is much in Scripture about God coming to people in stillness. Our difficulty is that modern life tries to keep us constantly on the go, and we are in the habit of filling our airwaves with noise. We have to make a conscious effort to get away from life’s muzak and listen. When we do that, we discover another problem: we don’t always want to engage in stillness because we fear what we may discover about ourselves. We have to remember that God knows us in the depths of our being, and loves us as we are: ‘You are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you’ (Isaiah 43.4). That doesn’t mean that we don’t need to change, but that we don’t need to wait until we have before we can enjoy God’s company. If there are areas within ourselves which need to be dealt with, it may be wise to wait until we can work with a trusted guide.
Stillness and silence are states we have to learn to relax into, rather than screwing ourselves up to find them, and there are various techniques which may help:
Find a place where you can be relaxed, yet alert. Some people find it helpful to have a particular place in house or garden which they regard as their prayer place.
Decide how long you are going to spend in this way of prayer.
Light a candle, play some music, use a relaxation exercise to help mind and body to settle.
Read a short passage of Scripture, select a thought or phrase from it; or use a sentence from a hymn or a prayer. Repeat the phrase gently, in time with your breathing.
Let yourself become still; let God hold you in love.
When thoughts do wander, gently re-establish the phrase (or ‘rhythm prayer’ as some people call it) and allow yourself to become still again. Don’t worry if your thoughts wander off. We are usually not very good at concentrating in the normal course of events, and we don’t suddenly change when we decide to pray. Wandering thoughts are not something to feel guilty about.
At the end of the allotted time, gently bring yourself back to awareness of what is around you. (You may need to set a timer or an alarm, but put it in another room, so that it doesn’t jolt you back into ordinariness.) Perhaps play some music again, to help you adjust.
Say a brief prayer of thanksgiving for the opportunity to be still, and for God’s presence with you.
Don’t worry if nothing much seems to have happened. Prayer is God’s gift to us: what we have to do is open ourselves up to the possibility of receiving the gift, and leave the rest to God.
Disclosure
Prayer is like watching for the
Kingfisher. All you can do is
Be where he is likely to appear and
Wait.
Often, nothing much happens;
There is space, silence and
Expectancy.
No visible sign, only the
Knowledge that he’s been there
And may come again.
Seeing or not seeing cease to matter,
You have been prepared,
But sometimes, when you’ve almost
Stopped expecting it
A flash of brightness
Gives encouragement.3
Note
3 Watching for the Kingfisher, p. 31.
Carrying prayer around
When people talk about prayer, it often sounds like a specialized activity. There are many techniques and methods we can use. But as we grow in prayerfulness, we have to learn to take prayer out of the speciality range into general use, to learn how prayer can be a way of life.
Paul said, ‘Pray without ceasing’ (1 Thessalonians 5.17). We might feel like responding with, ‘You must be joking – I’ve got far too much to do to be able to indulge in prayer all the time.’ And at one level that’s true. There are things we have to do which demand all our attention. I’m glad when people do pay attention to what they are doing. I wouldn’t thank my dentist, for example, if he did anything other than keep his mind on the job!
There is an old saying in Latin, laborare est orare – to work is to pray. Doing what we have to do wholeheartedly is prayer. When our lives are offered to God, every part of our life is part of that offering.
Brother Lawrence was a Carmelite monk in the seventeenth century. He was well known for his holiness and his awareness of the presence of God. He wasn’t a scholar or a choir monk, he worked in the kitchen amidst all the demands of a busy monastery. People often think of monasteries as places of calm – those who live in them know that it isn’t quite like that. Communities, like families, have their tensions. In his time monasteries were very busy places, a cross between a Travelodge and McDonalds, catering not just for those who lived there, but for visitors and pilgrims too.
Brother Lawrence believed that it was important to relate all his life to God, work and prayer alike. He said that his method was simple: he would go to the times of prayer required by his monastery, then he would do his work, asking God to help him to stay in God’s presence, and do his work well. When he finished his work, he would examine himself as to how well he had done it. If well, he thanked God, if not, he asked pardon and, without being discouraged, continued to try to stay aware of God’s presence. ‘The time of business does not differ with me from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clutter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquillity as if I were on my knees at the Blessed Sacrament.’
That is the challenge for us all, to learn to live our lives aware of God’s presence. Easier said than done! Brother Lawrence’s way of prayer is sometimes called ‘The practice of the presence of God’. If we are wondering how on earth we can do it, it is worth remembering that the word that we hear as a noun ‘practice’, is also a verb, ‘practise’.
We have to establish the habit of remembering that there is a connection between God and ourselves wherever we are: walking around, relaxing with friends, shopping – now is the time we meet God. Two simple prayers are enough to carry around with us: ‘Thank God’, and ‘Lord, have mercy’. These are the responses we can make to all the circumstances of our lives, for God is concerned with the painful experiences and the hard questions just as much as with the joys and delights.
And God is concerned with the chores too. We can, for example, transform our wait in the supermarket queue by using our imaginations about the people and the trolleys around us. The old man with a loaf and a tin of dog food: what is life like for him? Lord, have mercy on all who live alone. And thank God for the company of pets. The trolley loaded up with drink – is that a celebration, or an addiction? Which prayer do I use? And the mother with screaming children trying to put things she doesn’t want in the trolley – Lord, thank you for family life, and have mercy on parents tried beyond their limits by the demands of small children. The carer taking people with learning disabilities on their
