You don't have to serve your thoughts

Here is the third in a series relating our thoughts to the practice of unceasing prayer, the intentional awareness of God in each moment.  It follows two other posts, The daily thought parade, and Unceasing prayer is no pious exaggeration.

So, standing there, water splashing down upon my head, baptizing me anew, I tried a little experiment.  I gathered all these thoughts down into my heart.  I made my heart a sanctuary and invited my mind to come to full attention before Jesus Christ.  From that center, the chapel of my heart—where that ruffian horde of preoccupations and distractions were no longer in charge—I simply gave myself to the moment.  I reveled in the clean smell of lavender soap, the holiness of nakedness, the too-easily-missed glory of thousands of little beads of water, reflecting the morning’s light, running in golden rivulets down the glass door of my shower stall.  It was prayer.  I was ecstatic, alive to the goodness of God, to God above all, and to myself, fully present to it all.

The command to “pray without ceasing” is not an exaggeration or an experience only for monks and mountain mystics.  All of us think without ceasing . . . no exceptions.  The mind never shuts off.  And if that’s true, we can pray without ceasing.  For at heart, prayer helps us to take charge of our thoughts.  Prayer helps us resist being defined by our thoughts.  Prayer helps us stay put in the present, in real life, alert to the seductions of those thoughts that want to carry us away into illusion, fantasy, and anxiety.  Alert to God, we draw those ruffians down into the chapel of the heart where they swear their allegiance to Jesus Christ, and then, put in their rightful place, re-ordered and realigned, our thoughts can do what they are meant to do: help us live life rather than fret over it.

Thinking is as routine as breathing.  Spiritual awareness awakens you to the fact that you don’t have to follow your thoughts where they want to lead.

Unceasing prayer isn't pious exaggeration

Here’s the second of three posts relating our thoughts to the practice of unceasing prayer, the intentional awareness of God in each moment (it follows the post, The daily thought parade):

It was in the middle of all this that I realized I was praying.  I wasn’t just thinking, I was prostrate before the unholy trinity of Hurry, Worry, and Vanity.  My interior life was fully engaged, alert, and devoted to adoring this unholy Three unceasingly, from the moment my alarm buzzed me awake, until this very moment of awareness.  And, I figured, they’d probably been at it all through the night as well.

Then in a moment of reverie, birthed by a sudden ray of light, I laughed out loud. St. Paul urged those who love God to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5.17), and “pray in the Spirit at all times” (Ephesians 6.18).  But up till now, I’d considered them hyperbole, pious exaggeration, the enthusiasm of a saint.  But in this flash of insight, it dawned on me that St. Paul’s advice wasn’t to be dismissed.  I shouldn’t ask, “Can I pray without ceasing?”  Instead, the real question is, “To What or to Whom do I pray unceasingly?”

At that moment, I figured that if unceasing, interior prayer to those unholy gods, Hurry, Worry, and Vanity, can rise so easily within me, why can’t I pray unceasingly to the Holy Trinity?  Right then and there I wagered that if I can be this focused on worldly things and endlessly vexed by them, I could also be full of God, learning to rest in the Spirit, and in the midst of the active life that is mine, bring a sense of peace and wholeness and joy that transforms all of life.

The daily thought parade

Thinking is as routine as breathing.  Spiritual awareness awakens you to the fact that you don't have to follow your thoughts where they want to lead.  Here's an excerpt from my current, still very-much-in-process writing---the follow up to my eBook.  It's the first of three posts relating our thoughts to the practice of unceasing prayer, the intentional awareness of God in each moment:

My cell phone rumbles on the nightstand beside my bed.  I press “snooze” and roll over hoping to give my body another five minutes of sleep.  But my mind is already pulled into the day.  It’s already praying—unbidden by any effort or conscious suggestion of my will.  But it’s not until I’m half way through my shower, twenty minutes later, that I realize I’m praying, but it’s a very unflattering and unhelpful form of unceasing, interior prayer.

From the moment my alarm went off I’d been thinking—planning, solving, managing, worrying, dreaming.  Dozens and dozens of thoughts jostling about in my brain, clamoring for my attention.  Wrestling, hollering, coming and going, elbowing each other out of the way, trying to gain an audience before the Seat of my soul.  One of them wanted to remind me of the tough pastoral problem I’d have to face in a few hours.  Another started to list the emails I’d need to get through by late morning.  Still others pulled me back to things yesterday, tomorrow, and even further down the road—things that both worried me and excited me.  A memory paraded itself across the screen of my mind, and with it came an emotion reminding me of my great loneliness, the reality that my marriage was falling apart, my sense of powerlessness and failure.  And then, the emotion, strong enough to hold all other thoughts at bay for a while, finally gave way to the crowd of thoughts pressing at the door.  They came tumbling in like a horde of ruffians looking like they’d just broke through a castle gate.  In a flash, I was back to alternating between plans for a meeting, writing emails, preparing a sermon, and wondering what I’d fix my sons and me for dinner tonight.

River Flows in You

Music connects with something deep within us.  It awakens us spiritually. Here's my 19 year old son, interpreting a song by Yiruma.  He's added a bridge he wrote, but it fits in so well I can't tell what's his and what's Yiruma.  And that's as it should be when the river flows in you.  Josh started playing the piano this past year.  But it connects deeply within him.  This video reveals the way he's letting his body inhabit the music.  Rather than just playing notes, he's beginning to yield; whenever we yield the the Spirit we're no longer playing at something, we're being played.

Okay, so I'm a proud father.  But Josh's playing illustrates the path of spiritual awakening, the yielding that's necessary for prayer.  There comes a point when we must lose our heads and inhabit prayer itself, until we're no longer conscious of praying, but find ourselves being prayed.

Josh is still a beginner and probably making some mistakes.  But he doesn't care; he's already letting go.

So, if you're beginning at prayer, don't let your need to get your praying right dam up the river that wants to flow in you (John 7.38).

1. Make some mistakes.

2. Try new things.

3. Feel.

4. And let the Spirit pray in you.

When you're stuck in a moment you can't get out of

So much of the talk about living in the present or making every moment a meditation can sound pretty glib to those whose present moment feels something like the U2 song, "Stuck In a Moment You Can't Get Out Of." What if the present moment is not a very nice place to be?  What if you don't want to be here, now?  What if you feel downright stuck and wish you could be anywhere but here?

In response to a recent post on this site, Linda asks, "Do you have advice on how to experience the gift of the moment when you really prefer not to be in it at all?"

For people who feel stuck in such a moment, I'm pretty guarded about giving advice.  Companionship, empathy . . . yes.  But advice will probably ring hollow to those whose present moment may be full of physical or emotional pain, despair, loss, fear, or debilitating mental distress.

I can say this much.  I've known my share of moments I'd prefer not to have lived through.  I'd have given just about anything to be anywhere but stuck in a moment I couldn't get out of.  I also know that there was no getting through those moments in any other way than living through them.  Wishing I could be anywhere else was natural, even understandable, but not very helpful. By wanting to be somewhere else I evacuated myself from the only place I could really be.

The only way through such moments is through them . . . as frightening as that may be.

Here are three practices I've learned from my own painful dwelling in such moments--ABCs for living in a moment you can't get out of:

1. Awareness.  Take stock of yourself.  Check in with your body, your blood pressure, signs of anxiety.  Awareness is the gift of freedom from being hooked by a past you cannot fix and a future you cannot control.  What you have is this moment.  Like it or not, it's the only moment you've got.

2. Breathe. When we want to be elsewhere, your breath becomes shallow.  Conscious breathing is the best way for you to move into awareness.  Breathe.  In and out.  It's is a spiritual and bodily practice that can't help but pulls you back into this moment.

3. Compassion. Reach out to yourself as if you are a friend in need.  You're apt to show others more compassion than you do yourself.  Compassion requires awareness of your real situation and whispers to of grace, saying, "All shall be well."

For a helpful article by neurologist, Dr. Robert Scaer on trauma, see The Precarious Present: Why is it so hard to stay in the present? Especially the final section and it's practical suggestions.