Peace, Be Still

Modern life can be a cluttery overscheduled whirlwind.  Wednesdays, and today in particular, was on the nutso side.  Leaving the office after five, I trucked over to pick up my youngest son from Hebrew School.  Normally, that would include picking up my oldest son, but he was in a school play, from which his grandparents were retrieving him.  I then spent 40 minutes on the Beltway at the height of rush hour, got home, fed and crated the dog, and then took the little guy to drumming, which involved another 25 minutes in the car. 

With him dropped off, I drove to the mall to pick up a camo shirt for the big guy, who needed it as a costume for the role he'll play tomorrow.  On the way back, I hit a Whole Foods to get organic milk and eggs.  Then Magruders, for some more sanely priced groceries.  The little guy bopped out of drumming at nine, and we popped into Subway for a bite.  We got home at twenty-to-ten.

This is what it means to be a suburban American.  Is crazy, yes?  Our culture could use a little bit of slowing down and catching it's breath.

Which is why I can't quite grasp the resistance to the Moment of Silence law in Illinois.  The state legislation has been stalled out as it wended it's way through the court system following a challenge from an angry atheist activist, and is more accurately titled the Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act.  It provides for a time of quiet reflection at the beginning of the day.  What it does not do, in any way, is mandate any practice other than silence.  As the law is written, it says the time "...shall not be conducted as a religious exercise but shall be an opportunity for silent prayer or for silent reflection on the anticipated activities of the day."

This works great if you're a person of faith.  We know how to use that time to get centered in our Creator.  This gives us that time we need to be still and know.

But if you're not a person of faith, it's still a good thing.  Sitting back, being analytical, and organizing your thoughts...these are essential characteristics of any focused, reasoning human being.  Even the most committed atheist might find their capacity for thought improved by just holding still and letting their neurons be optimized by the otherwise imperceptible tickle of His Noodly Appendages.

Yeah, the law mentions prayer, which works for the 80-plus percent of us who believe and freely practice our religion.  But the law gives equal airtime and respect to the secular virtue of reasoned, measured reflection.

I just can't see either harm in it or any meaningful violation of the church and state separation that is so vital to our freedom.

Syncretism, Style, and Substance

Over the last half-year, I've been teaching a monthly class on styles and approaches to prayer. After sputtering a bit at the beginning...folks were just too full up on church on Sunday after worship/Bible study...I moved it to mid-week on Wednesday. Since then, it's been cozy and pleasant, as I've explore some of the classic techniques of Christian prayer with some of the dear saints of my church.

We've been following an online Upper Room guide to ancient forms of prayin', and it's been generally helpful. We've done lectio divina. We've done Ignatian prayer. We've even popped into the sanctuary and used the stained glass windows as a focal point for icon-based contemplation. Yeah, John Calvin wouldn't be pleased, but hey...if contemplating Christ is wrong, I don't wanna be right. A symbol is a symbol is a symbol, be it word or image. If you worship the image and not the thing it points to, you're an idolater. If you worship the text and not the thing it points to, you're an idolater. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

Yesterday, though, we did something a teesny bit different. I loaded up my little group into my minivan and went down to the C&O Canal Towpath for some walking meditation. It's a technique I've used for years, but it's not one I learned in church. It is, instead, something I did naturally. I then discovered that it was, well, a thing Buddhists do. In particular, it's the schtick of Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn. It's a simple exercise in mindfulness and self-emptying, and particularly useful in stilling the anxieties and petty demons that can beset humankind. You don't fret about tomorrow, about things that might be. You don't anguish over the pains of yesterday. It places you squarely in the now, and at some fleeting, ephemeral moments, in the great peace that can be found in the Eternal Now of the Kingdom.

Having read up on it and practiced it over a decade or so, I find it's completely simpatico with a Christ-centered faith. It is simply a style of prayer. There are, of course, Christians who would be stressed by such a thing. Learning a prayer style? From a Buddhist? Outlandish! That's a step down the slippery slope of syncretism!

But focusing on form and technique rather than intent and purpose is the dangerous ground on which a Pharisee builds his home. If the purpose is deepening an awareness of our Maker, opening ourselves to the movement of the Holy Spirit, and finding a source of strength for our Christian journey, then it isn't to be feared. It is no more antithetical to Christ than pressing one's hands together in prayer.

I hear Buddhists do that too.

Seeking and Finding

As my little congregation continues to wrestle with some pretty deep organizational and spiritual challenges, I find myself struggling with where my own prayer and meditation fits into the whole paid staffer thing.

On the one hand, it's easy to get sucked into the organizational dynamics of the church. It's the prepping of budgets and crafting of strategic planning memos, having Serious Discussions About Our Future, then more meetings, planning retreats, and then having still more meetings. It's the Presbyterian way, and it's work, in the same way that secular work is work. You are earning your keep. You are making sure you add value to the organization. You're an employee.

But there are days when what the Spirit wants me to do is anything but sit in my office dithering over the details of this Sunday's liturgy, or using mindmapping software to conceptualize possible futures for the ministry, or scurrying to another meeting. I feel the need to go deep and be centered, to go focus, to leave the office and the demands of the church as an organization. Though church is typically the center of my faith life, I do find myself with the deep Jesus urge to get the heck out of Dodge now and again. The conflicts and struggles that have recently riven my little community color the spirit of the sanctuary, particularly when I'm seeking calm. And as I feel the stresses and uncertainties of my own life like shards of glass around my heart, I know I'm not providing the conduit to the Creator's presence that the church needs.

But...where to go?

I prefer walking meditation, and I do walk. But I also find need for stillness. Problem is...where to find it? Where to find a little sacred space, where I can be securely away from people and their scurrying and bustling? In seminary, that place was an old dusty storeroom above the chapel entrance. But I've been feeling that yearning for a new place lately.

On Sunday, I went looking for such a quiet place, walking mindfully through the woods that run alongside the banks of the Potomac. Perhaps a well placed log by the waterside? Or a little grotto speckled with flowers and leaf-scattered light?

As I searched by the riverside for a place that might serve for silent prayer, I came across a tree. It was a great immense thing, thickening out so much enough around the base that four grown men couldn't put their arms fully around it. It sat by the waterside, within both view and earshot of the soft nickering of the flood-browned river. Where living wood met earth, I found a natural opening, half my height and shaped like a door. Inside that door into the tree, there was a dirt floored room more than six feet in diameter, with a ceiling that rose up beyond my outstretched arm into dark moist stillness. It was, for all intents and purposes, a little prayer cell.

Seek, and ye shall find.