Sit and Eat

Learning to Pray: On Noticing

I'm always asking people to notice things.  It's a way of pulling people into a different part of their brain, of asking them to stop thinking so much and just be attentive to their bodies, their feelings.  You get good at this, and suddenly realize that God's been hanging out right over your shoulder, and you never even...well, noticed.

Noticing and judgment live on opposite sides of town.  And noticing and decision making are only loosely acquainted.  Rather, noticing seduces us into a slow evolution of our practices, which in turn carve us into new people. 

This morning I noticed that the opening phrase of Bobby McFerrin's Psalm 23 turns my choir students into different creatures.  My pianist plays the opening chord, I inhale and sing the first line, and the children are suddenly motionless in their seats, ears almost visibly pricked, as that major second sounds, and each of us waits, expectantly, for a resolution that will not come.

Learning to Pray: All Shall Be Well

We have Julian of Norwich to thank for a mantra that's shaping my life in this particular season:

All shall be well and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

We have a little tune we sing it to at St. Lydia's...one day I'll post it here...until then, say it to yourself until a little tune emerges, then sing it to yourself again and again. 

I like to notice the ways in which I both resist and rest in this phrase.  It's more than a comfort in a difficult time; it helps pull my perspective wider and wider.  I think faith should make us bigger people, not smaller ones.

Learning to Pray: Contemplative Prayer

Right off the bat, I want to out myself as someone who is generally terrible at contemplative prayer.  Only when forced to submit to group peer pressure (yoga practice comes to mind) do I begin to really sink into this practice.  I’m getting better though, really.

 

Practice is the key word.  Like anything else, prayer takes practice.  Time to build up technique, endurance, flexibility. 

 

 

Contemplative prayer.  It’s been a part of Christian traditions a long time, traced all the way back to early Christian monasticism.  Here’s how to start:

 

Find a good position.  Some people sit in a chair.  I like to kneel with my knees together and my feet apart sitting on a yoga block.  Cross legged is good, or child’s pose, or laying on your back on the floor.  You want to find a position where your body is aligned and at rest.  It helps to have your palms open and facing upward.

 

You also need to be warm.  Dress warmly or put a blanket over you. 

 

Bring you attention to your breath.  Allow the your jaw to relax, your eyes.  Let tension fall out of you with each exhale.  Then organize your breathing around a sacred word: any word that will invite God in.

 

Let the word be present as you breathe.  Wherever your mind goes, gently return to your sacred word.  Use it as an anchor as you sit in God’s presence.

Learning to Pray

Prayer doesn't happen all at once.  I think it's a little like exercise, or learning to play a musical instrument.  You have to start at the beginning, but you will eventually build up technique, endurance, muscle memory.  And then, at some point, the practice starts to change you.

I'll be writing about once a week with a different spiritual practice, especially geared toward those of us (I include myself in the following statement) who are just starting to learn to pray.  But the best advice I've ever received about prayer came from my pastor Dr. Braxton.  I've never been very good at praying out loud.  I'm working on it.  He said to me, "Do you believe in God?"  "Yes," I answered.  "Just talk to God," he told me.

Like most things concerning faith, it's simple, but not always easy.

Walking uptown after work tonight: a glimpse of the Empire State Building above the Garment District.

Learning to Pray

I've been trying to learn how to pray my whole life.  Each week I post a spiritual practice that I've found helpful.

This practice is for those moments when you're too exhausted to do anything elseI usually pray this way in bed floating somewhere between sleeping and waking.  It's a good way to sift through the the day. 

1. Inhale.  Call to mind something you're giving thanks for.  Picture it.

2. Exhale.  Think, "Thank you, God."

Repeat.

or you can try it this way:

1. Inhale.  Call to mind someone you're praying for.  Picture them.

2. Exhale.  Think, "God, please."

Repeat.