Returning & Rest

"In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength" (Isaiah 30:15) | We'll reflect together on a more gentle way of thinking about "repentance" that leads to the healing we find in returning and rest through coming back to your contemplative practice - in your sacred word, breath, image, or glance. Ends with a short guided meditation and time for silent practice.

Transcript

In returning and rest,

You shall be saved.

In quietness and in trust shall be your strength.

This has always been one of my favorite scripture quotes for thinking about contemplative prayer and meditation.

And I used that term,

Returning and rest,

As the title for this reflection today.

The other thing that this post has been inspired by is the fact that in my own native Catholic tradition and in the broader Christian tradition,

We're celebrating the season that we call Lent.

So Lent is a time of preparation for Easter.

It's also kind of a rare time where Lent aligns with Ramadan.

So Ramadan is the holiest month in the Muslim tradition.

It's considered to be the month in which the prophet Muhammad first received the revelations that became the Quran.

So it's kind of a,

It doesn't always happen.

Ramadan can fall a lot later in the year,

Sometimes even into the fall.

So it's a unique situation where they both align this year.

And it has brought up some interesting reflections for me.

So both this quote from Isaiah about returning and resting and this alignment between Lent and Ramadan have me thinking about in both traditions,

Lent and Ramadan,

They teach followers,

Practitioners to practice three disciplines.

It's prayer,

It's fasting,

And it's almsgiving.

Prayer,

Fasting,

And almsgiving are giving to the poor or charity.

And these are disciplines in many spiritual traditions that kind of enhance our spiritual focus and are intended to bring us into a deeper relationship with God.

And in many of these traditions,

They use a more traditional,

Possibly loaded word of repentance.

So we think about Lent and Ramadan as a time to repent and turn back towards God.

And again,

It's that returning and rest.

And what I want to do in the next few minutes,

And then we'll move into some practice together,

Is explore what might be some new ways to think about this word repentance.

A common theme in my own teaching and engagement with people here and Insight Timer and other places is people who may have grown up in the Christian tradition or other traditions,

But are struggling with the traditional language and how to make sense out of it and maybe finding that they don't connect to it.

And perhaps some of you have similar experiences with this word repentance and the way that it's been used in the past.

The Latin root of the word repentance that we get our English word from kind of means to make sorry for something that's been done.

And it can have a really strong kind of penal or even punitive connotation.

And that's something that I find myself and a lot of other people that I've taught and worked with find to be kind of difficult about what we might call Western theology and spirituality is that it can be very penal or legalistic and very punitive,

Very focused on sort of we've done a bunch of things wrong and we really deserve to be punished.

And that then religion and spirituality becomes about how can I get out of punishment?

Which to be fair,

I don't think is exactly the point.

Of course,

We don't want to be punished,

But if that's all we focus on,

That can lead to a lot of problems in our spiritual lives.

So that's the kind of Latin word for repent,

But I want to unpack this a little bit deeper because we have Greek and Hebrew roots here as well that we can explore.

The reading from Isaiah that I quoted at the beginning about returning and rest was originally written in Hebrew.

And the word here in Hebrew is teshuva,

Teshuva.

And the root of that word means to return.

So it's similar to what we see in Isaiah.

And that in Hebrew understanding of teshuva,

The returning is also followed by this sort of compassionate follow-up and a restoration of right relationship.

So returning and rest or resting back into a restored relationship.

I find that to be a much more helpful way of thinking about this.

We can also explore the Greek,

Which was the language that the New Testament,

The Christian New Testament is written in.

So when we have words in Jesus's mouth in the scriptures,

Where Jesus says,

You know,

Repent and believe,

The Greek word here is metanoia.

And it literally means to change one's mind.

And it connotes,

It kind of strongly refers to this kind of turning around,

Like a literal turning around of the body and looking in a new direction and then moving in a new direction.

So we've got the Latin root of repentance,

Which is kind of punitive and legal.

We have the Hebrew word,

Which talks about returning and a restoring of relationship.

And then the Greek that speaks to more of like a changing of one's mind,

A turning around and moving in a new direction.

So I'd like to suggest that we can put all of this together into when we think about returning and rest or the call to repentance that comes through practices like Lent in the Christian tradition or Ramadan in the Muslim tradition,

That we can think of this as a call to turn back from external distractions.

Maybe even things that it might be something we regret in that more traditional sense of like feeling bad for something.

I don't mean to disclude those things.

That's a part of the human condition.

But it can also mean of turning back from like external distractions.

Maybe it's those things that we seek satisfaction in,

Things that we get attached or kind of addicted to that really can't truly satisfy us.

And I think we all have that as part of the human condition to get attached or addicted to different things.

So we can think of this returning and rest that we're being called to in these different seasons of these religious traditions in a little bit different way of a turning back from those external distractions,

From our constantly looking for things outside of ourselves to try to satisfy us.

So when we do this,

When we change our minds in the metanoia,

The Greek understanding,

When we turn back and restore relationship in the Hebrew understanding and we return into rest,

The Christian mystics have a term for this that they call recollection.

And it literally means to recollect,

So to collect back together again.

So again,

If you think about how we get drawn into external distractions and chasing after things that we think are gonna satisfy us,

Recollection says,

Okay,

Stop the outward flow of trying to find something out there and collect ourselves back together and look for that deeper satisfaction that can only be found when we are recollected in something bigger than ourselves.

So St.

Teresa of Avila,

I'm gonna paraphrase her here a little bit,

A 16th century Spanish mystic.

She describes recollection,

And this is not a verbatim quote,

It's kind of my interpretation of it,

But she describes it as the soul gathering itself up into itself and then resting in God.

So it's our soul,

Our mind,

Our body,

Our spirit,

Gathering itself up into itself and then resting in God.

Now,

Some of you might be familiar with the yoga tradition and the eight limbs and the yoga sutras and in yoga practice.

And I think of this very similar to the understanding of pratyahara,

Which is the bridge of turning inward.

So it's that bridge in the eight limbs of yoga that leads from the external disciplines,

Like posture and breath are probably the ones that we are most familiar with in the West,

But there are all kinds of other moral and hygiene type disciplines that are developed earlier in those eight limbs.

And then it moves us into the internal world of meditation and contemplation.

So it's that turning back,

It has a very similar kind of meaning.

So we can see similarities in the practices and even the philosophy and theology and spirituality across these different faith and spiritual traditions.

So pratyahara is another way we can think about this.

Some have called this process involution rather than evolution,

And I love that way of thinking about it.

It's a moving forward of our human condition,

Both individually and collectively that happens,

But not through the external kind of processes that we think of as evolution and growth,

But through internal processes of involution and growth and a resting into the divine presence.

So we can think of this as like a moving forward by going within.

And when we do that,

When we repent,

We turn,

We return and we rest,

Or we change our mind in a different direction and we start looking more internally for those sources of peace and fulfillment,

Then we start to touch what we might call the eternal presence.

And I would use that with a capital E and a capital P.

It's an eternal presence that can only be found in the heart.

And we have different terms for referring to this,

Some of which people find helpful and reassuring and other terms that some people might find more triggering.

We can call it just resting into peer consciousness or peer awareness,

Whatever the case might be.

But when we turn in that involution and rest in that,

That I would suggest in my own experience and in the teaching that I've done and the masters that I've studied,

That is the only place where we experience the kind of deep and lasting healing from the emotional wounds and experiences that we get from living in this human condition.

So when we do that,

We find our true self.

And again,

I would put self with a capital S here.

It's not that true self is not different from or separate from God or what we mean by that word God.

In fact,

Our true self is the place of our oneness with God within and not just with God,

But it's our oneness with everything that exists,

With our own deepest self,

With nature,

With others,

And really all of what we think of as reality,

Seen and unseen.

It's a turning and resting back into that.

So we come back to that quote that I opened with from the prophet Isaiah in the Hebrew Scriptures.

"'In returning and rest,

You shall be saved.

"'In quietness and in trust shall be your strength.

'" Now,

There are simple things that we can do to prepare ourselves for what we talk about as the gift of contemplative prayer or meditation that facilitate this teshuva,

This returning and resting into a restored relationship,

This metanoia,

This changing of mind,

Or this turning back to our healing source and our creator.

So some of the simple things that we do in our practice that maybe we even take for granted,

Just closing our eyes is an already a turning back from external stimulation to moving inward and kind of tuning into our internal sense of,

Sometimes call it proprioception,

Self-awareness,

Body awareness,

Breath awareness.

There are other traditional things that have been developed,

And we're gonna practice some of these together in a second.

And I think of these as like using an internal kind of anchor to bring us back to that source and space within where we touch that deeper healing and peace.

So in my own practice of centering prayer and meditation,

We use a sacred word.

And in that practice,

We choose a short word,

And it doesn't matter what the meaning of that word is.

Instead,

That word becomes a symbol of our intention to consent or to say yes to the divine healing and presence within.

So we pick a word,

And then whenever we notice that we start to engage with our thoughts,

We just very gently,

And I emphasize the word gently,

Return to that sacred word in our heart and in our mind and repeat it and kind of let go of whatever thoughts are coming up.

Similarly,

Some of you might use a mantra that you have either chosen or received.

So in the Christian meditation practice,

They often use the word maranatha.

It's an Aramaic word called come Holy Spirit is what it means,

Or come Lord,

I think,

Is the more literal translation.

Other people find a word to be kind of too abstract,

Too mental,

Right,

And wanna get more into the body.

So people will sometimes use just what they call the sacred breath,

Right,

A returning to the breath when we notice that the mind wanders,

Which again,

Just like the sacred word,

Returning to the breath can become a symbol of our intention,

Our desire to say yes to the divine healing and presence within.

Other people use or talk about what they call a sacred image.

So it could be a memory that you have of like a beautiful place in nature,

Or a beautiful moment of connection with another person or where you felt really connected with God or something bigger than yourself.

Or it could be a more traditional image of like a painting or an icon or something that again,

It just becomes that anchor to bring us back to saying yes in the present moment.

Similarly,

Some people talk about a sacred glance,

Almost as if you sort of are returning your internal sense of vision to a particular place within the body.

For myself,

As I've done centering prayer for over a couple decades now,

I still have the same word that I use,

But I have almost kind of integrated it with a sacred glance because there's a certain resonance that I feel in the heart or the heart center area whenever I return to the sacred word.

And so sometimes I almost have this kind of inner glance towards the heart or chest area while I gently repeat the sacred word that brings me back to that moment of saying yes or surrendering in as we sometimes talk about it to the divine presence and action in the moment.

So I've just described some of the different ways that you can find an anchor for that returning and rest when the mind gets pulled away and distracted by the million and one things that are out there vying for our attention that don't go away when we close our eyes and turn within,

Right?

Because we have the real,

The sort of physical distractions that bombard us throughout our day.

But for those of you who have done any kind of practice at all,

Which I'm guessing on Insight Timer is pretty much all of you at some point,

You know that as soon as you close your eyes,

There are just as many,

If not more,

Distractions up here in the mind and in the head.

So we have an anchor,

Whether that's your sacred word,

A mantra,

A breath,

An image,

A sacred glance,

Or a focus on the heart center.

Whatever you wanna choose for this practice,

Go ahead and pick something for this.

And then we'll just move into about 10 minutes of allowing the thoughts to kind of float by on the river.

And when you notice that you're starting to wander or you're thinking about your to-do list or an anxiety or a memory,

Or even a physical sensation in your body comes up that draws you away from the moment and from that returning and resting in the divine presence,

Just return to that sacred word or mantra or breath or glance or image.

Close your eyes if that works for you.

To place yourself into a comfortable position.

Could be seated,

Could be laying down,

Could be any number of positions,

But just bring some intention and awareness to your physical posture and space right now.

And allow your next few breaths to become just a little bit richer and a little bit deeper.

And as you're ready,

Whatever you've chosen to be your sacred anchor,

If it's a word or a mantra or an image or a glance,

Gently introduce that into your practice and let that become the symbol of your returning and resting into the divine presence in this moment.

Thank you.

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Reviews

You have 8 minutes of nothing at the end. Otherwise much appreciated!

Great way to center and connect

That was sooooo nice! Thank you!!

A great comparative look at similarities of different traditions with regard to returning to our true Self. That you.

Really thought provoking and helpful description of repentance and therefore of a word I find so so difficult ....sin. to hear repentance as turning towards the divine or away from distraction defines sin as turning away from connection with the divine withine me.
Tha kbyou so much for this healing experience

I love your cross discipline ecumenical approach to scripture. It’s very refreshing and accessible. Thank you so much. 🙏

This was incredibly helpful and I highly recommend it. I had stopped doing my daily Centering Prayer and had been caught up in addictions. This brought me back. Thank you so much, Tom.

This is an enlightening talk about the deeper meanings of repentance. Return and rest helped me relax into stillness and compassion. Thank you.

Very effective in helping me relax. Lifted my mood as well.

Incredibly helpful! Opened up a new level for me.

This was so relevant to me. In the course of my meditation over the past month I’ve realized how attached I’ve become to earthly things and I’ve been asking to be released from that. I love this verse as well. I would really like for you to post some meditations with the scripture verse repeated and quiet time. I think that Lectio Divina can be really powerful. Thank you! You’re very knowledgeable.

Thomas demonstrates both a broad and deep understanding of spirituality. This is, in my experience, a rare combination. Then he ends with a substantial opportunity for silence to contemplate and integrate what has just been addressed. Well done!

Thank you Tom

Great overview and combined with a practice time was a great way to start my day. Thanks.

This offering pairs about 15 minutes of introduction (or reintroduction) to Centering Prayer with a 10-minute silent sit. Tom’s talk covers familiar ground for some of us, but in a fresh and wonderful way. One of the things I love about Tom’s work is that, though his roots are in the Christian tradition, his broad experience allows him to make this wise tradition accessible to a larger ecumenical audience.

LOVED it!!! Great summary & teaching bringing faith concepts together, ahhhhh soothing! Thanks Tom