Being Prayer

On Stillness as Spiritual Practice

Jul 23, 2005

Saying For Today: In stillness we receive; we reverence the freedom of the external world to be itself, fulfilling its purpose in the divine order of creation.

We are called to stillness. Stillness is our divine vocation, our ordination. Out of the Divine Darkness comes the summons to rest in the Field of Abundance (Cf. Psalm 23). To feed slowly and deliberately in the green fields. To sharpen awareness. To undergo slow and joyful growth. To expand organically, from within. To ripen in waiting. To linger consciously and willingly in the soil of hibernation. To gaze with wonder upon the creation taking place inside us and outside us. To live in the Source, not entangled in Its manifestations. To love the Nameless, becoming unattached to the named and names.

This is not an escape, as many assume; this invocation is to an inscape. This inscape is the Grand Return, returning Home, returning to the Source.

Living in stillness is simple, but costs our trusting surrender. Surrendering ourselves is the sole path to stillness of soul.

I often practice a meditation of simple awareness, which I share in the Spiritual Exercise for today. This meditation entails being still and quiet, while receiving the sensory happenings within and around oneself. After the body is relaxed and the mind stilled, we open up to whatever happens about us. Sensations on our body become present to awareness. So do ticks of a clock on the wall, the wind blowing outside, the bark of a distant dog, the humming of a refrigerator, the sound of the air coming from an overhead vent, a pressure somewhere in the body, neighbors talking, a car passing by,... We resolve not to be judgmental or angered at a "disturbance." If the telephone rings, we appreciate its unique quality.

This meditation invites me to enjoy a spiritual workout, strengthening muscles of detachment, aimlessness, and impersonalization. Likewise, this is an exercise in realizing religion and spirituality is not a me-against-the-world or us-against-the-world matter. Healthy religion is world affirming, accepting, optimistic, and celebrates the natural order of things, as well as that all creation arises from the Creating Energy we call by many names.

Stillness is not trying to arrive anywhere; it is being where the Self is and trusting the process. Most of all, we are not trying to control anything within or outside ourselves. In stillness we receive; we reverence the freedom of the external world to be itself, fulfilling its purpose in the divine order of creation.

In stillness, we learn to respect creation and ourselves as part of that creative, dynamic organism. We own our limits and lack of control over life. We embody the truth that inner freedom is wed to outer freedom. We cannot enjoy freedom while trying to control others or the creation. Individual freedom of the Self reaches out in oneness to the freedom of the world soul, which includes all beings in this world and elsewhere, too.

Spiritual Exercise

1. Sit. Relax. Close your eyes. Breathe naturally, through the nostrils, from the space just above the abdomen. Relax. Relax. Relax. Sense yourself in the body; sense the environment. Sense how it feels to be lying or sitting where you are, now. Keep resting. Accept whatever sensation, thought, sound, … arises. Do not cling to it. Let all go, like a stream flowing by. Honor your lack of control over the process. Do not say a prayer, rather, be prayer. Do this exercise for fifteen to twenty minutes.
2. How does the above exercise teach a contemplative meaning of the Incarnation, or Word in Flesh?
3. If you approached life as the above exercise teaches, how would that transform you and your experience of the world, as well as your relationships with other persons?
4. What does it mean to be prayer?
5.How might being prayer transform the way we say prayers?
6.How is creation really Creation, nature really Nature, that is, an ongoing manifestation of the Spirit of Life?
7. How might we see all creatures as being prayer, by living out their place, alongside us, within the whole of Nature? How,then, might prayer be a joining in the prayer of all other creatures, all Creation?
8. If God is not in all Creation, then, where is God?
9. If God is everywhere, then, how does that shape our theology and, likewise, our practice of prayer, as well as our relationship to all persons and peoples?

Prayer
Teach me to be.
-Brian K. Wilcox

OneLife Ministries is a pastoral outreach and nurture ministry of the First United Methodist Church, Fort Meade, FL. For Spiritual Direction, Pastoral Counseling, spiritual formation workshops, Christian meditation retreats, or more information about OneLife, write Rev. Dr. Brian K. Wilcox at briankwilcox@comcast.net.