Starting on Monday, my next ten blog posts will be about praying in color. Like my book, Praying in Color: Drawing a New Path to God, the posts will include some memoir, some theology-lite, and some how-to pray in color posts.
October 19-October 30 Posts
October 17th, 2009Nighttime Anger
October 16th, 2009One night this week I did something I know I’m not supposed to do. I went to bed angry. Even as I was marinating in the sweet and sour syrup of offense, the Ephesians 4:26 passage flashed its warning neon in my head: “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.” (NRSV) The person with whom I was angry was in my house, so I could have said, “I’m sorry,” but I wasn’t. I could have said, “Let’s talk about this,” but I didn’t.
I’ve written about anger before. It has its guilty pleasures, but I know I’ll pay for them. The epistle writer probably also knew the ramifications of nighttime anger–the obsessive and illogical thoughts, the loss of sleep, the sometimes molehill to mountain growth. Like gossip and bacteria, anger has the tendency to grow exponentially.
I can’t always get rid of my anger on a timetable. The person, thing, policy or object of my anger might not be in my geography before sundown. But at the very least, I can lay my poisonous thoughts, my hateful words, my wounded feelings in the lap of God. On Wednesday at 4AM, I finally did that. All the negative stuff didn’t go away in a flash, but it was contained in a safe place. I went to sleep knowing that with God’s help I would see and think more clearly in the morning.
St.Teresa of Ávila
October 15th, 2009“God has been very good to me, for I never dwell upon anything wrong which a person has done, so as to remember it afterwards. If I do remember it, I always see some other virtue in that person.”
St. Teresa of Ávila
To not remember the wrong someone has done or to see a virtue instead–what freedom Teresa had. She did not acquire this ability by sheer willpower. She gives God the glory for this gift: “God has been very good to me.”
Lord, I too would be grateful for such a gift.
October 15 is the day the Catholic Church celebrates the ministries and gifts of Teresa–her Feast Day. Teresa is known for her still fresh and pithy quotes.
Photo of church window at the Convent of St. Teresa in Spain by Håkan Svensson (Xauxa), Used with permission under terms of GNU Free Documentation License.
Monk Wannabe
October 14th, 2009When I was a kid, I wanted to be a nun. Well really, I wanted to be a monk. I must have seen some movies about cloisters and monasteries which resonated with my God-hungry spirit and put the idea in my head. There were several impediments, however, to my fantasized vocation: one, I was a Protestant; two, I was female; and three, I was eight years old. But a part of me understood the call to a full-time life of prayer, community, and renunciation.
As a person with several decades of adulthood under her muffin top*, I know I would have been a disaster as a monk or nun. I was obedient to my parents, teachers and employers, but often with inner rebellion and resentment. The radical obedience of a monastic requires not only outward obedience but willing submission to the authority of a superior. Some people are called to this life; I know some of them.
I’ve also learned that there are others ways of leading a life of prayer, community, and renunciation outside of a cloistered life. I suspect, most of us are called to live on the “outside”–inside the thick of our neighborhoods, cities, and families. It’s no less of a challenge.
A year or so ago I watched a movie called Into Great Silence. It’s an almost three-hour documentary filmed over six months at the Grande Chartreuse, a monastery in the French Alps where, except for singing and prayer, silence is the norm. No more than about twenty words are spoken in the whole movie. After the initial panic of thinking I would never last for the 162 minutes, I fell into a prayerful rhythm of silence.
So if you’re feeling a call to the monastic life or just want to experience several hours of holy silence, watch this film. But hold the popcorn. The crunching will feel like an artillery attack on the calm and quiet of your prayer time.
*The circumference of excess midriff bulge from eating too much food (maybe too many muffins!) and exercising too little.
Prayers for the Week
October 13th, 2009This drawing was a prayer in progress. I started off with two names; the next day I added two more. Another day I added the last two. Every time I see the drawing, I pray for each person again. These are friends who are in need of healing, discernment, and ease.
The passage from Psalms 71 reminds me that the people I prayer for and I are “strengthened, comforted, and enfolded” by God.
Drawing: Sybil MacBeth
