My Prayers Praying Me

When I conducted one-on-one Intentional Living Intensives with clients, we would start our days with prayer.  As we sat quietly, I would tell them that I'd like for them to consider praying differently this time.  "Let your prayers pray you," I would say.

I would continue to say that most of us were taught to ask for things or to invite guidance on decisions.  Sometimes we said memorized prayers, such as the Lord's Prayer which Christians often recite or the childhood prayer of "Now I lay me down to sleep...."  Generally, prayer has been something that came from our brains.

Yet when we read about prayer, often it suggests communion or communication.  As my client and I reflected on how prayer might be different, I would often share some different definitions of prayer for us to ponder. Today I looked up communion on dictionary.com.  After the Christian sacrament of communion were the definitions "an interchange or sharing of thoughts or emotions, intimate communication; the act of sharing, or holding in common."   That was the kind of prayer I was suggesting.

We would often talk about the nature of communication and especially intimate communication.  "Two way," my clients would often say. "Listening deeply...taking time to let things sink in...more silence."  Rather than us talking to God from our heads, I would say, "Let try intimate communication."

When my clients stopped thinking about what they were going to "say" in prayer, and instead they concentrated more on "listening," "letting things sink in," and "silence," a commonality across my clients from different religions and even the occasional atheist or agnostic who came for this spiritual retreat emerged.

There was much more silence.  Sometimes we'd sit for several minutes.  What followed was often several minutes of gratitude but rarely gratitude for the things that my financially successful clients spent considerable energy pursuing.  I lived in a house in the woods on a lake.  "Thank you for the song of the birds," might come.  "Thank you for the rain." "Thanks for the cycle of nature." "Guide us in our work today," I would usually say.

Almost always, my clients would say what a profound experience it had been to let their prayers pray them.  I would always agree.

This morning I leave on a business trip, and I couldn't figure out the logistics of going to church and then making my travel schedule.  I decided to take my worship time to meditate.  Shortly after sitting, I heard, "Let your prayers pray you."  I smiled.  It had been a long time.  There it was again.  I live in different woods now, but the song of two birds, obviously communicating, was the first thing I was thankful for.  Then what grabbed my attention was a site of chronic pain, so I was thankful for the parts of my body that worked well.  In an instant, the pain source calmed and melted discomfort away.

For 25 minutes I let my prayers pray me.  I don't remember any others now, but I didn't ask for anything.  I sat in deep gratitude.  I was in intimate communication with God. The profound stillness continues in me now. It was perfect.

Be still! Know!

When I sat today and listened, I heard: "Be still and know that I am God" from Psalm 46.  I smiled.  How many times have I talked with my intentional living intensive clients about these words. Somewhere in the course of the three-day intensives, my spiritual coaching clients would hear these words, and we would talk.  Usually, we would talk about stilling the noise of the world and taking time in prayer and meditation.  I know I don't spend nearly enough time being still and knowing God in that way.

In Exodus 3:13 Moses asks God in the form of a burning bush who he should tell the Israelites has sent him, God replies in the next verse, "I am who I am."  Depending on where my client went, sometimes we would talk about the reference of "I AM."  I've often pondered God's humor, which I think is significant. How could it not be? Was God trying to tell us that each of us (who I am) is part of God?  If so, was the Psalm reference God saying that we should spend more time knowing our godliness? I don't spend enough time there either.

In the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, God is a verb**.  What if 'God' is a verb?  Not an entity or state, but an action.  What if "God" as "I am" is a verb that says who each of us chooses to be is how others experience God? If God is a verb, how have I been doing on "God-ding" today?  I am afraid that often the answer isn't what I would like it to be.

This morning when I heard "Be still and know that I am God," I instantly plugged in to all of these old conversations and thoughts and pondered for a bit more before asking, "What more am I to know?"  The answer: "Google it!"  God does have a sense of humor. :-)

Obediently, I went to Google and found a description of the Hebrew meaning of the phrase.  The verbs "be still" and "know" are imperative forms that might more appropriately translated "Be still!" and "Know!"* These words were not gentle suggestions: they were orders and strong ones at that.  I was struck speechless.  I am ordered to be still. I am ordered to know the nature of God.  I don't think this order was intended to be an activity that I fit in after work, exercise, dinner, making lunch and coffee for the next day, and watching yesterday's episode of "The Daily Show." 

Whether we may think of God as a field of Love that connects us all, which I do, or we think of God as an old white man with a white beard, or various other possibilities, we are ordered to be still and know God. Maybe it is just knowing the God in each of us. We are ordered to still our minds, let all the clutter from the world around us drop away, and "know! God." I wonder if our world would be as crazy and violent if everyone of us followed our orders to "be still!" and "know!" before we go into the world each day.  "Being still!" and "knowing!" is a priority, not something that we fit in if we are not so tired from all the other stuff that we fall asleep, as happened to me yesterday.

For years, I've taken at least a few minutes almost every morning to meditate, but in truth, more often than not, those few minutes are exhausted by just calming my mind from the rush of starting my day.  If I am to really "be still!" and "know!" then I will need to take more time.  Really?! I already get up at 5:20 more mornings.  I am not sure I can get up earlier.  Or, it seems to me that maybe this is really about focusing my intention on paying attention in a different way.   I expect that if I focused my attention on knowing the God in me, all that other mind chatter would just fall away. Ah! I suspect that is it.


*http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Meditations/Be_Still/be_still.html
**God Is a Verb: Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism by David A. Cooper

Birthing the Intentions of Spring

After a week typing it and completing the first proofreading of The Game Called Life manuscript yesterday, I decided I needed to do something different today.  With a steady downpour outside, a long walk was not an option I chose.

My desk is stacked and sadly overflowing, so cleaning my desk seemed in order.  I've been at it for about five hours now, and I can truthfully say that I cannot tell that I've done anything.  Really!  Much of the sorting that I've been doing has been turning handwritten notes from meditations and retreats into word documents that I could file and refer to.  Other pages in the stacks have been thoughts for various books that I am working on. 

Among the pages of notes, I found intentions for the rest of the year from my spring retreat.  While I am still without a life partner again for almost 20 years, I am amazed at how much on the list is gradually becoming reality.  The summer must have been a germination period, because since my mid-September retreat and thanks to both this blog and the government shutdown and my furlough, my intentions have been in fast-forward.  Making a contribution to the healing of the world, using my voice, and writing daily have become a reality.  I hope this blog is making a difference, and I am confident that when The Game Called Life is an e-book, it will dramatically contribute to the healing of our world.

At the end of the page of intentions, I had printed in larger letters "WHAT IS MY INTENTION?"  I believe that referred to what my single underlying intention was from all the others.  I had a drawing and the words "living at the choice point."  Choice Point is a book that I wrote in the late 90s but has never been published. It is about living in conscious communion, moment-by-moment, with All That Is. For me that means, following what I know to be true in my heart. I call the process "living a prayer."  As I looked over the list, it was true: the only way I could do anything on the list is by living a prayer. 

I definitely am not there, but I am markedly farther along than I was six months ago when I wrote this.  I truly believe that I have planted seeds over the summer and in this furlough that predict I will be still farther along the path when I cross the one-year anniversary of my last spring retreat.  And, that's what it is all about--consciously attempting to do better and better at living a spiritually rich life.  In my heart I know that is where I am intended to be.