Prayer as an “Easy Tour”

From my journal | Tuesday, May 22, 2007 | St. Marcarius Monastery, the desert of Skete, Egypt

The key to prayer is to stop trying, stop seeking, stop posturing, and simply open to Christ, greet him adoringly, and then let my love for him carry me blindly, trustingly, wherever he leads.

Matthew the Poor calls pure prayer, prayer of the heart, contemplation, an “easy tour”—something so simple it is nearly unbelievable by the sophisticated mind (From Orthodox Prayer Life).

“It requires a simple and easy-going soul that can go on, caring little how or where it goes. This may be likened to walking in the dark in simple faith, making no use of the sense, mind, or imagination. It is as though a blind man were guided to walk along a path free of stumbling blocks or other impediments without boundaries on the left or right—a path that is seldom trodden by anyone. This blind man may have a simple heart, a clear conscience, a serene mind, and a calm imagination. In this case, he would advance rapidly forward in faith without confusion, as an open-eyed man would do. But if the blind man were a sophisticated, skeptical, and fanciful philosopher, he would grope his way with a stick, and because of the existence of ditches, barriers, or wild beasts, he would stumble on the way. After a while he would prefer to sit down rather than walk on.”

As helpful as methods for prayer may be (and in many cases, necessary for the beginner, and for those who get stuck or lost along the way), it is love above all that leads the praying person across the final leap toward real oneness with God, a leap no method can span.  Love then, and do so simply . . . let love carry you across until there's only Love.

Can One Talk About the Experience of Prayer?

In what way is prayer like sex--too intimate a mystery to describe?  Yeah, well, lots of people talk about sex.  Sex is paraded around in movies, on TV, and in music.  And to a large degree it's cheapened.  But there are forms of public art that reveal the beauty and wonder of sex and can invite us deeper into its mystery.  We'd be better off without some forms of public talk of sex, but worse off without others. Prayer too is in many ways too intimate for words.  And yet, we are compelled to talk about it.  But how can we talk about it without cheapening it?  Can we explore it artfully, reverently, so that our talk can invite us deeper?  Is it worth trying?

I'll give it a try, then you tell me if such talk is cheap and, like sex, better left behind closed doors.

I crave God.  I desire an experience of God that can keep me sane in the midst of an active life, but can open the door toward real union with God even in the midst of the busiest moments of my active life.  I want to disappear into God, to be consumed by the sacred fire.  Recently, I experienced the following during a dawn period of contemplative prayer, and wrote of it later in my journal:

"In stillness early.  Light breaks in.  I shudder.  Tremble.  Catch my breath.  FIRE!  Theosis!  I see it.  Touch it.  Taste it.  LOVE!  I shake.  And must voluntarily come back down 'the mountain'.  The heights are too intense for me."

About "theosis" see this link.

Awareness Prayer :: Prayer of Repose :: Prayer of the Heart

From my journal | Tuesday, May 29, 2007 | Iona, Scotland Begin by greeting the Beloved.  Follow your easy breath, in and out.  Survey your whole body, beginning with the toes and ending with the nose.  Release all tension.  Sink into the Presence of God.  Gently breathe, giving your thoughts the freedom to come and go. Like snowflakes, you may notice them but you can’t hold them.  Simply let them fall.

If the Devil brings ugly things, lusts, lists, or pride into your mind, you can find freedom by telling him that you know what he’s up to.  Smile at him.  Laugh at him in the confidence that greater is He who is in you than all the hosts of the Devil.  The Devil cannot abide when you jeer him.

Return to the Beloved.  Open your heart to love.  Become drunk with love.  The demons are terrified when they encounter a soul aflame with love.  Love will tame the wild beasts—your mind, your commands, your will cannot.

Wait, wait, wait until you reach the silence which is the voice of the Beloved, then on the inhale speak inwardly, “Jesus,” and on the exhale, “Mercy.”  Repeat, following your uncontrolled breath as you rest in God.  When the restfulness begins to come to a natural conclusion—or you sense the need to do so—simply bring your soul to an awareness of its body again.  Thank the Beloved Trinity and re-enter the day.

Practice a Receptive Posture. Simply Consent to God

Those of us serious about God often feel like we’re floundering about in an ocean without a boat or life vest.  We may feel that without help we’ll drown in the roles and responsibilities, our to-do lists and daily dramas.  A drowning person fights to stay afloat, and we who seek the wholeness of a life with God through prayer often struggle to stay afloat. There are two problems that the spiritually serious face.  The first is not to work hard enough.  Prayer is work—not just the practice of prayer which our active lives, the many distractions that come to us moment after moment, do not support, but also the work of pressing past our illusions about ourselves, the masks we wear, the falsehoods that we parade about.  To get past ourselves and into God is work.

That said, the second problem we face is trying too hard.  Drowning in the sea of distractions we can panic.  Floundering about we will waste precious energy and go really nowhere.

Fr. Thomas Keating and the Centering Prayer school of contemplative spirituality help us here.  Keating’s practice is receptive.  It is a non-combative form of payer. And while Keating and his school do teach a method, that method is established on attitude.  The method supports the attitude.  That’s important.  A method approach to the life of prayer can get in the way of intimacy with God.  Most of us have an annoying habit of attaching ourselves more to a method than to the God we seek.

Here’s the center of Centering Prayer’s method.

Go into silence twice a day, aiming for 20 minutes each sitting.  “Seek the face of God” above all else (Psalm 27.8), and simply open yourself and consent to whatever God wishes to do within you.  Put unwavering trust in this consent.  It is enough.  Better than anything else.  And when the barrage of thoughts come at you:

• Resist no thought
• Retain no thought
• React emotionally to no thought
• And return, ever so gently, to the sacred word you’re using as prayer, calling your attention back to God when you get distracted.

By consenting to God in this way, you are receptive to grace, and you’ll stop floundering about in the sea of your otherwise distracting life.

Desperate, I Opened the Door

eBook excerpt-- I’d resolved to become holy, but it didn’t take long for the ordinary tasks of ministry to bury the light that entered me that day.  And because I had no one to show me the way, I slipped back into a life that, while fruitful on many levels, left me increasingly dissatisfied.  Over the course of the next decade and a half, ministry became subtly yet increasingly colorless and drab, sometimes downright dreary.  Not entirely, of course.  In fairness to the God who’d called me and to the people I served, there were enough bright spots to keep my heart in the work.  But bright and lovely as these persons and experiences were, they still couldn’t mask the widening gap between who I was called by God to be and the life I was actually living.

When crisis finally came knocking that day late into the second decade of my ministry, I took a long, sober look at myself and saw a person who’d set out as a pastor but who along the way had become a manager—a fairly competent manager, but still a manager.  I was able to write memos, lead meetings, organize events, raise money, supervise staff, and keep track of details.  I was running a relatively successful church organization, teaching at a nearby seminary, writing, and consulting.  In addition, I’d kept track of a remodeling project in our home, and was helping our teenage sons negotiate their path to adulthood.  On top of this I also did what I could to provide the home environment that made it possible for my wife to teach fulltime while she took night classes to complete her credential in special education.

But all this just helped to mask the crisis within and assure me that for all intents and purposes people were pleased with my work, and that I was, by most measures, successful.  I could have been quite pleased with myself but for the light that once had pierced me.  What light remained would allow me no real pleasure in my status or achievements.  It showed me that little I was doing really required God.  And none of it needed a saint.  I had become laughable, precisely the oxymoron I’d resolved not to become those many years before.  I was stretched terribly thin—like too little butter spread over too much toast.  And, while in many ways successful, I knew I was truly failing, not only in what God required of me but also in what my family, friends, and congregation truly needed.  It became increasingly difficult for me to assure myself that the life I was living was the life the Light intended for me.

Desperate, I opened the door and embraced the light of God that lives inside the terror of every crisis.  Fifteen years earlier I hadn’t known what to do with the light of God that pierced my heart and whispered to me of holiness.  I hadn’t the foggiest idea then how to become a saint, and I didn’t know a soul who could show me how.  A decade and half later I figured I at least knew where to look for a few great souls.  And so, I determined to track them down . . . or die trying.