To dance with time

"All time is given to you, it shall be asked of you how you have spent it." St. Anselm Watch, then, for "sin is lurking at your door; it's desire is for you---you must master it" (Genesis 4). Prayer is the holding of the heart in time (eternal time, God's time)when the soul is buffeted and even tormented and mauled by the beasts who want to drag you into space. How intoxicated we are with space---filling it up with stuff, things; conquering it, taming it.

You are to be concerned with time. Embracing it. Loving it. But the beasts will draw you out of time and into space, space that's increasingly crowded by obligations, demands, and tasks that will always keep you living from a sense of deficit, scarcity. You will be led to believe you don't have enough time to fill up this space. But you have all the time in the world. You have an abundance of time. Time cannot really be spent, it is eternal.

Anselm, I know what you're getting at, but don't talk about spending time.

We get to dance with time, make love to time.  Prayer is this dance, the marriage bed of God.

Trading gods

If I can keep my mind active and busy with the clutter of competing and distracting thoughts that keep me unbalanced and focused on external matters, surely I can exercise the mind toward active, interior prayer that moves from psalms, prayers, and the recitation of the Jesus Prayer, to the prayer of the heart and watchfulness over my interior landscape. Surely, with God's help, I can trade the primitive "prayer" to the idols that seek my allegiance for prayer that anchors me in Jesus and unites me with the inner life of the Holy Trinity.

Surely, if I can "pray" unceasingly to such false gods, I can pray to the true God---for I have God's help and nothing pleases God more.

Be gentle with each person you meet

A vacation posting: this post from last spring is even more timely now in the midst of such widespread incivility

Here’s a simple practice that will change the way you interact with others, and how you treat yourself.

“Be gentle with each person you meet, for each of them is actually fighting a great battle.”  Philo of Alexandria, 20 BCE—50 CE

It is a deeply spiritual practice, and contemplative—that is, it rises from the unceasing, interior prayer you are practicing.

Gentleness arises from the compassion God is birthing in you as you pray.  Gentleness arises from your deep awareness of your own interior battle to be human and holy.  Practice this and you will not only change the little part of the world you inhabit, but you will change yourself, for you too are fighting a great battle.

Be gentle with each person

Here's a simple practice that will change the way you interact with others, and how you treat yourself.

"Be gentle with each person you meet, for each of them is actually fighting a great battle."  Philo of Alexandria, 20 BCE---50 CE

It is a deeply spiritual practice, and contemplative---that is, it rises from the unceasing, interior prayer you are practicing.

Gentleness arises from the compassion God is birthing in you as you pray.  Gentleness arises from your deep awareness of your own interior battle to be human and holy.  Practice this and you will not only change the little part of the world you inhabit, but you will change yourself, for you too are fighting a great battle.

The essential practice of everyone who desires God

This post is a continuation from yesterday: Contemplation is an interior habit. I draw my mind down into my heart, returning throughout the day over and over again to the Center where Christ dwells---no matter what occupies me exteriorly.

It's a habit that becomes virtue.  And virtue, in turn, becomes instinct---an unceasing recollecting of my being into the presence of the Beloved. This is the essential practice of every Christian, every person who desires God. It is the essence and goal of prayer.

But it doesn't come easily. It requires specific training. Without instruction and practice we live lives alienated from this Center. Jesus said "enter through the narrow gate, walk the hard road."

But many, oblivious, walk an easier path.  They don't even know there's nothing along that way worthy of their love.