Dear Advent Pilgrims,
Over the past few Sundays, I have encouraged you to slow down and be still during this Advent, in the midst of the busyness and bustle of the season. It has occurred to me that merely inviting you to slow down ought to be coupled with some specific guidance on how you might do just that. So, I’d like to devote today’s Mid-Week to sharing with you some practical steps on incorporating a different kind of prayer as a regular part of your spiritual routine. I hope that among the gifts you receive this Christmas, this may be the most helpful to your spiritual life.
The practice I’d like to share with you is called “centering prayer,” which has been around for countless generations in the church. It is by no means the only way to pray, but it is one that has been very useful to me over the past several months. Therefore, most of what I will share with you will be born from personal experience.
The act of prayer is such an intimate part of each of our lives that the various ways to pray are as numerous as our particular personalities. As such, some of you may find this to be a helpful way to pray; others may try it and find it only marginally valuable. If nothing else, I pray that it will enhance your journey through even just this season of Advent and keep your life properly focused on your relationship with Jesus Christ.
Preparation. Begin by finding a time and a place in which you will not be interrupted for at least twenty minutes. For me, it is at 8:00 am in my office, after I have dropped off the girls at school and before visitors start trickling in. It may be another time of the day for you, but generally the start of the day is best.
Find a place that is conducive to silence, and I advise that you find a comfortable chair that will offer you good back support. Sit with your feet on the ground and your hands, palm down, on your lap. Close your eyes and breathe normally.
Initiation. Once you close your eyes and listen to your breathing, you will likely be immediately assaulted by a swirl of random thoughts and feelings. Some of it will be associated with past or upcoming events in your day: items on your to-do list, conversations with other people, random “this or that.” You may also begin questioning whether this form of prayer seems absurd: What if someone walks in on me? Why am I doing this, anyway? The collision of random thoughts and feelings, coupled with the eerie silence of your environment, might feel strange at first. But it is your mind’s natural way of reacting to your effort to recalibrate it towards the work of the Holy Spirit.
Do not try to fight the thoughts that are flooding in and out during this initial phase. The more you fight against them, the more your conscious efforts will amplify their intensity. Don’t resist by telling them, “Stop!” or “Be quiet! Can’t you see I’m trying to focus here?” That will only give them more attention than they deserve. Rather, gently breathe through those thoughts and feelings. Whether you realize it or not, with every breath, the Holy Spirit will help you release the more trivial thoughts and begin to collate the thoughts and feelings that are most relevant to this session’s prayer time.
Centering Word. After your mind and your spirit have settled into a calm breathing pattern, you will sense your body becoming more relaxed. With that calming, you will feel with more clarity the emotions that are most affecting you right now (worry, contentment, loneliness, peace, etc.) There is no need at this point to characterize what you are feeling; simply breathe through it.
Eventually, a word will emerge in your mind that will capture God’s desired outcome for your soul today. It will be such a unique word during your prayer time that at the very moment it comes to mind, it will “fit” like a key in a lock, and all of your random thoughts and feelings will come to a new resonance.
That word is your centering word for the day, for the moment. It is not a word that likely would have worked yesterday, nor is it certain to work tomorrow. It is a private gift from the Holy Spirit to you, that you can carry with you throughout the prayer and on into the rest of today. In my experience, you will know the word works by more than its meaning. Its power will work simply by the way it sounds to you. There will be something about the way certain letters, letter combinations, and vowel sounds in that word will work together to interact with your present situation.
The selection of that word is the most critical part of this prayer. At first, you may go through a handful of other words that won’t quite work as you breathe them. There will be trial and error each time. If you do not initially hear that word from the Spirit, do not get frustrated. Simply breathe through your thoughts and feelings, and with every breath, ask. Seek. With enough quiet breathing, and as you allow the Spirit to weave through the tensions of your present moment, a word will emerge. And once that word does come, you will know it almost immediately.
You should not be surprised if the word is not a church sounding word. While on some days my word has been grace or peace, on other days it has been a surprising word. Once, for me, it was the word resistance. I was going through a particularly rough patch of events in my life, and the Spirit was inviting me to surrender them to God, and allow God to smooth them out. So the “z” sound in resistance felt like refining sandpaper to me, and as I breathed the tensions of my day through that word, I felt the abrasive work of the Spirit smoothing out those tensions into a calming surrender.
There are times when the word will emerge from a reading of Scripture, or the lyrics of a hymn, or a piece of sacred poetry. Some people prefer to read Scripture prior to centering prayer, allowing a key word from that passage to serve as their centering word. That kind of spiritual reading is called lectio divina, practiced by Benedictine Christians centuries ago.
The first time I practiced centering prayer, the word that came to me was womb. It was the word I needed on a day when I was feeling all kinds of anxieties and insecurities. The long “oo” sound in womb was what I needed to feel like I was being enveloped by the warmth of God’s love, safe and secure from all that felt threatening. Again, once you discover the centering word that the Spirit is giving you, you will know it almost instantly in your mind, body, and heart.
Prayer. Once you have determined that word, repeat it in your mind softly and gently with every exhale. Don’t be too conscious of your repetition; rather, allow it to be embedded into the natural flow of your breathing. Now, with the word at the center of your praying, you can resume with allowing the free drifting of your thoughts and feelings to interact with that word every time you exhale. Allow your tensions, in whatever forms they are present to you (thoughts, images, physical aches, or other manifestations) to pass through that word.
Depending on the texture and tone of your word, you may discover a supplemental image that will guide you. It may be like a sieve, through which your tensions can be filtered; or a funnel, through which your tensions can be channeled; or a womb, through which your tensions can be dissipated. As I mentioned earlier, the word resistance carried an image of sandpaper, and I surrendered those tensions over to the refining work of the Spirit. Whether or not an image emerges, and whatever that image might be, depend on the nature of your word and how you might interact with it.
During this time of breathing your prayer through your centering word, pay attention to whatever messages from God may drift into your mind. Sometimes, I have felt prompted later to explore what Scripture passages have contained that day’s centering word. Other times, I have felt called to change my perception of events that seemed troublesome to me. And at other times, I have sensed God clearly nudging me toward specific actions. In fact, as a result of the word quiet on November 27, I felt the impulse to write the very message I am writing to you today.
Reemergence. I advise that you spend at least twenty minutes doing centering prayer. At first, you might find it difficult to conceive spending that much time in total silence. Others might welcome it. I can guarantee that once the Spirit brings you that precious word of the day to you, the twenty minutes will fly by.
After those twenty minutes, you will be perfectly suited to enter into whatever is your current pattern of devotional time: Scripture reading, devotional material, the Upper Room, or others. I am currently working through the Daily Offices of the church, a book on men’s spirituality by Richard Rohr, and, of course, the Bible. I now find that only after spending some time in centering prayer am I best able to benefit from reading the Bible and other materials. And it is often the case that my richest time with God every day is in those first moments of centering prayer.
You might choose to write down that word so it can stay with you throughout your day. I keep a running log on my smartphone so it is always accessible during the chaos of my day. It has the added benefit of allowing me to reflect back on prior days, sort of like an abbreviated diary. Often, seeing a word from a previous day’s centering session will remind me of all that I was facing, thinking, and feeling that day, with more vivid clarity than any lengthy journal entry. It also prompts gratitude for how God has been tangibly at work in my life.
It is my deepest hope and desire for you that this Advent will be no mere holiday for you, but that it will be a time of renewal, preparation, and hope. May your spirit, and the work of the Spirit, partner together in our journey to Bethlehem.
Breath, Stillness, and Peace,
Magrey
The Rev. Magrey R. deVega
St. Paul's United Methodist Church
531 W. Main St.
Cherokee, IA 51012
Ph: 712-225-3955
Email: mdevega@sp-umc.org
CHILDREN’S CHRISTMAS PROGRAM
Join us this Sunday for our special Christmas program featuring our Children’s Ministries. They will lead us in the singing of carols, and a vivid retelling of the nativity story.
CHRISTMAS COOKIE SALE
Once again, our Adult Class will be sponsoring a sale of Christmas cookies to support ministries and projects for the church. Reserve an extra batch or two of your favorite holiday cookies and bring them to the church this Sunday morning, December 9, where they will be packaged as part of our sale.
COMMITMENT CARDS
If you have not yet done so, please turn in your stewardship commitment card to the church office, so that the Finance Committee can make budgetary plans for next year. Extra pledge cards are available in the office or in the sanctuary pew racks.
thx Magrey...very helpful in explaining to others
ReplyDeletedan young