In chapter 6 of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus lists four primary qualities of true prayer. I would like to deal with one of these each week for four weeks. In the first of these, he teaches that prayer must be rooted in the sincerity of the true self rather than in the ego’s self-consciousness. I think this is a distinction which would be completely mysterious to most church-going people. But Jesus put it simply:
Be careful not to make a show of your religion before others... When you pray, go into a room by yourself, shut the door and pray to your Father who is there in the secret place, and your Father who sees what is secret will reward you.
The most obvious example Jesus gave is the pharisee in the temple, who stood and prayed loudly, and thanked God that he was not as others are. That is pure ego, and yet I imagine he was quite sincere. When we hear that story, if we are smart, we know to avoid the trap of thanking God that we are not as that pharisee. The church has what it calls the Prayer of the People, the Liturgy, the prayer that we do all together, publicly, and if we do it devoutly and sincerely, it is good. But as we know, even in the finest congregations, much of it can become noisy or showy and ego-ridden.
Jesus prefers prayer in secret. There is a clue in his phrase, a room by yourself. The Greek actually says, your room -- but in Galilee in those days that would have been a rare luxury indeed, a private room with a door! (I love Luther’s German, so gehe in dein Kämmerlein, go in your little room.)
Jesus means the room in an inner, spiritual sense. It is the place a contemplative knows, where God meets with the true self whom God knows and loves, rather than with the ego which is always doing and thinking things and is always conscious of what others might be saying and thinking.
The mantra is what clears this little room, and makes it open and fresh. Setting the ego to one side is always difficult, as we know, and in a lifetime we never get it quite right. But in Christian Meditation we practise the Kämmerlein, the little room. That is where we are truest, stillest, quietest, and our demands settle down and all the clatter we make is a distant echo. And so it becomes a place of love, because we are free for that.
24 February 2012
17 February 2012
Now jump - 17 February 2012
You know, there is a vast fund of more or less ancient spiritual stories, some of which seem to me only marginally intelligible (some might think, a bit like the paintings of Colin McCahon). Some of the best of them come from the Desert Fathers and Mothers of long ago. A more recent one concerns a man (or a woman) who aspired to higher things, and started to climb a very high ladder. No one knew where the top of this ladder was. It went out of sight, far above the clouds. And so he climbed, ever upward, fighting fatigue and weather, doubt, fear and despair, onward and upward. He left the admiring plaudits of the people far behind. Of course, his view of the world and all it meant became panoramic, all-encompassing. But eventually even that was left far behind, as doggedly he climbed. And one day, or it may have been night, suddenly it was as though he had broken through all the pain and cloud and mystery, eternal light was shining upon him and he had arrived. All the angels of God welcomed him with sustained applause, to say nothing of the cherubim and seraphim, and promised to acquaint him now with the unveiling of all mysteries and the healing of all his wounds. Then, there was a silence, and out of the silence came a voice. Well done, good and faithful servant. Now jump.
Terrifying and unlikely as that may seem in the story, it is I think an experience people have. The person who realises that the faith and understanding they acquired in earlier years is no longer satisfying or credible, for one reason or another. We watch as one generation’s faith is set aside by the next generation. Someone learns that they have a serious illness which, they assumed, always happened to other people. It may be that old age seems to have become mainly a matter of watching old land marks disappear. I could continue the list for a long time. And it may all seem quite dismal -- except that letting go of the ladder is another form of faith, of being whole and alive. Clinging on to the ladder may not always be a good idea.
Our contemplative prayer is an experience of letting go the ladder. During these minutes all we have is silence and stillness and the faithful repetition of our mantra. Of course there remains part of our brain which knows that the ladder is actually still within arm’s reach if we want it. But to a real contemplative it would eventually be alright to have pushed the ladder away. It is to have consented deeply and inwardly to God in both life and in death. Of course it will always be scary. Our climber assumed that it was the ladder that was the act of faith. It was necessary, and having scaled it he would have arrived. Well, we are having small and brief space walks, as it were. You never know what might happen.
Terrifying and unlikely as that may seem in the story, it is I think an experience people have. The person who realises that the faith and understanding they acquired in earlier years is no longer satisfying or credible, for one reason or another. We watch as one generation’s faith is set aside by the next generation. Someone learns that they have a serious illness which, they assumed, always happened to other people. It may be that old age seems to have become mainly a matter of watching old land marks disappear. I could continue the list for a long time. And it may all seem quite dismal -- except that letting go of the ladder is another form of faith, of being whole and alive. Clinging on to the ladder may not always be a good idea.
Our contemplative prayer is an experience of letting go the ladder. During these minutes all we have is silence and stillness and the faithful repetition of our mantra. Of course there remains part of our brain which knows that the ladder is actually still within arm’s reach if we want it. But to a real contemplative it would eventually be alright to have pushed the ladder away. It is to have consented deeply and inwardly to God in both life and in death. Of course it will always be scary. Our climber assumed that it was the ladder that was the act of faith. It was necessary, and having scaled it he would have arrived. Well, we are having small and brief space walks, as it were. You never know what might happen.
10 February 2012
Worries and stuff -- 10 February 2012
What can we say about worries? The question matters because Jesus tells us not to do it. Worry, that is. Let not your hearts be troubled, he says.
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear... And he goes on, sentence after sentence, filling every pew sitter in every age with guilt and failure (if indeed they are listening). Why do you worry about clothing...? And then all the stuff about the lilies of the field and Solomon in his glory -- and I think, it’s all very well for him -- he didn’t get frog-marched down to Auckland for a fitting of a new suit... Jesus says it’s only the gentiles who worry about such things. How could they be so shallow?
Well, the issue is a little worse than that. We can think of reasons for worry which make food, drink and clothes recede into triviality. People we know suddenly get frightening diagnoses. We know people around here increasingly worried about paying their bills. There are worries about sons and daughters and grandchildren. People have worries about their memories and regrets. And some are caught in a net of anxiety they simply can’t shake off.
Another anxiety generator in the church is just this... The confident and dogmatic believer who has got all questions answered and all mysteries laid plain, who is telling us what to do in order to be saved and safe like him or her. It is all, he says, so simple. Well no, you see, it is not. Reality is confusing, complex and worrying. The rain is falling on good and bad alike.
Jesus is not telling us to walk away from reality. Losing touch with reality is not a healthy sign anyway. Health means a healthy awareness of reality, not dimmed or distorted by drugs or by alcohol or by mental illness, or by dogmatic religion. Contemplative prayer, then, is a decision about where we are going to place our attention. We choose to set our anxieties to one side, along with all other preoccupations, filed under “Distractions”, because for the moment we are attending to the mantra. Of course this is not easy. It requires discipline and time. The worries and whatever else we have on our minds will still be there later, no doubt. Perhaps then they may have become subtly changed -- who knows? But we have been free to place our attention elsewhere, towards love and stillness, the silence which God’s word in our hearts requires.
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear... And he goes on, sentence after sentence, filling every pew sitter in every age with guilt and failure (if indeed they are listening). Why do you worry about clothing...? And then all the stuff about the lilies of the field and Solomon in his glory -- and I think, it’s all very well for him -- he didn’t get frog-marched down to Auckland for a fitting of a new suit... Jesus says it’s only the gentiles who worry about such things. How could they be so shallow?
Well, the issue is a little worse than that. We can think of reasons for worry which make food, drink and clothes recede into triviality. People we know suddenly get frightening diagnoses. We know people around here increasingly worried about paying their bills. There are worries about sons and daughters and grandchildren. People have worries about their memories and regrets. And some are caught in a net of anxiety they simply can’t shake off.
Another anxiety generator in the church is just this... The confident and dogmatic believer who has got all questions answered and all mysteries laid plain, who is telling us what to do in order to be saved and safe like him or her. It is all, he says, so simple. Well no, you see, it is not. Reality is confusing, complex and worrying. The rain is falling on good and bad alike.
Jesus is not telling us to walk away from reality. Losing touch with reality is not a healthy sign anyway. Health means a healthy awareness of reality, not dimmed or distorted by drugs or by alcohol or by mental illness, or by dogmatic religion. Contemplative prayer, then, is a decision about where we are going to place our attention. We choose to set our anxieties to one side, along with all other preoccupations, filed under “Distractions”, because for the moment we are attending to the mantra. Of course this is not easy. It requires discipline and time. The worries and whatever else we have on our minds will still be there later, no doubt. Perhaps then they may have become subtly changed -- who knows? But we have been free to place our attention elsewhere, towards love and stillness, the silence which God’s word in our hearts requires.
03 February 2012
In war and in peace - 3 February 2012
Our Christian Meditation group at Warkworth resumed this morning for 2012. We meet at the old hall beside the Anglican church each Friday morning. We begin precisely at 8.30 am and are away by 9.15 am. The meetings are very simple. Each one begins with a very brief talk about some aspect of contemplative life and prayer, and then we meditate in silence for 25 minutes. There is a space for any questions or comments -- and then we go about our Friday tasks and commitments. Anyone is welcome.
John Cassian in the early 5th century taught that we are to recite our mantra “in times of prosperity and adversity”. The writer of the Cloud of Unknowing, in the Middle Ages, said we are to say it “in times of war and in times of peace” -- in those days he or she would have known all about that. Fr John Main in our day always taught the mantra is to be said “whether we feel like it or not”, from the beginning to the end of meditation.
Of course, everyone knows that we may have restless, even stormy days, dry periods, low and sullen moods, some have times when their moods are on the edge of panic, and we know times when we are plain weary. That is the point about moods. We always have them in one form or another. They alter, they may be justified or there may be no reason we know of, it may be events that affect us, or our body chemistry, it may be something that was said, it may be anxiety, real or unreal. It may be nothing we can pin down, as we say. Moods are real but unreliable. Some people seem to know nothing much else but their current mood. A person remarked to me recently that he was “in a very good space at the moment” -- as though it might unaccountably change quite soon.
Christian Meditation is an offer of grace, and a steadiness, at another level than our current emotions. Therefore part of the discipline is that we return to it regularly, whether we feel like it or not. And those who have been around contemplative life and prayer for a while will tell you, one of the aspects they value is just that -- the meditation and the mantra are a still point. It opens to a reality, which is there within us anyway, which is not overwhelmed by moods. The world may be falling to bits -- it usually is -- but this isn’t. It is like the seed in the parable, which grows in the dark and unseen, below the visible and the tangible and all the weather, and bears fruit.
This is all somewhat amazing in an age in which, culturally, emotions are paramount. How I feel or felt is actually considered news - I feel gutted, I am in shock, I was like O my God, I am freaking out... to say nothing of multiple variations on anger. It is probably pointless to suggest to people who are committed to spending vast amounts on entertainment, ensuring they are not going to be bored -- or that if they are terminally bored or frightened or depressed some drug or other will be a solution -- that there is a freedom and satisfaction beyond how we feel.
The truth will make you free, says Jesus. Bondage to emotions, however justified, is not freedom. In meditation we come closer to where what we are hearing is steady and true. It may be the sound of nothingness. For the moment it is enough that we are still and silent, accepting, consenting to truth and love. And for this purpose we learn to set aside however we might be feeling.
John Cassian in the early 5th century taught that we are to recite our mantra “in times of prosperity and adversity”. The writer of the Cloud of Unknowing, in the Middle Ages, said we are to say it “in times of war and in times of peace” -- in those days he or she would have known all about that. Fr John Main in our day always taught the mantra is to be said “whether we feel like it or not”, from the beginning to the end of meditation.
Of course, everyone knows that we may have restless, even stormy days, dry periods, low and sullen moods, some have times when their moods are on the edge of panic, and we know times when we are plain weary. That is the point about moods. We always have them in one form or another. They alter, they may be justified or there may be no reason we know of, it may be events that affect us, or our body chemistry, it may be something that was said, it may be anxiety, real or unreal. It may be nothing we can pin down, as we say. Moods are real but unreliable. Some people seem to know nothing much else but their current mood. A person remarked to me recently that he was “in a very good space at the moment” -- as though it might unaccountably change quite soon.
Christian Meditation is an offer of grace, and a steadiness, at another level than our current emotions. Therefore part of the discipline is that we return to it regularly, whether we feel like it or not. And those who have been around contemplative life and prayer for a while will tell you, one of the aspects they value is just that -- the meditation and the mantra are a still point. It opens to a reality, which is there within us anyway, which is not overwhelmed by moods. The world may be falling to bits -- it usually is -- but this isn’t. It is like the seed in the parable, which grows in the dark and unseen, below the visible and the tangible and all the weather, and bears fruit.
This is all somewhat amazing in an age in which, culturally, emotions are paramount. How I feel or felt is actually considered news - I feel gutted, I am in shock, I was like O my God, I am freaking out... to say nothing of multiple variations on anger. It is probably pointless to suggest to people who are committed to spending vast amounts on entertainment, ensuring they are not going to be bored -- or that if they are terminally bored or frightened or depressed some drug or other will be a solution -- that there is a freedom and satisfaction beyond how we feel.
The truth will make you free, says Jesus. Bondage to emotions, however justified, is not freedom. In meditation we come closer to where what we are hearing is steady and true. It may be the sound of nothingness. For the moment it is enough that we are still and silent, accepting, consenting to truth and love. And for this purpose we learn to set aside however we might be feeling.
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