A new thing – Lent V, 11 March 2016

Time for a taste of Hebrew poetry and prophecy.  This is from the Old Testament lesson for this Sunday:  Thus says the Lord… Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.  (Isaiah 43: 17-19)

One of our really effective teachers in contemplative spirituality is Cynthia Bourgeault, an American Episcopalian priest.  She teaches for instance -- and I think this is important – that the issue in this kind of prayer is not really focussing and paying attention.  Obviously it does matter to be still and silent, and to focus as best we can so that our monkey minds are not all over the place.  It does matter that we develop a discipline of paying attention, not only in prayer, but also just about everywhere else -- for instance in conversations we have.  These things and much more are all part of the discipline of the contemplative.  But there is a deeper issue.  Cynthia Bourgeault says it’s not so much attention as intention.  In the Cloud of Unknowing this is called our naked intent.  Our intention is God.  If it is not, then it is not prayer.  All else, for the time being, we set aside, and what she writes is:

The way this is done is through a simple inner agreement which I am perfectly happy to call a deal.  The deal is this:  If you catch yourself thinking, you let the thought go.  Promptly, quietly, without self-recrimination, you simply release the thought and start over…. It is a pathway of return, almost entirely so.  The effectiveness… is not measured by your ability to maintain your mind in a steady state of clarity, openness, or stillness.  It is measured by your willingness, when you find yourself caught out by a thought, to return again and again… to that state of open receptivity. (The Wisdom Jesus)

This intent for God, in our prayer, is a daily µετανοια, metanoia, what our English bibles call “repentance”-- but it is not a matter of how we feel, sorry or ashamed, but of what we do, turning around, returning daily to our true path. 

The Hebrew prophet saw that the footprints of God are seen not where the old and familiar is being restored, reconstituted, but where a new way is being opened.  Behold, I am doing a new thing… do you not perceive it?   The new way is the pathway God is always opening up ahead.  Sometimes it is a dark path, sometimes a vague and overgrown path, sometimes it may seem like a shining highway.  The prophet informs the Hebrew exiles in Babylon that there is a way ahead.  God is doing always a new thing.  Tens of thousands of Syrian and other exiles today could do with such a prophet and such poetry and such hope.  In our prayer, in our silence and stillness, we are always at the place in the road where it is a choice, restoring the old path and the familiar things, or turning on to the new way.