Welcome to a prayer practice.
I'm Kelly Weber and I'm a spiritual director.
It can be such a tenuous walk between longing and contentment.
Because here's the thing,
Longing is not the same thing as discontentment,
But we can sometimes conflate the two.
Longing lives in the space of scarcity.
It's a lack of satisfaction with one's possession,
Status,
Or situation.
A restless aspiration.
Rather,
Longing lives in the space of possibility,
Of abundance.
It's an earnest desire.
Paying attention to our longing can give us great information about who we are and whether or not we're living in alignment with our values.
Longing,
You see,
Never actually leaves us.
We can long for something and also be content.
In fact,
That's the sweet spot.
The simplicity of a life lived not in restless dissatisfaction,
But in grounded hope.
Ugh,
Sounds good.
The author David Foster Wallace says something similar.
There is no such thing as not worshiping.
Everybody worships.
The only choice we get is what to worship.
And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual type thing to worship,
Be it J.
C.
Or Allah or be it Yahweh or Wiccan mother goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infragable set of ethical principles,
Is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.
If you worship money and things,
If they are where you tap real meaning in life,
Then you will never have enough.
Never feel you have enough.
It's the truth.
Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly.
And when time and age start showing,
You will die a million deaths before they plant you.
On one level,
We all know this stuff already.
The trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
So this worshiping that Wallace describes,
This longing for something bigger than ourselves,
How do we focus it towards the One who satisfies our longing and eases the suffering of our discontent?
The One who teaches us to live simply?
Well,
Like Wallace says,
The trick is to keep the truth up front in daily consciousness.
So how do we do that?
Well,
First I'd say let's recognize the specific ways that you,
That we,
Most readily feel discontented,
Disconnected,
And distracted.
I'm going to give you some ideas of some ways that that might happen.
And we all experience all of these things,
But as I name them,
Notice which one for you resonates the most.
Which one for you are you most prone to doing?
Here they are.
Do you tend to feel resentful when things don't go your way or things aren't done to your standards?
Are you always looking for ways to help even when sometimes your help isn't wanted?
How much do you think about how other people see you?
Can sadness sometimes feel like a warm blanket you never want to take off?
Do you go a little overboard with boundaries because you're scared of being asked to do too much?
How often do you not do something you'd like to do,
But you don't because you're scared?
Do you have a hard time being present to the moment you're in because you're always planning for the future?
Can you get caught in the thought loops wishing and worrying that people will get what's coming to them?
And how much time do you spend numbing out on your phone or the television?
Choose one of these thinking fixations that most resonates with you,
And we're going to use it in a kind of an examined prayer.
The prayer of examine is an ancient prayer that allows us to reflect on our day,
To exercise that inner observer so that we can allow God to move the needle of contentment in our lives.
Let's start.
First,
Find a place to sit and close your eyes,
Feeling the ground of the chair beneath you.
Settle into your breathing and your body as you consent to being in the presence of God and God's action within you.
Next,
Think about your day.
Scan the moments of your day and like reaching into your purse for your keys,
Search for that moment in your day that you experienced this fixation.
Scan your day and ask God to show you the moments that your discontentment took over.
Where do you feel this in your body?
What does it feel like?
Be curious about it.
Next,
Take three deep breaths into the space around this discontentment and allow it to just soften.
When you're ready,
You're going to look for a moment of grace in your day as a counterpoint to your discontentment.
Again,
Scan your day and if you discovered a moment of resentment,
I'd like you to look for a moment of serenity and peace.
If you discovered a moment of neediness,
Look for a moment when you felt most humble.
If you discovered a moment of insecurity,
Look for a moment when you were the most authentic and honest.
If you discovered a moment of sadness,
Look for a moment of equanimity and acceptance.
If you discovered a moment of withholding,
Look for a moment of non-attachment and generosity.
If you discovered a moment of fear,
Look for a moment of courage in the face of that fear.
If you discovered a moment of overconsumption,
Look for a moment of sobriety and present moment awareness.
If you discovered a moment of control,
Look for a moment of innocence and vulnerability.
Allow God to show you the grace that existed in your day,
The moments you chose or were gifted the ability to be content even in the face of longing.
Where do you feel this in your body?
What does it feel like?
See if you can allow both the moment of discontentment and the moment of grace to both exist.
Let your breath drop into the spaces between,
Connecting them,
Allowing them to speak to one another.
There is a wisdom in our bodies that we have been gifted that doesn't require us to understand.
Dear God,
Allow us to trust our bodies that they will teach us how to recognize the clinging of our hearts and minds and hands to that which is not life-giving,
To those things we should not worship.
Make clear to us the times when we live into the grace that is offered us in every moment.
Help us not just to pay attention but to recognize and shift our behavior so that we may live simply with contentment and allow our longing to be only for you.
Amen.
Thanks for praying with me today.
I'll be with you in a few weeks when we continue our practice.
