Random Musings from a Doctor's Chair

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

Return to our senses- a book review

Christine Sine, executive director, liturgist and chief gardener of Mustard Seeds Associates and her blog Godspace is a one of the innovators of the contemporary Christian contemplative tradition. In this delightful book which is aptly named Return to our senses: Re-imagining how we pray, Christine challenges our perception of how and why we pray. Christine argues that though there is great value in verbal prayers, there is more to praying than using our cognitive “senses.” To her, our sense of sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste are also means to praying. Christine is not advocating a New Age (or Old Age) spirituality but a return to appreciate the works of our Creator God by using all our senses which he has created to connect with him. To do that, Christine introduces us to some ancient Christian prayer practices that use one or more of our senses as means to prayers. Christine notes that

This is the question that I think is at the heart of the gospels and that is the premise for this book. Prayer is not about trying to get God to listen to us. Nor is it about trying to make God spend more time with us. Prayer is about sharpening our awareness of the God who is already in us and around us, present in every moment and every activity of the day. Waking up to, living in to and sharing the love of God is the heart of prayer (4).

In other words, prayers is relating to God in our mundane everyday life. It involves us being aware of our breathing (or the way we breathe), having sacred spaces, listening, seeing with “new” eyes and walking with our legs and our fingers! This book is a potpourri of Christian prayer practices, quotations and poetry from various sources, and also a collection of her own poems and prayers which are inspiring and edifying. Christine repeatedly emphasized that prayer is meeting God in the ordinary. I like the illustration she shared about making Chinese tea (not Japanese) using Chinese teapot and tea leaves,

Like teapots, we're each unique, fragile vessels created to contain one essence, that of our Creator. Over time the flavor of God intensifies in our lives as the Spirit seeps into our pores and transforms our nature, making us more like the Creator in whose image we are formed. Like the tea leaves, we are also unique, each variety requiring a different processing and brewing technique that results in the perfect cup of tea.

When we first encounter the Risen Christ, a cleansing is in order. Like leaves rolled tightly into little balls and dried by the edge of the road, we've collected dust, dirt, and contaminants that alter our flavor… As Jesus' life is poured out on the cross, his life, love, and sacrifice infuse our lives, cleansing us of the filth that clings so closely in every wrinkle and crevice of our withered lives. Like the tightly rolled leaves, we expand, allowing God’s Spirit to reach more and more of our being. Rinsed in Christ, we are now ready to be used by God… When another type of tea is used in the pot, the flavor is corrupted. So it is with our lives, when we permit the flavor of God to mix with greed, nationalism, lust, and a whole host of other gods. When this happens the tea poured out tastes “off”. Something is wrong (71).

This book is a rich resource for various Christian practices in praying with our senses and it is wonderful and surprising to discover the varieties of forms and practices of praying that other Christians use. Not all the practices mentioned are ancient. Christine also includes Facebook, blogging and ‘praying on the go’ to use in our modern busy connected lifestyles. Prayer is not just building an exclusive relationship between God and us but should translate into action and love for others. The last four chapters of this book move into advocacy of some sort of creation care.

This is a good book for an overview of contemplative prayers in the post modern or post-postmodern culture. It also has suggestions as how to practice these prayers and I recommend it for reading and practice during this Advent season.

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Labels: Contemplative, Prayer, Praying

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Is it Dangerous to Pray the Jesus Prayer?

The Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer newsletter answers the question.

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have Mercy on Me, a Sinner” or just “Lord, Have Mercy”

Some of our FaceBook friends have been discussing whether or not the Jesus Prayer is safe for “ordinary” people to practice. Is it OK to say it if you are not a hermit, monk or nun? Are there any dangers? Is it necessary to have a Spiritual Guide?

For answers, we look to the practitioners of the Jesus Prayer in some of the world’s oldest active monasteries, and to the spiritual guides we met while filming and writing. Please see the "Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer" movie and book for more information.

Sister Maria at Agapia Monastery in Romania described the prayer rope a novice nun receives when she is tonsured (officially accepted into the community, with vows) “They say ‘take brother or sister. Take this Sword of the Holy Spirit’ and always wherever you go and walk, or when you eat and so on, and even in your sleep, always recite this prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ Son of God have mercy on me a sinner.” Father John asked her if ordinary people could pray the Jesus Prayer. She said, “Of course, everybody could. I heard spiritual fathers, famous spiritual fathers, even by radio say everybody should recite this prayer. Why not?” Dr. Norris Chumley asked her about the key points in the Jesus Prayer. Sister Maria explained, “the key, the soul of the prayer is repentance. If you repent yourself it is the beginning… repentance is a resurrection. Repentance is the beginning until the end, repentance, repentance!”

Others, such as Father Ephraim, the Abbott of Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos, in Greece, cautioned us about the necessity of a spiritual father or mother. He made the point that it is OK to occasionally say the Jesus Prayer, but that continued recitation of it, in combination with breathing exercises and special postures (that of a hesychast, or tonsured monk or nun) must be done with guidance. He said in affect “it could be dangerous to try to be a monastic outside a monastery.”

Benedicta Ward, an historian of the religious life, tells us, “The monks went without sleep because they were watching for the Lord; they did not speak because they were listening to God; they fasted because they were fed by the Word of God. It was the end that mattered, the ascetic practices were only a means.”

It is in this spirit that many monks and nuns today believe the practice of the Jesus Prayer is something that ought to be undertaken with expert guidance—and this presumes a monastic context where the novice can call upon the advice of someone who is deeply grounded in the spiritual life, who can steer the novice around the spiritual pitfalls that lie along the way. The monks and nuns have encountered people whose zeal perhaps exceeded their wisdom, who would accept no guidance in the delicate mental and ascetical paths that make up a spiritual psychology, and so they are reticent about encouraging inexperienced souls to begin a life of intense prayer.

The late Archimandrite Teofil, the Starets or Spiritual Guide of Brancoveanu Monastery in Romania rather rebelliously taught us that anyone can practice the Jesus Prayer. He explained that it is not Jesus Christ’s prayer, but a prayer used by His followers, and possibly first uttered by an Apostle. He went on to say that the purpose of the Jesus Prayer is “to make a link between prayer and mind, between mind and heart, between the power that thinks and the power that loves. So the mind that goes down into the heart is not an activity of the human being, it is a work of God. What we are doing is that we pray to God for the unity of our own being, the whole being.”

Both Father John (an Orthodox priest) and Dr. Norris practice the Jesus Prayer, but not as monks, and not employing the breathing and posture techniques advocated for monastics by such saints as St. John Climacus, St. Symeon the New Theologian or St. Gregory Palamas. It might be of interest to you to research their writings on the subject of the Jesus Prayer, as well as in the “Philokalia.” There are several good books on the Jesus Prayer, such as “The Way of a Pilgrim,” author unknown, “The Art of Prayer,” compiled by Igumen Chariton, “On the Prayer of Jesus” by St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, and a recent book, “The Jesus Prayer: The Ancient Desert Prayer that Tunes the Heart to God” by Frederica Mathewes-Green.