Spiritual growth...while you wait
by Stephanie Piper
Is it possible to practice something faithfully every day for six years and actually get worse at it?
The experts tell me it depends on how I define worse. Which I shouldn't be doing, anyway. Don't define, and don't judge performance. Suit up and show up.
The ancient discipline of centering prayer is full of contradictions. By modern standards, it's downright counter-intuitive: the more effort you expend in getting it right, the farther you move from getting it, period.
The Desert Fathers and Mothers of early Christianity believed it was a path to contemplation, a way to union with the Divine. They lived in caves and fasted a lot and detached, both literally and figuratively, from worldly things.
Once the province of full-time ascetics, centering prayer has enjoyed a recent resurgence among ordinary, non-hermit types. There are workshops and seminars. There are retreats at monasteries and 10-day intensive sessions.
All of which is great, except that in the end, I'm back at the starting gate. It's me and the lighted candle and the timer set for 20 minutes. And the silence.
The books spend a lot of time explaining what centering prayer is not. It's not transcendental meditation. It's not a relaxation technique. It's not yoga.
It's a decision to be present and attentive to whatever God chooses to communicate. Since his language is silence, this means you have to be very quiet to hear it.
Shutting out external sound is not difficult. I choose a quiet place at a quiet time—the living room at 6 a.m. The problem is the non-stop carnival of distractions I carry within.
The experts say to picture your thoughts as boats floating down a river. Stand on the bank and watch them pass. See them, and let them go. Detach. Breathe. Wait.
Every day for six years I have sat in the morning stillness, waiting. At the beginning, I sometimes felt a tiny intuition of what spiritual writer Thomas Merton called "a hidden wholeness." Then, for a long time, nothing. The first 20 years are the hardest, someone wise told me.
Am I becoming a better person? I have no clue. I have not gone to Calcutta to work with the dying. I have not retreated to a cave, although there are moments when the idea appeals to me. I am perhaps marginally less judgmental. I am slightly less inclined to believe that the person ahead of me in the bank line has chosen a complicated transaction simply to annoy me. In the past six years, I have faced personal storms that might have knocked me flat; I'm still here.
So I keep showing up. Most days, a whole regatta of boats sails through my consciousness. Is my plaid skirt clean? Did I pay the phone bill? Are my kids safe? What a failure you are, sneers an inner voice. Try something else.
Still, I persist. Something is there, moving towards me at its own timeless pace. Something is there, exhorting me. Wait.
The Christmas I was six, my mother took me to Macy's in New York City. We whirled through the revolving doors and paused for a moment at the edge of the shimmering chaos.
Listen to me, she said in her This Is Important voice. It's crowded here. If you get lost, don't move. Be still, and I will find you. No matter how long it takes, remember: I am on my way.
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