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Sunday, March 17, 2019
“In my best, most alive moments - in my mystical moments, if you want – I have a profound sense of belonging. At those moments, I am aware of being truly at home in the universe… But the fact is that while the rest of the universe moves freely and gracefully in cosmic harmony, we humans don’t. It costs us an effort to attune ourselves to the dynamic order of love.”
Brother David Steindl-Rast, from The Way of Silence
Brother David is talking about God’s love and surrendering to divine providence. The further we venture on this spiritual journey the more we appreciate an underlying order, a divine harmony, of God’s hand in everything. We tend to see ourselves as separate from God, separate from each other, and separate from the world. Since we were cast from the Garden of Eden, we habitually eat from the “tree of knowledge”, dividing the world into this and that, right and wrong, good and evil. We think we understand and control things like Newton’s laws, Einstein’s relativity and grass grows because photosynthesis uses the sun’s energy to synthesize food from carbon dioxide and water. But do we really understand even a single blade of grass? If we look deeply, we see the amazing miracles all around us and have to admit we have really only documented aspects of how God’s awesome universe works, in all its harmony.
Surrendering ourselves to God’s will, His divine harmony, and reaping the ensuing grace that follows this ultimate act of faith, is part of what Brother Lawrence gets at in his 5 th maxim: “A soul depends on grace in proportion to its desire for greater perfection…”. When we separate ourselves from God and His universe, and try to bring about our will, independent form God’s, we suffer. However, when we fall into the harmonious flow and work with God and not independent of Him, His ensuing grace aides our efforts.
As we try to bring about what we believe to be God’s will, we have to open ourselves to His feedback. We must remove our ego from our actions and ensure we are really doing them for God and not ourselves or the opinions of others. Then we will drop into the harmonious flow and stop fighting against it.
Lenten Action
Spend some time in nature. If you can find a sunny spot, sit in a comfortable position and let the sun warm your face. Close your eyes. Scan through your body and relax every muscle. Let go of any tension or stress you are holding. Listen carefully to every sound. Don’t analyze the sounds, just experience them. Watch with your mind’s eye for every new sound as it arises. Listen as attentively as a cat poised at a mouse hole waits for a mouse. Stay there as long as is comfortable.
If you are a regular practitioner of Contemplative prayer spend your normal time in such prayer.
If you are new to silent prayer, sit comfortably in a quiet place, close your eyes and ask God to be with you. Notice your breath. Feel your stomach and chest rise and fall. Repeat silently to yourself, “speak Lord” on your in-breath and “I am listening” on your out-breath. Listen to the silence between the words and breaths. After a while, take a series of breaths without the prayer and continue to listen to God. When thoughts or any mental dialog arise, let them go and restart the prayer for a few more breaths. Then try again without the words. Continue like this for about ten minutes or however long feels comfortable.
Today is not a Fast day or a day to abstain from anything including TV, computer games, social media or other forms of electronic media on your phones and Ipads. Have fun playing in the electronic world if you like, but try to find where God is in all this for you.