In response to my post on God's stickiness - or lack thereof - Jillian writes this:
At times, when I feel unable to reach that inner place in which prayer is completely genuine, freed of worldly dross, when I feel blind to its perspective and overrun by worldy and selfish concerns, I find a quiet place and read a little in some book or certain kinds of music. Julian of Norwich's "Revelations of Divine Love" is a marvel, sometimes the Bookmark of Teresa of Avila is quite enough. ('La pacienza todo lo alcanza'.) The great mystics are the experts and great teachers of prayer; it is their art and science, after all, and one should learn from the best.
There is an wonderful Jewish literature on the tension/conflict between prayer and worldly living. It's formulated as a polarity of 'keva' (discipline, i.e. mandatory regular ritual) and 'kavanah' (intention, i.e. ability to bring passion and attention into prayer). I recommend Abraham Joshua Heschel's "God In Search of Man" as one of the great religious texts in this and many other regards. (Don't worry about your Christian convictions being offended, affected, or contradicted, and there is much you will learn about Jewish religious passion and commitment to Judaism. Pope John XXIII read the book and loved it, telling Heschel to write more books of that quality at the audience Heschel was given in the Vatican.)
Heschel's shorter meditation "The Sabbath" is more explicitly about prayer and greatly
What strikes me over and over again about holy people is the simple persistence in doing little things - being quiet, praying, listening, meditating. I tend to think that I have to do big things to draw me nearer to God. I wonder sometimes if that is because I am afraid what God will do with me in the little things.
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I have enjoyed the two Heschel books mentioned. I also would suggest Thomas Merton's writings and also "The Practice of the Presence of God" by Brother Lawrence, a 17th century Carmelite monk who describes performing the simplest chores as acts of worship if done with the right attitude.
I have also been nourished by the work of Tich Nhat Hanh, the great Buddhist peacemaker. Thomas Merton is a favorite as is St. Therese of Lisieux.
That was beautiful, Jillian.
I pulled out "Sabbath" after reading this post. I have loved that book and you captured one of our great cultural problems. How can we be faithful without the silence? We are so afraid of inactivity, of boredom, of not "doing" enough, but we all long for the silence in one way or another. Every spring I take 40 girls on a retreat and the first thing that happens is - the team (made up of other girls) takes the cell phones. We put them in a bag in the trunk of a car and only I carry a phone after that. If there is an emergency - the parents have my number. I have received 3 calls in three years - non were emergencies. The girls then go through 4 days of silence from the world. they play and laugh and hear stories and there is great intent to it all. Each day is structured - with silence and alone time built in. At the end of the retreat - after we're home - we give the cell phones back. A few eagerly turn them on to hear what's been going on. Some just stick them in their bags and go home. But one girl last year - asked me to keep it until "monday". " I need more time before I come back. "
During Lent I invited my students to turn off everything electronic one day each week of Lent. They looked horrified and one replied that she would rather give up chocolate. St. Teresa of Avila is very important to the religious order for which I teach. I look at her life and she would have had the hardest time giving up the cell phone had there been such a thing. It took her 40 years to discover the silence. Julian - awe - now there was a woman who grasped it and held it - an anchorite - embracing it so completely. Yet she spoke and wrote about the minutes she was close to God - a near death experience at the age of 26. It was so important she had to spend the rest of her life making sense of it.
Our culture demands that we move and act and take in so much stimulus there is no room for the still small voice - we couldn't hear it over the IPOD buds. But perhaps the only thing that renews us is the silence. There's a conversion we could all use.
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