Laughter

The stuff that makes us so serious often isn't so serious to God. "Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?" asks the psalmist. "The One who sits in the heavens laughs" (Psalm 2.1 and 4). That doesn't mean God doesn't care about what scares us, or worries us, or troubles us. It means that God sees things differently than we do. God has a longer and larger view.

That fact may bother us; we'd like God to care more about what worries and wounds us and our world. But who's to say God doesn't? Who can say for sure that God isn't caring in the best way God can care? Who can really say that God isn't working behind the scenes in ways that are better than the ways we'd devise?

You've been around those who are serious and concerned (and perhaps that makes them get involved in fighting what's wrong in the world). But while their serious concerns makes them energetic in righting wrongs, they're frankly a drag to be around. Their eyes don't shine, their words are hard, their touch isn't gentle.

God's levity in the midst of a world in pain might seem to us to be inappropriate. But isn't it possible that playfulness, humor, and lightness might have their own power in healing our hurts and righting what's wrong?

If we can let go our obsession with handwringing, maybe we'd be be able to better hear God's call and follow God's path as we participate in the Lord's mysterious, cosmic dance of life that's transforming our world.

Intention: Today, I'll let go of my grievances and grumbling. I'll smile a little more often. And I'll try to trust there's a mighty Hand at work behind what makes me feel powerless and angry. And I'll listen for the distant sounds of God's laughter.

Simplicity

When I become quiet, still, seeking the simplicity of face to face, heart to heart encounter with God, my mind leaps into the void. It feels like a cage full of monkey's on crack. I told this recently to a group of university students who I've been teaching to pray contemplatively, and one of them blurted out, "And they're all throwing poo." It often feels just like that. My thoughts crowding in, pushing, chattering, hollering, and yes, throwing poo.

So, when I enter the silence, seeking God, I do what Christians throughout the ages have done when facing the same inner chaos. I simply speak the Name of Jesus over and over again in my heart. I join the Name to my breathing, which, in the biblical tradition, is linked to the Spirit. This accords with the teaching of Jesus that we are to keep our words simple and not go babbling like those who think that by their many words they'll be heard by God (Matthew 6.7).

This repitition is no dull ritual. The Name of Jesus is a prayer itself. And through the recitation of the Name, I draw these maverick thoughts down into my heart, where Christ himself awaits me (Ephesians 3.17-19).

The beauty is this . . . I can do this anywhere. In solitude before dawn, when the house is quiet. As I'm showering and shaving. While eating, driving, typing this little reflection, even leading a meeting or while in a conversation. The Name, joined to my breath, begins to become a habitual prayer, a way of keeping my core alive to Christ, and a way to live out St Paul's instruction: "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5.17).

Intention: Today, I'll put the Name of Jesus upon the inner lips of my heart. I'll join my mind with my heart around the Name, and one by one I'll invite my maverick thoughts to rest before their Lord and mine. It won't happen all at once, but this is a start of a whole new way of being.

Silence

The best way to experience God is to stop talking. The praying saints testify that silence is the language of God. So does the Bibble. The prophet Habbakuk said, "The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth stand silent before him" (Habbakuk 2.20). When Elijah the prophet was seeking God on the mountain, we're told that God came to him not in a might wind, not in a mighty shaking of the earth, not in flames of fire, but in the "sound of sheer silence" (1 Kings 19.12). Silence and stillness and simplicity create the environment for unmediated encounter with the Holy.

Jim's a friend who's learned this truth. An active person, engaged in upper corporate management, competent, and hungry for God, he's learned to cultivate a contemplative posture in the midst of a very busy life. He spends time each day in silence before God. Not asking God for anything. Not reading. His only effort is to still his thoughts, and clear the internal clutter for just a few minutes.

Grinning, he once told me: "Silence is so loud."

Intention: Today, I'll practice a moment or more of silence . . . in simple stillness before God. It won't come easily. I get that. But I crave what can come to me only when I'm open, receptive, quiet.

Prayer

There isn't a person on the planet who doesn't long for the Beloved's touch. Everyone wants to pray, and everyone can pray. The trouble is, prayer's been so highjacked by religious people and especially by serious religious people that many of us don't want what we think prayer is, or don't think we can do what prayer requires. That's a terrible tragedy.

God is not a remote deity. God is not angry. God doesn't belong to a particular race or tribe or nation. The God revealed in Jesus is with us, for us, in us.

This means God is as near to you as the beating heart within you, as close as your next breath. Prayer, then, is as natural as breathing. The purest prayer is simply an awareness of the presence of God within and all around you.

Intention: Today, I will pause from time to time, take note of my breath, feel the beating of my heart, and sense the God who is within and all around me.

Gratitude

I slipped on black ice yesterday (this was written in early January). It's a wonder I didn't break my back or wrench my neck. I'm hardly sore except for the bruise on my back where the stuff in my backpack drove deep into the area around my left kidney. Today, it's settling in on me how grateful I ought to be to be alive. I was hiking up Angel Falls near Bass Lake. It's January. There's little snow, but what snow is there is melting, and, of course, icing up in places. I was walking along a great granite slab that's been cut by the river over the last zillion years. The river screams along this ancient stone chute just a few yards down and to my right. I'd looked up momentarily, when in an instant, I found myself flat on my back and sliding toward the river. I had no time to wonder if I'd broken a bone because I was sliding fast toward the river. Just as suddenly as I fell, I stopped. And that was that.

Once on my feet again, I gingerly checked my bones and muscles, while my son pointed out that had I hit my head on the jagged piece of granite just inches from where I fell, things would have ended a whole lot differently.

Sadly, we too infrequently pause to consider the gift life is and how quickly we can lose what we take for granted.

Intention: Today, I'll breathe, feel the air fill my lungs, let my eyes notice the play of light in the room around me and I'll give thanks for the gift of life itself. This is the beginning of wisdom.