 My Russian Blue cat, Birdie, on my lap during Centering Prayer Cats should be the mascot of contemplation.
They have resting awareness down. Some people think contemplation is laziness, but this is far from the truth. “Doing nothing so God can do everything” is hard work! It takes an active, yet relaxed, vigilance to stay present rather than follow the mind into the past or future where regret and worry reign. But like a good Zen master, the cat can teach us. "Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God. Every creature is a word of God," Meister Eckhart proclaimed in the late 13th century. I find this to be true as I spend time with my cat. Listening and watching with the ears and eyes of my soul, I discover she has a lot to teach me. Here's some advice she offers... 5 feline tips for contemplation (also known as "contemplative catnaps"):
Cats make contemplation look simple. While simple, it can be challenging. Surrender and serenity are daily exercises that may look different each day! A routine-loving cat still changes nap spots, so how do surrender and serenity look for you today? Watch a cat for a while and allow the Spirit of God, which enlivens both you and the cat, to speak to you through this furry part of Creation.  Saint Meinrad Archabbey at sunset I was supposed to be traveling today to Saint Meinrad Archabbey for a yearly 4-day Silent Retreat. It's one of my favorite places. I am always excited about facilitating this deep dive into the gift of Silence. Words don't do it justice. BUT the pandemic threw a wrench in my (& everyone's) plans. So, I decided that even though I won't be facilitating a retreat, I can share with you the theme that I picked out for it last year and we can enter into it wherever we find ourselves. We can still pray: "Make me an instrument of your peace." If there's ever been a time to pray this prayer that was written in the spirit of Saint Francis of Assisi, 700 years after his death by Father Esther Couqerel of France in 1912, it is now!
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace Where there is hatred, let me sow love Where there is injury, pardon Where there is doubt, faith Where there is despair, hope Where there is darkness, light And where there is sadness, joy O Divine Master, grant that I may Not so much seek to be consoled as to console To be understood, as to understand To be loved, as to love For it is in giving that we receive And it is in pardoning that we are pardoned And it's in dying that we are born to Eternal Life Amen. ________________ "Blessed are the peacemakers," said Jesus, "for they will be called children of God." To be a peacemaker does not mean:
To be a peacemaker means we not only pray and enjoy peace, but we actively work for peace. For everyone. Not just ourselves. However, receiving inner peace enables us to extend outer peace...hence, the silent retreats. Silence offers an opportunity to slow down, to quiet the outer voices that we may look within and discover the inner voice of the God of Peace. Will you join me in reflecting, meditating, walking, dancing, stretching, playing, singing, resting, and working with this prayer over the next 4 days? Praying it first for yourself and your internal world: Lord, make me an instrument of your peace toward myself... Then praying it for those outside of yourself. Praying it on behalf of not only your family and nation, but the whole world. Praying to embody the words as you come in contact with the world--from those in your own house to the grocery store and social media. Let's breathe in and out the words of the "Prayer of St. Francis" and in so doing, may we become instruments and children of the God of Peace.  "Look deep into nature, and then you
will understand everything better." -Albert Einstein This may very well be one of the reasons Jesus prayed outside so much! Whether on a mountain or on the side of one, in the wilderness, desert, or garden, Jesus found quiet places in creation to be alone with God the Father. He also encouraged people to observe nature to discover the deeper messages and invitations of God, instructing them to "notice how the lilies grow" or "look at the birds in the sky." (Matthew 6:25-34) All of nature is speaking! Whether individual parts or the rhythms and cycles of creation, if we observe using all of our senses and spend some time reflecting, we can discover what nature knows. With notebook or journal in hand, you might try the following prayer exercise and see what the Spirit of God has to say to you about your particular worries, stresses and concerns. What wisdom for your life is to be discovered in a single acorn or the falling leaves? Find out! How would you describe your November and December?
Now shift your attention from your own experience of November and December to nature's experience.
Give thanks for God's gift of (and the wisdom found in) nature! If there's a way to bless and care for creation, do it!  You may not be ready to go on a silent retreat or sit in 20 minutes of meditation, but how about trying a taste? It's easy.
And since it's the season of pumpkin everything, let's try tasting silence through a slice of pumpkin pie! If you're not a fan of pumpkin pie, think of another food or drink you really enjoy. Now if you have a real slice of pie, great! If not, imagine tasting that first bite. Notice the flavors, texture, and temperature on your tongue. Allow yourself to savor the next few bites without rushing. What do you notice about the pie (or whatever you're savoring) that you may have missed if you had hurried through each forkful? Food and drink can rarely be savored when speed is involved, the same is true with silence. How do we taste and savor silence? With our ears. Ready to give it a try?
What do you notice now that you did not notice before you stopped and listened? Where did certain sounds come from, which ear did you hear them through? What sound most grabbed your attention? If in a quiet place, did you notice the sound of your own breathing? What was it like to do nothing but listen? How did your mind and the rest of your body respond? This is being present. It's a meditation practice. And yes, it counts. True, it's a great way to enter into a silent retreat or centering prayer meditation but if it happens to be the only spiritual practice you consistently engage this week or this month, that's fine! Just taste and see how pausing to listen and savor the sounds around you affect your soul. You never know, the next time you stop and savor the silence, you, like the prophet Elijah, may hear God's voice in a gentle whisper!  A poem I wrote right after a time of listening prayer six years ago. It recently came to mind as I was thinking about meditation. Meditation can calm the mind. In doing so, perhaps it offers an opportunity for the soul to remind us of what it's known & trusted since we were ages five and one!
God, I pray that Lainey and Alex come to know You They already do. Okay God, then I pray they come to trust You. They already do. Then God, help them not to forget. (Pause) Amen.  My son was angry about getting family photos taken. This probably isn't far off from the way I looked on my own rage-filled day when I finally admitted all my ways of prayer had stopped "working." A poem written in 2013 about what led me to meditation & other contemplative practices years ago.
All my old ways of finding God kept failing And one rage-filled day I stopped trying Sat down wondering if I was worth finding Let go of seeking and began trusting And breathing. Many are the ways seeming right to a man I started recalling My ways kept putting me in charge of the finding who the Psalmist found futile escaping.  After a conversation with a man who said he was only interested in meditation if it led to levitation, I went home and wrote this short poem in the fall of 2013.
A man once asked me Will meditation lead to levitation? “I don't think so,” I said, “I've been trying to rise above my faults and weaknesses for years!” One day in silent prayer on my quest toward the clouds to touch the face of God I looked down. There I saw Jesus with rolled up shirt-sleeves, mud up to his elbows standing in the place I'd just left. I don't know about levitation but meditation led me back to the sod, for in the place of fault and weakness I saw the face of God. Leaves Floating on the Stream of Consciousness: Dealing with Distractions during Meditation9/26/2017
 If the image of traffic was too stressful for you last week, here's a gentler way of viewing the distractions that arise during our time of meditation. You'll especially like this image if you are a fan of fall (like I am)!
Picture each distraction, whether it's an external noise or an internal thought, feeling, memory, image, or bodily sensation, as leaves floating down your stream of consciousness. As we close or lower our eyes in meditation, we turn our attention from engaging what is going on outside of ourselves to an awareness of what is going on inside of ourselves. And guess what? There's usually plenty going on! Should we be surprised?! Besides the movie reel of images, here's a peek at what floats down the stream of my consciousness: This quiet is so nice! Is that a leaf-blower? I need to figure out how to... I need to email ____, ____, and ____ as soon as I'm done with meditation. I forgot to drop that card in the mail! Yes, that's what I'm going to fix for dinner. Oh, that's how I can do... Am I breathing deeply? Why do I feel anxiety right now? I need to get that event on the calendar. Should I scratch that itch on my face or wait until it goes away? I am still angry about what happened last week! I wonder what they thought about what I said. He had such a great idea, I'd never thought of that before! Here's an idea as to how to open that class...perfect. Why didn't I think of that last week? That author's theology is way off... This theological issue is a tough one... I need to get snacks for the baseball game tonight. I need to use the restroom, should I just wait or pause the meditation timer? I'm really enjoying the changing shadows and light from the sun through the trees. She's really hurting, how can I help her more? Why didn't she text me back? My hands feel hot, wonder what that means. I'm still laughing about what he said. Why can't I be more peaceful today? I'm not good at meditation at all! I should be better at meditation given I'm a teacher of it! I just felt completely calm for a minute there. Why can't I have more than a minute of my mind at rest? And that's just a peek at one 20-minute session of Centering Prayer! Now some days I let those thoughts, feelings, images, and bodily sensations just float on down the stream of consciousness. But other days I lean over and pick a leaf out of the stream and begin examining it! Pretty soon, I've left the present moment of calm awareness and am meditating on and mulling over whatever that particular thought or feeling presented. In that moment, instead of consenting to God's presence and action in my life, I've picked up control again! I'm running back to the past or into the future. My ego mind does not believe I have time for meditation. It does not trust I can survive (or perhaps the deeper issue is it doesn't feel I will be loved) without doing, planning, figuring out, being hyper-vigilant about, actively seeking a solution to, or at least evaluating how I am doing with something...even if it's meditation! When I become aware that I've left the time of calm awareness and consent (sometimes it takes a few moments before I notice), the noticing itself acts as a release. Setting that leaf back down in the stream, I often "come home" to being with God by gently saying a sacred word. This sacred word or phrase might be Love, Jesus, Peace, Breathe, Thank You, Be Still... For me, my sacred word happens to be Home. This word grew out of a year of reflecting on the Prodigal Son and my own mind's tendency to run away. Other times I "come home" by listening to the sounds in the room or even my own breathing. My practice looks different every day. The stream may be pretty crowded with leaves while other times I am aware of just a few floating gently by. Some days I find myself leaning over and picking up leaf after leaf. Other days I find there are only a couple of leaves grabbing my attention. No matter! The leaves and what I do or don't do with them don't represent success or failure (such evaluation is an ego/conceptual mind game!). This is just how my practice looked on a particular day. I may have had forty-seven opportunities to come home again...what a grace! Or, I may have received the gift of contemplation. Resting in front of the deep hearth within, gazing out the window at the beautiful fall leaves floating downstream.  Once you close or lower your eyes during your time of meditation, you're bound to deal with inner traffic! What are you to do?
Do you yell at it for existing? Just as you wouldn't literally stand on a sidewalk and yell at traffic for existing (although sometimes it's tempting), there's no need to yell at the traffic within you for being there! It's simply doing what it normally does. Having inner noise with it's plethora of racing and honking is part of being human. Do you run out into it? We tell kids not to! However, sometimes in meditation it may indeed feel like we're caught up in a dizzying array of thoughts and feelings whizzing past us or we're trapped in the middle of a traffic jam with no way out! Whether it feels like there's no way out or you've got internal vertigo, allow yourself to come back to center through your body. You might gently return your attention to your breath, listen to the sounds in the room, relax your eyes, or ever-so-lightly correct your posture by dropping your shoulders or straightening your slumped spine. Very simple body awareness can return us to a state of noticing the traffic rather than being one with it! Do you try to jump in one of the cars or climb on the bus? If it's moving, it can be especially dangerous! Whether parked or already in motion, during meditation this is what is called "finding yourself engaged in a thought or feeling". At this point you've not just noticed the cars moving across the highway of your consciousness, someone yelled out the window inviting you to hop on in and the next thing you know, you're in the passenger's seat! You may have even taken the wheel! No worries, though. You're not being forced to go anywhere against your will! Simply return to your sacred word (if engaging Centering Prayer), your calming/meditative image, your breath, or what you hear in the room. You may find yourself doing this again and again, during your time of meditation, especially when traffic is heavy! That's okay. Each time you do, you freely choose the way of life by coming back to the present moment rather than speeding off into the future or heading back to the past. When it comes to inner traffic, meditation invites us to simply be aware of it. Let each taxi, moped, jeep, and minivan come and go. Know that some days or times of day you may be in the middle of rush hour. Other days may be lighter traffic. Some vehicles may take longer to drive by than others. No need to lose heart. God's love is boundless, encompassing you and every thought, feeling and bodily sensation that arises, endures, and passes away. And there is nowhere these cars, trucks, vans or buses can take you that God is not! |
AuthorKasey is a scarf, ball and club juggling spiritual director just outside of Nashville, TN. Play helps her Type-A, Enneagram 1 personality relax, creating space for poetry and other words to emerge. She also likes playing with theological ideas like perichoresis, and all the ways we're invited into this Triune dance. Archives
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