With Heart and Mind
December 24, 2008
My mother’s father died when I was 12 and he was 96. Already an old man when his daughter was born, he lived a rough life, slaving away in a sawmill providing for seven children before and during the Great Depression. Two years before he died, my mother and I entered his nursing home room and found him chanting, singing and shouting a string of profanities. Both sad and embarrassed, my mother ushered me out of the room, as the old man continued his litany of curse words and obscenities.
Slipping in and out of lucidity, my grandfather shouted and sang words that he had used all of his life. They were normally saved for the occasion when something went wrong at the mill or a friend cheated him at cards. He would have been ashamed had he been able to hear himself but these words had been a part of his daily life. They were part of his daily rhythm.
I have reflected on that moment numerous times wondering what would happen if I were in his circumstance. Would profanity, inanity, or nonsense roll off my tongue? Or, after entering into a sacred rhythm, could I be found chanting words of prayer?
The prayer of the heart, sometimes referred to as the “Jesus Prayer”, is a mode of prayer encouraged throughout the Eastern Orthodox church. Through this mode of prayer the individual is encouraged to pray, repeatedly, a brief phrase in order that the pray-er moves from doing the work of prayer to God doing the work of prayer within him. St. Isaac the Syrian says:
When the Spirit makes Its dwelling-place in someone, he does not cease to pray, because the Spirit will constantly pray in him.
For awhile I have wondered if entering Sacred Rhythm might not create a similar experience where prayer becomes a partnership between the individual and God. Regularly meeting God, daily spending time with the same words of prayer, may become the environment where God’s Spirit prays from within us. (Rom 8:26)
When prayer becomes a part of our daily rhythm as our minds and bodies engage God’s Spirit, we may be found, even if our minds are in a state of disarray, praying words and having them prayed through us, that were a part of our daily, sacred rhythm.
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