PRAY WITHOUT SEIZING

St. Paul in his first epistle to the Thessalonians declares that "we are to pray without ceasing." Ever since I heard this verse the for the first time I have struggled to understand what exactly this means. Doesn't Paul realize that I have other things to do? I have blog posts to write, facebook status' to check and jobs to fret over. Beyond that, how in the world does anyone do anything without ceasing...let alone pray? Every time I pray the daily office I find I suddenly develop a sort of mystical A.D.D. My mind wanders from things such as what I am going to have for dinner to what did the Ghetto Boys really mean when they said their minds were playing tricks on them. I thought that maybe if I paid closer attention to what I was "praying" that I would be able to enter in on a deeper level. I have tried centering prayer, meditation and contemplation, once again to no avail. I have tried taking some time off from the daily office, no luck. In all these different incarnations of prayer I have felt more like my prayer was seizing as opposed to ceasing. In fact, I was feeling like I couldn't wait until prayer time was over.

Coming to wits end trying to "pray without ceasing" has led me to...well...prayer. I'm not sure if this is what St. Paul meant, but in my frustration in trying to "pray without ceasing" I discovered that the only thing I can do, is pray. One of the priests at my seminary told us a story once about a young man that was unruly in his school and was extremely mean to his classmates. After being dragged into the priest's office (who happened to be the headmaster of the school) the young man declared that he is mean to the other boys because that is part of his nature and identity. The priest challenged him to do something nice each day for a period of time and if he failed to do so, the priest would expel the young man. The young man protested that the priest was asking him to be somebody he wasn't, but to no avail because the priest declared this was not up for discussion. After a year of so of following this ritual of doing a good deed for one of his peers and informing the priest of what he had done every day, the young man actually started to become one of the good guys. Through the repetition of a behavior that initially was a challenge for the young man, he actually became that thing which he had been faking. The priests point in telling us this story was to communicate to us that there are going to be times when you don't feel like praying. He told us when you feel like that, "Just get on your damn knees and fake it!" My initial reaction to this statement was one of judgement and concern. Aren't we supposed to only pray and do pious works when we "feel" like it and when our heart is into it? No. As the people of God we are called to a life of discipline and conversation with the Lord. This does not mean to believe that ones ability to pray everyday should be chalked up as good works, but rather as a person that is able to deny their flesh and to pursue intimacy with the One who has created us.

But what about "pray without ceasing?" Sure, coupled with the grace of God, discipline can help in the pursuit of continual prayers. But still, pray without ceasing? What does that even look like? Thomas Merton, as part of the mystical tradition, discusses this possibility in many of his works. In his book Spiritual Direction and Meditation, Merton argues that prayer stems from our will. He writes:

The distinctive characteristic of religious meditation is that it is a search for truth which springs from love and which seeks to possess the truth not only by knowledge but also by love. It is, therefore, an intellectual activity which is inseparable from an intense consecration of spirit and application of the will...This affective drive of the will, seeking the truth as the soul's highest good, raises the soul above the level of speculation and makes our quest for truth a prayer full of reverential love and adoration striving to pierce the dark cloud which stands between us and the throne of God (55).



For myself, and possibly others, prayer is too much of an intellectual activity. The biggest challenge I find in praying is my struggle with doing it either too often in my head or in my heart. Growing up in a charismatic church I felt pressured to pray only from the heart. As an Anglican, I felt the tug to pray more from the head. I don't believe either of these traditions would advocate for such a practice, but that has been how I have encountered them. The real challenge of prayer for me is to find the mystical "sweet-spot" between heart and head. I think this is what Merton, as well as the others in the mystical tradition are advocating. In the same book Merton offers a beautiful analogy of this process.

Mental prayer is therefore something like a skyrocket. Kindled by a spark of divine love, the soul streaks heavenward in an act of intelligence as clear and direct as the rocket's trail of fire. Grace has released all the deepest energies of our spirit and assists us to climb to new and unsuspected heights. Nevertheless, our own faculties soon reach their limit. The intelligence can climb no higher into the sky. There is a point where the mind bows down its fiery trajectory as if to acknowledge its limitations and proclaim the infinite supremacy of the unattainable God. But it is here that meditation reaches its climax. Love again takes the initiative and the rocket explodes in a a burst of sacrificial praise. Thus love flings out a hundred burning stars, acts of all kinds, expressing everything that is best in man's spirit, and the soul spends itself in drifting fires that glorify the name of God while they fall earthward and die away in the night wind!



St. Paul in his letter to the Philippians states that we are "to be partakers of the divine image." All humanity has been created in the imago dei. If we are called to be partakers of the divine image, then we are to contemplate that part of us that is at the core of our being...namely, God. One can pray without ceasing by always being aware of the divine within themselves and in each-other. This is hard work. The Orthodox refer to this as "hesychasm." It takes a lifetime of commitment, failing, getting up again and continual pursuit of the divine. Because of our finitude it is impossible to reach this perfection of the divine image on this side of the parousia, but we can get real darn close.

UNITE THE CLANS!!!

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CAN WE REPENT FOR OTHER PEOPLE'S SINS?

The other evening some classmates and I were discussing the confession from the Eucharistic Service found in Enriching Our Worship which states that we can and should repent of sins "done on our behalf." So not only are we to confess the sins which we have done, but also those that were done for us. Some immediate examples that come to mind that could be seen as done on "my behalf" would be such examples as slavery, racism, sexism, wars, institutional poverty, xenophobia etc...It's important to recognize that all of those things mentioned are in fact sin, but the question remains whose sin is it? Are we only responsible for those things we have done, or those plus others done on my behalf? How does one determine which sins were committed on my behalf? Because my father was born in Germany, thus making me a German citizen, am I then responsible for the Holocaust? Or, if I shop at Wal-Mart am I condoning the poor treatment of their workers? One more, because I am a man, am I responsible for all the wrong done to women? Where does this all end? On one level, it feels like we could get trapped in playing a game of six degrees of sin separation.

Another fundamental question that must be examined is who do we really sin against? Only that Being which is perfect, blameless and without defect is able to be sinned against. In the greek "sin" is defined as "missing the mark." To miss the mark means that there actually is a goal in which we are aiming to hit. As in shooting a bow and arrow at a bulls-eye, the target does not move. Only that which is immovable can be the target. As St. Augustine points out in The Enchiridion, God is that Being who is unchanging and unmoving. The Psalmist states, "Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment." And St. Luke in his gospel writes, "And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Only He who has been sin against can forgive. Whenever we commit a sin it is against God and God alone. This does not mean however that we can't offend, hurt or wrong another person or groups of people. In fact when we do such things, we are sinning against God. But we must not forget that sin cannot be committed against another human being.

A good friend of mine pointed out that there is a distinction between "evil" and "sin" that must be acknowledge. As fallen human beings we are partakers in a sin nature, which is evil. But evil and sin are not in the same category. Evil is an essence or nature, while sin is a direct action or affront against God. In repentance to God we are conceding our role in sins which we have committed and our Lord in His most gracious love forgives us of said sins. As we see in the Rite of a Penitent found in the BCP, once we have confessed our sins and have received absolution, we are called to forget those actions that Christ has died on the cross for us to wipe out. When we continue to hold onto those sins that we have repented of, we are guilty of declaring that somehow God's grace was not sufficient and we begin to make idols out of our sins. When the priest declares that we are forgiven of our sins we are to allow the Holy Spirit to wipe clean our conscience of its past offenses against God so that we might be freed from our sin. Ones inability to let go of an absolved sin continues to leave their soul wrapped in chains and enslaved.

Finally, even though we might not be able to repent of sins that we have not committed this does not mean that we are to ignore those offenses that we witness within institutions or in our society. We are called to proclaim freedom to the captives and this require us to acknowledge the evil that exists in the world. When we see the evil in the world and ourselves, we are better equipped to offer those things up in prayer and hopefully be empowered to speak out against those things that are contrary to the Will of God. This means speaking out against injustice and oppression as well as being involved in actions that will bring greater attention to those things that God sees as an affront. What is my main concern is that we remember that we can only repent of those sins that we personally have committed against God and that this does not however give us a free pass to remain silent when we see God's Law being violated by institutions. We must keep our categories (i.e. sin and evil) in their proper places or else we begin to misrepresent key understandings of our faith and we must continually hang on to God's promise that He has forgiven us of those things which we have done against Him and Him alone.