Some ways we've hijacked your spiritual life

Unfortunately, the spiritual life has too often been hijacked by well-meaning, but misguided agendas.  These agendas are largely responsible for the ache you often feel, the emptiness in your spiritual life, despite the best intentions of religious leaders.

• You've heard pastors tell you that you are "blessed to be a blessing," making your spiritual life an instrument toward some other purpose.
• Worship in the churches has often been reduced to entertainment, and you, a spectator---or worse a ticket paying patron of the artists who perform religious acts on stage before you.
• You've learned to think the faith, assenting to right doctrine, but despite your ardent belief, your heart misses the reality the doctrine is meant to communicate.
• And frequently your hunger for God's nabbed by those who want to enlist you in their great causes---as good as they may be, they exhaust you and leave you panting for more than what they can give you.

You want God, but we've given you religion.

Religion is not opposed to God, but it can too easily become a surrogate for the real thing. Prayer---genuine prayer---introduces you to the goal of all religion, and the Jesus Prayer is among the most ancient forms of genuine prayer.

Introducing the Jesus Prayer

How do I pray? How can I live more fully into the wonder and sacredness of this moment, this life that is mine? Is it possible to live with greater awareness of both the mystery of God's holiness and the wonder of my humanness in the midst of the dizzying distractions and competing claims upon my life? Starting today, I'll begin to introduce a form of prayer that doesn't so much answer these kinds of questions as much as it involves you and me in the Answer itself--and that is far better.

The Jesus Prayer is among the oldest forms of prayer aimed at the ultimate goal of the spiritual life--communion with God (John 17.21), where you are alive from the center with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3.19).

Learning to pray: the first few steps

Learning to pray is no mystery.  It requires no sophisticated technique.  Prayer is not the privilege of the super-religious, the spiritual virtuoso.  Life is prayer, and an active spirituality begins with the simplicity of these two basic things, available to each of us:

1. an awareness of exactly where you are in the world (the ground beneath your feet, the sky above, the person or task before you)
2. and an awakening to the truth that God is as near as your next breath, close as the beating of your heart

In this video, I explore the teaching of Jesus about the life of prayer---both where he actually taught (the shores and streets and open fields), and his not-so-secret place where you and I meet up with God.

If these  few simple steps are the foundation for an active spirituality, a life of prayer, what would you say the next few might be?

The contemplative life is for the most ordinary people

This is a continuation of the preceding post . . . Contemplation first flourished among those who lived the simple life—a life lived near the earth, aware of the cycle of the days and seasons, and who looked to God in all things (Celtic Christianity is an example of this in the West).

But these poor and relatively uneducated have not enjoyed the luxury of writing books---which is one reason it may appear that contemplation is a luxury of the affluent. These hidden "saints" have practiced the contemplative life, centering their hearts in Christ while they pull the plow, and calling upon the Holy Spirit to bless the hearth, the field, the womb, yielding their lives to the Father-Mother of All when their bodies fail and their loved ones die too young from war or disease.

That said, there are monks who have written, and some laypersons as well. And we have their testimony, though it’s not always easy to find. One of the chief purposes of this site is to help contemporary seekers to drink from the sacred fountain of Christian spiritual history.

As for the resources I promised to Miltali, here are a few:

1. The Way of the Pilgrim/The Pilgrim Continues His Way. A nineteen century exploration of the Jesus Prayer by an anonymous layperson who seeks to inspire the contemplative practice among Russian peasants.

2. The Wisdom of the Desert. A collection of wisdom sayings from the poor saints of early Egypt. Edited by Thomas Merton.

3. And for a non-Western, Indian exploration of the contemplative life, see Yoga and the Jesus Prayer Tradition: An Experiment of Faith, by Thomas Matus (out of print but available through this bookstore).

4. There’s also the little travelogue by the 6th century monk, John Moschos, whose collection of stories and anecdotes from his travels in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Asia Minor reveal a world seldom seen by modern people. Here's a people (largely poor, non-Western, and relatively uneducated) who signal an astonishing awareness of the presence of God, and they're made so because of their spiritual practices. It’s called, The Spiritual Meadow.

5. Add to this list my free little ebook download, "Returning to the Center: Living Prayer in a Distracting World." It's a memoir of my awakening and a personal ancd contemporary introduction to the treasures of the Christian past.

These are the ones that come immediately to mind. They’re mainly old. But that means they’re classics and have nourished saints throughout the ages. If you’re interested in carving out or enhancing a spiritual life for yourself these ought to give you a good start.

Recovering the root and center of our spiritual tradition

This is a continuation of the preceding post . . . For those who identify with Jesus, spiritual awakening in our times means a recovery of the root and center of the Christian spiritual tradition—a heritage too long neglected but kept alive by monks and mystics (who, incidentally, have generally been poor and most often not very powerful).

Take St. Anthony the Egyptian as a model of the poor, relatively uneducated, and often oppressed, who’s life inspired the Christian monastic impulse that has probably been solely responsible for the durability of the Christian faith in the world. For without the monks and their practices, often hidden from the world, we may well not have a Church today.

I her musing, Mitali hopes "that the contemplative life these days isn’t a luxury enjoyed only by the (relatively) rich and powerful," and wonders if there is a tradition of contemplation among the poor, the oppressed, and the uneducated.

It's a question of vital importance.

The history of Christian spirituality testifies that the life of contemplation and soul-care is no luxury for the rich and powerful—even though Providence is now awakening the affluent to the spiritual life they’ve too long ignored. And Christian clergy like me have largely failed this tribe; we've failed to invite them into this tradition and to find there the spiritual nurture they need. Instead we've pandered to their desire for programs and projects, and given them ideas to believe in without practices that can move faith from their heads to their living hearts.

(to be continued . . . )