One
of the great challenges in prayer, whether singing or praying the Psalms, or
praying informally, is being fully present. In The Rule of St. Benedict:
Insights for the Ages, Joan Chittister recounts the following story.
An ancient tale from another tradition
tells us that a disciple asked the Holy One:
“Where shall I look for Enlightenment?”
“Here,” the Holy One said.
“When will it happen?”
“It is happening right now,” the Holy
One said.
“Then why don’t I experience it?”
“Because you do not look,” the Holy One
said.
“What should I look for?”
“Nothing,” the Holy One said. “Just
look.”
“At what?”
“Anything your eyes alight upon,” the
Holy one said.
“Must I look in a special kind of way?”
“No,” the Holy One said. “The ordinary
way will do.”
“But don’t I always look in the ordinary
way?”
“No,” the Holy One said. “You don’t.”
“Why ever not?” the disciple demanded.
“Because to look you must be here,” the
Holy One said. “You’re mostly somewhere else.”[i]
St.
Benedict tells us that in singing or praying the Psalms, “We ought to sing the
Psalm in such a way that our minds are in harmony with our voices.”[ii]
It
seems that some of the very basic things in spirituality must be repeated
often, and just as often brought back to mind. St. Paul says, “Finally, my
brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to
me and is safe for you.”[iii]
I
think that the most basic challenge is being present, not just being present
with God, but also being present with others, and even being present with
ourselves. Even in ordinary conversations we have to recall ourselves to the
present moment. The simple truth is that, by virtue of our human frailty, we
can’t be radically present all of the time. That is an attribute of God, not of
humankind.
Were
Adam and Eve always living in the present moment before the Fall? I rather
think not, or Eve wouldn’t have misquoted God when talking with the devil.[iv]
It is that human weakness the devil banked on, when he asked, “Did God say?”[v]
The only safe thing that Eve could have said, was “Be gone, Satan! (hypagay satana… [upage( satana/.)[vi] There! Just there, we might drift off from being present
and chase that old black weasel down the hole.
The first step in prayer is being present; being
consciously present with God, and being consciously living in the present
moment. “If we do not live life consciously…we may not be living at all.”[vii]
The
second step in prayer is not talking, but listening to what God is saying to
you in your daily reading of the Psalms, and in the rest of His word. Prayer is
a dialogue, and God really should get to speak first, and in truth He is always
speaking, and the only question is are we present, aware, and listening?
The
third step in prayer is responding to Him in prayer on the basis of what He has
said to you. This brings to the fore the discipline of personal Lectio Divina;
Read, Reflect, Respond, and Rest.
The
fourth step in prayer is bringing to Him the concerns of the heart. It is here
that old habits frequently prevail. We often focus on our list of concerns and
in doing so we begin to slip away from the Presence. Those concerns, those
intercessions, are actually something we do together with the Holy Spirit. The
Quaker Douglas Steere points out that it is the Holy Spirit who brings to mind
the things that we feel led to pray for; they are in effect not just our
concerns, but they are the concerns of the Holy Spirit. Here remember the
doctrine of the Trinity! It is not merely the Holy Spirit who brings these concerns
to our minds; it is Christ the Intercessor, who through the office of the Holy
Spirit, is praying through us to God the Father.
I
have prayed for some people on my prayer list a very long time with no results
that I can see. Just because I can’t see the result now, means nothing. I may
never see the result of my prayers until I see God face to face. When you are
concerned enough to pray for someone, to even persist a long time; know that
the Holy Spirit not only moves you to pray, but undergirds your persistent
prayer. Steere, points out,
Before we begin to pray, we may know
that the love of the One who is actively concerned in awakening each life to
its true center is already lapping at the shores of that life. Such prayer is only cooperation with God’s
active love in besieging the life or new areas of the life of another, or of a
situation.[viii]
The
same principle of actively being present is true for corporate prayer as well
as individual prayer, and neither corporate prayer nor individual prayer can
stand alone. Christians were not meant to be one legged warriors; both
individual and corporate prayer are necessary for a balanced prayer life.
[i]
Joan Chittister, The Rule of St. Benedict: Insights for the Ages, (New York:
Crossroad, 1997), p. 178
[ii]
The Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 19
[iii] Philippians
3:1
[iv] Genesis
3:2-3 "We may eat of the fruit of
the trees in the garden, 3 but God said,
'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden,
neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'"
[v]
Genesis 3:1
[vi]Matthew
4:10
[vii]
Chittister, p. 19
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