"Very often we do not find sufficient intensity in our prayer, sufficient conviction, sufficient faith, because our despair is not deep enough. We want God in addition to so many other things we have, we want His help, but simultaneously we are trying to get help wherever we can, and we keep God in store for our last push. We address ourselves to the princes and the sons of men, and we say, 'O God, give them strength to do it for me.' Very seldom do we turn away from the princes and sons of men and say, 'I will not ask anyone for help, I would rather have Your help.' If our despair comes from sufficient depth, if what we ask for, cry for, is so essential that it sums up all the needs of our life, then we find words of prayer and we will be able to reach the core of the prayer, the meeting with God."
This is my last post in this series. As I read further in Anthony Bloom's book on prayer, I may be moved to post some more selections. Ancient Faith radio also has a new series of podcasts on this book. Go to http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/eastwest
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Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Beginning to Pray Part IV
"This is the point at which we can begin to knock at a door which is still closed, but beyond which there is hope, that hope which Bartimaeus, the blind man at the gates of Jericho, felt, out of his utmost despair, when Christ was passing.
We know from the Gospels that Bartimaeus found himself landed by the side of the road, hopelessly blind, having lost all faith and all hope in human help, and reduced to beg for his living, to hope not really on charity (the word meaning 'cherishing'), but on the kind of charity which consists in throwing coins to someone without ever having seen him. And one day this man, who had now given up hope, who was installed in the dust in his present blindness, heard about the man, a new prophet, who was now working miracles throughout the Holy Land. Had he had his eyes he would probably have got up and run throughout the country to find him, but he couldn't possibly keep pace with this itinerant wonder-maker. And so he stayed where he was, and the presence of one who might possibly have cured him must have made his despair even greater, even more poignant. And one day he heard a crowd that passed by, a crowd which did not sound like any other crowd. Probably, as the blind do, he had developed the sense of hearing and a sensitiveness greater than ours, because he asked 'Who is it that passes by?' and he was told 'Jesus of Nazareth.' And then he stood at the point of utmost despair and of utmost hope. Utmost hope because Christ was passing within reach, but at the background the looming despair because a few paces would have brought Him level with Bartimaeus, a few more paces and He had gone and would probably never pass by him again. And out of this desperate hope he began to cry and shout 'Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.' It was a perfect profession of faith. And at that moment it was because his despair was so deep that he could summon such daring hope in order to be healed, saved, made whole. And Christ heard him.
There is a degree of despair that is linked with total, perfect hope. This is the point at which, having gone inward, we will be able to pray; and then 'Lord, have mercy' is quite enough. We do not need to make any of the elaborate discourses we find in manuals of prayer. It is enough simply to shout out of despair 'Help!' and you will be heard.
We know from the Gospels that Bartimaeus found himself landed by the side of the road, hopelessly blind, having lost all faith and all hope in human help, and reduced to beg for his living, to hope not really on charity (the word meaning 'cherishing'), but on the kind of charity which consists in throwing coins to someone without ever having seen him. And one day this man, who had now given up hope, who was installed in the dust in his present blindness, heard about the man, a new prophet, who was now working miracles throughout the Holy Land. Had he had his eyes he would probably have got up and run throughout the country to find him, but he couldn't possibly keep pace with this itinerant wonder-maker. And so he stayed where he was, and the presence of one who might possibly have cured him must have made his despair even greater, even more poignant. And one day he heard a crowd that passed by, a crowd which did not sound like any other crowd. Probably, as the blind do, he had developed the sense of hearing and a sensitiveness greater than ours, because he asked 'Who is it that passes by?' and he was told 'Jesus of Nazareth.' And then he stood at the point of utmost despair and of utmost hope. Utmost hope because Christ was passing within reach, but at the background the looming despair because a few paces would have brought Him level with Bartimaeus, a few more paces and He had gone and would probably never pass by him again. And out of this desperate hope he began to cry and shout 'Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.' It was a perfect profession of faith. And at that moment it was because his despair was so deep that he could summon such daring hope in order to be healed, saved, made whole. And Christ heard him.
There is a degree of despair that is linked with total, perfect hope. This is the point at which, having gone inward, we will be able to pray; and then 'Lord, have mercy' is quite enough. We do not need to make any of the elaborate discourses we find in manuals of prayer. It is enough simply to shout out of despair 'Help!' and you will be heard.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Beginning to Pray Part III
"Theophon the Recluse says, 'Most people are like a shaving of wood which is curled round its central emptiness.' If we are really honest, we must admit that this is a very apt description of the state of practically all of us.
Then we must be able to fight this anguish and to say, 'No, I will stick it through, and I will come to the point where the anguish itself will prompt me to do what good will is incapable of doing.' Indeed, a moment comes, a moment of despair and anguish and terror, which makes us turn even deeper inward and cry, 'Lord, have mercy! I am perishing. Lord, save me!' We discover that there is nothing in us that can give us life, or rather is life; that all we called life, imagined life to be, was outside and inside there was nothing.
Then we look into the abyss of nonentity and we feel that the deeper we go into it the less there will be left of us. This is a dangerous moment, this is the moment we must hesitate.
At this point we have reached the first layer of depth where we begin to be able to knock at a door. For on the layer where we were just resting from our neighbour before we felt bored, on the layer where we are simply bored and feel offended that we should be, on the layer on which we begin to fidget and worry, then feel slightly anguished, we have as yet no reason to cry and shout with a despair that fills all our mind, all our heart, all our will and all our body with a sense that unless God comes I am lost, there is no hope, because I know that if I emerge out of this depth I will simply be back in the realm of delusion, of reflected life, but not real life.
Then we must be able to fight this anguish and to say, 'No, I will stick it through, and I will come to the point where the anguish itself will prompt me to do what good will is incapable of doing.' Indeed, a moment comes, a moment of despair and anguish and terror, which makes us turn even deeper inward and cry, 'Lord, have mercy! I am perishing. Lord, save me!' We discover that there is nothing in us that can give us life, or rather is life; that all we called life, imagined life to be, was outside and inside there was nothing.
Then we look into the abyss of nonentity and we feel that the deeper we go into it the less there will be left of us. This is a dangerous moment, this is the moment we must hesitate.
At this point we have reached the first layer of depth where we begin to be able to knock at a door. For on the layer where we were just resting from our neighbour before we felt bored, on the layer where we are simply bored and feel offended that we should be, on the layer on which we begin to fidget and worry, then feel slightly anguished, we have as yet no reason to cry and shout with a despair that fills all our mind, all our heart, all our will and all our body with a sense that unless God comes I am lost, there is no hope, because I know that if I emerge out of this depth I will simply be back in the realm of delusion, of reflected life, but not real life.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Beginning to Pray Part II
"So first of all, you must learn to sit with yourself and to face boredom, drawing all the possible conclusions.
After a while this becomes worse than boredom, bcause we are not simply bored in a way that allows us to say 'I am an active person and am of use to my neighbour. I always do good, and for me to be in the state of suspense where I am not doing anything for anyone else is a severe trial.' We begin to discover something else. We are bored when we try to get out of this boredom by turning inward to see if there is anything in ourselves that will put an end to it. Quite soon we discover that there is nothing, since all we have to think about we have already thought about dozens of times. All the range of emotions which we have in store are there like a piano which we have closed because we are not used to the piano playing itself. We must have someone else playing on the keys. We are not in the habit of doing nothing, and so it becomes worrying and can lead us to the point of anguish. If you read the Desert Fathers, who had good experience of this, or the monks who spent their lives in monasteries, you will see that there are moments when they simply ran out of their cells shouting for help, trying to meet something or someone, whatever they could find. The devil himself would have been better than this emptiness of self-contemplation. One of the spiritual writers, Theophan the Recluse, says 'Most people are like a shaving of wood which is curled round its central emptiness.' If we are really honest, we must admit that this is a very apt description of the state of practically all of us."
After a while this becomes worse than boredom, bcause we are not simply bored in a way that allows us to say 'I am an active person and am of use to my neighbour. I always do good, and for me to be in the state of suspense where I am not doing anything for anyone else is a severe trial.' We begin to discover something else. We are bored when we try to get out of this boredom by turning inward to see if there is anything in ourselves that will put an end to it. Quite soon we discover that there is nothing, since all we have to think about we have already thought about dozens of times. All the range of emotions which we have in store are there like a piano which we have closed because we are not used to the piano playing itself. We must have someone else playing on the keys. We are not in the habit of doing nothing, and so it becomes worrying and can lead us to the point of anguish. If you read the Desert Fathers, who had good experience of this, or the monks who spent their lives in monasteries, you will see that there are moments when they simply ran out of their cells shouting for help, trying to meet something or someone, whatever they could find. The devil himself would have been better than this emptiness of self-contemplation. One of the spiritual writers, Theophan the Recluse, says 'Most people are like a shaving of wood which is curled round its central emptiness.' If we are really honest, we must admit that this is a very apt description of the state of practically all of us."
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Beginning to Pray Part I
Over the next few days, I'm going to post a brief section from a longer passage in Anthony Bloom's spiritual classic Beginning to Pray. I just read this whole section this morning and it is deep stuff. I'm feeling compelled to share it with others. I hope others are reading this.
"There is a passage in Dickin's Pickwick Papers which is a very good description of y life and probably also of your lives. Pickwick goes to the club. He hires a cab and on the way he asks innumerable questions. Among the questions, he says 'Tell me, how is it possible that such a mean and miserable horse can drive such a big and heavy cab?' The cabbie replies 'It's not a question of the horse, Sir, it's a question of the wheels', and Mr. Pickwick says 'What do you mean?' The cabbie answers 'You see, we have a magnificent pair of wheels which are so well oiled that it is enough for the horse to stir a little for the wheels to begin to turn and then the poor horse must run for its life.' Take the way in which we live most of the time. We are not the horse that pulls, we are the horse that runs away from the cab in fear of its life.
Because we don't know yet how to act without an outer reason, we discover that we don't know what to do with ourselves, and then we begin to be increasingly bored. So first of all, you must learn to sit with yourself and to face boredom, drawing all the possible conclusions."
"There is a passage in Dickin's Pickwick Papers which is a very good description of y life and probably also of your lives. Pickwick goes to the club. He hires a cab and on the way he asks innumerable questions. Among the questions, he says 'Tell me, how is it possible that such a mean and miserable horse can drive such a big and heavy cab?' The cabbie replies 'It's not a question of the horse, Sir, it's a question of the wheels', and Mr. Pickwick says 'What do you mean?' The cabbie answers 'You see, we have a magnificent pair of wheels which are so well oiled that it is enough for the horse to stir a little for the wheels to begin to turn and then the poor horse must run for its life.' Take the way in which we live most of the time. We are not the horse that pulls, we are the horse that runs away from the cab in fear of its life.
Because we don't know yet how to act without an outer reason, we discover that we don't know what to do with ourselves, and then we begin to be increasingly bored. So first of all, you must learn to sit with yourself and to face boredom, drawing all the possible conclusions."
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Antidote to Busyness
I read the following passage from Beginning to Pray by Anthony Bloom. It spoke to me because, lately, I've been thinking about how to be more efficient in my work. His reminder is that there has to be much more to me than always responding to outside stimulus.
"You cannot go inwards if you are completely outward. Try an experiment and you will see, you will discover a number of other useful things on the way. Try to find a time to stay alone with yourself: shut the door and settle down in your room at a moment when you have nothing else to do. Say 'I am now with myself', and just sit with yourself. After an amazingly short time you will most likely feel bored. This teaches us one very useful thing. It gives us insight into the fact that if after ten minutes of being alone with ourselves we feel like that, it is no wonder that others should feel equally bored! Why is this so? It is so because we have so little to offer to our own selves as food for thought, for emotion and for life. If you watch your life carefully you will discover quite soon that we hardly ever live from within outwards; instead we respond to incitement, to excitement. In other words, we live by reflection, by reaction. Something happens and we respond, someone speaks and we answer. But when we are left without anything that stimulates us to think, speak or act, we realise that there is very little in us that will prompt us to action in any direction at all. This is really a very dramatic discovery. We are completely empty, we do not act from within ourselves but accept as our life a life which is actually fed in from outside; we are used to things happening which compel us to do other things. How seldom can we live simply by means of the depth and richness we assume that there is within ourselves."
"You cannot go inwards if you are completely outward. Try an experiment and you will see, you will discover a number of other useful things on the way. Try to find a time to stay alone with yourself: shut the door and settle down in your room at a moment when you have nothing else to do. Say 'I am now with myself', and just sit with yourself. After an amazingly short time you will most likely feel bored. This teaches us one very useful thing. It gives us insight into the fact that if after ten minutes of being alone with ourselves we feel like that, it is no wonder that others should feel equally bored! Why is this so? It is so because we have so little to offer to our own selves as food for thought, for emotion and for life. If you watch your life carefully you will discover quite soon that we hardly ever live from within outwards; instead we respond to incitement, to excitement. In other words, we live by reflection, by reaction. Something happens and we respond, someone speaks and we answer. But when we are left without anything that stimulates us to think, speak or act, we realise that there is very little in us that will prompt us to action in any direction at all. This is really a very dramatic discovery. We are completely empty, we do not act from within ourselves but accept as our life a life which is actually fed in from outside; we are used to things happening which compel us to do other things. How seldom can we live simply by means of the depth and richness we assume that there is within ourselves."
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