122 – Prayer – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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A few weeks ago I asked what was the best advice on prayer you ever received.  A few responded to the question and I wonder if others might respond, so let me ask the question again, “What is the best advice on prayer you ever received?”

And while you are considering that question, consider these thoughts on prayer from Mary Oliver (“Prayer” from her collection, Thirst),

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

(I saw this on Richard Beck’s blog a few days ago, http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2012/11/praying.html )

What captures your attention the most in Oliver’s words?

And don’t forget our question, “What is the best advice you ever received on prayer?”

 

 

 

121 – The Examen  – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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Some no doubt recognized what we saw last week as “The Nightly Review” we have seen in slightly different form as the examen (#35 and #78).

At the Mars Hill Church (Grandville, Michigan) web site two forms of the examen are outlined,

http://marshill.org/pdf/sp/PrayerOfExamenLong.pdf

http://marshill.org/pdf/sp/PrayerOfExamenShort.pdf

The short form outlines the prayer as –

Finding the movement of the Spirit in our daily lives as we review our day.

Recognize the presence of God – Be still and know that you are with God.

Look at your day with gratitude – Acknowledge God in the big and small things of life.

Review your day – When or where in the past 24 hours did you feel you were cooperating most fully with God’s action in your life? When were you resisting?

Ask yourself – (1) What habits and life patterns do I notice? (2) When did I feel most alive? Most drained of life? (3) When did I have the greatest sense of belonging? When did I feel most alone? (4) When did I give love? Where did I receive love? (5) When did I feel most fully myself? Least myself? (6) When did I feel most whole? Most fragmented?

Reconcile and Resolve – Seek forgiveness, Ask for direction, Share a concern, Express gratitude, Resolve to move forward

What do you think of the examen presented above?  Do you the think the questions used above would help focus this prayer for you?  What question(s) most draw you?

Think about making a commitment to do the examen/review every night for a week.

Want to start tonight?

 

120 – The Nightly Review – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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A couple of days ago at the Upper Room Daily Reflections a few paragraphs from Trevor Hudson’s book, The Serenity Prayer: A Simple Prayer to Enrich Your Life,  were posted.  He wrote, “…Of all my personal spiritual practices, the nightly review has brought the most growth.”  He described the nightly review as,

1. Make some time to be quiet for a few moments. Take a few deep breaths to settle down. Invite God to be with you and to shed light on the past day.

2. Ask God to bring to mind one moment of the day for which you are most grateful, the moment that gave you the most life or when you received or gave the most love. If you could recapture one moment of your day, which one would it be? Relive this moment. Breathe in again the gratitude you felt and thank God for it.

3. Ask God to bring to mind the moment you are least grateful for, the moment that drained you of life or when you received or gave the least love. Reflect on what was said and done that made it so hard. Acknowledge your feelings about this experience. Refrain from judging yourself. Share these feelings with God, and let God’s love fill you again.”

(You can find the entire post at – http://daily.upperroom.org/?p=2084 .)

What Hudson describes as the practice that has brought him the most growth, might not be the same for you, but do you think the nightly review is worth trying?  And why might Hudson say this has brought him the most growth?

What about reviewing our day, the high point and the low point, with God might help us growth?

Any thoughts?

 

119 – Patience – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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Monday, October 15, was the feast day of St Teresa of Avila on many calendars.  The passage below, referred to as St Teresa’s bookmark, is one of the most quoted of St Teresa’s remarks,

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing;
God only is changeless.

Patience gains all things.
Who has God wants nothing.
God alone suffices.

In some moments I think this is a polyannish remark from someone who did not see the world clearly.  In other moments I suspect it speaks of the faith of a person who saw through the passing things of the world to the truly permanent things.

What do you think today?

 

118 – Prayer Beads – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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One of the blogs I regularly read is Richard Beck’s “Experimental Theology,”

A few days ago he posted on “Prayer Beads” and since I have not mentioned that prayer form here, I thought it would be a good time to both point you to Becks’ post and share a few thoughts.

You can find his post at –

http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2012/10/prayer-beads.html

Years ago when I was first exposed to the Rosary/Prayer Beads I did not understand it.  Over the intervening years I have come to understand a little more about the this prayer form (Rosaries, the Anglican Rosary, and prayer ropes).  I remember seeing a book about these prayer forms entitled Praying by Hand.  That helped me see prayer beads and prayer ropes as a means of involving more than my words, speech and mind in prayer.  Just maybe this could open a door to involving not only my hands but more fully my body and perhaps thereby prayer can reach deeper and deeper into my full being.  Just a thought.

Let me share here a few sentences for Beck,

“I’m not very good at praying. But I’ve gotten a lot of help from structured prayer, particularly the words of The Book of Common Prayer. But another way to structure prayer is the use of prayer beads….  The basic structure of Anglican prayer beads … has seven small beads in between four larger beads.  There are no set prayers for this prayer bead….. I enter the beads with the Gloria (“Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.”). I then say seven Jesus Prayers on the little beads and say an Our Father on the large beads.  And that’s how I walk the neighborhood at night with my dog.”

Want to go for a walk and spend some time in prayer?  Prayer beads optional.

 

117 – Prayer Triggers – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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What causes you to pray?  Reading Scripture, a church service, a request for prayer from a friend, a felt need, a fear, something you see, something you hear, a bell ringing?

What triggers you to pray?

Is it merely a reaction to circumstances? Is it only at your “regular” prayer times?

What if you added to your regular prayer times your intention to pray when something presents itself to your awareness?  In other words, you decide to  pray when you see or hear or otherwise become aware of a certain thing.

Let me give you a concrete example.

Several years ago I decided that as I commuted to and from work I would pray whenever I was approaching or stopped at a green traffic light and a red traffic light.  When I was approaching a green light I would pray, “Glory to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.”  When I was approaching a red light I would pray, :”Lord Jesus, have mercy.”  I saw it as a way to open myself to a prayer of gratitude or a prayer of protection and presence and to try to move toward the Scriptural encouragement to “pray without ceasing.”  It also helped me see commute time as a time for more than merely getting to and from the workplace.

What else might be a prayer trigger?

You no doubt can come up with other triggers and prayers that better connect with you than my examples.  And most important they would be your “call to prayer.”

How about it?  Do you want to “try out” a prayer trigger?

 

116 – Praying with Scripture – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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Many mornings I read the responsorial psalm for the day and last Friday I was in for a surprise.  The psalm that morning was –

Psalm 18:2-5 © (from the New Jerusalem Bible)

The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
The heavens proclaim the glory of God,
and the firmament shows forth the work of his hands.

Day unto day takes up the story
and night unto night makes known the message.

The heavens proclaim the glory of God.

No speech, no word, no voice is heard
yet their span extends through all the earth,
their words to the utmost bounds of the world.

The heavens proclaim the glory of God.

(One of the places you can find the daily responsorial psalm is http://www.universalis.com/usa/mass.htm .)

The opening was very familiar (maybe too familiar) but when I fully heard the words, “No speech, no word, no voice is heard / yet their span extends through all the earth,”  it was like hearing a wonderful song for the first time.  Not only did it surprise me and not only did it capture my full attention, I found I had to read it over and over and let it settle deeper and deeper into me.  Maybe you want to call what happened that morning meditating, or praying with Scripture, or lectio divina.  What you name it is not important.  That we allow ourselves to stay in those moments when we hear something speak to us so deeply is what is important.  We need to learn to not rush past those moments.  For me that day, my hearing of the Psalm did end that morning.  The echo of the Psalm came to me several times during the day and I had to stop and pay attention.

While I cannot know if this Psalm will reach you as it reached me, I want to invite you to spend time with it.  You might want to spend time with it over several days.  One way of praying with Scripture is often called lectio divina.  Below you will find one description of the “four movements” of lectio divina (I also shared this description in week #36 ).

1. Read – Read a short passage of scripture slowly, listening with the “ear of your heart.”  Listen for a sentence or phrase or word that captures your attention.  Stay with what has captured you and give your full attention, mind and heart, to it.  Repeat it as you let it fill your mind and heart.

2. Reflect – Giving your full attention to the words, relish them,  In a spirit of quiet receptiveness be attentive to what speaks to your heart.  This is a time of going deeper in listening.  Initially you read the words.  Now you let the words speak to you and you listen.  In this quietness you open yourself fully to God’s presence.

3. Respond – As you listen to the sentence or phrase or word, you respond spontaneously.  Perhaps a prayer of thanksgiving or praise or petition comes to you.  Give voice to that response. Your attention stays with phrase or word but you are noticing what that provokes, calls forth in your and you acknowledge that in God’s presence.

4. Rest – You have come to a place to be with God.  Don’t hurry, don’t run, don’t try to accomplish anything, rest with God.  If you are drawn back to the scripture go there, if you are drawn to silence go there.  Follow God in as you are lead.

Don’t get caught in the trap of thinking these are “steps” that are to be done always in sequence and for a certain number of minutes each.  While setting aside a specific amount of time might be helpful in beginning this practice, it misses the essence of the practice, listening for God, responding to God, letting God fill your life.

Are you ready to sit with the Psalm for a while and let it lead you?

 

115 – Silence – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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A few weeks ago the mailings that come from Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation were concerned with silence.  One of the mailings contained the following –

“The simplest spiritual discipline is some degree of solitude and silence. But it’s the hardest, because none of us want to be with someone we don’t love. Besides that, we invariably feel bored with ourselves, and all of our loneliness comes to the surface.  We won’t have the courage to go into that terrifying place without Love to protect us and lead us, without the light and love of God overriding our own self-doubt. Such silence is the most spacious and empowering technique in the world, yet it’s not a technique at all. It’s precisely the refusal of all technique.

(Adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 106, day 114)”  (if you want to subscribe to Rohr’s mailings, go to  http://cac.org/sign-up .)

What about the case he makes for silence and solitude?

” … simplest … hardest … terrifying …  most spacious … empowering … refusal of all technique.”

Does he overstate the importance of silence? Or, do you hear a deep truth in what he says?

I know a number of people who find silence hard but not simple.  Is this because we approach it as only a “technique?”  But then, how can it be the “refusal of all technique?”  Don’t we start with technique, the rules before we move beyond mere mechanics?

I certainly have more questions today than answers.  But I keep remembering Rohr is not alone is claiming so much for silence and solitude.  Again and again I hear and read how important silence is.

What do you think today?  How do you incorporate silence in your life?  Or, if you don’t, why?

 

114 – Religion – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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This past week I have been thinking about part of the quote I shared last week from Terry York,

“We tuck things away … and walk away. We can stay away if we are busy enough or if our surroundings, even our liturgical surroundings, are noisy enough. Yes, noisy enough. We have long understood that overloaded calendars and daily schedules are not just about things that must be accomplished, that endless television, radio, and iPod music are not just about entertainment, that drinking is not just about being thirsty, and that eating is not just about being hungry. These are our avoidance techniques and ways to forget … Such avoidance techniques are futile attempts to be God rather than to turn the matters of our deepest prayer over to God. Ironically, even shallow prayer can be a way of avoiding our deepest prayer.” (p 60)

What caught my attention was,

“We can stay away if we are busy enough or if our surroundings, even our liturgical surroundings, are noisy enough…. Ironically, even shallow prayer can be a way of avoiding our deepest prayer.”

When does the practice of religion get in the way of our encounter with God?

How busy is your “church stuff?”  Are you going to enough classes, meetings, services, bible studies? or too many?  Is church so noisy you can’t hear God?  And if you are a “leader” when do you find time to listen?

I am certainly not suggesting these activities are a waste of time, but I would ask you to consider when might activity stand in the way of encounter.

 

113 – Silence – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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A week ago our class read an article entitled, “Our Deepest Prayer.”  It began with the words to a song written by the article’s author, Terry York,

Waiting here, in silence, God,
we hear and own our deepest prayer.
Until this silence we’d forgotten
that these words were hidden there.
Resurrect to Life and Light
what we have buried in our night.

I wonder what hides our deepest prayers?  our deepest desires?  our deepest fears?

York offers a few suggestions,

“We tuck things away … and walk away. We can stay away if we are busy enough or if our surroundings, even our liturgical surroundings, are noisy enough. Yes, noisy enough. We know the weight of silence.  We have learned that silence and waiting pull us toward that voice and that place and all that is hidden there.  We have long understood that overloaded calendars and daily schedules are not just about things that must be accomplished, that endless television, radio, and iPod music are not just about entertainment, that drinking is not just about being thirsty, and that eating is not just about being hungry. These are our avoidance techniques and ways to forget … Such avoidance techniques are futile attempts to be God rather than to turn the matters of our deepest prayer over to God. Ironically, even shallow prayer can be a way of avoiding our deepest prayer.” (p 60)

Take some time over the next few days to consider what noises and activities you have used to hide.  And as York suggests we might even use religious activities to hide.

Let me close with one additional quote from York,

“Our deepest prayer is our voice connecting with the voice of the Holy Spirit in a place where our waiting connects with God’s waiting.” (p 60)

(You can find the article on pages 59-63 of http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/92489.pdf )