The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn but to unlearn. That was said, among many other things she said, by the American feminist and activist, Gloria Steinem. Whatever she meant by it, I think she is right. Contemplative prayer and life is very much about unlearning.
One of our greatest spiritual classics -- and we don’t know who the author was -- is entitled The Cloud of Unknowing. In that title are two deliberate images -- the image of a cloud, rather than any image of clarity and certainty; and the strange word unknowing, divesting, dispossessing ourselves of perhaps cherished assumptions and props. To a lot of people this seems not at all what they thought religion was about.
If you consult what Jesus teaches about prayer, you find that prayer is to happen in an inner room with the door shut. The Jews of his day, the people to whom he spoke, did not have inner rooms or doors. This, rather, is how Jesus refers to inwardness. He describes the importance of being still and silent. He also says we are to shed anxiety. Anxiety is pandemic. I can think of people who seem anxious that if they shed their anxieties there would be nothing much left. Worry is their default response to life. Prayer is the way we set it aside, says Jesus.
Prayer is the relinquishing of possession and of our illusion of control of our lives, or of events, of other people, of doctrine and belief… and, we must add, our control of God. A most basic part of that is that we come to terms with our own mortality.
In the stillness we consent to God’s process rather than our own. We unlearn, unknow much that we habitually assume, our reliance on some god who is our personal domestic idol, or the protector of our belief system, perhaps even fashioned in our own image, we start to unlearn our self-protection mechanisms, dismantling our propensities for looking for happiness in the wrong places. We choose to pay attention to the God Jesus called Father, and that is all. Like Mary of Bethany, simply be present and pay attention.
29 July 2011
22 July 2011
About silence - 22 July 2011
Silence is a key component of contemplative prayer. But as we rapidly find, silence is exceedingly difficult. The best we can manage is a relative silence, perhaps a little quieter round about than is usually the case. It is a noisy world. People who come to visit us at Algies Bay typically remark how quiet it is. So it seems to them. But the vehicles still roar up and down the road at intervals -- and that’s just the upright local citizenry carting their kids to school, or the blokes cruising around on their tractors or quad bikes or starting up chain saws in case there might be something to hew down. Thomas Merton in his hermitage far out in the woods of Kentucky complained about hammering he could hear distantly down the hill, or some farmer’s far off machinery.
Well, the lesson about this is that our prayer is never about escaping from the real world. We needn’t try. The noisy world is real and it’s there and we inhabit it, it is part of us and we are part of its clamour.
The real challenge with silence is interior silence. As soon as we become still and start to pay attention to the present moment we are reminded of the degree of noise and indiscipline in what has been called our monkey minds. St Teresa compared it to a ship whose crew has mutinied, tied up the captain and is chaotically taking turns to steer the ship. Jesus teaches: Therefore I bid you put away anxious thoughts about food and drink to keep you alive, and clothes to cover your body. Surely life is more than food, the body more than clothes.
We aim to be in the present moment, which is the only moment of reality, of encounter with the God who is “I Am.” Yet within seconds we are thinking thoughts of yesterday, making plans for tomorrow or weaving daydreams and wish-fulfillment in the realm of fantasy. Do not be anxious about tomorrow, tomorrow will look after itself, says Jesus.
So, we only approximate to interior silence as well. But Christian Meditation is the discipline in which we come back to our approximation each day, and with the help of the mantra bring our monkey minds back to the centre again and again. A silence and stillness begins to settle into our lives at the other times. Simply discovering that we are, however poorly, free to place our attention elsewhere than on ourselves is the first great awakening. It is the beginning of the deepening of consciousness, which allows us to leave the distractions on the surface, like waves on the surface of the ocean.
Well, the lesson about this is that our prayer is never about escaping from the real world. We needn’t try. The noisy world is real and it’s there and we inhabit it, it is part of us and we are part of its clamour.
The real challenge with silence is interior silence. As soon as we become still and start to pay attention to the present moment we are reminded of the degree of noise and indiscipline in what has been called our monkey minds. St Teresa compared it to a ship whose crew has mutinied, tied up the captain and is chaotically taking turns to steer the ship. Jesus teaches: Therefore I bid you put away anxious thoughts about food and drink to keep you alive, and clothes to cover your body. Surely life is more than food, the body more than clothes.
We aim to be in the present moment, which is the only moment of reality, of encounter with the God who is “I Am.” Yet within seconds we are thinking thoughts of yesterday, making plans for tomorrow or weaving daydreams and wish-fulfillment in the realm of fantasy. Do not be anxious about tomorrow, tomorrow will look after itself, says Jesus.
So, we only approximate to interior silence as well. But Christian Meditation is the discipline in which we come back to our approximation each day, and with the help of the mantra bring our monkey minds back to the centre again and again. A silence and stillness begins to settle into our lives at the other times. Simply discovering that we are, however poorly, free to place our attention elsewhere than on ourselves is the first great awakening. It is the beginning of the deepening of consciousness, which allows us to leave the distractions on the surface, like waves on the surface of the ocean.
15 July 2011
The future contemplative church - 15 July 2011
Whatever the church of the future is like, it will need to better understand the many people who are sitting on its margins, or just outside the camp or perhaps further away. Some of these people had years of activity in the church, but not now -- for whatever reason that changed. Others are absent because they think they can’t meet the church’s expectations, whether it’s in doctrine and belief, or in the manner of their lives, or because of something from their past.
A writer I admire is a woman named Doris Grumbach. One day she told her vicar, I have been afflicted with a kind of spiritual inanition... And her letter to him ends with these words: I find the business of the church keeps me from the real enterprise of prayer. While there is still time I must be about the journey I have started on.
What interests me is, first, that what she calls spiritual inanition is a very common thing indeed among mature Christian believers; inanition in the OED denotes “exhaustion resulting from lack of nourishment”; the spirituality term for it is acedia. In Doris Grumbach’s case it flowed from what she calls the business of the church. Acedia, inanition, usually leaves good and involved people feeling weary of it all and bewildered. Secondly, she now sees her way forward in the prayer of silence and stillness and in developing those contemplative disciplines.
More and more teachers of Christian spirituality seem to be saying, one way or another, that the church of the future will need to be contemplative. Its people will need to know how to be still. And that means doing it. It means finding out for ourselves what is personally possible each day for being still, being silent, paying attention to God who is always present. All of this is directly counter to our secular world of consumerism, activism and rampant egoism.
This is deeply inward Christian allegiance. It places at risk a lot that we may have assumed until now. It realigns our priorities. It deepens and clarifies our love for our friends and also our enemies. However, it’s not a very smart idea to start making resolutions about being more contemplative from now on... What we can do is simply to be still and silent now, with the utter simplicity -- what some call the poverty -- of the mantra, yet alive and alert, fully present in the present moment, not asking for anything, in the presence of God who knows us utterly and all our needs.
A writer I admire is a woman named Doris Grumbach. One day she told her vicar, I have been afflicted with a kind of spiritual inanition... And her letter to him ends with these words: I find the business of the church keeps me from the real enterprise of prayer. While there is still time I must be about the journey I have started on.
What interests me is, first, that what she calls spiritual inanition is a very common thing indeed among mature Christian believers; inanition in the OED denotes “exhaustion resulting from lack of nourishment”; the spirituality term for it is acedia. In Doris Grumbach’s case it flowed from what she calls the business of the church. Acedia, inanition, usually leaves good and involved people feeling weary of it all and bewildered. Secondly, she now sees her way forward in the prayer of silence and stillness and in developing those contemplative disciplines.
More and more teachers of Christian spirituality seem to be saying, one way or another, that the church of the future will need to be contemplative. Its people will need to know how to be still. And that means doing it. It means finding out for ourselves what is personally possible each day for being still, being silent, paying attention to God who is always present. All of this is directly counter to our secular world of consumerism, activism and rampant egoism.
This is deeply inward Christian allegiance. It places at risk a lot that we may have assumed until now. It realigns our priorities. It deepens and clarifies our love for our friends and also our enemies. However, it’s not a very smart idea to start making resolutions about being more contemplative from now on... What we can do is simply to be still and silent now, with the utter simplicity -- what some call the poverty -- of the mantra, yet alive and alert, fully present in the present moment, not asking for anything, in the presence of God who knows us utterly and all our needs.
08 July 2011
A daily discipline - 8 July 2011
Part of the general teaching about Christian Meditation encourages us to adopt some daily discipline of meditation. No one should be frightened about this. The discipline will vary a lot from person to person. If you consult someone like Father Laurence Freeman, he will say simply that we should meditate for between 20 to 30 minutes, twice a day. It is what he does, and he believes it is the basic discipline for a contemplative person. And of course it represents a considerable rearrangement of our personal lives and schedules and priorities. Plenty of people do that.
But it depends on a lot of things. For some it depends on their many other at present unavoidable tasks and responsibilities. I do not see how a mother at home with preschoolers can meditate twice a day in stillness and silence. It also depends on our state of health, on the understanding of other people in the house, and so on... numerous things. I come back to the basic principles, that whatever we do, it is always to be a gentle discipline -- we do what we can, not what we can’t. In our maturity we may have discovered that times and seasons change, and that what was impossible at one time of life may be able to blossom some other time.
But there is a deeper point underlying this. The teaching says that if and when the moment arrives for meditation, we do it whether we feel like it or not. We discern the moment, and choose to respond, whether we feel like it or not. Feelings are put to one side. This is a decision about priorities. And it always strikes me as being profoundly counter-cultural. It may be that for those of us who have seen a thing or two, getting on with something we don’t feel like doing is not a strange experience at all. We can manage that perfectly well if we choose to. I was once invited to “explain”, as they put it, Christian Meditation to a church youth group. And that bit of it was incomprehensible to them. Doing something they didn’t feel like doing, or thought they didn’t like... Why would anyone do that if they didn’t have to?
Meditation, contemplative life and prayer, teaches us to set aside emotions, feelings if we have to or if we choose. In the welter and pressure of emotions, which we always have anyway, we choose something else, to become still and wait. That is a very rich decision. It is a decision, in the stillness, to be directed elsewhere than ourselves. In the normal course of our lives it may be something that happens nowhere else. Even if we see our lives as outgoing and caring of others, which may well be true, this is different. It is paying attention to God, with empty hands and with all the love and stillness, silence and simplicity, that are God’s gift.
But it depends on a lot of things. For some it depends on their many other at present unavoidable tasks and responsibilities. I do not see how a mother at home with preschoolers can meditate twice a day in stillness and silence. It also depends on our state of health, on the understanding of other people in the house, and so on... numerous things. I come back to the basic principles, that whatever we do, it is always to be a gentle discipline -- we do what we can, not what we can’t. In our maturity we may have discovered that times and seasons change, and that what was impossible at one time of life may be able to blossom some other time.
But there is a deeper point underlying this. The teaching says that if and when the moment arrives for meditation, we do it whether we feel like it or not. We discern the moment, and choose to respond, whether we feel like it or not. Feelings are put to one side. This is a decision about priorities. And it always strikes me as being profoundly counter-cultural. It may be that for those of us who have seen a thing or two, getting on with something we don’t feel like doing is not a strange experience at all. We can manage that perfectly well if we choose to. I was once invited to “explain”, as they put it, Christian Meditation to a church youth group. And that bit of it was incomprehensible to them. Doing something they didn’t feel like doing, or thought they didn’t like... Why would anyone do that if they didn’t have to?
Meditation, contemplative life and prayer, teaches us to set aside emotions, feelings if we have to or if we choose. In the welter and pressure of emotions, which we always have anyway, we choose something else, to become still and wait. That is a very rich decision. It is a decision, in the stillness, to be directed elsewhere than ourselves. In the normal course of our lives it may be something that happens nowhere else. Even if we see our lives as outgoing and caring of others, which may well be true, this is different. It is paying attention to God, with empty hands and with all the love and stillness, silence and simplicity, that are God’s gift.
01 July 2011
Returning and rest - 1 July 2011
In returning and rest will you be saved,
In quietness and trust will be your strength. [Isaiah 30:15]
This word “returning” cropped up last week when there was a comment about the simplicity of returning to the mantra when we realise we have become distracted. In fact “return” is the little Hebrew word “shub”, which turns out to be of very serious importance in the Bible. This little Hebrew verb means simply to go back to where you belong. It’s not a religious word -- it was simply part of the language. And it is exactly the meaning in Jesus’s parable of the Prodigal Son, when the son, destitute in the far country decides, “I will go back to my father...” In the Hebrew scriptures, not only persons but cities and nations can choose to return to where they should be.
It is the Hebrew verb to repent. Amazingly there are passages where we find even God can “repent” -- the same Hebrew word -- even God chooses to return to the relationship of love and mercy. Repentance is not primarily feeling sorry, ashamed, guilt-laden, gutted, or any such thing -- and we should not judge anyone’s repentance by those criteria. Repentance is going back, however you feel. So it is a little awesome to consider that, with all the activism and anxiety of the church, the meetings, the planning, the work that goes on, the kernel of it all may actually be not in that, but in returning and rest, quietness and trust.
I remember once talking with a Benedictine nun who had come to a retreat to recover from her many tasks including studying for a doctorate. She said, “You know, we really don’t have anything, do we. The mantra is all we have.” Not only do we return, but we return empty-handed. This is what the mantra signifies. We return with considerable relief. Contemplative people typically refer to what they call the poverty of the mantra. Blessed are you poor, said Jesus, yours is the kingdom of God.
Well, it is a lovely list of four words: returning and rest, quietness and trust. And all of it is counter to the normal rhythms of our lives. The mantra we say is a kind of song of return. And at other times, when we have to be far away from meditation, the mantra may come back into our consciousness as a steadying resonance, a reminder that all our busyness, however worthy, may not be our true self. The self God sees and knows and loves is better than that -- just as Jesus, while grateful of course for Martha’s care and work, said nevertheless that Mary had chosen the better way.
In quietness and trust will be your strength. [Isaiah 30:15]
This word “returning” cropped up last week when there was a comment about the simplicity of returning to the mantra when we realise we have become distracted. In fact “return” is the little Hebrew word “shub”, which turns out to be of very serious importance in the Bible. This little Hebrew verb means simply to go back to where you belong. It’s not a religious word -- it was simply part of the language. And it is exactly the meaning in Jesus’s parable of the Prodigal Son, when the son, destitute in the far country decides, “I will go back to my father...” In the Hebrew scriptures, not only persons but cities and nations can choose to return to where they should be.
It is the Hebrew verb to repent. Amazingly there are passages where we find even God can “repent” -- the same Hebrew word -- even God chooses to return to the relationship of love and mercy. Repentance is not primarily feeling sorry, ashamed, guilt-laden, gutted, or any such thing -- and we should not judge anyone’s repentance by those criteria. Repentance is going back, however you feel. So it is a little awesome to consider that, with all the activism and anxiety of the church, the meetings, the planning, the work that goes on, the kernel of it all may actually be not in that, but in returning and rest, quietness and trust.
I remember once talking with a Benedictine nun who had come to a retreat to recover from her many tasks including studying for a doctorate. She said, “You know, we really don’t have anything, do we. The mantra is all we have.” Not only do we return, but we return empty-handed. This is what the mantra signifies. We return with considerable relief. Contemplative people typically refer to what they call the poverty of the mantra. Blessed are you poor, said Jesus, yours is the kingdom of God.
Well, it is a lovely list of four words: returning and rest, quietness and trust. And all of it is counter to the normal rhythms of our lives. The mantra we say is a kind of song of return. And at other times, when we have to be far away from meditation, the mantra may come back into our consciousness as a steadying resonance, a reminder that all our busyness, however worthy, may not be our true self. The self God sees and knows and loves is better than that -- just as Jesus, while grateful of course for Martha’s care and work, said nevertheless that Mary had chosen the better way.
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