Unceasing Prayer

I don’t remember how old I was when I first learned about the Jesus prayer: that ancient prayer, that simple repetition of the words “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”  Or the longer version, “Jesus, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  But I can remember repeating it inwardly, sounding it in my mind, and by the time I was in college, I had read the instructions about coordinating it with the rhythm of the breath. Breathing in “Lord Jesus Christ” and out “have mercy on me,” and usually dropping out that uncomfortable last phrase “a sinner.”  That is, when I remembered to do it.  I would try to remember to do it when I swam laps at the university pool in the winter, or when I was walking to class or to work.  I tried to remember, and sometimes I did, most often I forgot.

In the 1980’s I was told again and again that “sin” was a bad word, bad for my self-esteem, which I was told was all important – what was I doing begging for mercy, I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and by God, people like me.  The prayer, which had once promised such sweetness, became conflicted with the latest sociological fads, and I dropped it for awhile.  Only to pick it up from time to time, in desperate need, in times of terrible turmoil, once again, begging for Christ’s assistance.  The prayer worked subtly to change my way of seeing things, but the old habits of thought would reassert, and the prayer would be lost again for awhile.  The prayer has come and gone from my mind all these years now, but I suspect it never stopped sounding in the secret place where Christ lives in all the baptized.  I suspect this because a couple of years ago, I woke from sleep early one morning with the clear command that I should read the letter to the Thessalonians. Which one?  I didn’t know, so I read them both. And there were two things there that spoke strongly to me: first, the admonition to live a simple life of labor, seeking to serve God in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, and second, the mysterious admonition to pray unceasingly.

This admonition to pray unceasingly, which is also present in today’s Gospel reading, “to pray always and not lose heart,” was taken by early Christians to mean just that, pray constantly.  And many used the Jesus prayer (and still do) in order to try to do this.  Last week’s Gospel contained a version of the prayer, uttered by the lepers when they saw Jesus in the distance, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”  When I read it aloud, I felt it resonate with the repeating Jesus prayer in the heart.  I can see, as I read the New Testament these days, that this admonition to pray always, and the actual phrases of the Jesus Prayer, are found in many, many places in its pages.  How had I missed that all these years?  I was blinded by my habits. New habits bring us into a new land, literally a new habitat.  The Promised Land requires new habits of us, that is why people wandered so long in the wilderness.  The old habits are hard to even recognize, much less to let go of.

Think about this word “habit” for a moment. Habits are related to habitat, to where we live.  Our habits create our habitat.  We live in our habits.  The habitual thoughts that swirl round us, if we nurture them with our attention, will create a habitat in which our mind and heart dwells.  Take, for example, the thought, “no one likes me.”  That creates a definite habitat, one of self-pity and negativity.  One night last summer I found myself alone, no children, no one wanting my attention, and this, for me, is an amazing gift.  No sooner had I settled down for some still and silent prayer than the thought, “no one likes me, that’s why I’m all alone on such a beautiful night.  Everyone else has friends or loved ones to be with, but not me.  Everyone else is out to dinner, or having a barbecue at the lake or out on a boat, but not me.  I’m just sitting here all alone.”  Yuk! What a habitat.  It is all too familiar, I’m afraid.  And it was not going to let me pray, thinking like that.

I reminded myself of the truth, eating out, going out on a boat, even the most exotic, romantic voyage, none of these are anything compared with time in stillness with Christ: I long for times like this, times of quiet, simple solitude, for prayer. The longing is so strong some days I can hardly stand it.  This night is an incredible gift. And I brought to mind the people I know who have infants and toddlers to care for, and my own memories of how that responsibility consumes all time and attention, and I dedicated the night to prayer especially for those who really have no time or space in which to stretch out in stillness.  Because, the truth is, no matter how hard I work in a day and an evening, I still have the night, except for emergencies, I still have the night for quiet and for prayer. The habitat of self-pity tried to reassert itself with various pitiful thoughts, but eventually, when it was not fed with my attention, it drifted away.  With that ghost no longer haunting me, I saw that before me stretched the amazing gift of a night of solitude and stillness, a warm, summer night full of the music of crickets and tree frogs, the wind rustling the leaves.  It was a very different habitat than the one of self-pity into which I was so strongly tempted and could have easily strayed.

Habits are what stewardship is all about.  We all have a host of unexamined habits of thought, habits of feeling, and habits of action.  We create a world by our habits.  I remember picking up a parenting magazine in a doctor’s office years ago and coming across a letter to the editor from a Disciples of Christ minister I knew when I was serving at St. Bede’s Episcopal in Santa Fe.  She was critiquing a recent article about creating good money management habits in one’s children.  She noted that in the entire article, there was not one word written about sharing, nothing about making use of money in order to help others.  That is a reflection of the world in which we are living.  Our habits create our habitat. And parents are being encouraged to raise children without any habits of giving or generosity.  According to that article, the old battle between sharing and “mine” seems to have been given up.  “Mine” has won.

I remember that on the way to church on Sundays when I was a child, my mother would hastily hand me a quarter.  As I grew older, it was two quarters, and she told me that when the collection plate passed, I was to put them in.  She’d watch to make sure that I did hand them over at that crucial moment of the offering.  How strange it was to hold those precious coins for 20 or 30 minutes and then release them from my tight grasp into the plate.  Of course I didn’t want to, but I did.  It was obedience.  I didn’t know why I did it, I just did it because my mother told me to do it.  I listened and I did it.

That is one way habits are built, and that action helped to create a habit in me.  I continued giving to the church, even when my mother was no longer watching, and the discipline has gained more importance the older I get.  The memory of letting go of those coins reminds me of the truth that what we are given in this life, including this very body in which we live, is all eventually given away.  The body is committed to the ground to feed the soil, which nourishes organic life.  And all the accumulated wealth of a person is at last given away, what has not already been given away while the person lived.  There is no holding on to any of this.  And yet, how tightly my fingers still grasp, and how anxiously my mind grasps at notions of security revolving around money.

Rachel was reading a National Geographic article about climate change that had her panicked.  She told me that, according to the article, the population along U.S. coastlines has doubled during the past decades, even though flooding, hurricanes, and other disasters are predicted with greater and greater frequency.  Essentially, the article said there will be more and more Katrinas in coming years.  “What are we going to do?” she asked.  What came out of my mouth was this: we have to practice generosity, compassion and giving now, because, apparently, more and more of this will be expected of us in the future.  We live in a place that will be a refuge for people fleeing those disasters, we have to practice living in such a way as to be able to welcome them and share what we have with them when disaster brings them here.

I don’t know what else to do but follow the guidance of the Gospel.  Other ways may offer greater worldly rewards, but the Gospel teaches that the life and health of the soul are at stake, and that the soul, unlike our worldly wealth and self-esteem, is actually immortal.  So tend to the soul first.  The soul grows strong in the habitat of the Gospel.

Pray unceasingly, live simply and humbly, try to be of service whenever you can, share what you have.  These habits seem to be all about stewardship to me.  As we’re asked to give financially, it is a chance to build some good habits for living generously, and to build a good habitat for ourselves and our children to live in, a more generous and compassionate world to live in.  It is a great opportunity. And not only that, this church does good work in the world.  It is worth supporting.

Amen.

The Rev. Edie Bird
October 21, 2007

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