Prayer and Meditation, Orienting our Hearts and Minds to the Divine
When we think of prayer many of us think of Christian prayers that are either written out or extemporaneous. I believe both are valuable. But every religion has prayer and meditation. It is an act of striving to communicate with our deepest selves as well as the Living Force, the Ground of All Being, the Source of All Life. Every religion from the Far East to Rome to the Bible Belt of the Midwest has references in their scriptures to ‘prayers rising like incense‘ as well as to the importance of meditation. I hope you will join your intentional prayers, meditations, and light to ours by keeping the prayer list from ofNaturesGod.com in your heart and mind.
In this blog, I will give a very brief introduction to prayer and the importance of having a regular time of prayer as part of our Spiritual Discipline and practice. In future blogs, we continue a brief series focusing on prayer and how to “listen with the ears of our heart.” Then we will look at Centering and Mediation. However, because of the nature of blogs, we will only be able to scratch the surface here but we will go into much more detail, for those who are interested and join the ofNaturesGod community through Patreon. We cannot do that here unless that was all that we did here and there is much for us to discuss and many facets of our spiritual lives to cover here.
Indeed most religions have practices that include lighting candles and/or incense during a time of prayer and meditation. This symbolizes that the prayers rise to heaven even as the smoke rises from the candle or the incense. Although I am clear about the Divine Presence is everywhere about us and within us, and that it is the presence in which we live move, and have our being I still light a candle and incense on my home altar each morning. I do that not for God. Not to appease some Divine overlord or make an offering to keep him from smiting me. I do it out of love to help orient my thoughts and my actions for the day to the Divine Presence. As I go about my morning and day seeing the candle or incense burning reminds me of where my heart draws its strength from and that we are not alone. As I light them I say a quick prayer to the Trinitarian Presence as I understand it:
Queen of Heaven,* Lord of Light, Eternal Holy One be with me and guide me this day, strengthen and guide me as I go about my business, and defend and sustain me against all trials.
(or something similar).
For many, prayers of this sort coupled with a quick prayer at bed, rising, and/or before and after meals is the extent of their prayer life. It was the extent of mine when I was a child. My life changed when I was 12 and had my first religious experience and my heart turned more to God. I would like to say I have served th Lord of Life faithfully since but my spiritual life has been ups and downs rising to the gates of heaven and wallowing in the muck of swamps that were largely of my own design.
I want to talk to you about taking your spiritual life deeper.
First, you must understand that we are creatures of habit. Because we are physical creatures ritual is important and has a powerful effect on our spiritual life. That is one thing I like about Catholic services. They are deep in ritual. However, because we are physical creatures we run the risk of going about these rituals habitually without thought and without engaging our hearts or emotions in the actions. Rituals practiced in this way are worse than useless. I say they are worse because following these rituals of prayer or whatever we may do, even attendance at Mass or Worship and service to the poor IF they are done without engaging our hearts, or if they are done as a slave seeking to avoid the master’s punishment, they can give us the illusion that we are doing something “spiritual” and that we are right with God when we are not. However, if we perform the ritual as a way of moving our hearts and consciousness toward the Divine Source they are very powerful. Scott Cunningham, a Wiccan, to be sure has described Wiccan Ritual as Prayer with props. These rituals are powerful as a way to give our body something to do as our mind and heart orient upon the Divine. Similarly, I found that praying the Catholic Rosary sometimes “got my mind out of the way” so my heart could pray directly to my Creator. The Bible says when we are distressed sometimes the Spirit intercedes for us with “sighs to deep for words.” Indeed, it was reading his books on Wicca that made me realize he had directed his heart to that Creative Force that controls and created the universe. A Force that I knew, among other names, as Yahweh or Elohim.
It is possible to “go through the motions” and never orient your heart to this Divine Source. To just do the ritual with your body and mouth while your mind and soul go elsewhere and worry about grocery lists, your project at work, what to feed the kids, or any of billions of questions we could consider instead of touching the Source of Life. Jesus said, many will come to me on that day (when they die and on the day of judgment) and say “Lord Lord!” in joyful greeting and he will say, “Get away from me you doers of iniquity! I never knew you!” Unfortunately, I think many who attend our churches, as well as many who don’t, may be in that group who are rejected. In other words many who follow rituals or religious practices but never engage their hearts or enter into a living interacting relationship with the Divine may believe they are being spiritual because they are doing the right “things” but its like turning on a lightswitch that has no power to it. You can flip the switch all you want – you may do the right thing but the light will not come into your life. You need to complete the circuit and activate the power. The power of our heart, our intention, the emotion and not just of our mind.
I often qoute a diddy that Fr. Hoolighan, an Irish Catholic, once shared with me:
Mr. Business went to church; he never missed a Sunday; But Mr. Business went to hell; For what he did on Monday.
Saint Benedict told us the most important aspect of prayer was not speaking but learning to listen with the ears of our heart. How do we do that? While I will go into more detail in future blogs this question of how do we live, breathe, and pray in the prescence of the Divine is vital to all of us? We will cover that two blogposts from now and go into even more detail in our community. Indeed, that is one of the things I created the ofNaturesGod Patreon community to help with but I will strive to help everyone here in a general way, as I am able: www.Patreon.com/ofNaturesGod
Because we are creatures of habit if we can resist doing things habitually. Doing them without thinking and without engaging our heart or intention and keep our whole existence focused on the Divine then the rituals can actually help us get in touch with our Creator, that Creative Force that brought forth life and ordered all creation.
Time of Prayer and Meditation
If we have and keep a regular time of prayer and meditation our body orients its internal clock toward the Ground of All Being. If you create such a regular habit and you miss your time of prayer and meditation you are likely to have your subconscious remind you, “Aren’t we usually praying or meditating about now?” Similarly, when we enter our regular time with this Living Force, our body, our consciousness, and our soul all naturally orient toward the Source of All Life because doing so has become a living ritual. If we get it into the “habit” of doing so at a particular time our body and consciousness adjust. This does not preclude us from doing so at other times as well for the Divine Presence is always with us. But because we are physical creatures having a regular time in which we are not interrupted, when we consciously turn our hearts toward that Presence in which we live, move, and have our being, is very valuable to us for our spiritual development, our health, our balance, and our resilience in life.
I learned from one of the Saints of the Church to put up a sign to salesmen and people who come to our door (or maybe even to tell family members,) that you are in a time of prayer and not to be disturbed.
“Please Be Quiet and Do Not Knock on the door. I am at my regular prayer time and I will not answer. Please come back later.”
A note like this or something similar can reduce your interruptions. Shut off your phone and shut off the notifications on your computer or go where you cannot hear them to ensure that your full heart and attention can be oriented toward the Divine Presence. If you are distracted by noises outside play soft music without words (that is important because words will distract you – even if they are holy songs.)
I was in deep in prayer and struggling with an issue that I had not talked to anyone but my wife about. My prayer time had actually become kind of a time where I was arguing with God and telling the Creator of the Universe that He/She/It had made a mistake and that I was really not the person to do the job that I felt the Lord of LIfe was pushing me to do. (Yes, I will argue with anyone.) During that time I had a knock on the door! Didn’t they read the note? I usually ignore it but something made me answer this time.
“May I help you?”
“Hi, you probably don’t remember me. My sister brought me with her to your church once last year to listen to your preach and we met briefly after church.”
“Yes, I do actually remember you. How can I help you.”
“Well, I don’t know what you believe about Christianity. I know people have different ways of thinking…”
“Yes,” it was clear to me whatever it was was difficult for her so I thought I needed to say something to help her get out what she was trying to get out.
“Well, I was praying and God told me I need to come here and tell you something. May I tell you his message so God will leave me alone and I can get back to my regular prayers?”
“I think I know what you mean,” I smiled. “Yes, you may tell me what message God has for me.”
“God told me to tell you: ‘You need to accept the power that God wants to give you.’ Does that make any sense to you?”
“Why yes, it does. In fact, I was just arguing with God about that very thing when you knocked. I guess I need to listen and obey instead of arguing. I think God would like me to tell you, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’ That was a very important message to me. Thank you.”
She left and I never saw her again.
But I will never seriously entertain anyone who tries to tell me that the Creator, the Universe, the Ground of All Being, the Source of Life, the very Presence in which we live move and have our being doesn’t care about us and doesn’t interact with us. My entire life is an experience to the contrary and I would say if yours has not been it is not because God doesn’t care about you but perhaps it’s because you are too busy or self-absorbed to hear the Divine Force which may speaking in that still small voice heard by the prophet Elijah in the Old Testament. Quietly speaking, and waiting for you to slow down, be still, and listen.
If you haven’t experienced that, if no one has ever taught you to listen with the ears of your heart, follow me here or join me on Patreon and I will help you learn to listen with the ears of your heart so that we may all grow close to the Source of Life.
[Watch for the upcoming blogs on A Place of Prayer and Listening With The Ears of Your Heart.]
I have to thank you for the efforts you have put in writing this site. I really hope to view the same high-grade content by you later on as well. In fact, your creative writing abilities has inspired me to get my very own blog now 😉
May I simply say what a comfort to discover somebody who genuinely knows what they are talking about over the internet. You actually understand how to bring a problem to light and make it important. More people ought to check this out and understand this side of the story. I cant believe you arent more popular because you surely possess the gift.