Photo Baz Ratner “At some time we should make the decision to enter the divine darkness of the Jesus prayer, which is Mount Sinai or Mount Tabor, which is where we will meet God.” Archimandrite Hierotheos Vlachos It’s always the vulnerability that strikes me. The closing of my eyes, the shifting of weight onto my knees, the defenceless of that moment. I am a little bird peering up from the nest. I don’t feel heroic but diminished, and accommodating some usually disguised fragility. I feel my appropriate shape in the universe. This isn’t a moment of accomplishment, rather sending a voice to the presence that enables me life. The notion that anyone would be listening is rather extraordinary. And we have made this outrageous presumption for thousands of years.
These comments are truly touching to me, there's some love in the room and it's wonderful. As I wrote below, I've been in a church this morning with Russians and Ukrainians kissing, hugging, weeping, praying and feasting together. It was a love riot.
My girlfriend and I travelled to a monastery. It was terrifying for her. Arriving, I opened her door and she sat still. She said, “I am not worthy” and would not move. I told her, “me too” as encouragement and ice melted from her limbs. Still, though, clinging to her heart, cold fear entered her. Approaching the doors of the chapel, we heard the low chanting of monks and saw the darkness of a filled chapel preparing to share in the light of Christ. Again, by God, she would not enter the chapel. We sat with some friends outside.
Thoughts passed and I tried to think of ways to encourage her. No fruit for the farmer who tries to sow seed; only by the farmer who sows will fruit come aplenty. I asked, “do you know the Jesus prayer?”, and she said yes. In silence we sat for God only knows how many minutes.
Finally, from the opening of the chapel doors came a light and a priest. Followed by all of the chapel, the priest led a procession of light wielding believers and we, yes we, joined in their ranks.
The service continued and we left early; called by a long drive home and advice from a brother. Now here I sit, glory be to God, having eaten a blessed egg with a pint of Guinness. Paradise before our eyes brother. We must be dreaming for to be awake would be far to terrifying.
Your personal practice of Prayer reminds me very much of the Sufi Naqshbandi practices of meditation and dhikr - reciting the dhikr until it eventually is singing in you - you are no longer doing it, it is doing you - and then meditating moving down into the heart entering deep within to the secret place where we meet God. So wonderful that we are praying in our own way but all connecting to the same Divinity. Thank you 🙏
A pastor friend once invited(/challenged) me to sit with the Lord’s Prayer and unpack it line by line until I understood what I meant by each of those words. It’s taken me years to realize what a gift that was because it took it out of the realm of rote recitation and made it personal. Though I still use the traditional words, the quality of them has changed — not indifferent crumbs of commercially purchased white bread tossed casually into the pond, but chunks of whole grain loaf labored over for hours with love and listening.
Soul of love,
whole of heart,
Seed of all that grows,
call us to your charge
to bring forth fruit from ashes
so that we might love others as you love all of us.
Give us each day the nourishment we need to bloom,
I think Buffy Leonard Cohen originally wrote God is Alive, Magic is Afoot... I've only heard the Buffy Saint Marie version though, it also does something powerful to me listening to it.... Went through a stage last year of playing it top volume from my open car windows in summer 😊
I continue to be struck by the notion of ‘poverty of sprit’ - a term so distorted in our culture - that utter dependence on God’s breath as our breath, as you say ‘we are, because God is’ . The pride we have as a society and as individuals who have forgotten our divine ground and the ensuing mess that is resulting. So challenging then the idea of prayer being something we are, of putting ourselves into ‘ the rhythm of God’s breath’ as Rowan William’s suggests. I am struck by how often I forget that dependance and my need for that Jesus Prayer , or at least a similar acknowledgement to be on my lips as a reminder, for it to be as natural as breathing in and out.
And to you dear Judy. I've just returned from Russians, Ukrainians, Irish, Americans, many ethnicities all gathered happily shouting Christ Has Risen! We all got soaked in Father P's water blessing and we all bought little gifts for an outrageous banquet.
Cynthia Bourgeault speaks about the potent energy in the season between Easter and Pentecost. I don’t know what this means but I don’t want to waste it. It could be a road to Emmaus, attending to the bird migration, listen-ing to someone’s troubles or feasting on the freshest greens. The Jesus prayer is good all year long though.
Thank you Martin, and thank you for the Jesus prayer. May your life become a prayer. So the activity of your living; walking along the river Dart, cooking, wearing tweed, building a fire, eating eclairs, having a nip of Ardbeg, become a subsonic and wholehearted offering to the divine.
Ah Martin it is delightful to join you in wandering after Wild Christ.
The mystic storyteller seems at times to be wandering lost among the words and places, yet there is a sense of “home” among them. For indeed it’s all a reflection of home. }:- a.m.
Contemplative life is a human response to the fundamental fact that the central things in life, although spiritually perceptible, remain invisible in large measure and can very easily be overlooked by the inattentive, busy, distracted person that each of us can so readily become. The contemplative looks not so much around things but through them into their center. Through their center he discovers the world of spiritual beauty that is more real, has more density, more mass, more energy, and greater intensity than physical matter. In effect, the beauty of physical matter is a reflection of its inner content. —Henri Nouwen
Hoofnote: Henri speaking as spiritual physicist. Dark matter contains all the light. }:- a.m.
Finally, whether in the dark midst of the hours of the wolf, or full daylight craziness of the world around me, it is the unforced rhythms of Godbreath I know I need. So it is, “LORD,” breathing in slowly and deeply, “have mercy,” out ever so slowly…until the peace that passes arrives and washes over me as gentle waves.
a “culture of prayer” - wow! how beautiful to imagine, in our kneeling and humble “requests” that we are joining a prayer tradition filled with mystery, singing, smoke, desert caves, twirling beads and whirling dervishes, bells and birdsong. I can see so many nets…so many boats out there…bliss and blessedness indeed. Thank you!
Prayer has always been a difficult thing for me with my own Divine Ground sense of Deity, how is the relationship conversational? Always felt like it was asking the universe to have a chat. Thank you for another heaping helping of usefully clarity.
I prefer the simple “God, have mercy on me a sinner” prayer of the publican in the Temple over the Jesus prayer. Jesus came so we can have ready access to the Father by the inward gift of the Spirit. Daily I get to be repeatedly the prodigal son who is quickly greeted by the joyful embrace of his father.
Just a little addendum to the meaning of "praying" - in Hungarian the word itself is very closely related to "adore, worship, love exceedingly"....
....and a weird experience at church for me this week: funeral mass for a young man of 45. Church was full with people dressed in black, looking grave, some of the younger ones looked shocked at finding themselves by a coffin at this odd place called church. Us, daily church-goers, sitting respectfully this time in the back rows, going through the service, the readings, the hymns and being even more reassured by each other's physical closeness. Then it came to communion but hardly anybody from the mourners walked up to take the bread and wine. If it had not been for us, in the back rows, the communion would have been a sad affair indeed. It suddenly occurred to me and I saw it so clearly that our little congregation, who pray and worship there every day, we are the ones holding it all up for others, too. Without us, the others were clueless and lost in church; to be in the presence of God was alien to so many of them. We must carry on for the sake of all of us.... and the saints came to mind, who are holding it all together for the whole of the world through their incessant prayers....
He is Risen Indeed! Robert, I must confess I'm happy enough to break my rules and have a massive eclair. Forbidden passions and all. Strength to you today.
By pure chance, I came across John Moriarty.on You Tube a number of years ago. I didn’t understand him and got a bit frustrated because something was tapping the back of my head saying there was something worth hearing.
I listened to his story of Big Mike.
I knew there was some great wisdom in it, but I couldn’t get it.
I came across The Jesus Prayer but was very wary of it because I had a view on prayer that did not accept repeating a phrase like a ‘chant’…..I didn’t get it. I watched Peter Owen Jones living the life of a desert father…repeating that prayer…..and I still couldn’t get my head round it.
I started reading The Pilgrim’s Way….and, again, I realised I was missing something.
Funny thing was…..I was starting to say it….I had no real idea why….
But the penny has dropped
Your post has cleaned a murky window that I just hadn’t been able to see through.
Poverty of spirit….that’s what’s at work in the Jesus prayer! It can lead us to ‘Sacred ground’ which is outside of our self…God’s ground……..That’s where Big Mike went!!!!
The Jesus prayer saved me when I tumbled into a very dark pit. I was teaching the Dalai Lama to young people from difficult neighborhoods. Snowmageddon had hit. An inexperienced life coach took me places I didn’t need to go and office politics sent me careening. The prayer blocked the bad thoughts until day came. These days when I walk I say thank you.
These comments are truly touching to me, there's some love in the room and it's wonderful. As I wrote below, I've been in a church this morning with Russians and Ukrainians kissing, hugging, weeping, praying and feasting together. It was a love riot.
Christ is risen!
A short story:
My girlfriend and I travelled to a monastery. It was terrifying for her. Arriving, I opened her door and she sat still. She said, “I am not worthy” and would not move. I told her, “me too” as encouragement and ice melted from her limbs. Still, though, clinging to her heart, cold fear entered her. Approaching the doors of the chapel, we heard the low chanting of monks and saw the darkness of a filled chapel preparing to share in the light of Christ. Again, by God, she would not enter the chapel. We sat with some friends outside.
Thoughts passed and I tried to think of ways to encourage her. No fruit for the farmer who tries to sow seed; only by the farmer who sows will fruit come aplenty. I asked, “do you know the Jesus prayer?”, and she said yes. In silence we sat for God only knows how many minutes.
Finally, from the opening of the chapel doors came a light and a priest. Followed by all of the chapel, the priest led a procession of light wielding believers and we, yes we, joined in their ranks.
The service continued and we left early; called by a long drive home and advice from a brother. Now here I sit, glory be to God, having eaten a blessed egg with a pint of Guinness. Paradise before our eyes brother. We must be dreaming for to be awake would be far to terrifying.
May God bless you and all of us!
Christ is risen!
Yes yes a thousand times yes. Eggs, porter and God. It's too much ;)
Your personal practice of Prayer reminds me very much of the Sufi Naqshbandi practices of meditation and dhikr - reciting the dhikr until it eventually is singing in you - you are no longer doing it, it is doing you - and then meditating moving down into the heart entering deep within to the secret place where we meet God. So wonderful that we are praying in our own way but all connecting to the same Divinity. Thank you 🙏
Thank's Sarah - yes, something like that was in my memory bank but you just made it clearer.
A pastor friend once invited(/challenged) me to sit with the Lord’s Prayer and unpack it line by line until I understood what I meant by each of those words. It’s taken me years to realize what a gift that was because it took it out of the realm of rote recitation and made it personal. Though I still use the traditional words, the quality of them has changed — not indifferent crumbs of commercially purchased white bread tossed casually into the pond, but chunks of whole grain loaf labored over for hours with love and listening.
Soul of love,
whole of heart,
Seed of all that grows,
call us to your charge
to bring forth fruit from ashes
so that we might love others as you love all of us.
Give us each day the nourishment we need to bloom,
and forgive us our shame, so we learn to forgive
those who have done shameful things.
Root us in connection
to resist the blight of evil
for yours are the seasons
and the harvests
and the joys
by which we cultivate
your Garden
here on earth.
Amen.
I also find that Buffy Sainte-Marie’s song/chant “God Is Alive and Magic Is Afoot” is a prayer that regularly prays me. https://youtu.be/i-GonR4S1to?si=MWbK_8gYl-taD4H2
I think Buffy Leonard Cohen originally wrote God is Alive, Magic is Afoot... I've only heard the Buffy Saint Marie version though, it also does something powerful to me listening to it.... Went through a stage last year of playing it top volume from my open car windows in summer 😊
The image of Fr. Philaret makes me smile.
I continue to be struck by the notion of ‘poverty of sprit’ - a term so distorted in our culture - that utter dependence on God’s breath as our breath, as you say ‘we are, because God is’ . The pride we have as a society and as individuals who have forgotten our divine ground and the ensuing mess that is resulting. So challenging then the idea of prayer being something we are, of putting ourselves into ‘ the rhythm of God’s breath’ as Rowan William’s suggests. I am struck by how often I forget that dependance and my need for that Jesus Prayer , or at least a similar acknowledgement to be on my lips as a reminder, for it to be as natural as breathing in and out.
Big Mike also makes me smile.
Easter blessings x
And to you dear Judy. I've just returned from Russians, Ukrainians, Irish, Americans, many ethnicities all gathered happily shouting Christ Has Risen! We all got soaked in Father P's water blessing and we all bought little gifts for an outrageous banquet.
Sounds divine x
Good to get in to the spirit of things! 😊
God’s Breath—as dear departed Gene Peterson put it, “unforced rhythms of grace.”
Cynthia Bourgeault speaks about the potent energy in the season between Easter and Pentecost. I don’t know what this means but I don’t want to waste it. It could be a road to Emmaus, attending to the bird migration, listen-ing to someone’s troubles or feasting on the freshest greens. The Jesus prayer is good all year long though.
Thank you Martin, and thank you for the Jesus prayer. May your life become a prayer. So the activity of your living; walking along the river Dart, cooking, wearing tweed, building a fire, eating eclairs, having a nip of Ardbeg, become a subsonic and wholehearted offering to the divine.
Ah Martin it is delightful to join you in wandering after Wild Christ.
The mystic storyteller seems at times to be wandering lost among the words and places, yet there is a sense of “home” among them. For indeed it’s all a reflection of home. }:- a.m.
Excerpts from Little Gidding by TS Eliot
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always–
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well (Julian)
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
Holy Homesickness — Center for Action and Contemplation https://cac.org/daily-meditations/holy-homesickness/
Oh yes, this too…
See Through Things—
Contemplative life is a human response to the fundamental fact that the central things in life, although spiritually perceptible, remain invisible in large measure and can very easily be overlooked by the inattentive, busy, distracted person that each of us can so readily become. The contemplative looks not so much around things but through them into their center. Through their center he discovers the world of spiritual beauty that is more real, has more density, more mass, more energy, and greater intensity than physical matter. In effect, the beauty of physical matter is a reflection of its inner content. —Henri Nouwen
Hoofnote: Henri speaking as spiritual physicist. Dark matter contains all the light. }:- a.m.
Finally, whether in the dark midst of the hours of the wolf, or full daylight craziness of the world around me, it is the unforced rhythms of Godbreath I know I need. So it is, “LORD,” breathing in slowly and deeply, “have mercy,” out ever so slowly…until the peace that passes arrives and washes over me as gentle waves.
}:- a.m. an obscure anonemoose monk
So much brilliance.
I want to be in the light as They are light.
Yes, indeed!
a “culture of prayer” - wow! how beautiful to imagine, in our kneeling and humble “requests” that we are joining a prayer tradition filled with mystery, singing, smoke, desert caves, twirling beads and whirling dervishes, bells and birdsong. I can see so many nets…so many boats out there…bliss and blessedness indeed. Thank you!
Prayer has always been a difficult thing for me with my own Divine Ground sense of Deity, how is the relationship conversational? Always felt like it was asking the universe to have a chat. Thank you for another heaping helping of usefully clarity.
“Prayer is something we are.” This Keith Green song immediately came to mind so now I’m hearing it, the same sounds I heard in high school. Glad to revisit. May it be so. https://open.spotify.com/track/46lmoqlXvw5vq2nIyw2NcQ?si=gaYtiiK0RRWDZ8s98s7_aQ
Ah Keith and Melody, that does take me back as well.
I prefer the simple “God, have mercy on me a sinner” prayer of the publican in the Temple over the Jesus prayer. Jesus came so we can have ready access to the Father by the inward gift of the Spirit. Daily I get to be repeatedly the prodigal son who is quickly greeted by the joyful embrace of his father.
Just a little addendum to the meaning of "praying" - in Hungarian the word itself is very closely related to "adore, worship, love exceedingly"....
....and a weird experience at church for me this week: funeral mass for a young man of 45. Church was full with people dressed in black, looking grave, some of the younger ones looked shocked at finding themselves by a coffin at this odd place called church. Us, daily church-goers, sitting respectfully this time in the back rows, going through the service, the readings, the hymns and being even more reassured by each other's physical closeness. Then it came to communion but hardly anybody from the mourners walked up to take the bread and wine. If it had not been for us, in the back rows, the communion would have been a sad affair indeed. It suddenly occurred to me and I saw it so clearly that our little congregation, who pray and worship there every day, we are the ones holding it all up for others, too. Without us, the others were clueless and lost in church; to be in the presence of God was alien to so many of them. We must carry on for the sake of all of us.... and the saints came to mind, who are holding it all together for the whole of the world through their incessant prayers....
Aha, thank you Kati. Yep, keep holding reverence for the love that moves the stars.
Truly He is risen!!!
He is Risen Indeed! Robert, I must confess I'm happy enough to break my rules and have a massive eclair. Forbidden passions and all. Strength to you today.
Thank you for this post on prayer
By pure chance, I came across John Moriarty.on You Tube a number of years ago. I didn’t understand him and got a bit frustrated because something was tapping the back of my head saying there was something worth hearing.
I listened to his story of Big Mike.
I knew there was some great wisdom in it, but I couldn’t get it.
I came across The Jesus Prayer but was very wary of it because I had a view on prayer that did not accept repeating a phrase like a ‘chant’…..I didn’t get it. I watched Peter Owen Jones living the life of a desert father…repeating that prayer…..and I still couldn’t get my head round it.
I started reading The Pilgrim’s Way….and, again, I realised I was missing something.
Funny thing was…..I was starting to say it….I had no real idea why….
But the penny has dropped
Your post has cleaned a murky window that I just hadn’t been able to see through.
Poverty of spirit….that’s what’s at work in the Jesus prayer! It can lead us to ‘Sacred ground’ which is outside of our self…God’s ground……..That’s where Big Mike went!!!!
Got it…at last
Thankyou!
Hooray!
The Jesus prayer saved me when I tumbled into a very dark pit. I was teaching the Dalai Lama to young people from difficult neighborhoods. Snowmageddon had hit. An inexperienced life coach took me places I didn’t need to go and office politics sent me careening. The prayer blocked the bad thoughts until day came. These days when I walk I say thank you.
And thank you for this meditation. Bless you.