What music can teach us about prayer

Prayer is listening, resonating, participating in the fulness of God and creation. In this TED talk, percussionist Evelyn Glennie explores music as more than mere notes on a page. Rather, as an expression of the human experience. Playing with sensitivity and nuance informed by a soul-deep understanding of and connection to music, she talks about a music that is more than sound waves perceived by the human ear.

I wonder in what way(s) prayer is the resonance of sound, the sensation of something deep, even eternal...a participation in the eternal song of the Trinity.

If the Eternal Word was made flesh, that is, a human being in what way are we human beings invited to participate in the Word of Eternity, the deep music of the cosmos?

In what ways are our very bodies, offered in prayer, a "resonating chamber" for the deep music of God as Trinity and of the angels, saints, and drumming of the creation?

What the wild can do for you

In our busy, device-encumbered modern world, there are good reasons to unplug and step into the wild. And if not the wild, at least a place where you can break from the compulsive access to information, connection, and the overload it brings. The mind needs spaciousness to do its job well. And besides, it just feels good to stop and smell the rain.

For another helpful reflection along this line see this New York Times article by Pico Iyer.

An app to help you time your praying . . . seriously, it's good

If you practice contemplative prayer, you may know how challenging it can be to know when to stop praying.  What I mean is, if you get lost or absorbed in prayer, it's really annoying to have your cell phone alarm ring or beep or whatever and summon you out of such deep intimacy with God. So, here's a great little app for your phone or tablet.  I don't have many apps and frankly find many of them a waste of precious time.   This one, though, is enormously helpful to help you time your periods of contemplation.

Check it out . . . here.

Satirizing our abuse of prayer

Satire's a powerful way to open our eyes. Here's an eye-opener to our misunderstandings and abuses of prayer

A little book on the Jesus Prayer

"When you pray," it has been wisely said by an Orthodox writer in Finland, "you yourself must be silent. . . . You must be silent; let the prayer speak."  To achieve silence: this is of all things the hardest and the most decisive in the art of prayer.

So begins Bishop Kallistos Ware's little booklet on the Jesus Prayer.  A theologian at Oxford University, Ware insightful draws the ancient Christian practice into the modern world.  I've written often about the Jesus Prayer or Prayer of the Heart, and commend the little book to you.