Accepting the Ways of God
4
Being Present Where We Are
is a firm resolve to take no wilful interest in anything that is not useful or necessary to our interior life.
Thomas Merton
In biblical times people were well versed in how to meditate; it was in the air they breathed. Today, however, the situation is quite different. The word itself is not unfamiliar, but the language associated with that word is an ocean away from Christian thinking. It is all about emptying the mind and merging with the cosmic consciousness and more. To be sure, there is an emptying in Christian thought, an emptying of all that opposes the way of Christ. The inside of the cup must be cleaned, as Jesus teaches us (Mt 23:26). The weight of Christian teaching on meditation, however, focuses on filling both mind and heart with God, the Creator of all things. Consider the words of Frederick W. Faber:
Oh what a joy it is!
To think the thought,
To breathe the name;
Earth has no higher bliss.
The tradition of meditation is long and profound all through the life of the church. But today serious teaching and practice from a Christian perspective is minuscule, if present at all. Hence many are helped immensely by a simple description of the three basic steps into meditative prayer. This chapter will focus on the first step: recollection.
Understanding Recollection
Recollection involves a re-collecting of ourselves until we are unified or whole. The idea is to let go of all competing distractions until we have become truly present where we are. Sometimes anchoring our mind to a brief Scripture phrase or passage helps us in recollection. Evelyn Underhill observed, “ . . . Christian contemplatives set before their minds one of the names or attributes of God, a fragment of Scripture, an incident of the life of Christ; and allow—indeed encourage—this consideration and the ideas and feelings which flow from it, to occupy the whole mental field.”
Let me warn you at the outset: recollection does not come easily or quickly. Most of us live such fractured and fragmented lives that collectedness is a foreign world to us. The moment we genuinely try to be collected we become painfully aware of how distracted we really are. Evelyn Underhill notes, “ thus spent in attempted meditation will be, indeed, a time of warfare; which should at least convince you how unruly, how ill-educated is your attention, how miserably ineffective your will, how far away you are from the captaincy of your own soul.”
One of the genuinely wise teachers on recollection is Romano Guardini. He is so helpful on this exact point that it is best to hear his counsel in its entirety:
with this collectedness. As said before, it is not easy. How little of it we normally possess becomes painfully clear as soon as we make the first attempt. When we try to compose ourselves, unrest redoubles in intensity, not unlike the manner in which at night, when we try to sleep, cares or desires assail us with a force they do not possess during the day. When we want to be truly “present” we feel how powerful are the voices trying to call us away. As soon as we try to be unified and to obtain mastery over ourselves, we experience the full impact and meaning of distraction. . . . Everything depends on this state of collectedness. No effort to obtain it is ever wasted. And even if the whole duration of our prayer should be applied to this end only, the time thus used would have been well employed. For collectedness itself is prayer. . . . Finally, if at first we achieve no more than the understanding of how much we lack in inner unity, something will have been gained, for in some way we would have made contact with that centre which knows no distraction.
As a beginning experience in recollection we might want to seat ourselves comfortably, and then slowly and deliberately let all tension and anxiety drop away. We become aware of God’s presence in the room. If it helps we might picture Christ seated in the chair across from us, for he is truly present. If frustrations or distractions arise, we will want to lift them up into the arms of the Father, letting God care for them. This is not suppressing our inner turmoil but letting go of it. Suppression implies a pressing down, a keeping in check, whereas in recollection we are giving away, releasing. It is even more than a neutral psychological relaxing. It is an active surrendering, a “,” to use the phrase of Jean-Pierre de Caussade.
Precisely because the Lord is present with us we can relax and let go of everything, for in the divine Presence nothing really matters, nothing is of importance except attending to God. We allow inner distractions and frustrations to melt away as snow before the sun. We allow God to calm the storms that rage within. We allow God’s great silence to still our noisy heart.
A Glad Surrender
Several things occur in the process of recollection. First, there is a glad surrender to him “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev 1:8). We surrender control over our life and our destiny. In an act of deliberate intention we decide to do things God’s way and not our way.
We surrender our possessiveness and invite God to possess us in such a way that we are truly crucified with Christ and yet truly alive through his life (Gal 2:19-20). We relinquish into God’s hands our imperialist ambitions to be greater and more admired, to be richer and more powerful, to be saintlier and more influential.
We surrender our cares and worries. “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you,” said Peter (1 Pet 5:7). And so we do, precisely because we sense God’s loving care. We are enabled to give up the need to watch out for number one because we have One who is watching out for us.
It may be helpful to picture a box in which we place every worry and every care. When it is full, we gift-wrap it, placing a lovely big bow on top, and give it up as a present to the Father. God receives it, and we must not take it back, for to take back a gift once given is most discourteous.
We surrender our good intentions and high resolves, for even these can harbor the seeds of pride and arrogance. Before she died Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, “ that I not loosen my grip on the hands of Jesus even under the guise of ministering to the poor.” Her words are insightful here, for if we “loosen our grip on the hands of Jesus,” we have lost everything. So we surrender all distractions—even good distractions—until we are driven into the Core.
A Spirit of Repentance and Confession
A second thing that occurs within us as we learn recollection is the rise of a spirit of repentance and confession. Suddenly we become aware—keenly aware—of our shortcomings and many sins. All excuses are stripped away; all self-justifications are silenced. A deep, godly sorrow wells up within for the sins of commission and the sins of omission. Any deed or thought that cannot stand in the searching light of Christ becomes repulsive not only to God but to us as well. Thus humbled under the cross we confess our need and receive his gracious word of forgiveness.
You may wonder if the Lord really needs to hear our confession since God already knows all things. Indeed, but as Søren Kierkegaard observed, “, the maker of the confession, get to know something by your act of confession.” And what is it that we get to know? Well, for one thing we learn a little more about our own heart. One reason we cannot program our own heart is because we simply do not understand the depths of the human heart, most especially our own. But as we make confession, God is able then to peel back a few more layers of our heart and give us a glimpse into things we did not know about ourselves. This is all part of the process of heart transformation.
I hasten to add that not only are sin and evil and wickedness revealed in our confession but also goodness and light and life that we never knew about ourselves. Gordon Cosby, the well-known pastor of the Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C., wrote, “ the facing and naming before God the darkness within us; it is also concerned with facing and naming before God the light within as it breaks forth with ever-increasing brilliance. Without a preparatory time of confession no real silence is possible.”
To help us in our confession we may want to picture a path littered with many rocks. Some are small pebbles, others are quite large, and still others are almost completely buried so that we cannot know their size. With compunction of heart we invite the Lord to remove each stone, for they do indeed represent the many sins and sorrows littering our lives. One by one our loving Lord picks them up, revealing to us their true character and offensiveness. To our eyes some look big and others small, but the Lord helps us to understand that when lifted the smallest pebble has the same weight as the largest boulder. Some rocks that represent sins committed against us need to be dug out of the ground. While this is painful, it also brings healing. When we see the path completely clear, we rejoice in this gracious work of the Lord.
Accepting the Ways of God
A third reality that works its way into our hearts as we experience recollection is an acceptance of the ways of God with human beings. You see, it is one thing to love God; it is quite another to love God’s ways. The Bible is clear that God’s ways are not our ways, that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts (Is 55:8). This passage goes on to explain God’s ways:
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
(Is 55:10-11)
God’s ways are like the rain and snow that gently fall and sink into the earth . . . and up comes the life. What a contrast with our ways, which involve wanting to open up another person’s head and tinker around in there a bit! But, you see, God’s ways are all patience and love, all grace and mercy. Our ways are all domination and control, all manipulation and guile.
With an inner knowing born out of friendship with Jesus, we begin to see that God’s ways are altogether good. Our impatience, our rebellion, our nonacceptance give way to a gentle receptiveness to holy impulses. This is not some stoic resignation to “the will of God.” It is an entering into the rhythm of the Spirit. It is a recognition that God’s commandments are “for our good always” (Deut 6:24). It is a letting go of our way and a saying yes to God’s way, not grudgingly but because we know it is the better way.
To aid our sense of accepting God’s ways, we might want to imagine ourselves on a lovely beach observing the footprints of God in the sand. Slowly we begin to place our feet into the prints. At some places the stride looks far too long for our small frame; at other places it looks so short that it appears childlike. In infinite wisdom God is stretching us where we need to be on the edge of adventure, restraining us where we need greater attentiveness and stillness. As we follow God’s lead, we enter more and more into the divine Stride, turning where God turns, accepting God’s ways and finding them altogether good.
Are we present where we are? Sadly, we have to admit that often we are far removed from where we are. Perhaps our mind is stewing over a problem at the office when we should be attentive to our kids. Or we are mentally and emotionally off on a fishing trip when we should be attending to the people around us. Or when we start to pray, we are anywhere but in the presence of God. Recollection is that aspect of meditative prayer that can help draw us more fully into the place where we are. As this becomes a pattern of life, we will find ourselves more fully alive, more united and whole.