the more human.
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Silence Revisited
For nearly twenty years, I have been investigating the power of silence, a topic that first struck me when teaching the later poetry of T. S. Eliot. I then discovered all the many things Thomas Merton had to say about silence as contemplative prayer. In several articles on Merton and silence, I tried to define the broader implications of silence as something more than the absence of sound.
Many other writers, I found, have explored this topic, suggesting that genuine silence is not about emptiness or negativity but presence. What kind of presence is not always easy to define, but it became clear to me that true silence has its own positive, independent existence: it is the enduring reality that sound interrupts. Or we can say it is the permanent reality that supports sound, a bit like the way the white space on a printed page exists in dialogue with the words, which come out of silence.
Silence lasts while words do not. And while such insights come from my literary background, they also come from my search for prayer, the kind that goes beyond words to an interior reality known to mystics in both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. Christians might find in contemplation and meditation an awareness of the kingdom of God within. This attention to spiritual reality through stillness and silence has been called the sacrament of the present moment.
Recently, I have profited from listening to Richard Rohr, the Franciscan priest and author, who sees silence as an alternative consciousness, a way of way of knowing beyond rational analysis. The ego, he says (drawing on Jung), needs words to make points and to get what it wants; the ego is uncomfortable with silence since part of us wants to argue.
But the soul, so to speak, sees that silence is more important than words. Silence for Rohr is the wholeness of being with nothing to argue about. It gives us moments in the timeless present but also something more: a sense of the eternal since time increases ("grows into a fullness") in silence, which is more significant than words.
Rohr's great spiritual model is St. Francis, who said, "Pray always and sometimes use words," referring to actions (good deeds) and silence as more expressive of love than language. If our words begin with, and come out, of silence, our words will be carefully chosen. Words not surrounded by silence (but blurted out in a great rush) can be hurtful, critical, sarcastic, hardly spiritual.
Rohr also suggests that a focus on silence as a spiritual practice prepares us for death, the Great Silence. And the other manifestations of silence in art--the stillness of paintings, for example, or the eloquent absence of sound in certain films--are also worth studying.
I remain grateful to Merton for reviving the Christian tradition of contemplative prayer and seeing its parallel in Buddhist practice, something he was exploring in Bangkok at the time of his death in 1968. I am happy to see that what he and many others have done, in both poetry and prose, continues the exploration of silence as a source of ultimate meaning as well as the source of language and music.
As T. S. Eliot wrote (in "Ash Wednesday"), the word cannot be heard here, in ordinary time: "there is not enough silence."
Many other writers, I found, have explored this topic, suggesting that genuine silence is not about emptiness or negativity but presence. What kind of presence is not always easy to define, but it became clear to me that true silence has its own positive, independent existence: it is the enduring reality that sound interrupts. Or we can say it is the permanent reality that supports sound, a bit like the way the white space on a printed page exists in dialogue with the words, which come out of silence.
Silence lasts while words do not. And while such insights come from my literary background, they also come from my search for prayer, the kind that goes beyond words to an interior reality known to mystics in both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. Christians might find in contemplation and meditation an awareness of the kingdom of God within. This attention to spiritual reality through stillness and silence has been called the sacrament of the present moment.
Recently, I have profited from listening to Richard Rohr, the Franciscan priest and author, who sees silence as an alternative consciousness, a way of way of knowing beyond rational analysis. The ego, he says (drawing on Jung), needs words to make points and to get what it wants; the ego is uncomfortable with silence since part of us wants to argue.
But the soul, so to speak, sees that silence is more important than words. Silence for Rohr is the wholeness of being with nothing to argue about. It gives us moments in the timeless present but also something more: a sense of the eternal since time increases ("grows into a fullness") in silence, which is more significant than words.
Rohr's great spiritual model is St. Francis, who said, "Pray always and sometimes use words," referring to actions (good deeds) and silence as more expressive of love than language. If our words begin with, and come out, of silence, our words will be carefully chosen. Words not surrounded by silence (but blurted out in a great rush) can be hurtful, critical, sarcastic, hardly spiritual.
Rohr also suggests that a focus on silence as a spiritual practice prepares us for death, the Great Silence. And the other manifestations of silence in art--the stillness of paintings, for example, or the eloquent absence of sound in certain films--are also worth studying.
I remain grateful to Merton for reviving the Christian tradition of contemplative prayer and seeing its parallel in Buddhist practice, something he was exploring in Bangkok at the time of his death in 1968. I am happy to see that what he and many others have done, in both poetry and prose, continues the exploration of silence as a source of ultimate meaning as well as the source of language and music.
As T. S. Eliot wrote (in "Ash Wednesday"), the word cannot be heard here, in ordinary time: "there is not enough silence."
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Fear: Is there a Cure?
Whenever I see a book with fear in its title or subtitle, I go for it, often skimming, as with the many self-help books out there, such as Dr. Lissa Rankin's The Fear Cure, a new book I found at Barnes and Noble.
Why this preoccupation with fear on my part? Because it has been such a persistent part of my life and because they more I examine the lives of others, past and present, the more I see fear as the underlying motive in jealousy, greed, power, racism, and hatred, to mention the most obvious obstacles to happiness. And because the boy I tutor has been, for various reasons, frozen by fear--of failure, of criticism--so that he needs a daily reminder that he can do various things--exercise, meditate, simply breathe deeply--to help reduce the panic and terror that seize him.
Hence my attraction to Dr. Rankin's book, the work of a physician, not a psychologist, who has seen the effects of fear on her patients and has come up with a formula that suggests a cure for the negative, crippling kinds of intense fear that damages us.
Rather than be at the mercy of fear, she says, let courage take the lead in your life. This is easier said than done. To replace fear with trust is a goal of much of my prayer life, and it must take place every day. Still, I have some doubts if this book, or any book, can offer a sure-fire cure.
Yet Rankin offers some valuable spiritual advice, worth sharing with my student.
The first thing, she says, is to see that there is something bigger than me: I am not alone guiding the course of my life. If I trust only myself, and cut myself off from God (as I will call the higher power), I will invariably be trapped by fears and worries.
Learning to trust the inner light within each of us seems to be the heart of Rankin's formula: Whether we call it the soul or the hand of God, this light has the power to transform everything that can pull us down into healing, as fears gradually lessen and we learn to trust the space between fearful thoughts.
In this way, peace can take the place of fear. Many other secular writers, of course, have said similar things, and many of the spiritual masters in the Christian tradition whom I have read over the years remind us how essential some form of contemplation and prayer are to developing whatever inner peace we can find in the presence of God.
So I am glad to see Dr. Rankin returning to a basic form of an ancient wisdom tradition. I hope her book helps many people.
Why this preoccupation with fear on my part? Because it has been such a persistent part of my life and because they more I examine the lives of others, past and present, the more I see fear as the underlying motive in jealousy, greed, power, racism, and hatred, to mention the most obvious obstacles to happiness. And because the boy I tutor has been, for various reasons, frozen by fear--of failure, of criticism--so that he needs a daily reminder that he can do various things--exercise, meditate, simply breathe deeply--to help reduce the panic and terror that seize him.
Hence my attraction to Dr. Rankin's book, the work of a physician, not a psychologist, who has seen the effects of fear on her patients and has come up with a formula that suggests a cure for the negative, crippling kinds of intense fear that damages us.
Rather than be at the mercy of fear, she says, let courage take the lead in your life. This is easier said than done. To replace fear with trust is a goal of much of my prayer life, and it must take place every day. Still, I have some doubts if this book, or any book, can offer a sure-fire cure.
Yet Rankin offers some valuable spiritual advice, worth sharing with my student.
The first thing, she says, is to see that there is something bigger than me: I am not alone guiding the course of my life. If I trust only myself, and cut myself off from God (as I will call the higher power), I will invariably be trapped by fears and worries.
Learning to trust the inner light within each of us seems to be the heart of Rankin's formula: Whether we call it the soul or the hand of God, this light has the power to transform everything that can pull us down into healing, as fears gradually lessen and we learn to trust the space between fearful thoughts.
In this way, peace can take the place of fear. Many other secular writers, of course, have said similar things, and many of the spiritual masters in the Christian tradition whom I have read over the years remind us how essential some form of contemplation and prayer are to developing whatever inner peace we can find in the presence of God.
So I am glad to see Dr. Rankin returning to a basic form of an ancient wisdom tradition. I hope her book helps many people.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Praying in Public
The recent Supreme Court case involving the town of Greece, NY and the "issue" of prayer in public meetings has prompted much attention, none of it as valuable, for my money, than the blog post of Morgan Guyton, "Would Jesus Pray at a City Council Meeting?"
Guyton brings me back to my old topic of contemplative prayer and the need to create a monastery within where we rest in God. Silence and solitude are required. I have published several articles on such themes as well as numerous posts.
So I was pleased to see Mr. Guyton refer to prayer as creating a monastery "where we can sit and enjoy the presence of God." He thinks of praying as going to one's inner room, as Jesus did, and praying to the Father in secret. The result is an intimacy that is clearly incompatible with public meetings.
How can we have an intimate conversation with God if prayer becomes "a public performance and an inner farce," as implied in the arguments presented to the court?
I don't think Guyton wishes to rule out the validity of community prayer or the church as a praying community, but his emphasis on the private, personal nature of prayer as an intimate connection with the divine is important.
"No inner monastery is created by a prayer that has been clipped onto the beginning of a secular meeting," Guyton writes. And I say 'Amen.'
Guyton brings me back to my old topic of contemplative prayer and the need to create a monastery within where we rest in God. Silence and solitude are required. I have published several articles on such themes as well as numerous posts.
So I was pleased to see Mr. Guyton refer to prayer as creating a monastery "where we can sit and enjoy the presence of God." He thinks of praying as going to one's inner room, as Jesus did, and praying to the Father in secret. The result is an intimacy that is clearly incompatible with public meetings.
How can we have an intimate conversation with God if prayer becomes "a public performance and an inner farce," as implied in the arguments presented to the court?
I don't think Guyton wishes to rule out the validity of community prayer or the church as a praying community, but his emphasis on the private, personal nature of prayer as an intimate connection with the divine is important.
"No inner monastery is created by a prayer that has been clipped onto the beginning of a secular meeting," Guyton writes. And I say 'Amen.'
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Dreaming in league with God
I have probably spent too much time, and too much space here, speculating about the meaning of God, as if I could ever come up with a final definition. I've done so largely because so many non-theists have written books in recent years that assume that "God" means a being "up there" somewhere who, like a heavenly Santa Claus, controls our lives, rewarding and punishing us. I have tried to articulate a more grown-up notion of divinity, drawing mainly on the intellectual study of theology.
But maybe the whole thing has little to do with head, and all with the heart--the feelings. And with the acceptance of a certain vagueness in dealing with a mystery.
I was interested to see a recent article in the NY Times by Howard Wettstein, who says what many others have no doubt thought: that prayer and a religious life do not require any definite concept of God. What is fundamental, he says, is the experience of God.
"Prayer, when it works, yields an awe-infused sense of having made contact," he writes, about the things in our lives that really matter. He thinks of prayer as sharing our commitments with a "cosmic senior partner" in what A. J. Heschel called "dreaming in league with God."
I guess this means that effective prayer puts us in communion with others and with the totality of creation in a way that we feel is meaningful--even if we never have a clearly defined sense of who the "partner" we communicate with is.
I would have to add to this the basic scriptural revelation that the God with whom we dream is a loving and living presence in and around us.
But maybe the whole thing has little to do with head, and all with the heart--the feelings. And with the acceptance of a certain vagueness in dealing with a mystery.
I was interested to see a recent article in the NY Times by Howard Wettstein, who says what many others have no doubt thought: that prayer and a religious life do not require any definite concept of God. What is fundamental, he says, is the experience of God.
"Prayer, when it works, yields an awe-infused sense of having made contact," he writes, about the things in our lives that really matter. He thinks of prayer as sharing our commitments with a "cosmic senior partner" in what A. J. Heschel called "dreaming in league with God."
I guess this means that effective prayer puts us in communion with others and with the totality of creation in a way that we feel is meaningful--even if we never have a clearly defined sense of who the "partner" we communicate with is.
I would have to add to this the basic scriptural revelation that the God with whom we dream is a loving and living presence in and around us.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Boredom and Prayer
I have always been intrigued by the meaning of boredom. Kathleen Norris a few years ago, in a book on acedia, seemed to connect it with mild depression.
For me, I think of the fear of running out of things to do, as experienced by many kids facing a long summer; or the fear that the present event (a dull talk) will never end. It has to do with time and so we cannot say that our pets are bored (in the way we are) since they lack an awareness of time.
Noah Millman in a recent post (Oct. 8) in the American Conservative gives his own take on the subject: boredom is "a painfully acute awareness of time passing without being filled." He connects this with his personal reflection on the prayer experience he has had in synogogues, where the long, repetitive chant seems almost unbearable.
But it isn't really boring, he says, if it is done well; attempts to enliven the traditional prayers make the service truly boring. What he finds in the liturgically structured prayers of the synagogue is a "quasi-meditative mental state that really isn't on the boredom-excitement spectrum." There is comfortable familiarity in the repetition, leading to a trance-like state.
Many say such ritual praying is merely mouthing words and going through the motions of prayer, with the mind elsewhere. And that, says Millman, is just what he wants--not to think about what he is saying; if he did, he would be bored out of his mind.
Whatever intellectual or emotional experience he has happens "on a level of consciousness somewhat removed from the activity of prayer." Now and then words hit you with their meaning, but by and large, the mindless repetition allows you to float above yourself. It takes you out of the usual pattern of time. So the prayer itself is a means to an end.
This familiar pattern--so familiar it requires no mind--reminds me of what I know of Buddhist chant and, to a lesser extent, of the Catholic rosary: it takes a certain amount of boring practice to get to the point of transcendent meditation where we are no longer aware of ourselves and focus our attention on a scene from the Bible.
When I think of the monastic tradition of contemplative prayer, the use of repeated Psalms that leads sometimes to silence, I wonder: are the Catholic monks who pray this way five or more times each day, every day, paying attention to the words (as I assume they are) or have they become so accustomed to the daily practice that they are in a no-mind state that takes them beyond time and place to union with God? That would seem to be the goal, albeit seldom realized.
If so, there might be a connection between Jewish, Buddhist and Catholic chant and meditative practice; but this may be too simplistic. My liturgy friend Ned might comment on this: do we in the Chrisitian world use the repeated words of the Psalms to move beyond verbal prayer? When we pray the rosary, do we ignore the words of the repeated prayers? Or do we remain conscious, while meditating on the glorious or sorrowful mysteries, of the meaning of what we say? Are we in two places at once--here and "there"? Is that why it is so hard?
I agree with Millman that we must go through the often boring practice of repetitive prayer to move to a higher level so that the concept of boredom becomes irrelevant. And I am grateful that his brief post provoked so much reflection on prayer, the subject of an ongoing struggle on my part.
For me, I think of the fear of running out of things to do, as experienced by many kids facing a long summer; or the fear that the present event (a dull talk) will never end. It has to do with time and so we cannot say that our pets are bored (in the way we are) since they lack an awareness of time.
Noah Millman in a recent post (Oct. 8) in the American Conservative gives his own take on the subject: boredom is "a painfully acute awareness of time passing without being filled." He connects this with his personal reflection on the prayer experience he has had in synogogues, where the long, repetitive chant seems almost unbearable.
But it isn't really boring, he says, if it is done well; attempts to enliven the traditional prayers make the service truly boring. What he finds in the liturgically structured prayers of the synagogue is a "quasi-meditative mental state that really isn't on the boredom-excitement spectrum." There is comfortable familiarity in the repetition, leading to a trance-like state.
Many say such ritual praying is merely mouthing words and going through the motions of prayer, with the mind elsewhere. And that, says Millman, is just what he wants--not to think about what he is saying; if he did, he would be bored out of his mind.
Whatever intellectual or emotional experience he has happens "on a level of consciousness somewhat removed from the activity of prayer." Now and then words hit you with their meaning, but by and large, the mindless repetition allows you to float above yourself. It takes you out of the usual pattern of time. So the prayer itself is a means to an end.
This familiar pattern--so familiar it requires no mind--reminds me of what I know of Buddhist chant and, to a lesser extent, of the Catholic rosary: it takes a certain amount of boring practice to get to the point of transcendent meditation where we are no longer aware of ourselves and focus our attention on a scene from the Bible.
When I think of the monastic tradition of contemplative prayer, the use of repeated Psalms that leads sometimes to silence, I wonder: are the Catholic monks who pray this way five or more times each day, every day, paying attention to the words (as I assume they are) or have they become so accustomed to the daily practice that they are in a no-mind state that takes them beyond time and place to union with God? That would seem to be the goal, albeit seldom realized.
If so, there might be a connection between Jewish, Buddhist and Catholic chant and meditative practice; but this may be too simplistic. My liturgy friend Ned might comment on this: do we in the Chrisitian world use the repeated words of the Psalms to move beyond verbal prayer? When we pray the rosary, do we ignore the words of the repeated prayers? Or do we remain conscious, while meditating on the glorious or sorrowful mysteries, of the meaning of what we say? Are we in two places at once--here and "there"? Is that why it is so hard?
I agree with Millman that we must go through the often boring practice of repetitive prayer to move to a higher level so that the concept of boredom becomes irrelevant. And I am grateful that his brief post provoked so much reflection on prayer, the subject of an ongoing struggle on my part.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Understanding the Dead
The Day of the Dead, or All Souls' Day in my tradition, has always had great resonance for me. It reminds me of my connection with that undiscovered realm beyond the natural world and also with remembering, which sometimes means re-membering.
Some years ago I read a book by Frederick Buechner, an eloquent spiritual writer. In it he says that memory is more than a nostalgic look back at a time past. It is, he says, "a looking out into another kind of time altogether where everything that ever was continues not just to be, but to grow and to change with the life that is in it still."
The implications of this powerful statement is that, in remembering and re-connecting with deceased loved ones in our families and with favorite authors and saints, we come to understand the dead in new ways; perhaps they come to understand us, and through them we come to understand ourselves.
This sounds mysterious because it is, because time and the timeless are mysteriously connected, as great art can sometimes remind us. I am reminded of my own last post, with that statement by Faulkner about the past as ever-present. I tend to apply this to prayer, which bridges the gap between the two realms. Today especially I join with others still living as we pray for the dead, not as they were on earth merely, but as they are now--and for ourselves and what we might become.
Some years ago I read a book by Frederick Buechner, an eloquent spiritual writer. In it he says that memory is more than a nostalgic look back at a time past. It is, he says, "a looking out into another kind of time altogether where everything that ever was continues not just to be, but to grow and to change with the life that is in it still."
The implications of this powerful statement is that, in remembering and re-connecting with deceased loved ones in our families and with favorite authors and saints, we come to understand the dead in new ways; perhaps they come to understand us, and through them we come to understand ourselves.
This sounds mysterious because it is, because time and the timeless are mysteriously connected, as great art can sometimes remind us. I am reminded of my own last post, with that statement by Faulkner about the past as ever-present. I tend to apply this to prayer, which bridges the gap between the two realms. Today especially I join with others still living as we pray for the dead, not as they were on earth merely, but as they are now--and for ourselves and what we might become.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Paying Attention
Right now, I am paying attention to the rain bucketing down outside my window. Actually, I could not be really paying good attention to it if I were also thinking of composing this reflection. But for the past half-hour, I have been mindful of the wonderful rain, enjoying its ability to seal me off in the present. I welcome any such experience as highly spiritual, akin to prayer.
And I have tried not to attend to the minor headache that's now receding. It might be the result of reading once again the difficult prose of Simone Weil, that most remarkable of 20th century thinkers whose remarks on attention, on silence, on affliction and other topics leap off the page with startling originality.
I have just read, "every time we really concentrate our attention, we destroy the evil in ourselves. [She apparently means the selfishness.] If we concentrate with this intention, a quarter of an hour of attention is better than a great many good works." [arguable at best, it makes more sense in the context of her work and of the essay on studies that I quote]
Earlier, she has asserted, with all the confidence of the brilliant French intellectual that she was, that attention directed toward God is the very essence of prayer. This is not a new idea, but her focus on the quality of attention in relation to self-annihilation is arresting, to say the least. Weil died in 1943 of self-imposed starvation in solidarity with those who were suffering during the war.
Although she chose not to be baptized, seeing her vocation as one who attentively waits on the threshold, she was more devout as a "Catholic" outside the church than many baptized Catholics. Like Dorothy Day, she was unswervingly devoted to those who suffer: "The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing..." This sentence sums up her commitment to love Christ in and through all people.
There is no one quite like Simone Weil as a thinker, activist, and writer. Born into a secularized Jewish family in Paris, she developed a unique combination of Greek philosophy, Catholic spirituality, and social justice. She identified with the workers and, despite her physical weakness, insisted on laboring in factories in the 1930s. She believed that work is the most perfect form of obedience. This meant an interruption of the brilliant academic career for which she seemed destined.
In 1938, she spent ten days in a French monastery where she coped with intense headaches by concentrating through prayer in such a way that she transcended the pain. During that stay, she was so profoundly moved by meditating on the suffering of Christ that she felt Christ taking possession of her.
T. S. Eliot was one of many notable writers who were impressed by her mysticism, calling Weil a genius, "of a kind of genius akin to that of the saints."
Anyone interested in learning more about Simone Weil can find abundant sources on the internet, including www.simoneweil.net.
I have always found her essays, published after her death, rich with insights (along with some contradictions) and important for anyone interested in prayer, spirituality, and the inner life.
And I have tried not to attend to the minor headache that's now receding. It might be the result of reading once again the difficult prose of Simone Weil, that most remarkable of 20th century thinkers whose remarks on attention, on silence, on affliction and other topics leap off the page with startling originality.
I have just read, "every time we really concentrate our attention, we destroy the evil in ourselves. [She apparently means the selfishness.] If we concentrate with this intention, a quarter of an hour of attention is better than a great many good works." [arguable at best, it makes more sense in the context of her work and of the essay on studies that I quote]
Earlier, she has asserted, with all the confidence of the brilliant French intellectual that she was, that attention directed toward God is the very essence of prayer. This is not a new idea, but her focus on the quality of attention in relation to self-annihilation is arresting, to say the least. Weil died in 1943 of self-imposed starvation in solidarity with those who were suffering during the war.
Although she chose not to be baptized, seeing her vocation as one who attentively waits on the threshold, she was more devout as a "Catholic" outside the church than many baptized Catholics. Like Dorothy Day, she was unswervingly devoted to those who suffer: "The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing..." This sentence sums up her commitment to love Christ in and through all people.
There is no one quite like Simone Weil as a thinker, activist, and writer. Born into a secularized Jewish family in Paris, she developed a unique combination of Greek philosophy, Catholic spirituality, and social justice. She identified with the workers and, despite her physical weakness, insisted on laboring in factories in the 1930s. She believed that work is the most perfect form of obedience. This meant an interruption of the brilliant academic career for which she seemed destined.
In 1938, she spent ten days in a French monastery where she coped with intense headaches by concentrating through prayer in such a way that she transcended the pain. During that stay, she was so profoundly moved by meditating on the suffering of Christ that she felt Christ taking possession of her.
T. S. Eliot was one of many notable writers who were impressed by her mysticism, calling Weil a genius, "of a kind of genius akin to that of the saints."
Anyone interested in learning more about Simone Weil can find abundant sources on the internet, including www.simoneweil.net.
I have always found her essays, published after her death, rich with insights (along with some contradictions) and important for anyone interested in prayer, spirituality, and the inner life.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Magical Thinking--and Praying
In a recent blog, Frank Wilson talked about "magical thinking," which is not easily defined. I think the issue is related to prayer, so this post will be one of my reflections on prayer, in part a response to a friend's request, his interest in learning more about why and how people pray.
According to Wilson, the primal human engagement with the world was not logical, a matter of clear and distinct ideas, but more of a mystical encounter; not an objective, clinical observation. This is a valid way of apprehending reality, he says, and it "survives in quite a few of us" because magical thinking, involving how we feel as well as think, doesn't "radically detach the knower from the known." A purely rational approach to reality, by contrast, downplays imagination and emotion. It puts the other/Other "out there."
All of this seems to me relevant to prayer, a private experience not any easier to discuss than "magical thinking." It begins, usually, with words, as in a petition, then, ideally, proceeds to the non-verbal, to silence, the kind of silence Thomas Merton and others have talked extensively about wherein I can, on a good day, sense and feel the presence of God. I also feel a closeness to others.
So prayer is not really a narcissistic endeavor, any more than meditation is; it is not merely asking for favors but asking for God to make us aware of His presence within us. The contemplative prayer that is my goal when I pray leads to a resting in God.
It might begin with simple observation of the world around me, an appreciative sense of the present as a gift; it might use a word or scriptural phrase that is repeated until it is no longer needed.
It is quite possible, even desirable, to have this type of prayer as an ongoing activity throughout the day. That is what Merton presumably meant by having "an uninterrupted dialogue with God." Perhaps what we hear is our own voice coming back to us, but the knower is inseparable from the known, so what we hear can be called the voice of God whispering in the silence of our hearts.
Does prayer do any good? Can I change reality by praying for someone? I often doubt it. I remember C. S. Lewis writing to his brother and saying (paraphrased), "I don't known if my prayer does you any good, but it helps me." And that is not self-serving for reasons I just stated.
Why do I pray? To help myself deal with problems both external and internal: the daily fears we all have, the worries and decisions and choices that can't be made alone, that require "outside" help--help that is other than my inner self. I need the comfort that Someone is listening to my concerns, One who understands loneliness, pain, disappointment, and all that flesh is heir to.
Do I have the feeling of God's presence in church? Yes, at times, when the church is quiet and I am not distracted by the presence of others; but it happens mostly in those fought-for periods of silence when I am alone and my busy mind quiets down long enough to sense that I am not really alone. It can happen when I am in awe at the beauty of creation, absorbed in music or reading...all of which can be mystical experiences.
I know I need to say more, to define some of these indefinable terms, to say more about the mystery of an experience that is really beyond words. And I wish the process of praying was as easy for me as I have made it sound. Perhaps this rumination will lead to other reflections...
According to Wilson, the primal human engagement with the world was not logical, a matter of clear and distinct ideas, but more of a mystical encounter; not an objective, clinical observation. This is a valid way of apprehending reality, he says, and it "survives in quite a few of us" because magical thinking, involving how we feel as well as think, doesn't "radically detach the knower from the known." A purely rational approach to reality, by contrast, downplays imagination and emotion. It puts the other/Other "out there."
All of this seems to me relevant to prayer, a private experience not any easier to discuss than "magical thinking." It begins, usually, with words, as in a petition, then, ideally, proceeds to the non-verbal, to silence, the kind of silence Thomas Merton and others have talked extensively about wherein I can, on a good day, sense and feel the presence of God. I also feel a closeness to others.
So prayer is not really a narcissistic endeavor, any more than meditation is; it is not merely asking for favors but asking for God to make us aware of His presence within us. The contemplative prayer that is my goal when I pray leads to a resting in God.
It might begin with simple observation of the world around me, an appreciative sense of the present as a gift; it might use a word or scriptural phrase that is repeated until it is no longer needed.
It is quite possible, even desirable, to have this type of prayer as an ongoing activity throughout the day. That is what Merton presumably meant by having "an uninterrupted dialogue with God." Perhaps what we hear is our own voice coming back to us, but the knower is inseparable from the known, so what we hear can be called the voice of God whispering in the silence of our hearts.
Does prayer do any good? Can I change reality by praying for someone? I often doubt it. I remember C. S. Lewis writing to his brother and saying (paraphrased), "I don't known if my prayer does you any good, but it helps me." And that is not self-serving for reasons I just stated.
Why do I pray? To help myself deal with problems both external and internal: the daily fears we all have, the worries and decisions and choices that can't be made alone, that require "outside" help--help that is other than my inner self. I need the comfort that Someone is listening to my concerns, One who understands loneliness, pain, disappointment, and all that flesh is heir to.
Do I have the feeling of God's presence in church? Yes, at times, when the church is quiet and I am not distracted by the presence of others; but it happens mostly in those fought-for periods of silence when I am alone and my busy mind quiets down long enough to sense that I am not really alone. It can happen when I am in awe at the beauty of creation, absorbed in music or reading...all of which can be mystical experiences.
I know I need to say more, to define some of these indefinable terms, to say more about the mystery of an experience that is really beyond words. And I wish the process of praying was as easy for me as I have made it sound. Perhaps this rumination will lead to other reflections...
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Mindfulness and Merton
"Life is not a set of boundaries but a set of possibilities."
This statement by Thomas Merton should be the official epigraph of this blog. Merton,the American Catholic monk and author, and Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, have been the major influences on my spiritual journey.
Nhat Hanh has reminded all who read his work of the power of being in the present. It's so easy for people like me to worry, be anxious, anticipate the future or return to old issues and relive them in my mind. As soon as I realize that the past is as unreal as the future, that only the present is real, I know I am on the way to some inner peace.
I have learned that meditation means stopping the fast-forward mode in which we all live and calming down, looking deeply at the ordinary things I do (eating, cleaning) and being present to them and to myself: being totally aware of immediate reality.
"Peace of mind" may be a contradiction in terms since if we live in our minds, we are constantly analyzing, thinking, reviewing, etc. We are not centered on the present. And only the present is real. If we are to find God, to feel the presence of God, we must, I think, focus on living consciously in present reality.
Merton, in his extensive writing on contemplation, develops this in terms closer to my own tradition. I have relied on Merton as I have been completing the draft of a book on silence and contemplative prayer.
Merton, writing with the ancient desert fathers in mind, talks eloquently about the importance of letting go of the self--so hard to do--and just being. Letting go of words, living part of each day in solitude and silence, is a challenge for us in this postmodern world, yet how else do we achieve inner peace?
And yet, as a writer, I need words, and so I am not really inwardly silent.
Merton's comment on writing has been of enormous value to me: "Writing is one thing that gives me access to some real silence and solitude. Also I find that it helps me to pray because when I pause at my work I find that the mirror inside me is surprisingly clean and deep and serene and God shines there and is immediately found, without hunting, as if He had come close to me while I was writing."
This statement, too, is likely to be a recurring theme in this blog. Writing, along with reading, we can give me access to my inner being and to the presence of God within me. Merton was both monk and writer, a man who lived with the tension that exists between merely being in the presence of God and writing works that others will read.
Writing can be a form of meditation if I keep my focus on my work and nothing else, if I realize that my goal is not just inner peace but a connection with the divine--mysterious though that sounds.
I am fascinated by the mystery of silence and will have more to say about its power. If religion can be restricting, spirituality is limitless in its possibilities.
There is in our culture a vast hunger for meaning, a healthy longing to encounter the ultimate mystery, whether you call this God or not. I find that silence is a way in to this mystery.
This statement by Thomas Merton should be the official epigraph of this blog. Merton,the American Catholic monk and author, and Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, have been the major influences on my spiritual journey.
Nhat Hanh has reminded all who read his work of the power of being in the present. It's so easy for people like me to worry, be anxious, anticipate the future or return to old issues and relive them in my mind. As soon as I realize that the past is as unreal as the future, that only the present is real, I know I am on the way to some inner peace.
I have learned that meditation means stopping the fast-forward mode in which we all live and calming down, looking deeply at the ordinary things I do (eating, cleaning) and being present to them and to myself: being totally aware of immediate reality.
"Peace of mind" may be a contradiction in terms since if we live in our minds, we are constantly analyzing, thinking, reviewing, etc. We are not centered on the present. And only the present is real. If we are to find God, to feel the presence of God, we must, I think, focus on living consciously in present reality.
Merton, in his extensive writing on contemplation, develops this in terms closer to my own tradition. I have relied on Merton as I have been completing the draft of a book on silence and contemplative prayer.
Merton, writing with the ancient desert fathers in mind, talks eloquently about the importance of letting go of the self--so hard to do--and just being. Letting go of words, living part of each day in solitude and silence, is a challenge for us in this postmodern world, yet how else do we achieve inner peace?
And yet, as a writer, I need words, and so I am not really inwardly silent.
Merton's comment on writing has been of enormous value to me: "Writing is one thing that gives me access to some real silence and solitude. Also I find that it helps me to pray because when I pause at my work I find that the mirror inside me is surprisingly clean and deep and serene and God shines there and is immediately found, without hunting, as if He had come close to me while I was writing."
This statement, too, is likely to be a recurring theme in this blog. Writing, along with reading, we can give me access to my inner being and to the presence of God within me. Merton was both monk and writer, a man who lived with the tension that exists between merely being in the presence of God and writing works that others will read.
Writing can be a form of meditation if I keep my focus on my work and nothing else, if I realize that my goal is not just inner peace but a connection with the divine--mysterious though that sounds.
I am fascinated by the mystery of silence and will have more to say about its power. If religion can be restricting, spirituality is limitless in its possibilities.
There is in our culture a vast hunger for meaning, a healthy longing to encounter the ultimate mystery, whether you call this God or not. I find that silence is a way in to this mystery.
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