Developing a lifestyle of prayer…

“Prayer allows us to look through the right “looking glass” and see things more as they actually are. For this reason alone, prayer is one of the most important orientations and practices in our days. In times of blurred vision, we need the right lens. It comes in prayer. Prayer clears off confusion.” That alone would make it one of the most important spiritual practices.”

Prayer still feels like the most important practice to becoming fully human! It opens us to that Divine intersection which transforms us and those around us.
Reading lots on prayer these days. And trying to stay in a playful and prayful orientation. Feels like the most needed inner orientation and constant practice in our times.

Yesterday read a great section from Dallas Willard on integrating the physical body in prayer, as part of what we bring into that position towards Presence. “My soul follows hard after you.” King David said. Prayer transforms us, and puts us in a position to be useful instruments of Grace to others. It was Jesus’ primary practice of often turning towards. Prayer teaches us to govern the soul from our hearts! “Be still, my soul,” David prayed over himself!

To change the outer, we come in prayer to transform and then act from the inner. Jesus prays before temptation, before his own death, and even on the cross we overhear him praying—having that heart to heart with His Father. Authentically talking to His Father. Again, in Jn 17 we overhear Him talking to God about his disciples. Great passage about their unity in love. One of my very favorites!

Anyways, in the light of our times, prayer seems like the most obvious first response. To turn towards often. Pray is that constant authentic talk we have with God which positions us for His Presence to enter and guide and form us. In a world of constant turbulence, it also feels like the best way to stay in Love.

Enjoying studying prayer, as i pray. Prayer is practical, it’s not esoteric, it places us in the right position for our greatest good to occur in us and out towards others!

The priest Henri Nouwen, used to pause in the middle of conversations or meals with people, to make sure he was praying. I like that.

To invite in The Actual Presence is essential for depth of conversation, or even interpreting the latest news. Another practical fruit of prayer—come let us reason together, we gain a larger and more accurate interpretation of events from that prayer space. Puts us in the Peace of His Own Being. Prayer still matters, it’s not just religious!

Prayer is our constant inner orientation from our deeper self towards God. It is a “practice” which turns into a lifestyle.

Prayer is an orientation, and inner attitude towards God of trust and dependency. It has so many fruits: inner transformation, helping get through spiritual warfare, giving us intimacy with other’s real selves, just to mention a few.
Prayer is our constant inner orientation from our deeper self towards God. It is a “practice” which turns into a lifestyle.

Each of us leaves a wake behind us, how love filled it is, is up to us! We invite others into the best of what we carried. This becomes most obvious when we pass…what wake are we building and becoming while here?!

Today felt like I needed to read the beginning of Genesis and the end of Revelation. Then came across this passage where Jesus was asked something, and immediately referred to the garden, and then the new city at the end, to answer it!

We ask our personal questions in a continuum which stretches back to the garden and forward to the new city! The place of complete restoration. And our lives exist somewhere in that tandem between!

When assessing some situation think back to the garden and forward to the new city, and see it in the light of both-the original plan, redemption and the living hope of where the true story is heading. Keep it in that continuum. All the secrets of God are in those two uninterrupted spaces. The light of understanding shines from both ends in The Book.

When they would ask Jesus a question, He would answer in view of the garden, His work on earth and the future city of God. All the patterns of the kingdom are present in those two bookends of history! And all the light we need to contextualize our own stories in the present! Looking backwards and forwards helps contextualize our daily problems was the practical wisdom which came from today’s study!

Find the good soil!
Today, had a fellow come up and genuinely ask a question. So easy to answer a real quest-ion!
Readied soil is the best! Waiting for it is the test..when a person is ready to grow, they come and ask. As do each of us. Then the best seeds of whatever we carry, go right in and bless the good soil of one another!
This happened today, as a young man came up and asked me what he should do next in life-relationally, career wise etc. Easy to answer and get a vision for someone who is truly seeking. It must be like that with all of us.
When we truly authentically seek, we find. There is a law somewhere in there. But for me, it is so much easier to bless those who are hungry to know something. God seems to respond to genuine hunger.
Look for the readied soil in ourselves, and one another! That’s where the new seeds of growth go in and reproduce! Just a little gem from counseling again. I learn so much while helping others grow! Lots this season about how to sow with Wisdom.
Where’s the soil where your real questions in life are churning? That’s a good place to plant new seeds! In ourselves and others!

The weight of our hourly words:
We may not wake up in the same words tomorrow; let today be where we speak in the tones of love, as if for the first time, to one another! Us all friends, from the beginnings, en-toning love’s song to one another as if for the first time.

To move Love’s tone towards one another is everything. It’s the hourly weight of our words.

The weight of our hourly words:
We may not wake up in the same words tomorrow; let today be where we speak in the tones of love, as if for the first time, to one another! Us all friends, from the beginnings, en-toning love’s song to one another as if for the first time.

To bring One’s love tones towards one another is everything.

One way to discern the heart of the matter: what do you really treasure?
Where is a person’s treasure? What do they prize most. Then you can find their real questions more easily. And the way into their answers. When i meet people, i ask, what do they value most? That’s most often where the true dialogue is-the one which God is already having with them. I try to work from there. “Where a person’s treasure is, there their heart will be also.” True that.

Thinking about teaching this week:

I love studying how different cultures learn and teach. I’ve read lots of zen master books on how they teach within their tradition. Not so much their worldview, as how they impart things from teacher to student interest me. Much more embodied and intuitive…using the medium for personal transformation..in their case. The more eastern approach to learning versus Greek. Lots of good books on the Greek versus Hebrew ways of knowing. I like both ways.

The zen teachers were never just learning archery or pottery, they were learning how to learn to live through their mediums.

Yesterday, we were working with a dog trainer, who happened to also be a good teacher. She kept telling us why we were doing this technique in the big picture. If you do this now, then later it will be easier to do this etc. I like learning from teachers who have this built in why of things!

Then you don’t just catch a fish, but learn to fish. Jesus was into that business of empowering them to fish for themselves after He left them. He didn’t just catch the fish for them, though after his resurrection he did once catch and cook the fish for them. He was a great teacher. In His case, his subject and medium was Himself and The Father. Pretty noble subject.

In Zen, to become the bow, the master said, so you yourself are being shot out towards the target. I like that about their way of teaching and learning in that tradition. Still feels true, when the technique gets into your knower and body, you no longer are thinking about your medium, you are thinking through it. And becoming through it.

I feel that way with union with Christ, which is basic Christian spirituality-union with a formation by His Nature and Life- and reading scriptures, eventually they become your internal categories of being and seeing, how you perceive and act in life. You become living words, being written in The Word.

Jesus used all sorts of methodologies to teach, and impart His Way and Life. Sometimes mystical, sometimes didactic. But He was always guiding people towards their real questions, and the Reality of the answers inside His Father. I like studying teaching itself-there’s so much to learn. That joy of imparting why to others, and building solid foundations—working with intermediates and beginners, all unique pleasures in teaching. Fun study this week, on methods of teaching across cultures! Teaching is cool.

What words carry…

In addition to The Word, I’ve always just liked words themselves. Since I was a kid I’ve collected books about the stories of words-i liked etymology more than grammar, but collected both. Word stories are worlds to me.

I remember writing words on my walls as a child, though i got in trouble, i just liked to see them there—believe, beautiful were two I wrote boldly. I remember the joy of all the vowels touching, conjoining into meaning. The word beautiful for instance, felt like I had solved a puzzle, when i finally figured out how to sound it out and spell it well. Abide was another mysterious word world for me—to stay inside of something constantly…

Each word seemed and seems to unlock new realities to me. They carry a whole narrative within themselves. They contour Reality in a uniquely shaped way.

I like language, but even more how a single word can hold a whole world of possibilities. Like the word ponder, even, so simple, but takes us out hovering in all directions. Word, sound, color and image all go together for me, but I often look through the keyhole of a word to find the others.

Interesting that even God Himself called Himself, The Word—the full thought symbol of God with nuanced en-toned. He chose to express Himself in the metaphor of language. The word contained the way, the principle, and the very being. Language still has that glory weight to me. I love words, i hope i’m becoming one as I write. Words still matter and carry densities of meaning, and stories. Each word is some type of gold.