Moving Beyond What You Want...

Virtually all spiritual traditions have created meditation practices. Often touted as a relaxation technique, in a world that desperately needs some calm, if it works for you - go for it!

But isn’t spirituality and recovery more about waking up?

What if prayer and meditation could do both? What if it could help us move beyond our preoccupations with what we want - our habitual ways of self-soothing? What if we could find what we need? What if we could become more fully human? More compassionate, accepting, forgiving and purposeful?

When I grow forgetful of the benefits prayer and meditation has gifted me over the years, it does not take long for me to receive much needed reminders. They don’t show up as texts or emails, they bubble up in sleepless nights, anxiety, irritability and hopelessness.

I often wonder what my mental health would be like if I had not once been, to quote Wallace, “ORDERED to pray”.

So then, let us ot be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober.

1 Thessalonians 5:6 NIV

I have no authority to order anybody to do anything. But I invite you to join me in silent meditation and breathe. Here is a prayer I find myself using on days when life feels too hard and I want to avoid uncomfortable feelings. It’s a breath prayer:

Inhale slowly and steadily as you say, “God, I am made in your image.”

Exhale slowly and steadily as you say, “God, I am able to feel pain without perishing.”

OR

Inhale slowly and steadily as you say, “God, do not leave me.”

Exhale slowly and steadily as you say, “God, I will show up for my life, trusting you are here.”

OR

Inhale slowly and steadily as you say, “God, you know every hair on my head.”

Exhale slowly and steadily as you say, “God, I can pay attention to my life knowing you are with me and nothing is hidden from you.”

Let us pray.

Addressing Ambivalence Toward Prayer and Meditation

Prayer and meditation: help manage withdrawal symptoms, lowers blood pressure, normalizes heart rate, increases self-awareness which fosters empathy, increases reports of more conscious contact with God and more. It’s healing.

Withdrawal symptoms are not limited to drugs and alcohol. I personally think the world has been in withdrawal since the onset of COVID-19. We like our habits. We shrivel up without human contact. It is unsettling to need to go buy a pair of running shoes and wonder if in doing so you have put yourself at risk.

Researchers who study such things have been shocked at the effectiveness of meditation. Some say they never expected it. David Foster Wallace was an American author who struggled with substance abuse and depression. In treatment, prayer and meditation were a recommended part of his care. Here is his response:

“So this purports to be a disease, alcoholism? A disease like a cold? Or like cancer? I have to tell you, I have never heard of anyone being told to pray for relief from cancer. Outside maybe certain very rural parts of the American South, that is. So what is this? You’re ORDERING me to pray? Because I allegedly have a disease? I dismantle my life and career and enter nine months of low-income treatment for a DISEASE, and I’m prescribed prayer? Does the word RETROGRADE signify? Am I in a sociohistorical era I don’t know about? What exactly is the story here?” *

If you feel this way about prayer and meditation you are not alone. But if your life is feeling messy, why not give it a shot? It is a deep mystery, but many have found relief, healing and even inspiration as they developed a daily practice of prayer and meditation.

There remains, then a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest...Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Hebrews 4:9-11, 16 NIV

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*David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (New York: Back Bay Books, 2006), 180.

A Thimble-Full Goes a Long Way

I wonder if sometimes the only thing standing between me and a complete nervous breakdown is a lack of time to schedule it. Usually when I find myself acting freaked out, insecure, neurotic and emotional, I realize that I’ve outrun my coverage. You know what I mean? All the tools, resources, spiritual disciplines and structures that support my sanity, spirituality and recovery get depleted and suddenly I feel naked and alone, left to my own devices. This is never a good look.

Brokenheartedness is under-rated. As much as we all want to avoid it like those extra pounds that gather on our bodies after holiday feasting, brokenheartedness serves a purpose. It reminds us of what we need and allows us to loosen our grip on all the things we clutch onto as half measures.

When we are in need, we often search for things we want. Our needs are never satiated by our wants. So I invite you to give yourself permission to let your broken heart speak to you. Sit quietly, listen to your disappointments. In yourself. In others. In God. In your desires, passions, and even your unmet preferences.

And then, instead of turning it into a pity party, close your eyes and breathe. Repeat after me...

You are a shield around me…

O Lord...

you bestow glory on me...

and lift up my head...

Psalm 3:2-3

Repeat until you find that sacred, quiet space within you.

Next up? Find a small way to provide a thimble-full of encouragement to someone else. You yourself do not have to feel encouraged for you are not giving away what you have, you are passing on what was given to you in this quiet space of remembering that God is for us, with us and in us.

See if that helps shift something in you. It’s ok if it doesn’t, because you can know that at least your act of kindness may have shifted something in them.

Sacred Support

At Meme’s Pandemic Preschool, the fall version of Meme’s Pandemic Summer Camp, I am working on teaching my grandchildren to ask for “support” rather than “help”. Semantics? Maybe. But I like the imagery.

Each morning after we have tired of all the things that Meme’s camp has to offer Pops takes a work break and we go for a family run. A recent visit to my dermatologist has left me with a very sore leg as she is hacking away at me, one bit of precancerous skin per visit. So for the near future Pops and the kids run; I trail behind and watch for cars and trucks and yell warnings as needed. The kids do not like me to get too far behind. Christian has taken to turning around, running back and saying, “Meme, do you need some support?”

“Yes, yes I do!” He waits until I catch up, turns around and runs back to Pops and Norah - neither of whom are complaining about having a run break.

Fully human, it is totally okay to ask for support and it is divine when we are eager to provide it for others. This should be a no judgment zone. There should be no greater value given to the supporter than the one brave enough to ask for help.

For the next few weeks, in light of our current global and local situation, I am going to pivot a bit on this blog. I just have this sense that all of us need more support and holding right now. I hope you will join me as we turn our attention to meditation and prayer - for our country, our community, ourselves. It is in this sacred space where our fully human selves come when we need God’s big hands to hold us up and help us remember that he is with us.