How to Pray

To grow in prayer, get this simple book

If I could keep with me only two books and a journal, this book would be one of the books. As far as I'm concerned it's the most important book (and among the most influential) on Christian prayer in the last two millennia. We don't know the author's name, but only that he was a British monk, living in the fourteenth century. The Cloud of Unknowing is a personal letter written to a young person seeking fulfillment in Christ through prayer. The author's lesser known companion essay, The Book of Privy Counsel, is a follow up letter to the young disciple, providing simple yet profound instruction for the life of contemplative prayer.

Carmen Acevado Butcher's new translation is a gem. She draws the earthy language of the fourteenth century into the idiom of our own. You'll feel like the monk is speaking directly to you.

Why silence is essential in prayer

There are certainly times when we tell God things in prayer. We tell God our fears and desires. We tell God what we or others may need. We tell God of places and peoples in the world that need God's intervention.

Many of the Psalms invite us into this kind of praying. But we while the Bible gives us a warrant for such boldness before God, we must also take care that we don't invert the relationship. We can wrestle with God, fight with God, challenge God, but in the end we must always yield to God.

If our relationship with God were a sentence, God would be the subject performing the action and we are the object upon whom and within whom God acts. The Subject of prayer---the real Mover of prayer---is the Holy Trinity who prays in us.

So when we pray, we're not so much working to connect with God. We are, instead, working to remove everything that prevents us from the experience of intimate union which is the goal of our lives.

This is why silence is an essential part of prayer. In fact, silence is the highest form of prayer. In silence, all that competes with God for our attention is exposed and we must confront and release everything that stands in the way between us and the Beloved. We must even abandon even our piety, for piety---even the warmest feelings about God---can ending masquerading as God, hooking us to a manifestation that is still not God as God is.

In stillness and silence we release everything that prevents us from resting in God and listening in the depth of our hearts for that Voice that cannot assure us of our belovedness until we're no longer listening to any lesser voice or sound.

The Voice of the Beloved comes to us in the "sound of sheer silence" (1 Kings 19.12).

Cultivating a prayerful heart, seminar, Saturday, June 25, 2011

I'm leading a prayer seminar this Saturday in Turlock, California.  If you're in the area, please come. CLICK HERE for more information.

  • Saturday, June 25, 2011
  • 9:15am-3:00pm (registration opens at 8:45am)
  • Cost $10.00, includes lunch
  • Monte Vista Chapel - WJB Travertine Room

CLICK HERE to register

Removing thought-clutter

Why do we purify the heart? It is the chosen dwelling place of God. It is the "palace of Christ in which he retires" (St. Macarius). It is the very seat of eternity, the gateway between heaven and earth---the Holy of Holies. If your heart is like a house where clutter (beautiful and good things as well as ugly and evil things) is the rule, then all that's holy is hidden, covered, and ignored.  Tragic . . . for you can know so much more.

The key is not merely to get rid of the clutter, but to become so unattached to it (and that which causes you to love it and keep it around), so that you no longer feel compelled to have it around anyway.

This is the fruit of interior prayer---that watchfulness, awareness, and non-attachment to thought-clutter that comes from continual, unceasing returning to Christ in prayer.

Cleaning the house, purifying the heart, make it more hospitable to the indwelling of Grace.   Nonattachment keeps it open and pleasing to the fullness of the Trinity of love.

A good guide to the life of prayer

I've stumbled upon a book that parallels my own teaching on prayer.  And since my own book is bogged down or delayed, I suggest you pick it up.  John Main (deceased) and I've read much the same historical material and come to similar conclusions and practices drawn from the wellspring of historic Christian spirituality. John MainFrom the Amazon.com review:

This is his classic book on how to practice contemplative prayer, or Christian meditation. Stepping aside from the busyness of our daily lives and being still in the presence of God is the key to discovering our true selves and knowing God as 'the ground of our being'. This book offers a twelve step programme in learning meditative prayer, but as the author says, it is not so much about mastering a set of techniques, or escaping from life's challenges and difficulties, or cultivating a self-conscious piety. Its purpose is to teach us how to be at peace with ourselves in order that we might let the presence of Christ flood our whole lives and our relationships.

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