Buechner: Lord's Prayer

Buechner: Lord's Prayer

“In the Episcopal order of worship, the priest sometimes introduces the Lord's Prayer with the words, ‘Now, as our Savior Christ hath taught us, we are bold to say..."’

 Frederick Buechner, originally published in Whistling in the Dark from Frederick Buechner Center, Frederick Buechner Quote of the Day.

Annunciation by John Collier at St. Gabriel's Church, McKinney Texas

Buechner is reminding us of how bold we are to say perhaps the most recited Christian prayer. Of course, it is not really just a Christian prayer for it was written by a Jewish Rabbi telling other Jews how to pray. My experience is that whenever I visit the sick or homebound or those in need, no matter what their mental state, they say or show some awareness of the Lord’s Prayer. I have seen those who seem unresponsive, twitch or move a hand or mouth a word or have a change in cardiac rhythm or even begin praying when we close our prayers with this prayer. It is powerful and perhaps one of the last parts of our memory to leave us.

Buechner, however, is emphasizing the prayer’s boldness. If we could only find a little of what we are praying for in this prayer in our lives, the world would be dramatically changed, “turning our lives and our wills over to the care of God, ” as did Mary,  as do those in 12-step programs pray daily, also asking for forgiveness, forgiving, asking to be delivered from evil, and so much more.  

When spiritual friends ask how to find God, I have suggested for them to pray the Lord’s Prayer as a part of a rule of life at designated times during the day that work best for them until we meet again. I will do the same, and we can compare notes.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

Paulsell: Rereading

“ In a course on contemplative prayer, I assigned just six books. – and we read them each twice.”

Stephanie Paulsell, “ Faith Matters, Reread it again, The inexhaustible spiritual practice of rereading,” Christian Century,  January 17, 2018, p. 27.

Bill Murray taking music lessons in movie, Ground Hog Day

There are so many books I want to read. When friends tell me they are rereading a book, I roll my eyes away from them and wonder about all the  other books they are missing. Stephanie Paulsell, a professor at Harvard Divinity School, tells me to roll my eyes back toward my friends and listen to what they are learning. 

Certainly we all have experienced studying again the most reread book, the Bible,  especially if we try to follow a systematic study of yearly lectionary readings. It never fail that we see things the second or third or tenth time that  we never saw or heard previously, probably because our life experiences and concentration are different. How could we have missed before that word or that meaning or what that person was doing?

During this year  I have been blogging about spiritual direction and  reconnecting  to authors and books I have read  in the past that have been meaningful to me. I am rereading material I underlined a year ago or ten years ago and sometimes fifty years ago. As Paulsell suggests, I have become more intimate with the texts and am called to practice more intently some of the teachings presented, “continuing to see  things I have not seen before.  The authors and their books for some reason now more deeply intersect with my life.”  I must admit that yes, rereading and reconnecting  to writers is remembering truths I have forgotten and seeing truth which I previously overlooked. I would compare it to Bill Murray’s experience in Ground Hog Day .

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

Rohr, deMello, Thich Nhat Hanh: The YHWH Breath Prayer

Rohr, de Mello, Thich Nhat Hanh: The YHWH  Breath Prayer

“A rabbi taught this prayer to me many years ago. The Jews did not speak God’s name, but breathed it with an open mouth and throat: inhale—Yah; exhale—weh. By our very breathing we are speaking the name of God and participating in God’s breath. This is our first and our last word as we enter and leave the world.”   Richard Rohr, Daily Meditations, February 11, 2017, Center for Action and Contemplation

 The Indian Jesuit priest, Anthony de Mello, is another who spoke and wrote about connecting to our breathe, being aware of our breathe. This spiritual exercise can be done in periods of contemplation or in short bursts, waiting in traffic, waiting in line at the grocery store, dressing our children, walking down the hall, waiting for a meeting. De Mello writes in his first published collection of Christian spiritual practices integrated with eastern contemplation, Sadhana, A Way to God, that being aware of our breathe is connecting us to our body, which grounds us. Most of us live in our head which, for me, so often is not connected to the body. Our head talks to us about the past and the future.  Being grounded in the body connects us to the present, and that is where C S Lewis as well as so many others believed that God most often meets us, in the present moment.

De Mello recommends not thinking about the air in our lungs, but trying to be aware and  feel the air in our nostrils, whether it is warm or cool.  Is the temperature different for the air that we inhale and the air we exhale? We are not to exaggerate our breathing but to try to let it be natural as we concentrate on an awareness of our breath.

Thich Nhat Hanh in The Long Road Turns to Joy  also uses our breath as an awareness in walking meditation. He  writes about practicing conscious breathing as we walk, how many steps we take as we breath in and how many we take as we breath out. My best experience is breathing in on my right foot and breathing out with my left. Trying to stay conscious of my breath as I walk, quiets my head, connects me to my body and helps me to be aware of what is happening just in this present moment.

Joanna       joannaseibert.com