FRIDAY FAVORITES FOR PRAYER AND WRITING

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Welcome to Friday Favorites! This is our final roundup before we go on summer break here at The Contemplative Writer. Enjoy these rich offerings from a host of talented writers, and accept our blessings for a fruitful summer.

Lisa and Prasanta

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‘I Wake With Wonder’: A Crowdsourced Poem Of Pandemic Pain And Hope via NPR (a community poem about the challenges of the past year and hope for times ahead)

A Litany for the Planet via Louise Connor (a prayer for all our neighbors)

The Prodigal Son: Visio Divina 2021 via Karen Hice Guzmán (a visio divina exercise from The Well )

Kintsugi and the Divine Potter via Gretchen Crowder (the Divine Potter and the art of repairing broken pottery)

How to Lose a Sense of Wonder via Debra Elramey (when were you last awestruck or seized by wonder?)

The Problem with Urgency and the Power of Letting Go via Sarah Westfall (the more we untangle ourselves from what feels urgent, the more we find peace where we are)

Attending to the Word: Reading as Spiritual Practice via Gregory Wolfe (a series of reflections on the gift and practice of reading)

Revamping the Raven–And Other Writing Mischief via L. L. Barkat (on crafting a well-rounded writing approach)

FRIDAY FAVORITES FOR PRAYER AND WRITING

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Welcome to Friday Favorites! Here at The Contemplative Writer, one of our favorite “tasks” is rounding up each week’s collection of posts, videos, and podcasts. We hope today’s selection will provide encouragement and opportunity for reflection.

Blessings,

Lisa and Prasanta

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How I Use My Prayer Rope via Rich Lewis (a short video with helpful ideas for using a prayer rope with the Jesus Prayer)

Your Suffering is Sacred (with K. J. Ramsey) via Marc Alan Schelske (on learning how to hold suffering as believers in Jesus Christ)

Just For Today via John Blase (a poem about life, loss, and wanting to run away)

Celebrate the Ignatian Year With a Spiritual Treasury via Father Raymond J. de Souza (learn about the Jesuit Year of St. Ignatius and Ignatian spirituality)

Twelve Ways to Approach Christian Mystical Spirituality via Carl McColman (a helpful overview of mysticism in the Christian tradition)

Choosing to Replant our Trees of Knowledge via Deborah Beddoe (on the call to consider something again)

FRIDAY FAVORITES FOR PRAYER AND WRITING

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Welcome to Friday Favorites! We hope this week’s roundup, featuring some excellent writers and thinkers, will be thought-provoking and inspiring.

Enjoy, and be blessed.

Lisa and Prasanta

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Spirituality With A Dog In Your Lap via Casey Tygrett (the great mistake is to idealize the spiritual life)

AJB Recommends: Spiritual Practices for Personal and Social Healing via Amy Julia Becker (some resources for finding healing in mind, body, spirit, and community)

The Problem(s) of Susan via Matt Mikalatos (what to make of Susan’s fate in C. S. Lewis’s The Last Battle)

A Black Woman at War: Battling for God and a nation’s people via Natasha Sistrunk Robinson (the lie of white supremacy that’s killing us all)

What We’ve Lost in Rejecting the Sabbath via Sohrab Ahmari (in an age of constant activity, we need the Sabbath more than ever)

The Stories Between Us: Karen Swallow Prior Talks Frankenstein and Twitter via Shawn Smucker and Maile Silva (in this podcast episode, Prior talks about intentionality, writing, and social media)

Putting Joy into Practice by Phoebe Farag Mikhail

Posted on by Lisa Deam

This week I’m excited to feature an excerpt from Putting Joy into Practice: Seven Ways to Lift Your Spirit from the Early Church by Phoebe Farag Mikhail. I love the way that Phoebe turns to ancient wisdom to help us live with more joy in our life. In the excerpt below, Phoebe talks about arrow prayers, which can be defined as brief prayers “shot up like an arrow to God.” The practice of saying arrow prayers can restore a measure of joy and equanimity to us during challenging times. I hope you enjoy this excerpt and learn a new way to live with joy!

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Arrow prayers remind us that even when we are alone, we are really never alone. We are surrounded by a team, an ethereal community, a great cloud of witnesses (see Hebrews 12:1). We can reach the Creator of the universe with one sentence prayed from our anxious, weary, aching hearts, shooting up like an arrow to his own heart. He sends us back “stabs of joy,” in the words of C. S. Lewis. He sends his angels, as well as the saints in heaven and on earth who regularly intercede for us with prayers and tears. God is with us; we are never alone. All we need to do is call upon him. In his presence “is fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11).

Arrow prayers and praying the Hours are intimately connected. Praying the Hours regularly allows us to engrave the Psalms in our hearts and gives us an arsenal of arrow prayers in times of need. The Twelfth Hour prayer, for example, includes these verses from the Psalms, all of which I have used as arrow prayers at different times:

Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord;
Lord, hear my voice!

Let Your ears be attentive To the voice of my supplications.
(Psalm 130: 1–2)

Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me.
(Psalm 138: 7)

LORD, I cry out to You; Make haste to me!
Give ear to my voice when I cry out to You.
(Psalm 141: 1)

When these verses are repeated daily, they build a reserve to draw upon for their spontaneous use. Spontaneity is not a reliable way to develop an arrow prayer habit, however. Most people, when they are guided to use arrow prayers, are also guided to the times to use them, such as . . . my prayers to calm anxious thoughts before bed. Some spiritual fathers advise praying a certain number of arrow prayers (usually the Jesus Prayer) per day, designating a time and using a prayer rope, prayer beads, or a rosary to help count them. This deliberate practice allows them to arise more naturally as we go through our days and find ourselves in times of need.

I find arrow prayers especially helpful when I am angry. Anxiety and fear often go hand and hand with anger, and anger can rise up in ways that are not conducive to relationships, especially to raising children. Anger and fear are passions and most certainly joy thieves. In the heat of the moment, I can certainly count backward from ten to keep my voice down, but I can also ask God for his mercy (I usually do both). I have found that those instances of wanting to yell in anger are fewer and farther between when I am intentional about daily praying arrow prayers. Praying this way has also given me a tool for helping my children manage their own strong emotions. When my children were younger, unable to control their tempers or in the middle of a meltdown, I would hold them tightly in my arms and tell them, “Take a deep breath and say the Jesus Prayer with me.” Now that they are older, I might ask them to sit quietly somewhere and pray some arrow prayers. (They’ll still get a hug.)

I’ve also read my children two books from a series called The Silent Way by Jeanette Aydlette and Marilyn Rouvelas. Peter Clashes with Anger and Eleni Looks at Jealousy each tackle a joy thief (a “passion”), and each child goes through a conversation with his or her grandfather about how to overcome that passion, namely through practicing stillness. Hand in hand with the practice of stillness are arrow prayers, and the grandpa advises each grandchild to find a place to sit quietly and pray, “Lord have mercy.”

When I drafted this chapter, it was snowing outside, and my children were playing with blocks in the living room. I took that moment, observing them, to pause and pray a few arrow prayers: “My Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for these children.” I thought about my husband still at church. “My Lord Jesus Christ, bring my husband home safely in this snow.” My toddler hit his older brother with a toy. Before intervening, I prayed, “My Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Near bedtime we pray a shortened Twelfth Hour prayer from the Agpeya as a family. The absolution prayer of that Hour requests, “For the sake of your Holy Name, Lord, and for Your goodness and Your love to mankind, forgive us those sins we have committed this day, whether they are by action, by word, by thought or any of our senses. Grant us a peaceful night free of all anxiety” (emphasis mine).

Arrow prayers have always been my companion before bed, helping me remove anxious thoughts from my mind. My father of confession gave me that advice many years ago when I complained of struggles to fall asleep because of all the thoughts running through my head. Now, as my oldest child asks me how to fall asleep more easily, I give him the same advice–pray an arrow prayer. Some nights, I pray aloud a few repetitions of the Jesus Prayer with him, and then fall silent. Eventually he falls asleep, but I sometimes stay there, still praying.

***

Phoebe Farag Mikhail blogs about faith, family, relationships, and community at BeinginCommunity.com, and serves alongside her husband at St Antonious & St. Mina Coptic Orthodox Church in East Rutherford, New Jersey. She is the mother of three, a writer, speaker, educator, and advocate, and works in international development.

Putting Joy into Practice: Seven Ways to Lift Your Spirit from the Early Church by Phoebe Farag Mikhail
Copyright 2019 by Phoebe Farag Mikhail
Used by Permission of Paraclete Press
To Purchase: https://paracletepress.com/products/putting-joy-into-practice?_pos=1&_sid=4970f825e&_ss=r

Meditating on Scripture With Medieval Maps

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Today, I’d like to introduce a simple visual exercise to help us meditate on a passage from Scripture. The image we’ll be using is a world map made around 1300––the Hereford Mappa Mundi. This and similar medieval maps formed the focus of my first book, and I still turn to them because they teach me so much about the Christian faith. Sometimes, they even provide a way into Scripture.

One of my favorite Scripture passages comes from the book of Hebrews. Encouraging God’s people to hold fast to their faith, the author of Hebrews writes:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith . . . (Heb 12:1–2 NIV)

In this passage, the author of Hebrews gives a direct command to followers of Christ: fix your eyes on Jesus. When you’re hindered, fixate on him. When you become entangled in sin, fixate on him. When you grow weary of running the race, fixate on him. When you can’t fix your world, fix your eyes on on the one who can.

This seems like such a simple directive. Yet how difficult it can be! When I try to fixate on Jesus, I quickly become aware of just how hindered and distracted I am. So many things compete for my time, my attention, my love.

The Hereford Mappa Mundi, made to hang in a chapel in Hereford Cathedral in England, is like a picture of my world—distracting, busy, and crammed full of things. In fact, the map contains some two thousand pictures and inscriptions. Many are completely fascinating. As in my own life, it’s easy to get lost in this world.

The Hereford Mappa Mundi. Image: SirFlemeingtonz, CC BY-SA 4.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

One place, however, helps us get our bearings when we feel lost and distracted. At the center of this bustling world lies the city of Jerusalem, with a ghostly image of Christ on the cross rising from the city. Notice how the circular city of Jerusalem echoes the larger circle of the earth.

The city of Jerusalem, detail of The Hereford Mappa Mundi

Now for our exercise. First, find a reproduction of the Hereford Mappa Mundi (you can use the image above or do a Google search to find many images of the map). Spend some time with the map. Let your eye wander over the world, from the Garden of Eden at the top to the Pillars of Hercules at the bottom. This is fun to do, because there is lots to see and discover!

Second, after you’ve explored the map a bit, let your gaze come to rest at the center. I’ve learned that when I peruse the Hereford Mappa Mundi, my gaze is always drawn to the center. In fact, I can’t look at the map for long without my eye coming to rest on the cross of Christ. I’m willing to bet that this is also the case with you. The mapmakers designed it this way because they understood the power of the center.

Third, read the passage from Hebrews I quoted above: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:1–2 NIV).”

Finally, look again at the map. Find the center of the world––the city of Jerusalem––and fix your eyes there. Notice how, on the map, Jesus is at the center of all things. He is the author of all things, and he holds the entire world together.

After completing this exercise, take a moment to realize that you’ve just put the admonition of Hebrews into practice. You have fixed your eyes on Jesus! You have focused on him and gazed at his beauty. You have, even if only for a moment, cut out the distractions of the world.

I encourage you to try this exercise when you’re feeling busy, distracted, or overwhelmed, or perhaps when you’re having trouble finding a way into Scripture. It’s a simple yet profound exercise that leads us to practice the words of Hebrews. I hope you find it as meaningful as I do. Visual contemplation using this map helps me get to the kernel of what it means to fix my eyes on Jesus. Through it, I gaze on his beauty and remember that he’s always at the center of my world.

To find out more about medieval world maps and how they can help our walk of faith today, check out my book, A World Transformed: Exploring the Spirituality of Medieval Maps.

FRIDAY FAVORITES FOR PRAYER AND WRITING

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Welcome to Friday Favorites! This week we have a beautiful roundup of posts we hope will help you on your quest for peace, silence, resilience, and faith.

Blessings,

Lisa and Prasanta

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Hollowed via Emily Polis Gibson (a poem about keeping vigil)

Outward Noise; Inward Silence via J. Brent Bill (the silence that feeds our spirits says, “Don’t just do something, sit there”)

We have to be willing to begin again via Kathleen Norris (when you experience failure in writing, in faith, and in life itself)

The Final (or Possibly Second-to-Last) Frontier via Amanda Cleary Eastep (on facing change and crossing the next threshold)

A Law of Deceleration: How I dumped the internet and learned to love technology agai via Paul McDonnold (on living a life of greater peace and stillness)

The Hobbit! via Malcom Guite (indulge in some comfort reading–listen to poet Malcom Guite reminisce and read aloud from The Hobbit)

FRIDAY FAVORITES FOR PRAYER AND WRITING

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Welcome back to Friday Favorites! We hope this Friday finds you enjoying the birth of spring and clinging to the promise of resurrection in all things. Enjoy these posts and podcasts as part of your reading and reflection time.

With love,

Lisa and Prasanta

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Pietà via Matt Schultz (a poem)

Thank God for the Poets via Margaret Renkl (poetry reminds us that life is our birthright…read this opinion piece for the many links to wonderful poems)

Bray & Keane: A Primer on The Book of Common Prayer via The Laymen’s Lounge (a podcast episode providing an introduction, overview, and step-by-step guide)

Making Space for Each Other’s Grief via Michelle Reyes (grief can bind us together if we resist the urge to judge how others grieve)

A Specific Love via Courtney Ellis (finding love–and God’s love–in the small and specific)

How Does an Introvert Emerge from a Pandemic? via Afton Rorvik (an introvert’s guide to venturing out once again)

“I Trust That I Can Soar”– An Excerpt from The Seeker and the Monk by Sophfronia Scott

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Last week, author Sophfronia Scott released her new book, The Seeker and the Monk: Everyday Conversations with Thomas Merton. Scott mines Merton’s private journals for guidance about life and faith. I love the way she converses with Merton, asking him questions, giving him advice (from time to time), and learning from the monk’s faith and foibles.

Today, I’m featuring an excerpt from this book for our community. In the passage below, Scott describes how she began to pray the Daily Office in the Episcopal Church and, through it, learned to soar.

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Merton recognized his prayer life was often grounded—unable to take off, let alone soar. Though he had time alone in his hermitage, he found the quality of his prayers could still be disrupted by his own lack of focus. Just as any of us can be distracted during prayer and meditation, Merton no doubt had a lot on his mind—schemes for his next publication, communications from his friends, how much wood he needed to chop for his fire, whether the dermatitis he sometimes suffered from on his hands would ever heal.

It’s like his wing-flapping was woefully ineffective and he knew it: “I realize now how weak and confused I have become—most of the time I have simply played around and daydreamed and am sadly unequipped to take a real uprooting. Hence the need of prayer and thought and discipline and the self purification.”

How does one strengthen a prayer life? Maybe we can take a cue from professional athletes: quality practice. Just as they have to practice well to play well, if we cultivate a strong prayer life, we will be strong in prayer. It starts with the discipline of routine. Merton maintained the practice of praying the schedule of the Daily Office as he did in the monastery. He knew walking in the woods and being in solitude helped foster his communion with God, but he would still be subject to daydreams and distractions. In his routine, the discipline of reading his prayers aloud helped him stay on point: “Solitude—when you get saturated with silence and landscape, then you need an interior work, psalms, scripture, meditation.” Note that he’s talking about sacred text, not philosophy or theology. Reciting the Psalms was of particular importance to Merton. Among the belongings he left behind was a tattered copy of the Psalms in Latin, the pages so well thumbed that they are crumbling and the cover has separated from its binding.

I have to admit, for a long time I never understood the point of praying with prewritten prayers or of reciting Scripture to oneself alone in a room. Then, in 2011, I joined the Episcopal Church and learned about the Book of Common Prayer. The church defines the book as “a treasure chest full of devotional and teaching resources for individuals and congregations, but it is also the primary symbol of our unity.” Every day, churches and individuals around the world pray the same words from this book for Sunday services, baptisms, weddings, and funerals, in addition to a Daily Office of morning, afternoon, and evening prayers.

I decided to experiment with reciting Morning Prayer daily on my own, sitting on the cushions in front of a lit candle in the small meditation space I keep in a corner of my home office. As my practice went on from days to weeks and from weeks to months, I noticed something different about my thoughts, about the material my brain happened to access in any given moment. In the same way that a song might come to me that I can hum or sing, I now had words of prayer in my mind’s playlist. Instead of thinking, in a tough moment, “It’ll be OK,” I hear, “The Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his faithfulness endures from age to age.” Or I hear this, one of my favorites, when I’m getting ready for the day or to speak at an event: “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has dawned upon you.” I can’t tell you how comforting it is to feel these words, like an invisible security blanket wrapped around my being.

The apostle Paul exhorted the Thessalonians to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17). I believe walking around with words of prayer imprinted within me is a way of doing that. And I understand why it’s important: Because the work of God is ongoing—creation is ongoing. I’m praying to figure out my role in that creation. A wonderful story that explains this well comes from the book The Shack and its film version. The story is about a man whose life and faith are shattered after the murder of his youngest child. He has an encounter with God during which he expresses his anger—really giving God what for—and demands to know why God doesn’t stop bad things from happening. God, embodied by the actress Octavia Spencer, explains she doesn’t make these things happen, nor does she stop them. But she is constantly working to make something of what has happened. She also wants us to know she is always here—especially when the horrific events happen. We are never alone.

Praying without ceasing reminds me of who I am and to whom I belong. And because I remember this, I can trust the air that upholds me when it’s time to glide. I trust that I can soar.

From The Seeker and the Monk: Everyday Conversations with Thomas Merton by Sophfronia Scott copyright © 2021 Broadleaf Books. Reproduced by permission.

By the Garden Gate: A Journey with Robert Campin

Posted on by Lisa Deam

My book on pilgrimage releases next week! And because I have pilgrimage on the brain, I wanted to share an article I wrote a few years ago for Epikeia Magazine. The article shows how pilgrimage can become an intensely personal journey to the heart of our faith. I hope it opens the gate to a journey of your own.

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A few years ago, in New York for a conference, I made a pilgrimage to The Cloisters museum and gardens. I use the term “pilgrimage” advisedly. Like a medieval traveler going to a shrine, I went to see a sacred object—the painting known as the Merode Altarpiece by Flemish artist Robert Campin. From Midtown, the Cloisters was enough out of the way to make the journey a little difficult, the gratification a bit delayed. The museum’s medieval setting enhanced my sense of sacred purpose.

Once at the Cloisters, I discovered that Campin’s painting has its own gallery, called the Merode Room. I made straight for it. At the time of my visit, the altarpiece hung above a medieval bench opposite the gallery entrance. By some miracle, the room was empty. The painting beckoned me forward, and I walked toward it as to an altar…

Please head over to Epikeia to continue reading!

FRIDAY FAVORITES FOR PRAYER AND WRITING

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Welcome to Friday Favorites! As we come to the end of another eventful week in an already eventful year, enjoy these posts that bring us poetry, the timelessness and constancy of God, and the pursuit of God’s voice.

Be well and be blessed,

Lisa and Prasanta

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In This Place (An American Lyric) via Amanda Gorman (discover more poetry by the National Youth Poet Laureate who read at the inauguration)

“The Cup” / “Maundy” via Matthew J. Andrews (two poems that look ahead to Holy Week)

The End Which is Really the Beginning via David Russell Mosley (the planets, stars, time, and God’s time)

A Regime of Small Kindnesses via Jen Pollock Michel (on how we imitate the constancy of God’s care)

The Wonder of Truth: Caring for Words as an Act of Discipleship via Charity Singleton Craig (how do we, as Christians, commit ourselves to the pursuit of truth?)

Listening For God In The “Unquiet City” via April Fiet (learning to listen to and discern God’s voice)