Coming to the Place Beyond Words (Prayer V)

Prayer is largely about slowing down into a posture of unhurriedness, removing our soul from the never-ceasing stimulation of our world. Turning off the radio on your commute can be a type of prayer, even if it doesn’t begin with a “Dear Lord” or end with an “Amen.” Indeed, it may just be an inhabiting of silence in which your soul, even while speechless—or sometimes especially while speechless—opens to God’s Spirit. 

Indeed, while we think of prayer as speaking words (and even while I will focus on what we say during prayer below) we should keep in mind that prayer is less about the words we use and more about coming to “the place beyond words.” Contemplative prayer is about learning to pray without words. Some of the richest and most transforming prayer happens in the place where we don’t know what to pray and finally stop trying. In this place of silence—where we sit before God, trusting that He sees and knows us, down to the number of hairs on our heads—we can practice trust of God in a way that trying to put words on everything may actually keep us from. In acknowledging our limitations and our inability to understand or explain everything in the world, including what is happening in our deepest selves, we finally become open to God in a new way. We begin communing with Him at a level that is beyond our understanding. When you engage contemplative prayer, you learn to place your attention not on your negative or scattered thoughts, but on The Jesus Paradigm and on God Himself. You are practicing letting your thoughts go so you can receive the truth of God’s transforming love. In prayer, we finally, in some sense, allow God to hold us, without being able to quantify the experience. Again, this is what we see fully in Jesus and how he is before God his Father.

This is challenging for me, because I love putting words and labels on things. However, this ability to name things, as good as it is, can also become a crutch for me, with its underlying belief that if I can label everything correctly or attach the right words to a prayer, I can somehow crack a hidden code. I have learned that there’s something more important than my understanding life or even knowing exactly what to pray for. Indeed, my deepest communion with God seems to come in the place where I simply say “Father,” and then sit quietly, breathing, noticing my body, becoming aware of God’s Spirit all around me, resting and trusting that He’s with me. Knowing that He’s with me. This takes me much further “into God” than my ability to pray with words. 

Paul alludes to at least one of these places beyond words when he says, “And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.”[1] I often find that I don’t know what God wants me to pray. However, if I will just sit before Him in silence, it’s far more effective than my just filling up the space; ultimately, words that feel right to pray seem to come from somewhere beyond me, even if they are few. For this reason, in Christian tradition, and especially in the Catholic or Eastern Orthodox churches, there is a tradition of praying “with the head in the heart.”[2] When we pray this way, we submit our need to put words to everything and instead, in quiet, allow ourselves to, first, simply feel our longing for God, sitting in His presence. In a world so saturated with endless words, noise, and images, this is an ability learned through practice and training. But our own spirit and certainly the Spirit of God have space to pray as we practice sitting in the place beyond words. 

I have a friend who has had a hard time praying because every time she tries to sit still, her mind races, and she has judged herself “bad at prayer.” It will help all of us to remember, simply, that minds race. That’s what they do! The more we judge ourselves for getting distracted, the less time we will want to spend in prayer. Though over time we cantrain our minds to sit contentedly in silence, we can’t get there by judging our minds for getting distracted. We need, rather, to simply note when our mind is wandering and then focus on bringing ourselves back to prayer. An exercise which helped my friend was writing down all the places her mind raced to when she prayed and, after writing them, refocusing on quiet breathing. Then, at the end of the time of quiet, she read over all the concerns or distractions she’d written down and asked, “God, how are you speaking to me through these things that preoccupy my mind?” She realized that rather than seeing distractions as bad and her mind racing as something that would keep her from prayer, she could actually relate to her distractions as yet another place that God wanted to speak to her. She realized she has been judging herself but that God has not been judging her. This helped her learn to dwell in the place beyond words. 

Resetting our minds, once they have wandered, actually expands our capacity for self-control and greater focus. “Between stimulus and response lies a space. In that space lie our freedom and power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.”[3] There’s good brain-science that demonstrates that the more we train ourselves to pray, the more we actually expand the space between stimulus and response in all of life.[4] Someone can cut us off in traffic (stimulus), and rather than cussing or yelling (response), we have more time and space to mindfully respond, without going to our automatic response.

I have another friend who centers his body and his mind for prayer by lighting candles before he prays. Then he focuses on the light of the flames, remembering that God is light and that “our God is a consuming fire.”[5] This helps him get out of his head and into a sense of awe and wonder before he prays. He focuses on the light of the candles as a way of focusing his body and mind toward prayer. Similarly, some people use a sacred word or phrase, like “You are good” or “You are my Father” to center themselves in prayer or to bring them back to prayer after their minds have gotten distracted.

Whatever works will work. Let us simply remember that prayer is about coming into mystery. As Augustine said, “We are talking about God. What wonder is it that you do not understand? If you do understand, then it is not God.”[6] We are guided into prayer by a path which Jesus himself gave us, sending our heads out in front of our hearts. But prayer will also be about entering a mystery, a place where we don’t feel in control, and certainly not a place where we have words for everything. Just as we allow Scripture to “read us,” as Nouwen said, so we should create space for the Spirit to pray through us.[7] Let us keep that in mind as we approach a prayer practice like the one that follows (see Prayer VI). It can guide us to the water, but the Spirit of Jesus teaches us to swim. 

For all of these readings in one place, order my book 'Learning to Live and Love Like Jesus.'

[1]Romans 8:26.

[2]See, for example, The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology. Igumen Chariton, ed. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, NY. 1997. See the Introduction.

[3]This quote is often attributed to psychologist and concentration camp survivor Victor Frankl, though attribution is difficult to nail down. Stephen Covey is responsible for its wide dissemination and for linking it to Frankl. For more on Frankl’s work, see Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frank. Beacon Press. Boston, MA. 2006. 

[4]The amygdala is the part of our brain that goes into instant response, fight or flight, in the presence of a threatening stimulus. The neocortex, the more thoughtful part of the brain, can make deeper sense of meaning, thoughtfully (rather than impulsively) responding to stimulus. Through contemplative prayer, our ability to access the neocortex (and bypass automatic amygdala response) is strengthened.

[5]Hebrews 12:29.

[6]Qtd in Confessions: The Father of the Church, Vol. 21by Saint Augustine. Vernon J. Bourke, trans. The Catholic University Press of America, Washington, DC. 1953. “Confessions: Book 1,” Footnote 34.

[7]Romans 8:26-27.

Into Prayer: When? Where? How? (Prayer IV)

So, how do we set our hearts to prayer, that we may learn to “always pray?” We learn to always be in prayer by setting aside time dedicated only to prayer. We’ve covered the “what” and the “why” above, but what about the “when,” “where,” and “how”?

When?

Whenever works! Many will tell you—and Christian tradition seems to uphold the idea—that morning is the time to pray, before your mind is crowded with thoughts. Yet Jesus is often recorded praying at night, sometimes in the deep night. Some people say we should pray in the morning, then at noonday, then at evening, then at bedtime. Some say taking a couple of long prayer “baths” each week is better than taking a daily “shower.”

Clearly then, there’s no one way to pray. What’s moreimportant isthat we have some consistency, fueled by our longing—and even better, our love—for God, and our desperate need to be aware of His nearness and goodness, no matter the storm or calm. I’m sure Jesus prayed with intentionality daily, though it appears he also set longer, dedicated times of prayer throughout his week and month. The main thing that influences the “when” is personality and temperament. We need to discern how we, as individuals, best posture our hearts to pray and hear. At the same time, we may need to discipline and train our personality and temperament.  

What’s clear for all of us is that it will take work. Practicing prayer means creating free, unhurried space. There’s a reason we order our spiritual practices starting with The Slow Life. Unhurriedness, silence, Sabbath, and hospitality are boulders that create space for the power of grace to fill our lives, but they also create space for more practices, like Scripture-reading and prayer. 

Personally, I do think it’s important, generally speaking, to do some intentional prayer around the time when you’re getting up for the day. The Scriptures say that God’s mercies are new every morning.[1]C.S. Lewis said, “Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.”[2]I also find it easier to create unhurried space in the morning. That being said, I think it’s also important to value flexibility by avoiding stringent rules. I do pray every day, although with two kids and a full schedule, it looks different from day to day. I make sure to dedicate longer times of prayer a couple of times throughout my week, wherever I can make it work. This works well for my introverted temperament, with its weekly pull to “get away from it all.” Discerning what works for you is part of your journey, and the consistent orientation of our lives around prayer, with discipline, is part of each of our journeys. As long as we remember that these are “connection times,” not just “times to get through a prayer,” we can come to prayer with anticipation, our feet fully outside of the hamster wheel of The Human Paradigm. The important thing is to see not that we have to pray but that we need to pray. 

Where?

Wherever works best! In the above passages from Luke, we see Jesus withdrawing to a deserted place, to a mountaintop, and to a place alone with his disciples. Clearly then, not all places are created equal. While we can pray everywhere, dedicated prayer happens more easily in certain places. 

Practicing in community of some sort is also important, as Jesus demonstrates with his disciples, taking them aside for dedicated times of prayer. A life liturgy (a spiritual order and structure to our days, weeks, months, and years) that involves regular prayer in community is an important anchor for our individual life before God. 

Again, it’s probably best not to be stringent with rules. Commitment, discipline, and dedication are the important things, no matter which structures best fit our lives, temperaments, and personalities.

How? 

Notwithstanding the fact that there’s no “one way” to pray, Scripture does give us clear and helpful guidelines. Nothing could be clearer, in fact, than what we call “The Lord’s Prayer,” which is one of the few times that Jesus answered a question with a clarion-clear answer.[3] 

Jesus makes it clear in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), of which the Lord’s Prayeris a part, that we are not to pray as the religious people of his day prayed. We are not just to memorize words or orations and then pray them loudly or at great length or for others to see, as if that impresses God. Many people approach God this way, through the perspective of The Human Paradigm, thinking they can appease or impress Him by doing the right dance steps, even if their heart is not in them. But the Father is interested in union, not in performance. So we are to pray with our hearts fully engaged. At the same time, Jesus does gives us words to pray, and words which are easily memorized. How then, can we take the words Jesus prayed and yet keep them from becoming rote? How can we approach with a both-and in mind, praying as Jesus taught us while also always keeping prayer fresh in our hearts?

The answer will involve praying with words in our heads but also coming to a place beyond words, where we are more in touch with our hearts than our heads. Prayer is a unique balance between these two realities, and moving into the heart is how we grow into the “always praying” posture that we see in Jesus. Sometimes we know what to pray, sometimes we don’t. Rather than seeing “not knowing what to pray” as bad, we can see our lack of knowing how to pray as a huge opportunity to get beyond ourselves and fall into God. 

For all of these readings in one place, order my book 'Learning to Live and Love Like Jesus.'

[1]Lamentations 3:22-23.

[2]C.S. Lewis, “A Letter to Mrs. L.” http://cslewiswisdom.blogspot.com/2011/06/relying-on-god-has-to-begin-all-over.html [June 6, 2017].

[3]Matthew 6:9-13; see also Luke 11:1-4.

Prayer Stories (Prayer III)

At first, tuning into the reality of God’s goodness can be difficult or unnatural. It’s like tuning into a radio station and we can’t quite get the dial right. Because of the things that have been done to us or the things we’ve done, we can easily become deaf to hearing who God really is.[1]But through prayer, the station becomes louder. Somehow, we start to find it more easily, more quickly. We start hearing the song of God’s goodness, and that changes everything. Pray long enough, and you’ll soon have stories about all the ways that God speaks. 

When I moved to California, I felt I was ready to meet someone—the someone. I’d had a string of super dysfunctional relationships. If someone could be paid for creating unhealthy relationships, I would have been in the Big Leagues. Maybe an All-Star, too. But I had experienced some wholeness and healing, and after having sworn off women for a long season (I know that might sound dramatic; I guess you have to be dramatic sometimes), I felt ready.

My sister had told me to pray for my wife in specific terms. Like, “God, I’d like her to be like this… and this… and this… with brown eyes.” What the heck? I thought. I’ll give it a try. So I drove down Spring Street in Long Beach, praying for a few things, personality traits and whatnot. Then I started thinking about her looks. 

I’d always had an attraction to dark-skinned women. I spent some time in Israel and I had come away thinking dark hair, dark eyes, yes, the Lord is good. So, I opened my mouth to ask for that. And, as I live and breathe, I could not open my mouth nor bring myself to pray it. My body refused. Something within me—surely the Holy Spirit within and all around me—said, “Nope…don’t pray that.” I don’t know how to explain it, but I knew on a gut level that I wasn’t to pray those words. I literally said, “Wow, okay. I guess that’s that,” and kept on driving.

That week, I met the woman who would become my wife. She is gorgeous. And white as the Alpine slopes. Not what I had in mind. And absolutely perfect. I learned something from the encounter: on some intuitive level, I could hear the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t some magical voice in my head, it wasn’t even a communication in words per se, but I had heard—in the form of a tug on my mind and a clear sense of instruction, like an invisible stop sign—the voice of God. 

I heard pastor and author Greg Boyd tell the following prayer story: A man who had basically nothing and had been reduced to living in his car felt led to attend a church service at Greg’s church. Further, he felt led to put his last twenty dollars into the offering. A member of the church (let’s call him Bill) saw the man from the back of the room and, knowing nothing at all about the man, had a clear sense that he was to give the man twenty dollars. So after the service, Bill found the man and said, “I feel like I’m supposed to give you this.” The man broke down, because it was like God saying to him, “I see you, I have your back, and I want to have a relationship with you.”[2]

The moral of the story? The Spirit of God wants to make Jesus known, but his people have to learn to listen. Bill was listening, and because he was, God could make His love and goodness known. Bill was in prayer, even if he wasn’t trying to pray. The more we incline our hearts to hear the voice of God, the more we will hear, always. 

These two stories are simple examples of God wanting to bring someone—in one case, me, in another, a man whose name I don’t know—into His goodness. They are somewhat “sexy” stories, in that they have a twist in the tale. But the reality is that sometimes (most of the time?) our faith walk does not feel sexy. Sometimes those “wow” stories recede into the past like oak trees along a suddenly treeless path. But even in the most mundane parts of the walk, the voice of God is there, to remind us that He is with us and that He is at work. And that He is leading us somewhere. Wherever we are in our walk with God, Jesus wants to keep us aware of a constant experience of life through his love.

For all of these readings in one place, order my book 'Learning to Live and Love Like Jesus.'

[1]See the ongoing realities of Exodus and Exile in ‘Chapter 11: The Grounded Life: Scripture.’

[2]I am going from memory, so I’m no doubt missing a detail or two about this story, especially since it’s not mine and I’m paraphrasing.