Let Beauty Become Your Mantra ...

A member of the congregation I serve just came into the office and shared with me this passage from In Love With The Mystery by Ann Mortifee:

Let everything we do be done
for Beauty: how we keep our rooms,
tend our garden, or prepare our food.
They say the Spirits love Beauty.
Let Beauty become your mantra
and your devotion.  Your inner life
will bloom.  Synchronicity will
frequent your door.  Wild creatures
will come to call.  And your own
heart will grow bright and full
with the same Beauty that you adore.

"Let Beauty become your mantra ..."

I find that a tremendously lovely thought.

What do you think?  Does this idea of beauty as a "mantra" and a "devotion" speak to you?  If it does, what do you think it calls you to? 

• Remaining (or becoming) aware of the beauty around you?  
• Becoming (or remaining) aware of the beauty within you?
• Seeking beauty even in what appears anything but?
• Striving to create beauty as you move through the world?

Even more fundamentally,

• What do you think of when you hear the word "beauty?"  
• What makes something "beautiful?"  
• Where do you find beauty most often?
• Conversely, where have you never, or rarely, found it?

If you journal, these could be excellent prompts for your exploration.  If you meet regularly with a Spiritual Director, they could provide a partner to play with these questions.  (And if you don't dance with a Spiritual Director, why not?!?!?)

Pax tecum,

RevWik

"Buddha with Flowers"  by Walker

"Music is What Feelings Sound Like ..."

Isn't that a great quote?  I haven't been able to find out (definitively) who said it, but whoever it was really kind of nailed it, didn't they?  Music can get our bodies moving; it can inspire us to dig deep and pull out our courage.  A song can help us to really feel our sorrow, or can perfectly express our joyful exhalation.

On her blog Notes from the Far Fringe, my friend, the Rev. Kimberly Debus, has a section called "Hymn by Hymn," in which she posted a daily reflection on the hymns in the Unitarian Universalist hymnals Singing the Living Tradition and Singing the Journey, one hymn each day.  I know several people who always seem to wake up with a song stuck in their head use it as a kind of journal prompt, reflecting a little each day on why that particular song might be on their mind.

I had a musical practice for a few years, when I was living on Cape Cod and working in Boston.  The commute by bus was about an hour and a half each way, and I took to listening to one piece of music, repeated, for the entire trip.  By the time I arrived at South Station it had become a part of me, like my in-breaths and out-breaths.

What's your relationship with music?  Is it part of your spiritual practice?  Might it be (without your even being aware of it)?

Pax tecum,

RevWik

This was one of my favorite song-prayers during those bus ride commutes:

Meditation for People Who Don't Like to Meditate (pt. 3)

This is the third in a series of posts looking at the challenges people often cite when explaining why they haven't been able to stick with a meditation practice, or who've never started one because they knew they would face these challenges and couldn't imagine a way around them.  On Monday we looked at the issues of "not having enough time" and "physically not being able to sit still that long."  On Wednesday the focus was on the issue of being "too easily distracted."  Today, let's consider the complaint which, it would seem, the younger monk must have just raised with his elder:  "What happens next?"

Is that all that meditation is about?  Sitting on a cushion (or chair) and counting your breaths or saying a mantra over and over again?  Isn't something supposed to happen?  The Buddha, we're told, sat in meditation for seven days under the Bodhi tree, after which he "awakened" and saw through to the depths of reality, the underlying Truth of existence, which he then taught as the Four Noble Truths.  The term "Buddha" means "the awakened one," and there is a story that the Buddha was once walking down a road.  A man he met asked what manner of being the Buddha was -- an angel, a demon, a God, and so on.  The Buddha replied, "I am awake."

This state of "awakeness," of seeing through to the heart of reality, is what most people think of when they think of "enlightenment."  And enlightenment is what most people think is the purpose of meditation.  When asked why they think meditation is important, or something they "should" be doing, folks often say that it will make them more peaceful, more calm, more easy going, more aware, more healthy, etc.  Yet nearly everyone knows that one of the results that's usually claimed for meditation practices is "enlightenment."  Yet whether it's purely for relaxation, or for some kind of spiritual deepening, most people think that meditation is going to do something for them.

Within the Zen tradition(s), at least, doing meditation in order to accomplish or achieve something is to fundamentally misunderstand the practice of meditation.  In fact, one might say that the extent to which you practice in order for something to happen, the less you are truly meditating.  As the senior monk in the cartoon says, "Nothing happens next.  This is it."  The purpose of sitting on your cushion, it's been said, is to sit on your cushion.  Nothing else.

There's a wonderful story told about Ludwig van Beethoven.  It is very likely apocryphal, but the story is that after playing one of his piano sonata's at some fashionable soiree, as he did, a woman said, "That was marvelous, Herr Beethoven ... but what did it mean?"  Beethoven is said to have sat down at the piano again and played the piece through one more time.  When he was finished, he looked at the woman and said, "That, Fraulein, is what it means!"

The Thing In Itself.   The music exists for its own sake; it has no meaning or purpose.  It doesn't exist so that ... anything.  It exists because it exists.  I'm put in mind of what the character of God gives to Moses when they meet at the burning bush and Moses asks God's name:  "I am that I am."  (Interestingly, the Hebrew can also be translated as "I was what I was," "I will be what I will be," or any combination.)  In other words, the name, the underlying reality of God, is "is-ness," is existence.  God is, and that's all that matters.

And that's true of us, also.  At least, if you look at life through the lens of in-this-moment mindfulness.  If this moment is really the only moment that exists, then I am not typing these words in order for you to read them.  I'm typing them because I'm typing them.  I'm typing them to type them; there is no other purpose.  If I were typing them so that you could read them, and something goes wrong with my computer and the file is erased, then I would have wasted this moment.  I don't mind if you do read them, of course.  In fact, I hope you will.  But if I am truly living with the awareness that this moment is the only moment, then I can't write them for any other reason than the writing of them.

Now, note that I said, "if you look at life through the lens of in-this-moment mindfulness."  One of the things the Abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery, John Daido Loori, used to say was that when you're sitting in the meditation hall you are aware that all things are interconnected, that nothing exists independent of anything else, that, "you and I are one."  However, he would say, when you're crossing traffic you need to remember that you and the car coming at you are different!

So yes, of course, as I'm sitting here writing this post I am doing so, at least in part, in the hopes that you'll read it, and that there'll be something in here that'll be worth your time.  That is, if you will, the way we look at things in "ordinary time."  Yet just as practicing scales is an exercise a musician does to be able to play their instrument more beautifully, or working out at the gym is a kind of peculiar time set aside to prepare one's body to function more healthfully and effectively, so, too, the time spent in your meditation practice is sort of a time set apart from "ordinary time."  It is, if you will, a time during which you train yourself to be mindful so that, in the moment-to-moment realities of our lives we can be more mindful.

As noted last week, meditation is a four-fold practice:  Focus.  Become Distracted.  Recognize that we've become distracted.  Make the decision to return to our original focus.  While in the middle of doing this practice, there is no reason for doing so except for the doing of it.  If you're doing it in order to become more peaceful, then that intention is, itself, a distraction from the focus on, for instance, counting your breaths.  If you're training yourself to focus only on the thing you've chosen for your focus -- your breathing, a mantra, a candle's flame -- than anything else you bring with you into your time of meditation is a distraction.

It is very likely -- extremely likely, in fact -- that if you engage in a meditation practice (or, for that matter, any spiritual practice) you will experience some "results."  Chances are you will feel more peaceful, calm, serene, relaxed, healthy, focused, etc., etc., etc.  You might even gain enlightenment and see through to the "really real."  Yet during the time you've set aside for meditation, you probably shouldn't feel as though anything is happening.  In that moment, there should only be the sitting.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Meditation for People Who Don't Like to Meditate (pt. 2)

Last week I began to write a bit about meditation.  I noted that there seem to be three kinds of folks when it comes to meditation -- those who've tried to meditate but ran into too many challenges, people who've never tried to start a meditation practice because they thought the would run into too many challenges, and those who have a meditation practice (no matter how spotty) and who are committed to deepening it.

When asked about the challenges people have run into, answers tend to fall into three categories:  not enough time, can't quite our restless minds, and it's hard to keep the practice alive because nothing seems to be happening (i.e., it's boring).  Having looked in the last post at the question of time, I want to address the issue of what Buddhists sometimes call "monkey mind."

Everybody knows that meditation is about sitting still and quieting the mind so that you are not distracted by the usual inner monologue(s), right?  That's the point, isn't it?  A quiet, serene mind?

Well ... I don't really think so.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say that those distractions are actually essential for meditation. Rather than a problem, they are at the heart of the practice.

I have studied a number of different meditation techniques over the years.  (I've even practiced some!)  And just like I believe that there are core elements in prayer that transcend any religious tradition's particular dressing, I believe that there are four phases in any meditative practice.

1. Choose a focus
2. Become distracted
3. Recognize that you've become distracted
4. Choose to return to the focus

1.  Choose a focus:  in some traditions you count your breath, one count for each in-breath and each out-breath -- "breathe in, one; breathe out, two; breathe in, three; breathe out, four" -- continuing until you've reached ten, and then start over.  In other traditions, the focus is a word or a phrase, a mantra.  Sometimes you're encouraged to look at a candle flame, or an icon.  Yet despite the apparent differences between traditions, nearly all at least begin by suggesting that you focus your mind on something.  Zen practitioners sometimes refer to this as, "feeding the hungry tiger," because besides being like a money (jumping from thing to thing) our minds are also like tigers which, if they don't get something to eat, become voracious.  Just emptying the mind of all thoughts, then, is a pretty advanced technique.  We novices need something on which to focus the mind, so that we can then let everything else go.  (Another metaphor could be that the focus we use is like the rodeo clown that gets the attention of the bull so that the other people in the ring can get free.)  In choosing a focus, we are choosing to engage with an exercise.

2.  Become distracted:  This is the part of the practice of meditation that causes a lot of people to quit, or not to begin in the first place.  Because we have this notion that meditation is about having a still and quiet mind, the fact that our minds seem to become even more cacophonous when we try to meditate is incredibly frustrating.  Some people believe that they just aren't able to meditate because they just can't get their minds to quiet down.  "Breathe in, one; breathe out, two; breathe in ... what am I going to cook for dinner tonight?  Did I remember to close the door?   Oh why didn't I stand up to my boss this morning?  Oh crap ... Breathe in, one; Breathe ... I'm a lousy meditator.  I can't do this.  What's the point?  Breathe in, one ..."  Some of us get further along in our counting than this, others don't even get this far, but the monkey mind always seems to reassert itself.  This isn't failure, though.  If we didn't get distracted, we'd have nothing to work with.

3.  Recognize that we've become distracted:  This is key.  If in our meditation we didn't have this opportunity to recognize when we've become distracted, there would be no practice.  It'd be like going to the gym without ever picking up a weight or getting on the stair climber.  At a certain point we realize that we've forgotten our decision to focus on one thing as a way of allowing all of our other thoughts to drop off.  We can, of course, berate ourselves when we discover that our mind has wandered, and many of us do.  This is why some of us quit trying to meditate.  On the other hand, we can see this recognition of our distractedness as a good thing.  It is a major step toward that goal of a still and quiet mind.

4.  Decide to return to your focus:  As I said, we could choose to self-flagellate when we recognize that we've strayed "from our meditation," or  we can accept this as part of the practice, each part of which is essential.  If we could choose a focus and then actually stay focused with no other thoughts intruding on our single-pointedness, we wouldn't actually be meditating.  And whether you need to return to your focus one hundred times during your practice or just once (right at the even because you hadn't even noticed that you'd been distracted the entire time!), each phase of this four-phase pattern is necessary.

Whatever the goal of meditation may be, as understood through the lens of any particular tradition's teachings, that practice itself fundamentally consists of these four steps:  choose to focus your mind on one thing so that you're fully and intentionally aware of it; lose track of that one thing in the flurry of the thousand and one things that we're usually swimming in; become aware that we've stopped being fully aware of what we've decided to do during this time; and make the conscious choice to return to our original focus.

One more thought -- there is a meta-dimension to this four-fold schema.  If you, like me, find your practice to be  ... spotty ... take hope.  The fact that you can't seem to maintain a daily meditation practice is analogous to the difficulty of maintaining focus.  Let's say you decide to meditate daily.  And you do, for a while.  But then life encroaches and you soon realize that you haven't meditated for days or weeks.  (Or, as has been true for me more than once, months.)  This is like choosing a focus and then becoming distracted.  So, just as within a particular period of meditation, notice that you've become distracted, and when you recognize that you've not meditated in a while, choose right then to return to your original decision to engage this practice.  See the parallel?  Make a conscious choice; loose sight of that decision; recognize that you've forgotten your commitment; recommit yourself.

So ... there's a way of looking at the distractions of your hyper-active minds that might just eliminate that as a hurdle to engaging in a meditation practice.  (Or that can support you in sticking to it.)  On Friday we'll tackle the last of the most frequently named challenges -- boredom, the experience that nothing seems to be happening.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Meditation for People Who Don't Like Meditation (pt. 1)

Meditation.  It's one of those spiritual things we're supposed to like to do.  It's important.  Everyone tells us that it's important.  Yet a lot of us don't do it.  (Like flossing -- we know it's supposed to be good for us, but, well ...)

The other night I led a class at the congregation I serve which had the same title as this post -- "Meditation for People Who Don't Like to Meditate."  I began by asking people to introduce themselves, including a little something about what had brought them to the class.  I suggested that people seem to fall into one of three groups:

• People who've tried meditation in the past who've just found it too hard for one reason or another;
• People who've thought about trying to meditate, yet haven't, because they assume that they are going to find it too hard for one reason or another; and,
• People who've got a great meditation practice going, and who come to things like this class because they just really love talking about meditation.

Virtually no one identified as belonging in that third group.

When I asked people what the reasons were that people'd found meditation challenging (or figured that they would), there were some common responses:

• My mind wanders too much;
• I don't have time for it;
• My body hurts if I sit still for too long;
• Nothing happens.

In the next two posts this week I'm going to look at the wandering mind and the lack of "results."  Today I want to address the concerns about how to make room for a meditation practice, and what to do about a complaining body.

The Vietnamese poet, peace activist, and Buddhist monk the Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh says in one of his books that if you want to engage with a meditation practice you should set aside 30 minutes morning and night.  Unless you can't.  If you just can't manage to carve out that much time from your day, then try 15 minutes morning and night.  Unless you can't do that, either.  If not, do 10 minutes in the morning.  You guessed it -- unless you can't.  He keeps reducing the mandatory time needed for meditation to simply smiling a real, true smile when you wake up in the morning.  If that's all you can do, he says, then do that.

Other teachers would disagree, of course.  Yet Nhat Hanh's point is that if the purpose of meditation is to train us to be mindful of the reality in which we're living in at this very moment, then shouldn't one true, fully aware, fully present smile each day also accomplish that?  After all, being present is being present, whether it's for an hour or a moment.  As he says in one of his breath prayers (or gathas), "Breathing in, relax body and mind; breathing out, I smile.  Dwelling in the present moment, I realize this is the only moment."  This is the only moment and, so, being present to this moment -- that moment during which you smile a deep, real smile -- is the only moment you can be present.

The longer times are recommended because, as I've noted elsewhere, spiritual practices are just that -- practices. I like the analogy to playing a musical instrument:  if you only pick it up once in a while, or only for a few minutes, you can make sound, but you won't make real music.  And that's true.  So 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes at night -- with periodic times of even longer periods, such as during a retreat -- gives you more of a chance to practice.  Still, one of the most exciting sax solos I've ever heard is in the Miles Davis classic, In a Silent Way, when the incomparable Wayne Shorter plays just two notes.  But they are the perfect notes, in the perfect place.  You don't need to play an entire symphony -- a note or two can be music.  You don't need decades of dedicated meditation practice -- a moment or two of clear mindfulness is not to be sneezed at.

Now, what about that persnickety body?  After 10 minutes of sitting your lower back starts to ache, or your legs fall asleep.  Almost immediately after you start your meditation your nose starts to itch.  What can you do about that?  The first Zen retreat I attended at Zen Mountain Monastery in New York, I was a zazen rockstar.  I sat strong and still ... and I paid for it.  On the last day we each went to sit knee-to-knee with the Abbot, John Daido Loori.  We had the opportunity to ask him any question, but when I kneeled, I was flooded with white hot pain, so all I could say was, "I'm in too much pain to think."  "Well," the Abbot responded, "why didn't you sit in a chair?"  He went on to say that you should not let aches and pains distract your during your practice, yet neither should you intentionally set yourself up for pain.

It's true, there are all sorts of teachings about how one should sit, perhaps especially within the Zen tradition.  And sometimes these instruction include esoteric meanings in the postures -- this represents the teaching of non-duality; this other thing represents holding the cosmos; etc.  Fundamentally, though, there are some pragmatic explanations for why you do what you do.

Sitting on the front ends of a cushion, with the legs folded in full lotus, it was explained to me, is an extremely stable position.  You are grounded, unlikely to move.  (One monk said that it was really so that monks wouldn't fall over and knock each other down if they fell asleep during those early morning sittings!)  So, whether you sit on the ground, or in a chair, do so in a way that's sold and stable.  The same is true for just about every other traditional teaching about meditation posture -- taken as a whole their purpose is to help the body to remain as still as possible, since Buddhists new thousands of years ago that a restless body and a restless mind generally go together.

So when you sit, sit comfortably, yet solidly.  Don't let yourself be so comfortable that you'll slouch (which is actually an uncomfortable position to hold for too long), and so that your body can remain still yet alert in the same way you'd like your mind to be.  Thich Nhat Hanh even speaks to the proscription against moving while meditating with his profound gentleness.  He says that if your nose itches, why not go ahead and scratch it?  Just do so with intention and awareness.  And if your leg falls asleep and you'd like to move it, go ahead -- just be as aware of that decision and its concomitant movement as you are of your breath.

So ... there you go.  Time and body aches need no longer be a hurdle.  On Wednesday let's look at that wandering mind.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

A Modern Prayer Bead Practice (conclusion ... part 2)

Okay.  So we established last time that there is no "wrong" way to pray, and that even though I wrote a whole book about it -- Simply Pray: a modern spiritual practice to deepen your soul -- and have spent several weeks looking at this prayer bead practice in some detail, I don't assume that I know how you should do it.  You shouldn't assume that, either.  In one of my favorite of the stories about Giovanni di Pietro di Bernadone, otherwise known as Saint Francis of Assisi, while on his deathbed his friends asked what they were supposed to do once he'd gone.  It is remembered that he said to them -- and I imagine he said it with a compassionate and somewhat bemused smile -- "Friends, I have done what was mine to do, may Christ teach you what is yours to do."

All that said, though, I'm going to venture to say a few more words about this "modern spiritual practice to deepen your soul."

As with most spiritual practices, I'd recommend that you try to do it daily and, if possible, at the same time.  Most of the great spiritual teachers have suggested that it is important to make a habit out of your practice, and that you make it something you can depend on.  Doing it daily is one way of making your practice a habit, and doing it at the same time helps you to know that it will be there for you.  If it's something that you "get around to" when you can, it will be all too easy for it to become something that at the end of the day you regret not having done.  I once heard an experienced Catholic priest recommending to seminarians that they put on their calendar, "Appointment With God," just as they would put "Board meeting," or "pastoral visit with so-and-so."  "Make it an appointment," he said.  "Make a commitment to it.  Make it a priority."

How long should you make that appointment?  I find that it is possible to work my way through the entire bead cycle in about 15 minutes.  At that pace I'm not especially rushed, but I am able to easily fit that into my day.  You can take less time than that, of course, or a great deal more.  As an analogy, the acclaimed martial arts teacher Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming says that it normally takes 18-20 minutes to run through the entire Yang Style Taijiquan form.  Some students, though, seek to slow it down, to go deep into the meditative aspects of the practice, and that for such students that same 18-20 minute set of movements can take a full hour to perform.  Conversely, there are those who want to bring out the martial aspects of taijiquan, and so they work to do the movements faster and faster (because, as he says, "In a fight, speed is important.  You cannot say to your enemy, 'Slow down, you're too fast.'").  For these students, the 18-20 minute set of movements, which some can expand outward to take an hour, can be done in about three minutes.

I'm not sure exactly what the "martial" aspects of this prayer bead practice might be, but I know that for some people, 15 minutes is more time than they have.  You could certainly consider stopping only for the briefest of times at those medium-size beads.  Just as you simply touch the small Breath Prayer beads and move you, you could touch the Listening bead, for instance, and say to yourself, "I would like to be open to listening for the voice of quiet stillness within me," and when you get to the Loving bead simply say, "I send out my love to all things in the cosmos."  I would imagine that you could move through this practice in that way in a couple of minutes.

Another way to shorten the time, if you need to, is to separate the practice into different sections.  So, for instance, when you first wake up you take out your beads, do what you do with the large Centering bead and the four Entering beads, and then do your Naming.  A little later in the day, when you can again set aside some time, begin with the five small Breath Prayer beads that follow the Naming, and do your Knowing.  Later, you can do the next five Breath Prayers and then spend a little time Listening.  Finally, just before bed, perhaps, you could do the last five Breath Prayers, your Loving, and then use the four small Departing to bring a close to both your practice and your day.

An even simpler form of this practice -- which I'd suggest doing in addition to some way of regularly engaging with the whole practice -- is to carry the beads in your pocket and when, at any point in the day, you're feeling particularly grateful and full of joy, put your hand into your pocket and finger the Naming bead.  Similarly, if you're stuck on a long line in the grocery store, let's say, and you find yourself beginning to get irritated, you could reach into your pocket and touch the Listening bead (or the Breath Prayer beads) as a way of helping yourself to relax.  You could also touch the Loving bead, if you're up for it, and send loving thoughts to those people who've brought 21 objects into the 15 Objects or Less line.

Two final thoughts:

I should have said this earlier, when writing about the Loving bead, but I will say now that it is important that you include yourself in your loving prayers.  Within the Christian tradition, Jesus is remembered as saying that we are to "love your neighbors as yourself."  And within the Buddhist traditions there are loving-kindness meditations which begin with ourselves, move on to others, and then embrace all sentient beings.

The last thing I'll say (for now!) about this practice is that I would absolutely LOVE to hear from you with your thoughts, questions, and experiences.  I have received pictures of people's beads from around the country, and it's thrilling to hear how others have interpreted these ideas.  (I once heard from a military chaplain who'd been serving in Afghanistan, and who found Simply Pray to be writing in an open and inclusive style which allowed him to share it with soldiers who did not fit comfortably into any of the more rigid religious identities.  He told me that one day one of these soldiers gave him a set of the prayer beads that he'd made by tying knots into some paracord.  Some time later, this chaplain was being introduced to a local Imam.  Since custom dictated the exchanging of gifts, the chaplain reached into his pocket an brought out the paracord prayer beads.  He was writing to tell me that somewhere in Afghanistan there was a Muslim holy man carrying a set of "my" beads.)

I've turned on the comments for this post, and you can also reach me via the "Make a Connection" form on the right side of the page.

As always,

Pax tecum,

RevWik

A Modern Prayer Bead Practice (conclusion)

 


Over the past several weeks I've been writing about the prayer bead practice I developed back during my days of Clinical Pastoral Training (CPE, aka, "chaplaincy training") at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and which I describe in my book Simply Pray:  a modern spiritual practice to deepen your soul.  I made a video, too, to show folks who learn more visually than verbally.  Still, the truth is that we've really only looked at the what of this practice -- what to do at each stage.  Today, by way of wrapping this series up, I want to explore a bit the how -- the quality or attitude to bring.

Some of it has already been said -- there is no "wrong" way!  There are suggestions, of course, such as that you keep to the same breath prayer with those five small beads around each of the medium-size ones, and that the order of those medium-size beads should be Naming, Knowing, Listening, Loving.  I know, though, that there are folks out there who've read my book, found the practice meaningful, yet who thought that there should only be four beads, or three, or seven in-between the medium-size ones.  I know that there are some people who have added more "stations," if you will, to the four I propose, or who've put them in a different order.  And that is just as it should be.

Along with some of the (mis)conceptions of God I discussed in some of the earliest posts, a whole lot of people have a whole lot of ideas about prayer that I think move people away from, rather than toward the deepening of the spirit that is the goal.  One of these is that there is a "right way" to pray, and that if you pray "wrong," your prayers won't be heard, won't be effective, won't matter.

In the Christian tradition, for example, there is the well-known "Lord's Prayer."  It's called that because, as the story comes down to us, this is what Yeshua ben Miriam said in response to his friends' request that he teach them how to pray.  Serious arguments have broken out between people over minor variations -- I can never remember, for instance, when I should say "forgive us our debts" and when I should say "forgive us our trespasses."  But there's a real irony in this.

The story of Jesus teaching his friends to pray is recorded in both the books of Matthew and Luke and, as with most of the other stories found in more than one gospel, they're not exactly the same.  The more well-known of the two, the one that's said most often, is from Matthew (6: 9-13):

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name.  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever.  Amen.  [King James Version, of course.]

What I find ironic is that the author of Matthew remembers Jesus as introducing this prayer by saying, "This, then, is how you should pray ..."  That's how the New International Version translates it, yet in just about every translation I've looked at the sense is the same.  Jesus is giving the disciples an example of how to pray. He isn't dictating to them; he's demonstrating.  (I play with some possible ramifications of this in the second half of Simply Pray.)

Now, in the story as the author of Mark tells it (in Luke 11: 2-4), Jesus introduces the prayer with these words, "and when you pray, say ..."  In other words, in this version Jesus is actually telling his disciples (and by extension, all Christians) the precise words to say.  I'll use the King James Version again for ease of comparison:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come,  Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.  Give us day by day our daily bread.  And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Funny, right?  The prayer that Jesus is remembered as teaching word-for-word is hardly ever heard, while the one that the story says he gave as an example has been handed down the millennia as every every syllable were sacred.  We humans are an interesting lot, aren't we?

So ... where was I?  Ah yes!  There is no "wrong" way to pray, so there is no "wrong" way to engage with this prayer bead practice.  I may have put these pieces together and published a book about it, but the pieces were all there lying about for anyone to pick up and use.  And while the patterns and structures I describe in the book make sense to me, I do not assume for a moment that they should, then, also make sense to you.  Neither should you.

Well ... I too a bit of an unexpected detour there, so I'll come back with a "Part II" of this conclusion next week.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Styles of Prayer

In my book Simply Pray: a modern spiritual practice to deepen your life I suggest that there are essentially two styles of prayer:  rote and improvisatory.  Many people who describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious," and even some who would call themselves more traditionally religious, prefer the later to the former.

Rote prayers are those which have been set down through the ages and which we are expected to repeat, "as is."  The Catholic practice of saying the Rosary is a good example.  As described in the Wikipedia article about the practice:

The prayers that comprise the Rosary are arranged in sets of ten Hail Marys, called decades.  Each decade is preceded by one Lord's Prayer and followed by one Glory Be.  During recitation of each set, thought is given to one of the Mysteries of the Rosary, which recall events in the lives of Jesus and Mary.  Five decades are recited per rosary.  Other prayers are sometimes added before or after each decade.  Roasary beads are an aid toward saying these prayers in the proper sequence.

You are not encouraged to do it your own way.  The practice is the practice, as it "is, and was, and always will be."  To many modern minds this feels both forced and forced.  It doesn't treat me as an individual; no matter what my life's situation, no matter how I might feel in the moment, I'm still expected to say the same prayers I said yesterday and will say again tomorrow.  To modern ears, the word rote conveys the notion of "mechanical" and "unthinking."  Something that someone does "by rote" has no real meaning.  It's just something that we do.

Improvisatory prayers, in contrast, are entirely about how things are for me in the moment.  They could also be called "spontaneous prayers," because they come out of my current experience.  If I'm feeling joyful, I might express that joy with words of gratitude; if I'm feeling sorrow I might give voice to my grief.  Improvisatory prayers allow me to truly express myself.  They allow me the freedom to be who and how I am in that moment.

As with so many things in life -- and, perhaps, particularly in things related to spirituality -- there is a both/and quality to this seeming dichotomy.  Each approach has something to recommend it; each presents hurdles to a full spiritual life.

The rote prayers may, indeed, force us into a mold, yet they also connect us to a tradition that is hundreds of years old.  They may seem to squash our individuality, yet the spiritual life is not just about the individual.  If it's healthy and real, the spiritual life is also about community.  (Some might say more so.)  Rote prayers remind us of community -- generations of people before me have said these exact same prayers, and in the moment I say them, thousands of people around the world are saying them, too.  There's another gift in rote prayer which is easily overlooked.  The origin of the word "rote" is in the Old English, where it meant simply, "habit."  Whether or not a rote prayer is purely an unthinking, mechanical act is, ultimately a choice.  You can choose to really engage in, for instance, the Rosary deeply, and those who do report something remarkable -- although you say the same words in the same order, the experience changes.  Sometimes you find yourself focusing on certain words which seem to speak directly to what you're experiencing in that moment.  Another day other words might hold your attention, words you may have not even really noticed before and yet which today are just the words you need to hear.  By doing the same thing over and over again it can become such a habit that you no longer have to think about the doing of it, which can increase your ability to really experience it more fully.

Improvisatory prayers, on the other hand, certainly give you free reign to express yourself, yet that freedom can also be a trap.  In today's society, which makes an idol of the individual, it can be hard to remember that it really isn't "all about me."  I can so easily get caught up in my story, my reality, that I can lose sight of the undeniable fact of my place in the universe (which.is, in case you've forgotten in the moment, definitely not in the center).  And yet, while there may indeed be prayers which speak to my current situation in a traditional "book of common prayer" -- such as the prayer book of the Unitarian Universalist Christian congregation of King's Chapel in Boston -- it is likely as not that there won't be anything that is "quite right."  Sometimes you have to be free to say what's on your mind and in your heart.

In the 1997 Robert Duval film The Apostle, there's a scene in which Duval's character, a fiery Pentecostal preacher, is pacing back and forth in his room saying, "I love you God.  I'm mad at you, but I love you."  Well, maybe he's shouting more than simply "saying," but in that moment Sonny needed to give voice to his tremendous anger at God.  No prayer written down in some other time would do.  And if prayer is, as the Greek Orthodox priest Anthony Bloom asserts in his book Beginning to Pray and Living Prayer, about deepening our relationship with the sacred and holy (whether we think of that literally or metaphorically), then we do need to be able to express ourselves in our own words, just as we would when we're in conversation with any friend.

The prayer bead practice I developed, and describe in Simply Pray, includes both these styles of prayer -- there are elements which you are encouraged to do by rote, and those which encourage you to pray spontaneously.  It seems to me that both are needed for a full, whole, rich, and deep spiritual life, just as you need both protein and carbohydrates in your diet.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Talking To Yourself, Part 2

Last week I suggested an exercise in which you imagine an encounter with your younger self, asking how that version of you thinks that this version of you has done with their life.  It is, in essence, an exercise intended to help you to look at the choices you've made along the way, the ways you've stayed true to your earliest visions and ideals (and not done so), the evolution of your visions and ideals ...  In other words, it's a way of looking at where you are now through the lens of how you've gotten here.

Today I'm offering another version of this exercise, although it calls on your imagination to work in the other direction.  Today I'll encourage you to imagine your future self.  Again, as with the previous exercise, try to make your imagining as fully realized as possible; try to picture yourself in the future with your thinking alone.  Image seeing both how you look but also where you are, both in as much detail as possible.  What can you hear?  What fragrances surround you?  How do your clothes feel against your body?  How is it with your spirit?

Once you have a pretty clear picture of your imagined future self, engage in a conversation with them as you did with your younger self.  This time, though, ask them more about them:  How are they feeling?  What are they doing?  What do they think about the stage of life you're in now?  What lessons have they learned on the way from where you are to where they are?

It ultimately doesn't matter if this dialog is "real" or not.  Like a dream, this imagined conversation can offer you material to dance with, open your thinking to the surprising and unanticipated.  On Wednesday I encourage you to try not to over-think the exercise, and that's true again today.  Try to avoid imposing what you think your future self should be telling you, and what lessons you think you should have learned.  Try, even, to avoid insisting that your imagination create the vision of your future self that you hope you'll become.  As much as possible, try to remain open and receptive to whatever your imagination creates ... just as you do in dreams.

If talking with your "younger self" could provide insights into how you've gotten to where you are, talking with your "older self" can help you to see more clearly where the trajectory you are currently on might lead you.  What future is your present preparing you for?

I mentioned in my first post that my ancestors, on one side of my family, were Vikings, and that from what I understand, the ancient Nordic understanding of time was not tripartite as is ours -- past, present, and future.  Instead, as I wrote then, they understood time as a two-fold reality:  That Which Has Been (everything from the beginning of time until this moment), and That Which Will Be (everything from this moment until the end of time).  From this perspective, where you are in your life right now, in this very moment, is the coming together of who you've been and who you're becoming.


Pax tecum,

RevWik

Talking To Yourself

This week I want to offer an exercise.  You can do it once, or several times.  You can do it in your head, out loud, or in a journal.  The only thing you need, really, is the right attitude -- be playful.  If you over-think it, it won't work.  If it does work for you, though, it this can be really illuminating.

Think back to a time when you thought you had a pretty good idea of how you wanted your life to be.  Maybe you were 16 when you had it all figured out; maybe you were 12.  Maybe, for you, it was even a little younger than that, or a little older.  It is certainly possible that at different ages you had it all "figured out" in different ways.  So here's your first chance to avoid over-thinking.  Don't try to come up with the "right" age, the "perfect" age.  Just think back to a time when you thought you had a pretty good idea of how you wanted your life to be.

When you have an age in mind, create a scene for this younger you.  What were your favorite things to wear?  What kind of music would you have been listening to?  Would your room have smelled like incense (or something else)?  Or do you see yourself somewhere else?  Try to imagine yourself, at the age you've chosen, in a setting that makes sense to you, and try to give all of your senses something to play with.

Then imagine you, as you are now, entering the scene.  Introduce yourself to your younger you.  Make whatever small talk comes to you, and then ask the question:  so ... how do you think I've done with your life?

Remember ... don't over-think this.  If a feeling comes up, listen to it.  If words -- whether they surprise you or not -- go with them.  Don't question your younger you's responses, just pay attention to them.  Ask questions, but don't challenge or defend.

It's good to make some kind of record.  Write the "conversation" down in a journal, if that works for you.  Record yourself narrating the encounter, if that's easier.  And -- once more -- don't over-think this.  Be playful.  Be curious.  If you like, think of this as a kind of lucid dream, and see what you might learn from it.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Now the eyes of my eyes are open ...

"Stamen Study 5" (© Erik Walker Wikstrom  2010)

Edward Estlin Cummings -- often written as "e. e. cummings," although, he, himself, preferred his name to be appropriately capitalized -- was a poet of the 20th century well known for his rather ... idiosyncratic ... style. 

I read one of his poems in worship the other day, and it's one I think of often.  It feels to me like a beautiful expression of gratitude; it feels to me like a prayer.  The poem begins, "i thank You God for most this amazing day," and ends:

(now the ears of my ears awake andnow the eyes of my eyes are opened)

This reminds me of a phrase that's attributed to Yeshua ben Miriam (who is better known as Jesus).  It appears six times in the Gospels:  "If a man [sic] has ears, let him hear!"

Unlike many passages, looking at different translations doesn't reveal too many variations.  All of them have Jesus saying essentially the same thing.  (The Amplified Bible: classic edition elaborates: "He who has ears to hear, let him be listening and let him consider and perceive and comprehend by hearing."  Eugene Peterson's quite personal translation, The Message, puts it a lot more simply:  "Are you listening to me?  Really listening?")

I know that all too often I fail to hear the "still small voice" (or, "the voice of quiet stillness," as one translation puts it) that is whispering to me of Life's love.  My ears are too stuffed with the noise of the news, and the voices calling me to do something for them, or telling me how to do the things I'm doing.  I know that all too often I pass beauty by, unseen, because I'm too focused on the comings and goings of my days to attend to the deep truths of my life-- of Life.  I know that all too often my ears are not open, and that all too often my eyes are not open, and that all too often I simply can't "consider, perceive, or comprehend."

How about you?

How open are your ears?  Not in general.  Right now.  Do you have ears that are able to hear?  Are you listening to the song of life?  Really listening?  Not always, but now.  If not, take a moment.  Close your eyes.  Allow all the noise to quiet down, and notice what you hear.  This takes practice, and none of us will ever be able to listen to Life like this all the time, but it's so important that we do.

The same with your eyes ... what are you able to see, right now?  Are you seeing surface things, the illusions of importance cast by so many things in this world?  Or are you able to see through the distractions and delusions that veil deeper truths?  Again, not always.  Right now.  If not, take a moment.  Move your gaze from thing to thing in front of you and really see it, then really look at the next thing.  See that stapler, or that sock, or that squirrel in front of you.  This, too, takes practice.

The spiritual life takes practice, because it is so much about developing the ability to really attend to life -- our lives, the lives of the those around us, Life itself.

Cummings' poem begins with a joyous, delightfully and delightedly exuberant prayer of thanksgiving to, "this amazing day."  It ends by declaring that now those inner ears, and those inner eyes, the eyes and ears that can truly hear and truly see, are open.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Everyday Spiritual Practice

In 1999, Skinner House books published, Everyday Spiritual Practice:  simple pathways for enriching your life.  It was edited by the Rev. Scott Alexander, and includes 38 chapters, each one written by a different person describing a spiritual practice which they, themselves, found meaningful.  These weren't academic essays about various practices; they were first person accounts of the authors' lived experiences with the practices they described.  And, so, each chapter included both a description of how the practice worked (i.e., what to do), as well as why the practice was meaningful (i.e., why to do it.)

There have been other such collections.  Three that come to mind immediately are:

• Celebration of Discipline:  the path to spiritual growth, by Richard Foster
• Finding Our Way Again:  the return of the ancient practices, by Brian McLaren
• Practicing Our Faith: a way of life for a searching people, by Dorothy Bass.

I have read all three -- more than once -- and can recommend them.  I would note that all three are written from a distinctly Christian perspective.  I do not think that this is in any way a bad thing.  I think that they would be accessible even to non-Christians (who have the ability, and the willingness, to "translate" Christian language and theological assumptions).

Celebration of Discipline covers what you might call the Christian classics -- meditation, prayer, fasting, solitude, service, confession, worship, etc.  First published in 1978, Celebration of Discipline is, itself, a classic.

Brian McLaren's Finding Our Way Again, also looks at "the ancient practices" of the Christian tradition.  McLaren (author of such books as A New Kind of Christian, and, A New Kind of Christianity, among others) offers more of a context for these practices than Foster does, and many liberal/progressive religious folks would find his theology more appealing.

Practicing Our Faith is another anthology, and more expansive than either of the others.  Still, none of the chapters would surprise anyone who has any kind of exposure to traditional Christian spiritual practices.



Everyday Spiritual Practice is a different kettle of fish altogether.  Firstly, it does not assume a Christian orientation (although it is in no way anti-Christian).  All of the contributors are either ordained clergy or lay people within the Unitarian Universalist tradition.  And if you know anything about us UUs, you will not be surprised that the practices covered within these pages range from the traditional things like prayer, silent retreats, sacred reading, yoga, and mindful eating, to such things as marriage, parenting, the experience of loss, anti-racism work, and vegetarianism.  There are also chapters on quilting, gardening, and cooking.

If you are looking for ways that you can, as Scott says in the Introduction, "spiritually examine, shape, and care for your life -- and the life around you -- to achieve more wholeness, satisfaction, depth, and meaning," then you ought to do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of this book.  (And yes, full disclosure, I have a chapter in the book.  In fact, that chapter formed the foundation for my own later book, Simply Pray: a modern spiritual practice to deepen your life.)

Pax tecum,

RevWik

I'm so excited to announce ...

The book I've been working on as editor is now out in print!  Here's how the publisher, Skinner House Books, is telling about it:

“In all his work as a parish minister and as an author, Erik Walker Wikstrom has been primarily concerned with deepening spiritual lives in today’s world. Now in Faithful Practices; Everyday Ways to Feed Your Spirit he has assembled a collection of essays about different ways that people take time for their souls. You'll be entertained, and you will be guided to find the holy in the ordinary and in the extraordinary.”
—Rev. Hank Peirce, Unitarian Universalist Church of Reading, Massachusetts

An eclectic mix of contributors share their reflections about spiritual practices in their everyday lives. Each of them describes their practice and the ways it opens them up to their hearts and souls. From chopping vegetables to creatively arranging action figures, from taking long walks to playing roller derby, these practices demonstrate the wide range of ways that we can be spiritual, and provide models for those seeking a practice of their own.

Erik Walker Wikstrom is the Lead Minister at Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is the author of several books and curricula, including Serving With Grace: Lay Leadership as a Spiritual Practice and Simply Pray: A Modern Spiritual Practice to Deepen Your Life.


In future posts I'll write more about what's in this book, what makes it so unique in the field of spiritual practice, and the earlier Skinner House book, edited by Scott Alexander, Everyday Spiritual Practice: simple pathways for enriching your life.


Pax tecum,

RevWik