Prayer

Today’s Word: Turns

Steve · July 2, 2017 · 5 Comments

GARDEN PATH — Garden Path near Santa Fe. SJG photo.

“There are no wrong turns, only unexpected paths.” Mark Nepo

I was talking to a friend recently who is trying to make a big life decision – one of those seemingly huge choices that appear to be riddled with opportunities for both success and failure. In the words of those sage rock ‘n’ roll philosophers from The Clash: “Should I stay or should I go?”

He is going about the discernment process in all the right ways, I believe. He’s talking to trusted friends and advisors. He’s doing his homework on the new place. He’s considering what he will be leaving behind. He’s praying and trying to leave it all in the hands of God, who knows him better than he knows himself. Still, it’s a tough decision. He’s not hearing any voices. He’s not receiving any divine telegraphs. As it so often happens in life, we have to make these decisions for ourselves, hoping and praying that it’s the right one. It can be a scary and confusing time.

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We’ve Seen It All, or So We Think

Steve · April 23, 2017 · 17 Comments

Praying the Examen and Leaning into Gratitude

Shadow — Seeing Ourselves in Our Days. SJG photo.

“To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly.”
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette

Here in America’s Midwest, we are entering a new spring, although the mornings and evenings usually still have the remnants of winter in their cool breezes. Although we have just experienced an exceedingly mild winter, my practice of walking for physical and spiritual benefit has been lax and sporadic, and I am eager to pick it up again, if for no other reason than for the opportunity of putting myself in a better position to be astonished by unexpected glimpses of beauty in the world on a more regular basis. But the high level of pollens in the air and covering every outdoor surface with a thin layer of green has been keeping me and my wheezing cough and watery eyes inside. Hopefully this will subside soon, and meanwhile I’m mostly watching the outside world from my window.

Not paying close attention to what’s going on around us, refusing to be aware of the blessings and presence of God in our everyday lives, and not being willing to “be astonished,” as the French author of Gigi notes above, could all very well be the direst temptations we face as we get older. After all, we’ve seen it all, we think. There’s nothing new under the sun, so why pay attention? Another day is just another day if we don’t watch for something that will make it different.

So we settle into life, yawning at the sunrise, blinking through beauty of garden and field, ho-humming our way through all that we have learned to take for the ordinary and deserved. A meal becomes mere sustenance. The family visit perfunctory. The work of art only decoration or mindless entertainment. Without attention, without presence and purpose (our own and our acknowledgement of God’s) we risk allowing life to sweep over our heads virtually unnoticed. We live without gratitude not because we don’t care to say thank you but because we’re unaware of the gifts we have received.

It’s for this reason that the ancient prayer of St. Ignatius, the “Examen,” has become an important part of my daily prayer practice. It’s a prayer that forces us to slow down and pay attention, a prayer that can only end with that most powerful of prayers: “Thank you.”

Normally prayed near the end of the day, the Examen is an invitation to look back over our day and discover where we may have encountered God. It is an examination of our consciousness; a little different than the examination of conscience that we do when thinking about our sins and failures. This is a chance to review our day and take notice of what has happened to us and our interactions with others. It is a chance, before the day slips away from, to recall (or perhaps to see for the first time) where we encountered God. For when we do not stop and do this, we miss the blessings. We operate on autopilot and we just don’t see. We just don’t know. But when we stop and pay attention, we can begin to live lives of gratitude. We can’t say “thank you” for something we don’t recognize as gift.

Sunset — A Moment at the Close of Day. SJG photo.

In its simplest form (and there is really no reason for it to be any more complicated), the Examen includes these five steps, and it can be done in as little as five or ten minutes:

Become aware of God’s presence: Ask for God’s help in looking at your day with honesty. Become aware of God being aware of you. See your day as God sees it.

Review the day with gratitude: Notice your blessings. Notice your interactions and opportunities. Don’t forget the ordinary.

Pay attention to your emotions: Savor these moments. Pick one or two emotions that surface and pray from them. Positive or negative, both hold meaning.

Rejoice, praise, seek forgiveness: Rejoice in the times you were drawn closer to God. Ask forgiveness for the times you resisted God’s presence and action. Thank God for the awareness you received, for the awareness itself is a gift.

Look toward tomorrow: Ask God to be a part of your next day. Ask for the grace you need to be more aware. Be practical and specific.

As Rabbi Harold Kushner once said, “Can you see the holiness in those things you take for granted – a paved road or a washing machine? If you concentrate on finding what is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.”

In Chemoworld

Steve · February 8, 2017 · 2 Comments

[An excerpt from my book, “Embraced by God: Facing Chemotherapy with Faith.”]

chemo 1 — Another world: Watkins Glen State Park, New York. SJG photo.

Prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer has become impossible and your heart has turned to stone. – Thomas Merton

The moment the elevator door opens on the seventh floor and I enter the treatment center, I feel as if I am in a different world from the one where I spend the rest of my days and nights. It’s different for a number of reasons: the place itself, my fellow travelers in treatment, and my own state of mind and spirit. Chemoworld, I call it.

The center, although part of a massive, modern and sprawling medical center in St. Louis’ urban and trendy central west end, is generally quiet, and the people around me seem (again, generally) pretty unaffected, at least for a time, by the world outside the walls of the center. The economy may be falling apart, political candidates and parties may be railing against each other, and war may be raging in far-flung regions of the world, but for a few hours none of that matters as much as the battle being fought between life and death in our own bodies. As killer chemicals are sent racing and screaming into our bodies like tiny Kamikaze pilots on a mission, we’re in a different world.

I realize that, so far at least, I have been luckier than many in that my treatments are relatively quick affairs. I’m usually in and out within an hour or two and, while the treatments themselves make me weak and achy for a few days, I’m well aware that many others are not as fortunate. All that could change for me tomorrow, of course. For now, though, I am blessed.

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Living with Expectation, Gratitude and Availability

Steve · January 1, 2017 · 14 Comments

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Somehow, it’s January 1 once again. We have made yet another trip around the sun. I’m not one for making public declarations of my resolutions (although I do need to step up my walking and watch my portions once again…) but today I return to a question that might lead to a good resolution for all of us to consider on this first day of a New Year: How do we begin each day?

The older I get, my biological clock seems to be replacing the digital one beside my bed. On most days I awake a few minutes before the mechanical one goes off. So waking up is not a problem. Especially when you consider the alternative! I used to joke that I rarely saw the sunrise (“You mean to tell me that there are TWO six o’clocks?”) but now on most days I’m up before the day is. The question is, HOW do we wake up?

The Creative Spirit: “I’m busy…”

Steve · October 15, 2016 · 3 Comments

“The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.” – Galileo Galilei

I was up before dawn today and sitting on the screen porch as the world went from dark to light once again. It does this every day, or so I’m told, although I’m not always there to watch it. Or perhaps I’m up and about but not present enough to notice. This morning, I had scripture across my knee, a pen in my hand and a journal nearby, my favorite posture and attitude for taking in the world around me — silent words, quiet thoughts and the prayer of solitude.

I just finished one of the busiest few weeks of my professional life, orchestrating the logistics and planning behind the second presidential debate of this electoral season, a massive event at my university that attracted thousands of journalists of every ilk and angle and an estimated television viewership of some 60 million. I’m both exhausted and invigorated, honored to have been a part of it all (despite the content and tenor of the candidates, which I have no desire to get into here…) and glad that it’s in my rearview window.