Learning to pray without ceasing

 Learning to pray. Okay, we’ll break it into two parts:

• 1. The Ocean: listening
• 2. The Shore: putting into words, symbols

The Ocean

Vast expanse of oceans cover much of the globe. They remain a mystery to us, even as human pollution wreaks havoc we cannot imagine. But the point regarding prayer is their immense presence, like the cosmic silence we enter when we seek to come before God.

I was amazed by an episode of the Dog Whisperer. A small pup barked incessantly when its keepers left the apartment. Cesar Milan, the DW, prescribed exercise and a kennel (small pet carrier). Large spaces make the dog anxious. So if he has plenty of exercise and affection when keepers are home, they best put him in the kennel during the day while they’re away. It serves as his den or cave!

We humans also feel anxious when confronting immensities that defy understanding. So we create small spaces to live in, to feel safe. Unfortunately, the spaces we create might suit a terrier but not a Great Dane. (J. B. Phillips’ book Your God is Too Small.)

Doubt sometimes occurs when we outgrow our kennel.

One aspect of prayer then is opening the intellectual, emotional kennel, attending to the energies of the Divine that swirl us about. We must be like the ice dancer, who keeps her orientation by focusing on a single point, while she spins.

The liturgy of the hours—spoken, sung, enacted—is like a leash that God uses to guide us. It establishes limits within which we can safely experience the illimitable.

As I wait in the silence I hear:

• ticking clocks
• whir of city, passing cars
• pain
• imagine being in a small boat, the glare of sun on the water
• doing the business of fishing

The ticking of clocks, pain (3-4 on 10 scale), call me back to the surface and the present.

How in those moments have I experienced You, been with You, God, differently than in all the moments when You are always present? (But maybe I am not?)

I’d welcome your recommendations of best books about or of prayer.

I’ve been searching for a less intellectual, less wordy prayer method. My goal is to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5.17). Over the years, I’ve found help in these books:

• The psalms
• Seekers After Mature Faith, which I value as a good bibliography of spiritual classics (which I discovered in Glenn Hinson’s Classics of Christian Devotion course)
• Rosalind Rinker, Conversational Prayer, learning the value of unstructured oral prayer with others
• The Cloud of Unknowing, beginning to unhook the intellect
• The Tao Te Ching, mostly unfathomable, except in the Stephen Mitchell translation, which I suspect is as much Mitchell as Lao Tzu; helped me become aware that I’m riding the Gulf Stream of the unconscious
• St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul (for me the title says it all, I get lost in the mysticism)
• Thomas Kelly, Testament of Devotion, equating prayer with breath
• John Fortunato, Embracing the Exile, a real eye-opener for me, and based on Isaiah 40-55, which is the biblical Holy of Holies for me
• The Way of the Pilgrim, taught me the prayer of the heart

As far as prayer books are concerned, I’ve found the following useful:

• Celtic Daily Prayer, this I use for enrichment; I found it didn’t have enough daily variety for every day
• Book of Common Prayer (USA, 1979) and sister volumes; so much of this is in my DNA as an English-speaking Christian
• Glenstal Book of Prayer, the basic outline of the Benedictine Liturgy of the Hours; I like this for its simplicity, ease of use
• Benedictine Daily Prayer: A Short Breviary, 2266 pp. I got this for Christmas. You gotta approach it with humility and humor. But I like the richness of readings from Christian tradition. As a Protestant, I grew up thinking Christianity started with Martin Luther, well, really with London Baptists of the 17th century. I’m learning this book, which is pretty well laid out. There are a few conventions I can’t figure out, and can’t find an explanation for. As for the whole, ask me in 10 or 20 years. I’ll be a bona fide beginner by then.