By J. Jioni Palmer, Contributing Writer
For most of my life, praying has felt awkward. As a child, when Pastor Herzfeld would lead the congregation in prayer, initially, I would keep my gaze focused on the pulpit. My eyes often wandered around the chamber, taking in the stained-glass windows or other artwork adorning the hall. Inevitably, I would glance around and observe what others were doing. My mom’s head was bowed, and her eyes were closed like most assembled. But not all; once I locked eyes with Pastor Herzfeld—someone else was leading the prayer—he tossed me a playful smile and wink.
As an adolescent studying for confirmation in the Lutheran Church, I queried Pastor Holt about how to comport myself during congregational prayer. Eyes open or closed, to bow or not to bow, what should I do? I wondered. His answer was to do what felt right. That was the problem. Nothing felt right.
More confounding than what to do during prayer was what to think and say when praying by myself. Prescribed prayers like “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” seemed macabre and unsettling before slumber. I did not understand the meaning of the “Lord’s Prayer” literally, let alone figuratively. Nor did I comprehend the need to enumerate all I was thankful for if praying extemporaneously. Why wouldn’t it suffice to say “thanks for everything” if I am truly sincere?
Ultimately, my high school psychology teacher, Mr. Powers, offered a perspective that informed my thoughts about prayer and introduced me to meditation. Prayer came to mean talking to and with God, while mediation meant talking to and with myself.
Mr. Powers was a Buddhist layman who lived during the school week at a monastery in Berkeley, California. He regaled my fellow classmates and me with stories of his journey from political science graduate student to psychologist, high school teacher, and Buddhist adherent by seeking to understand the nature of power and how it seduces men and women. His tales of bodhisattvas who not only mastered breathing but also the rhythms of their hearts, life, and death entranced me. I was fascinated with the notion that by clearing my mind of thoughts and desires, mastery of emotions and physical sensations—including eliminating pain—could ensue.
I spent—and occasionally still do—countless hours questing to think and feel nothing. One evening, Nana, my grandmother, passed my room and inquired what I was doing.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Well,” she replied, “You are lying in bed, and now you’re talking to me. That’s doing something.”
Since that day, it has been very difficult for me to do “nothing.”
Thich Nhat Hanh explains that mindfulness is a more apt term or expression for my experimentation. Attempting to do nothing is to do something. To hope to endure any of life’s endeavors with a modicum of success requires action—not action without thinking, but mindful intentions, or, as I like to say, being present in the moment.
Before marrying and having two sons, I defined success by my professional achievements. Life was much simpler but needed to be enriched or fully experienced. I could be present or recalibrate on my terms at my own time and place.
My considerations, aspirations, limitations, and desires must be balanced with those of my extended family, church community, and profession. Mostly, these align, but for them to do so or for me to figure out how to reconcile or cope when they do not require mindful intentions.
Having the time–no–finding the time. No! Making the time to consider how I relate to myself, family, friends, colleagues, and God and how they all relate to each other is more imperative than ever.
I am still searching for an obvious space to dedicate to prayer and meditation. I commit my morning cleansing routine to conversing with God and myself. As I prepare to encounter the vagaries of daily life, I use this time to commune personally and with God to fortify myself for the known and unknown. This, as Thich Nhat Hanh says, draws me closer to myself, my family, my community, and with God. All are interrelated and interdependent.
The more intentional I am in this, the better I am.
One of my favorite people is my eldest son, Middleton. Like his dad, he is a moody, fun-loving, and contemplative Cancer. When he was about two years old, while I was driving him to school, he became frustrated and ultimately inconsolable—tears and screaming ensued. I couldn’t console him, nor could he verbalize the source of his distress.
“Breathe,” I said. I don’t know why.
“Take a deep breath.”
Repeating myself, he began to follow suit. And calmed himself.
Some say prayer is talking to God, and meditation is listening. I believe that, in some way, breathing is being in conversation with God. In the beginning, before the earth was without form and void, the Spirit of God moved across the waters. The Hebrew word for that spirit is /Ru-ha/, which translates to “wind.” So whenever we feel the slightest breeze or a powerful gust or hear the trees rustling or the hush of our own breath, we should be reminded that God is forever present and always with us.
