The Welcome Prayer

After last night’s final session of St. John's Waterloo Lent course I feel a bit like St. Paul with his concern for the embryonic Christian communities that he has planted around the place. How will they survive, how are they doing now? Is there anything further I can do to help and support them in their deepening way of living the Christian life? (If Paul had had the internet we would not now have his letters to those fledgling communities.) Pioneers in this way of being-in-the-world (of any religion or none) need all the support they can get and it's not always obvious where to find it. I have provided links to some web sites in earlier blog posts. As a recovering human being I need to 'touch base' with others on the same journey, through web sites, books, the occasional lecture, and often chance encounters with fellow travellers. For many years I've had the following quotation in my file and I have no idea where it comes from (if you know please tell me):

From hand to hand the greeting flows.
From eye to eye the signals run.
From heart to heart the bright hope glows.
The seekers of the light are one.

So our final session was called 'Pray without ceasing'; a title which highlights the difficulty of interpreting the experience of New Testament writers. The word 'pray' is a verb, suggesting something we do, whereas what we are discovering is a way of Being in the world; and I've used a capital letter there to indicate that this way of living always involves me in something greater than myself.

But the prevailing zeitgeist is doing, not being, so we have to unlearn stuff while developing under-used spiritual/psychological muscles and at first this feels 'clunky' like when we start learning to drive and have to think carefully about which foot pedal to press.

Earlier sessions in the course were about formal periods of meditation during which new muscles are being discovered, brain synapses are being reconnected and re-routed, we are coming home from the far country to that centre of our being which underlies everything. In Christian terms we are discovering that there is nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God. Then what? Then we have to get on with daily life in this 'doing' world. And, please, there's nothing wrong with doing! Without it we would not be human. What we are after is getting on with the doing without losing touch with the underlying being.

Last night we were concerned with what happens when things go wrong and we are blown off course. An appropriate foot pedal to press is called The Welcome Prayer. Developed by Thomas Keating and explained clearly and simply by Cynthia Bourgeault in her book 'Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening' it involves a four step process.

Focus: gently become aware of body sensations – thoughts, feelings, emotions
No judgement
No analysis
No ‘fixing it’ thoughts

Welcome
It is as it is. Therefore I welcome it/all specific thoughts, feelings, emotions
NOT welcoming an outer situation only your reaction to it - the feelings and sensations of this moment.
It (this situation) is potentially for my healing/growth.

Let go of desire for
Security/survival
Approval/esteem
Control/power
But only after taking the Welcome step.

Open to healing of the eternal presence; the healing action and grace within.

Do it as soon as possible after triggering event. With practice it becomes possible to do it almost instantaneously.

Surrender only to this moment after which you have three choices in dealing with the situation which provoked the ‘upset’:
change it;
if you can’t change it, leave it;
if you can neither change it nor leave it, surrender to it completely. This is not fatalism or quietism provided you have navigated the four stages (focus, welcome, let go, open).

Most of the triggering events we mentioned last night were of the high energy variety - resentments, fears, bad news, irritating behaviour - but what about low energy, persistent situations like depression? There's a helpful variation on this Christian approach in Jon Kabat-Zinn's 'The Mindful Way Through Depression'. As this post is already quite long enough I'll deal with it tomorrow.