To Center

Laying on my back on a pew in the quiet of the sanctuary on a weekday afternoon, I was acutely aware of my breath.  The few of us gathered had just finished singing "Spirit of the Living God" and now we were entering into a time of centering prayer for 10 minutes.  As I tried to quiet my body and my self, I took measured breaths, closed my eyes, and let my body completely relax.  "Peace."  That one word repeating in my mind slowly as I tried to empty myself and sought to be merely present in the moment.  As thoughts entered in, I gently repeated my word, "peace."  With each repetition, it quietly called me back to simply being.  It reminded me to breathe.  To be empty.  Before long, the hum of cars passing by faded away and I began to feel truly at peace.  Every little bit, a fly would buzz by and pull my attention away, and I would once again speak my word of peace to center myself back into the moment.  Before I knew it, we were being called out of our prayer with a praying of the Lord's Prayer.  All it took was ten minutes, but it changed me and how I approached the day.  It quieted the noise inside of me.  It made room for God to move within me.  All in all, I felt very centered as we drew our time to a close and I went about the rest of my day.

So often, our prayer times are mental exercises.  We are engaged mentally, maybe physically, in addition to spiritually.  Speaking for myself, my mind engages with my soul and with God in a practice that involves some element or combination of conversation, journaling, artistic expression, or heart-felt desire.  It is often more about what *I* am doing in the moment than what God is doing.  Centering prayer is different.  Centering prayer calls us to disengage with our mind in order to make room for the Spirit of God to work within us.  It is a time of intentional relationship with God where we consent to God's presence and action in our life.

Fr. Thomas Keating is my go-to guy for understanding the grace of centering prayer.  In a video you can find here, he lifts up four basic principles of centering prayer.  Remember this first:  Centering prayer is not a replacement to other forms of prayer.  It is best understood as a way to make room and prepare ourselves to more fully engage with God in those other forms of prayer, as well engage with God in our general living.  Keating's 4 principles/how-to's:

1. Prayerfully select a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God's presence and action within.  Keating reminds us that centering prayer is not a perfect art -- we will screw it up and that is OK!!  What matters is our intent to be available to God.  
2. Get comfortable, close your eyes and quietly settle into your space.  After a brief settling, gently introduce your sacred word.  Silently and gently repeating it.  
3. When thoughts arise (and they will!), return ever-so-gently to your sacred word.  Do no shame yourself for the thoughts that pop up.  It is perfectly normal for our mind to drift, to dream, vision, and think.  As this happens, greet the thoughts, but help them pass along as your sacred word brings you back to your intent to be fully present with God.
4. At the end of your time of prayer, allow yourself to remain in silence with your eyes closed for just a couple of minutes - thus allowing yourself to re-enter the world with care.    

Some liken centering prayer to Christian meditation -- I am not sure I would go that far.  My personal understanding of meditation focuses on primarily on the emptying of ourselves.  In centering prayer, we are emptying ourselves with an focused intent to be in relationship with God and to receive God's workings within us.

I invite you to try this prayer.  Fr. Keating suggests we give ourselves 20-25 minutes to partake in this practice, but as a beginner that will feel like too much.  So start slowly and simply -- 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes.  Try it once a week, three times a week, and then move to daily.  Remember, there is truly no RIGHT way to do this - what is right is our intention to be in fellowship with God.  So show up, give it a try, and trust that God's grace will do the rest.

On Prayer...

I'm just gonna say it: Prayer is hard.

I mean, yes it is easy in the "there's no wrong way to pray" mentality, but it is also hard in knowing the ways that work for us.
   Prayer is easy in that as long as we show up, we can have faith God is there, but it is hard because we so often get distracted and we are seldom fully present.
   Prayer is easy in that our souls just naturally yearn to have a connection with God, but it is hard... so hard... when we feel like that connection isn't happening.

So yes, prayer is HARD.
   But... it is SO worth it.  Why?
   Because it builds our relationship with God.  It deepens, enriches, and draws us closer in relationship with the One who made us, loves us still and seeks the absolute best for us.  In prayer, we connect with God in big and little ways.  We become aware of God's faithfulness to us, God's activity in our lives, God's dreams for us, and we grow in our own desire to be ever closer to God.

I recently read Ronald Rolheiser's book, Prayer: Our Deepest Longing.  In that book, Rolheiser likens the spiritual discipline of prayer to caring for aging parents/loved ones.  Out of a sense of duty and love, we daily stop by to spend time with our loved one, offering care, helping with the evening meal, chatting about the day, and simply being present.  Very rarely would these daily visits amount to much when looked at individually, but when looked at over the course of time, we grow to know that person so deeply and wholly -- and that person knows us just as deeply.  That happens, Rolheiser says, because "at a deep level of relationship, the real connection between us takes place below the surface of our conversation.  We begin to know each other through simple presence."  The very same is true with prayer!!  If we pray faithfully every day, day in, day out, year after year, an intimacy with our Maker can't help but be developed.

But we are a people of instant gratification -- and this is where once again, prayer is hard.  We want prayer to be life changing every time.  Monumental.  We want the mountain top experience. We want to be instantly touched.  Healed.  Moved.  Changed.  Connected with God in some new and real way.  While this can (and does) happen from time to time, it is not the norm.  The norm is more steady.  Uneventful.  Bland.  And perhaps, dare I say ,even boring.  And  hear me say, that's OK.  Just as a meaningful friendship isn't built around the "what have you done for me lately" motif, a relationship with God is't either.  It's about being steady and faithful - even when we don't want to.  It's about showing up and knowing that when we are distracted, God is still there and fully present.  It's about knowing that when we feel like we are failing at prayer (which is actually impossible), the intent of our heart to pray and connect with God saves us.  God sees our intent and connects with us even then.

How have you found richness in the regular practice of prayer?  Or on the other side of that coin, have you been discouraged in your prayer life?  It's never too late to start fresh.  In the next few blogs, I will give some examples of prayer practices that have been meaningful to me -- perhaps you will find one that resonates with you!

Soul Friends

I am blessed to have a group of women who meet together as a covenant group once a month.  We are all clergy and we come together to share our true selves with one another - joys and challenges, laughter and tears, fullness and emptiness.  I often think that without these women, I would be utterly lost as I navigate life, faith and ministry.  I am ever thankful for their friendship and their willingness to be true and vulnerable with one another.  We have what I would call a spiritual friendship -- a friendship that runs deeper than sharing of the latest rumors and celebrity news.  A friendship that isn't accidental and most certainly, is not temporary.

In a world where we talk about "being friends" with such casual voice (how many "friends" do you have on facebook?), to speak of a friendship that goes deeper than the mundane is a challenge.  Few people can relate to what it means to have a true blue friend - that friend we can call at 3am when we are sick and need someone to buy us some ginger ale.  Yet when I speak of spiritual friendship, I am going even beyond deep friendship to a relationship that is more intentional, more bonded by faith and knit together by God.  In these set-apart relationships, there is room for gentle nudging, confessing, anchoring, and directing.  There is a gentleness of spirit and a recognition that the conversations shared are holy and heard -- not just by one another, but by the Spirit.  Conversations together are focused around the challenges of faith and life, the balance of hope and reality, and the very basic "how is it with your soul?" They are friendships that hold us accountable, help us dream, carry us when we are deflated and ground us when we are too far afloat. They are the friendships that not just illumine the darkness, but sit with us in the midst of it as we wait for the dawn of new hope, fresh faith, and a sense of God.  As we strive on toward perfection, it is a spiritual friend that will walk alongside of us every step of the way - come high hills, big bumps, rain or rainbows.

I have to admit, sometimes I feel indulgent when it comes to meeting with my covenant sisters.  It is such a sacred time and it always buoys me for the next round of life.  Yet in those times when it feels too indulgent, I am reminded that the model of spiritual friendships was set before us in the life of Christ.  In the Gospels, we see Jesus living in spiritual friendship with Mary and Mary Magdalene, with Lazarus and Martha, with "the disciple whom Jesus loved."  These are the people who were key in Jesus' life -- the people who knew him best and knew his heart.  Jesus taught us that neither life nor faith were meant to be journeyed alone.

I truly consider myself both lucky and blessed to have found these five sisters in faith to companion with through life, but I would say that it is a blessing to even have one person in life to be this kind of friend.  Who in your life fills this role?  If you can't readily think of someone, I would challenge you to find one person to explore having this type of intentional relationship with.  Maybe it is with someone you already call friend or perhaps it is someone you know on the periphery and would like to know better in an intentional Spirit-led way. Either way, I invite you to take a risk, reach out, be real and be vulnerable with each other in the company of God.  In doing so I believe you will find richness of spirit and heart - a true gift of God's love for each of us.