When life is really hard, when we hold a lot of tension from the world in our minds and hearts, the weight of those tensions can literally get stuck in our bodies. Our shoulders get tight. We clench our jaws. We get headaches. Even our joints can hurt when our hearts are hurting. On the one hand, we do not want to abandon the sacred work of holding tensions. It is good to keep our hearts and minds open, supple, and tender so that we do not become closed and narrow and rigid. On the other hand, we don’t need to keep all the weight of the tensions we hold locked up in our bodies. Prayer can help us to let the burdensome weight get freed up.
Prayer in the Cold
Heat excites and moves molecules. Cold calms and slows molecules. Prayer in the cold points to stillness, perhaps frigid, perhaps not.
Topics:
Contemplative Practice
Prayer in Winter
Before winter, the leaves fall. Trees simplify their lives. In prayer, I offer attention to fewer words.
Topics:
Contemplative Practice
Prayer in Threes
Relatively early on in the Christian family, teaching and tradition took to naming the Holy One as Trinity. In order to account for the lived experience and subsequent understanding of those who knew Jesus of Nazareth in the flesh, yet heard him proclaim he was One with the Holy One, the three persons were not only named as Father, Son, and Spirit, but their relationship to each other was defined through roles and activity. The first person, Creator, Source of all things. The second person, Redeemer, in taking on flesh. The third person, Sanctifier or Sustainer in Love.
Topics:
Contemplative Practice
The Prayer of Now, What?
I confess, on days that feel burdened by too much to do, especially when that “one more thing” drops and throws another wrench in the day, I am more inclined, out of desperation, to whine, “what now?!” Often, unfortunately, I have thrown that phrase, or at least its attitude, out toward my young child when they’ve broken one more thing or to a coworker who has come to ask for one more thing. The stance of “what now!?” easily creeps in upon and around us when we feel burdened by obligation and fragmented in our sense of meaning and purpose.
Topics:
Contemplative Practice
Prayer on the Wind
As a youth, I ran long distances. Often, especially in competition, when the wind blew up, much like running uphill, it made the race more difficult. Many runners would get psyched out by the wind and fall behind the pack. By contrast, the gusts, or even the gentle breezes, passing over my flesh, felt to me like an invitation. From somewhere, “more,” though I couldn’t see the messenger, issued an invitation: to face the challenge of working harder and surge forward more fully, into the power of the strength of my legs and the potency of my lungs. We can’t see the wind, but we know it exists by the impact of its activity. Youthful runner taps potential. A prayer on the wind.
Topics:
Contemplative Practice