This post is for those of us for whom the 2025 Inauguration of our incoming president will be a day of grief, or at least a difficult day.
I am very very sad for my country too and worried as well as I have said before. I am horrified by the ugliness and hate this administration is already unleashing into society – bringing out the worst in all of us.
Here are my survival plans for January 20.
I am not watching the inauguration, not in any way. In fact I’m not listening to the news at all that day. Spiritual reading or audio book sounds a lot better.
I plan to celebrate MLK whose day it is. I can do this by being grateful for him, by posting about him, by reading some of his writings, by talking about him with my family, especially with my grandchildren. Locally we have an MLK day March that because of weather will be a caravan this year. We plan to join it.
If you’re home for the MLK holiday then you can make this a mini retreat day for yourself to recharge and put on the armor of God
. “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
Ephesians 6:11-17
Pray. Because when we pray we are truly putting more love into the world , in whatever way we choose to pray. If we pray with love and attentiveness God will work through us in secret and powerful ways; our soul becomes a door of grace for the movement of divine love into this world. We don’t have to say anything. We only bring ourselves to God with an open heart. He will only do what is right.
So pray in whatever way you can. Pray as much as you can.
I plan to dedicate my actions that day and any suffering I feel or any happiness, all my thoughts words and experiences of the day, to the cause of truth and justice and right. God knows what those truly are so I don’t even have to be specific.
Next, make this a day of service. Do a good deed. Make a connection with someone. You can pick up trash in your neighborhood. Perform a random act of kindness. Volunteer at a local charity. Spend some time really listening to a child and let them lead the conversation or the activity of their choice. Kids remember things like that. Do someone else’s chores. Pay it forward at a drive through. Give someone flowers. Ask a homeless person how they are. You know what to do.
I also think at least for that day Philippians 4:8 has excellent advice for what to keep in mind. I’m going to try to master my thoughts and put that verse into action.
“Finally, brothers, sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
Philippians 4:8
I plan to listen to beautiful music and also to take refuge in poetry. I’ve been reading a lot of poetry lately.
Make good use of that dark day of worry fear and grief. Make it something beautiful for God and for others, for yourself.
It’s like putting flowers in guns I think. Only these flowers are able to bring about the change they represent.
This is it y’all. Let’s prepare ourselves with prayer, with beauty, with acts of service, with peace. That’s our real refuge.
Our king is not a king of this world who has to seek or cling to power. He would never scrabble for control of others. He did not seek wealth. He did not fight for victory over anyone, or use force on anyone who disagreed with him. Everyone was and is free to walk away or to take on his gentle yoke.
When asked to show force or use vengeance he refused. When asked to punish someone, the ones who asked ended up walking away in silence, contemplating their own sins.
He was clear about who he was but he never had to brag about anything. Why would he? He was quietly in charge of every star, every atom, every quark, every beetle, every galaxy. His spirit upheld all things. “I am that I am” God told Moses when he asked him his name. He just Is.
And he knew who he was.
When Pilate asked Jesus if he was a king Our Lord’s answer showed us we didn’t understand the kind of king he really was.
Our worldly minds, even as his followers, still find it hard to understand someone who has absolute power but instead chooses dusty feet and sacrificial love.
Can you imagine a mosquito landing on you and biting you? And instead of smacking the mosquito you die for it to save it? We are less than mosquitos given the scale of creation and the absolute power of God. But we are everything to him because he loves us, each one like the only one.
What kind of king is Christ? The kind of king who is infinite but makes himself small for us so we can be friends. The kind of king who washes our feet, shares his rule with us for the small exchange of our love. Indeed we are crowned with the stars in his eyes when he looks at us. He makes us like himself, he lifts us up, he washes our feet, feeds us, dresses us in his own bright finery.
What does this kind kind of Christly kingship mean for us? He summed up his expectations of us by saying “love one another as I have loved you.” He would have us love humbly, sacrificially and completely. He said that if we had authority in this world we should never lord it over those in our charge. He never did. He didn’t have to. It means that we should be grounded in the dignity he gives each of us, in his gift of free will, his unfathomable and tender humility. We reflect his heart, keeping him always at the center seeing with his eyes.
I heard in a homily once from Bishop Bill Wack that 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 could be taken to describe the Lord. We know God is love. So we just read the passage replacing the word love with his name.
“Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind. He does not envy, he does not boast, he is not proud. He does not dishonor others, he is not self-seeking, he is not easily angered, he keeps no record of wrongs. Jesus does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Jesus always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres
Jesus never fails.”
To see how you are doing following this King of ours, go back now and this time put your name in in place of “Love.”
I think we all have a way to go. It’s a good thing we have him to help us.
How can we serve a King like this one? A king who washes feet? Who gives freely? Who rules by love and asks for nothing else?
By washing feet, by giving freely, being ruled by love alone.
This summer I finished my manuscript for a new book. The working title is Pray Like Teresa; how to pray the Prayer of Recollection of St. Teresa of Avila. The publisher will decide the official title. I agonized a lot writing it but that seems to be part of my creative process unfortunately. It was also my solace during a stressful summer as it turned out to be.
When I have a project on I continually “write” in my head until it’s finished. Then it’s hard for me to stop messing with it and to stop thinking about it all the time. I enjoyed St. Teresa’s accompaniment during the months of working on this little book for her. I hope she is happy with it.
The book is short, only 15,000 words, about half the length of my first one, Come to Mary’s House; spending time with Our Blessed Mother. It is also more instructional than Come to Mary’s House. I would describe the general vibe of the book as St. Teresa with a Shawn twist. I tried to stay absolutely true to Tersa’s teachings and to work in my own Teresian spirituality and experience as well.
An important goal I had for this book was to help everyday Catholics and others to get to know Teresa’s teachings in a friendly way. I included St. Teresa’s struggles and sense of humor along with her teachings on the Prayer of Recollection and her basic foundational teachings that underpin it. I hope for the reader to see that contemplative prayer is for everyone and that this method of prayer is one anyone can do.
I also wanted to show why contemplative prayer is desirable, not only for the growth of the person who prays but for the good of the Church and the whole world. In this way I believe deepening inner prayer and contact with God, friendship with Jesus, and the practice of a life of prayer are urgent necessities in our world today and for the renewal of the Church.
A lot of people may be intimidated by Teresa of Avila because of her profound mystical experiences, because she is the “Doctor of Prayer,” and such a great figure of Catholic spirituality. Maybe they had not thought of reading her works before because they were written about 500 years ago and they assume she is inaccessible and too Medieval to be understandable or applicable to their lives.
I hope the reader will find that St. Teresa was also very human, witty, funny, practical and grounded. Her wisdom is relevant to anyone wanting to live the spiritual life, to grow in prayer, to this day. I hope I have provided a simple way to take up this prayer that Teresa said the Lord himself taught her, to anyone who picks this book up.
I think it would be a perfect book to take to Adoration with you, enriching your prayer in that hour with Jesus, or to keep by the place you like to sit when you pray daily. One could easily read a section each day and try the part of the prayer that section suggests.
I intend to encourage everyone who reads this book to try the prayer, to stick with it, along with giving practical ideas to help them be consistent.
I arranged it as an introduction to Teresa herself, and then I played out reflectively her basic discoveries about prayer such as friendship with Jesus, his Sacred Humanity, and God being experienced as within us.
Then I wrote a section about each step of the prayer and how to do it, each one headed by a quote from Teresa or from Scripture.
I allowed myself the pleasure of writing about the effects of the prayer as well and let myself get poetic about those but not overly so I hope. I wanted to communicate the beauty and joy of intimate love of God.
I am hoping this book will appeal to the everyday Catholic who may be being called by God to cast their nets into the deep or at least the deeper or even a little bit deeper. Whether the reader takes up everything in the book as part of their daily prayer life or not I hope reading it will improve their prayer life and their relationship with the Lord at least a little. I think it will.
My parish is primarily young people in college. They are remarkably devout, however. I can imagine some of them being interested in this book. I thought of them while I was writing, but also of people my own age or so (I’m 56) who at this time of life may be more interested in contemplation and want to give it daily time. I want it to speak to anyone who looks through it.
I turned in my manuscript to Our Sunday Visitor on Assumption Day, a few days early. But I thought it was a good way to honor Our Lady and St. Teresa, whose habit (the Carmelite habit) she wore.
I see bumper stickers and social media posts and hear comments about how America should turn back to God and how we should pray for that or enact laws to that effect. Right now a law is being discussed that curriculum in Texas public schools should include Bible stories. Whether that will make people “turn back to God” or not I don’t know. I just have to rave a little bit right now. And here are some questions I think should be considered when we say our nation should “turn back to God.”
When was our nation with God to begin with? When we kidnapped and enslaved Africans for hundreds of years? When we murdered the indigenous peoples for land? When we forced their children into schools away from their parents to rid them of their cultures and languages and otherwise abuse them even to death? Maybe we were with God when we used to have school prayer but practiced corporal punishment? Or when we lynched black men on Saturday and went to church Sunday and never saw the conflict? Maybe we were closer to God during Jim Crow and segregation. Or perhaps when we put Japanese Americans in internment camps. Or maybe it was when women couldn’t own property or vote? Or go to college? Or were basically their husbands’ property? Or when we used to accuse women of being witches and burn them alive? Maybe it was when we used to do nothing about violence against women; when the police would say it was a private matter? Possibly we were the holiest when it was thought that rape was usually the woman’s fault and women lied about it? Or when sexual harassment was just an expected thing women had to put up with?
Maybe we should think about what it means to “turn back to God.” Does it mean saying some words of prayer or calling “Lord Lord?” Or is it living in righteousness and compassion and mercy with God because of our love for him and because his love has filled our hearts to love others?
We will know ourselves by our fruits Hopefully these will be the fruits of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.
Because God is love. And there is no other way to turn to him. It doesn’t mean turning “back” to anything but to keep growing and walking ahead with love for God and neighbor. It means opening our hearts.
Today is Body and Blood of Jesus Sunday, otherwise known as the feast of Corpus Christi ♥️ So happy feast.
This is a good time to reflect on the humility of God who became incarnate and remains with us as simple Bread and Wine for us to eat and drink, sharing in our humanity that we might share in his Divinity. There is one Lord who suffered and died for us and we take part in his redemption of all when we suffer with that intention; of uniting our suffering to his in union with his mission of salvation, mercy and love. Under those conditions we can say someone is suffering with Christ or in a way that Jesus did. We can also say he suffers in the poor, the oppressed and those in the margins of society as he said he did in the Gospel of Matthew. That’s it. Anything else is blasphemous. We should keep our eyes on the sinless Son of God who deserves all of our love. One God one faith one baptism. He is God and there is no other.
I’m writing about this because it’s disturbing to see pictures of Trump “crucified” with Jesus or Jesus “embracing” Trump and whispering that he too was wrongly convicted. To me this is an insult to the martyrs who deserve that consolation. We Christians understand that their unjust deaths were for their faith, for their love of God and were their sacrifice for the Gospel.
Trumps’s conviction is not a situation like that whether one believes he is guilty or not. That’s almost beside the point.
Yes God loves the powerful the rich and political figures too and cares about them just as he does the rest of us. However I think there is an innate danger both spiritual and secular in comparing a political figure to Jesus. Let us rather pray for our leaders that they will be what God wants them to be and created them to be. What more could we ask for anyone? Let’s stick with that. We can never go wrong in praying for God’s will. He will give what is right – and only he truly knows what that is.
During this little slice of Ordinary Time after Christmas and before Lent we might begin to feel spiritually unenthused. Maybe we were already. Maybe we even avoid prayer and the practice of our faith. Maybe we have an aversion to our daily duties. Maybe we’re bored and drawn mostly to distractions. What’s going on? St. Evagrius (AD 385-399) who lived in the Egyptian desert as an early monastic wrote about something called acedia.
What is acedia? The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2733) calls it a form of depression caused by giving in to spiritual laxity or presumption. The Desert Fathers thought of it as a spiritual condition people can fall into with a complex set of symptoms, a spiritual malady, or even as a demon.
[Acedia is] a hatred of industriousness, a battle against stillness, stormy weather for psalmody, laziness in prayer, a slackening of ascesis, untimely drowsiness, revolving sleep, the oppressiveness of solitude, hatred of one’s cell, an adversary of ascetic works, an opponent of perseverance, muzzling of meditation, ignorance of the scriptures, a partaker in sorrow, a clock for hunger.
St. Evagrius
Yikes.
St. Evagrious of Pontus says the real roots of acedia are self centeredness, anger and misdirected desire. When oppressed by acedia we tend to seek comfort and pleasure to counteract the restlessness we feel, and in response to our aversion to spiritual practice. We avoid the tasks we are responsible for. We withdraw from charitable activity and are more prone to gab with others for our own entertainment and distraction than to be useful to them. We fill our lives with surface busy-ness, avoiding prayer and study. We lack spiritual desire and quietly long for things and activities that will draw us away from the spiritual. We are both restless and exhausted. We want to sleep, we want to pace the floor. We feel at once angry and dissatisfied as well as listless, staring at nothing. This sounds terrible. No wonder Evagrious called it “the most oppressive of demons.’
All of this reminds me of a passage from one of my favorite books, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.
“There once was a boy named Milo who didn’t know what to do with himself; not just sometimes but always. When he was in school he longed to be out, and when he was out he longed to be in. On the way he thought about coming home, and coming home he thought about going. Wherever he was he wished he were somewhere else, and when he got there he wondered why he’d bothered. Nothing really interested him- least of all the things that should have. “It seems to me that almost everything is a waste of time,” he remarked as he walked dejectedly home from school.”
And “… while he was never anxious to be where he was going, he liked to get there as soon as possible.”
Had Milo been a monk he would have been diagnosed by the Desert Fathers like Evagrius, as suffering from, and indulging in acedia.
If we find ourselves troubled by acedia, what is the remedy? What should we do?
Master your thoughts.
Notice when your thoughts are going into that irritable, lazy restless lane again, and change course as soon as you notice. Something that helps me is to repeat the names of Jesus and Mary; “Jesus Maria Jesus Maria Jesus Maria” each time I find myself on that negative track again. Be patient with yourself. It doesn’t help to be mad or disappointed in yourself. Simply move on and persevere.
“Whether or not all these thoughts trouble the soul is not within our power; but it is for us to decide if they are to linger within us or not and whether or not they stir up the passions.”
St. Evagrius
Resist. If you want to sleep or run away or indulge in compulsive activity, persevere in what you are actually supposed to be doing in spite of how you feel. If you are avoiding prayer, pray. If you are avoiding your duties, get back on track. If you’ve lost sight of your routines, get back to them. I suggest working on one thing at a time so you aren’t overwhelmed. When you are stuck in acedia even one of these things can be hard enough to change.
Gratitude. Write down five things you are grateful for when everything is getting on your nerves. It works surprisingly well.
Manual labor. Nothing helps me as much as some vigorous sweeping, mopping or dragging things around outside. According to the Fathers, acedia is both mental and physical. This is why it’s so hard to kick.
Meditate on the Passion and Death of Jesus. Maybe praying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary or The Way of the Cross can assist you in this. This is uniquely grounding for us as Christians.
Ask God for the gift of tears. According to Evagrius, the gift of tears in prayer, and tears of repentance are indispensable for liberation from acedia. So have a good holy cry, it cleanses the soul.
Preach the Psalms to your own soul. As Dorothy Day wrote, “My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the psalms. ”
Engage your intellect. I learned this from Fr. Gregory McLaughlin who taught me that when I was being ruled too much by my emotions, I should study, especially religious study such as Scripture or good spiritual reading. It works.
Go to confession. This may seem obvious but remember the Sacrament of Reconciliation is healing and restorative. God gave us Confession so we can receive his mercy, overcome our sins and begin anew which is exactly what we need to be free of acedia and free for God.
Good deeds. Go through the day quietly tucking in small kindnesses wherever you can. This is a remedy for almost any malady of any kind. When you are ready, throw yourself into working for others in some way.
Gently fold these things into your life and you will soon sense a clear fine spiritual love reclaiming its place in your heart.
On this the first Sunday of the Word of God, I am thinking about how we can weave Scripture into our daily lives so that it becomes more and more a part of us.
In The Way of the Pilgrim, the Pilgrim (who remains anonymous throughout the story) tells of meeting an army officer who had at one time struggled with hopeless alcoholism. The officer had met a monk who said his own brother had suffered from the same thing but was cured by reading a chapter of the Gospel whenever he felt the urge to drink. It had worked and the brother was 15 years sober. The monk had urged the soldier to try the same and gave him a copy. The soldier said no because this copy was in Old Slavonic and he could’t understand it. He was told, “You may not understand the Word of God, but the devils do, and tremble.”
So the officer tried this and eventually was cured. In his gratitude he had this copy of the Gospels bound with silver and kept it close to his heart under his uniform. He made a vow to God to read a chapter of the Gospel every day for the rest of his life.
If he was too tired to read, he would ask his wife or daughter to read it to him. I want to try the same thing. It would be even better to read a commentary alongside it. If you don’t have anyone to read it to you when you’re tired, audio recordings of the Gospel can help. Photo by Eduardo Braga on Pexels.com
Another great way to put Scripture in your life is to pray the Liturgy of the Hours through the day. Universalis has a free online version and an app as well. Otherwise known as the Divine Office, it is made of of Psalms, prayers, Scriptural Canticles and brief readings arranged in a pleasant orderly way in tune with the theme of the current Church season. It takes me about 10 minutes to pray Morning or Evening Prayer. The other ones are much shorter. This habit puts me in contact with the Word at least three times a day. The Divine Office app has audio of the various hours if you are busy. In a pinch I listen to these in the car.
Start a Bible study with your friends. Lots of people like to go to their parish Bible studies held at church. But a fun way to do Scripture study in a more intimate informal way is to start your own with your friends. This is actually what got my inner circle of friends together in the first place. Years ago we started doing Bible studies as a group. We met once a month rotating whose house we met in. The conversation was friendly but deep and always supportive. Somebody usually brought wine, we had food, coffee, laughter and prayer. We called ourselves “The Pontifical Biblical Institute of the Holy Hippie Sisterhood.” Why shouldn’t it be fun as well as enlightening to study the Bible? No reason at all!
There are so many great Catholic Bible Studies available now. We liked the ones from Turning to God’s Word, and the Come and See Catholic Bible Study on the Wisdom books.
I really like the Navarre Bible series and the Sacra Pagina commentaries. There are so many more that are good. Some are written about certain themes, others about particular books, some are arranged as daily readings.
If you attend daily mass you are hearing holy Scripture and getting a reflection from your pastor every day. Over three years you would hear the entire Bible. Attending Sunday mass regularly you would hear the entire Bible over five years. The mass itself brims over with Scripture in the parts of the mass and the responses and antiphons as well. So go to mass! 🙂
On days I am not going to mass I make sure to read the readings for the day. These are great for choosing a passage for Lectio Divina and keeping the spirit of the Church season as well as connecting with the Church all over the world reflecting on the same readings together. You can find the daily mass readings with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Most parishes print the readings for the week in the Sunday bulletin as well.
I try to memorize various passages of Scripture that are important to me so I can meditate on them or think about them during the day. When I am in line somewhere or filling up at the gas station I can recite them mentally. This is a fruitful practice for me.
At night I sometimes listen to audio of the Scriptures, especially one of the Gospels. I think of it as my bed time story. I have a few different versions so I don’t stop hearing it in a meaningful way. I have one that is more like a performance with actors reading the parts and sound effects and everything. I have others that are more in a quiet reading style by one voice. Sometimes I just want to hear these when I am doing house work or walking.
I like to copy out passages I am working on memorizing, writing them out over and over. The copying itself can be meditative.
I also at times write verses I want to carry in my pocket during the day on small pieces of paper to look at from time to time.
Nobody needs to carry out all of these ideas for all time or every day. I don’t. Some are habits that are helpful for a while at different times. Others have become life habits for me. Some things I stop doing but come back to later.
In silent open-ness to God, we set aside our own agendas and open ourselves to God’s agenda, which is always love, love, and more love. What could be better than that?
Lectio Divina (Holy Reading) is an ancient Christian way to pray the Scriptures. It involves reading a passage of the Bible, listening to God in silence, responding back to God in prayer, and then resting in silent prayer for a time.
To pray this couple’s method of Lectio Divina, you will need:
Some quiet, private time.
A comfortable place to sit.
A Bible
A note book and something to write with
A quiet timer
Your romantic partner
An open, receptive heart
Have a passage chosen ahead of time that you both agree on. We usually choose something from the mass readings of the day.
Passing the Bible back and forth to take turns reading, read the passage aloud, slowly and reflectively.
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Of course you could each have your own Bible. But I like the reciprocation in the giving of the Bible to one another, and in taking turns; one listening, one reading.
As you hear the Scripture passage, listen for a word, phrase or sentence that stands out to you. (Don’t worry, one will.)
After the third time reading the passage through, write your word (s) into the note book you have between you.
The Benedictine monks, who most developed this prayer form, called this note book a “florilegium,” meaning, “book of flowers.” Writing your verse or phrase down will help you focus as you pray, and be fruitful for later perusal, discussion, or future prayer.
This word or passage that stands out as you hear the Word of God, is considered to be the Holy Spirit speaking to you.
He laughs.
“What?”
“It’s just that each of these verses fit each of us so well.”
She laughs, too.
“Yeah, God thinks he’s pretty clever.”
Step 2: Meditatio
You may want to set a timer for this section of the prayer. Try to make it a light, non- jarring sound. I have an app on my kindle with a nice Tibetan bell sound for this purpose.
As to the time duration, agree on it beforehand. Ten to twenty minutes should do it. But even five is OK if that is all the time you have.
This time will be silent. You may want to hold hands, or put your feet together, and close your eyes.
• Inwardly repeat your word or phrase with expectation. As you ponder it, apply it to your life and relationship with God. Let yourself be guided by the Holy Spirit, allowing Him to make clear His message to you.
When your mind wanders, gently bring it back to your word or phrase, placing yourself once more in God’s presence.
• Ask the Lord, “What are you saying to me in this word or phrase?”
Sometimes you will want to stop here and discuss, briefly, the fruit of your meditatio together.
Step 3 Oratio
After the timer goes off, take a moment or maybe a few moments to respond with a prayer back to God about what He has lead you to understand or given to you during meditatio.
You might wish to write your prayer response into the notebook and to pray it aloud with your partner.
This usually means to rest in God’s Heart in silence. I think when praying as a couple, it is good to rest also in one another’s hearts at the same time.
God is love,
and whoever lives in love,
lives in God,
and God in him.
(1John 4:16)
Again, set the timer, perhaps for 10-20 minutes as during the meditatio, and maybe hold hands, close your eyes, place yourselves in the presence of God, and rest lovingly there together.
If it is hard for you to do this, you might choose a prayer word like the Name of Jesus, Mary, or the word, “God,” “love” or “peace,” for your mind to hold onto like a walking stick as it travels in quiet over the next few minutes.
When the time is up, you may wish to pray aloud together the Our Father.
End with the sign of the cross and the kiss of peace.
*We have found that sometimes adjustments to this method must be made because of time, distance, kids, etc. It can be spread out over days, or sometimes reflections can be e-mailed or discussed in the car. Remember that God cannot be limited by the things we are limited by. He only wants us to be willing, and to try, and He will respond by working His wonders in us. However, I hope you can try praying in the above way sometimes. It is very rewarding and intimate; not to be missed.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly… (Colossians 3:16a)
I was a young widow running through the house kicking toys out of my way, spilling my coffee, responding to a loud crash at the other end of the house. I had been cooking, having invited somebody over for dinner, (what was I thinking,) my toddler was running from the scene of the crime, my five year old was screaming, and my dog ran by with a piece of cornbread in her mouth. “OK,” I said to myself. “OK.”
I stopped. “OK.”
Selah.
I set my coffee down. I took a breath. I looked outside at the juniper tree by my front porch. I noticed a thin branch trembling from the hesitant hops of a sparrow along it. I closed my eyes, felt the wood of the floor under my feet, breathed a silent prayer.
It was a centering moment.
I let the toddler get away. I hugged the outraged five year old. I attempted to salvage dinner. Life went on; just with a little bit more clarity, renewed meaning, and divine order.
The word Selah appears 71 times in the Psalms, and 3 times in Habakkuk. It often appears between stanzas of the Psalms, as if to tell the reader to pause and reflect. The precise meaning of the word is unknown, though some of the educated guesses are, “Pause,” “Lift up,” “Praise.” It could have been a musical term similar to our “rest” sign. It may have been a direction about how to read the verses, as in where to stop and take a breath.
In my life, “Selah” has become a practice of putting a pause on exterior and interior clamor and connecting to the Real, to lift up my heart, my situation, the world for a moment, to praise God by an act of mindfulness of His holy presence.
Eventually, developing this habit can lead to a greater general awareness of God at all times, and a natural continuous turning toward Him, in His outward expression and presence in the created world, and in His indwelling in the human heart.
Selah, as “stop and listen,” helps me deal with overwhelming emotions, fearful thoughts, angry rants I discover raging in my mind, to stop or at least slow the wheel of worries that can spin on its own mysterious power for disconcerting amounts of wasted time. Sometimes Selah is just a quiet moment of gratitude in the middle of a busy or even not so busy day.
The meaning of Selah as “lift up” may have been a reference to the scales used at the time. An object was weighed by being lifted on a scale against a counter weight. So Selah can also mean to weigh, to evaluate. Selah as “lift up and weigh” helps me place all things in the balance of God, lifting up my mind with all its wild beating of wings against its imaginary cage, when it needs to be set free to fly in Heaven’s peaceful skies, even for a moment. Grace can do that if we let it.
Even a tiny fraction of a second that we open ourselves to God is enough time for Him to do all that is needed.
An instant of conscious contact with the holy changes us, whether we feel it or not. We invite Him Who is all good, into ourselves, and into the world through us. God can do anything. He isn’t limited by time, that’s us. We can use time to drive ourselves crazy, or we can use as much time as we can to help God help us, and to open ourselves to be channels for the outflow of His grace into the world.
Selah as praise helps me accept what is, as where God has me in the moment, whatever is happening, and to step into my inner chapel, to build a little alter, a temple in the day.
During a difficult day, this can even be necessary in order to hold onto the strength that comes from God. I heard a priest at a San Antonio Marian Conference say once that when we adore God, nothing evil can touch us. I never forgot it, because I found it to be true. Adore the Lord in His holy court,says Psalm 29. It’s what’s going on in Heaven all the time. We can join in at any moment, and the grace of praise, which Psalm 8 says foils the enemy, is ours, grace that the Scriptures say God inhabits.
But You are holy, O You that inhabit the praises of Israel. Ps. 22:3
So how do we practice Selah in the ongoing Psalm of our day?
Selah. Pause.This is simple but not easy. We forget. We get busy, or in a hurry. We freak out. We don’t notice ourselves or what is around us because we are worried or sad, or scared, maybe mad, maybe caught up in the constant wild flow of the negative distractions of the world. Maybe our minds are flying down the rapids of our thoughts and experience, without direction or control.
Sometimes it helps to stop, and notice the sky, to be mindful of the wind, of the sounds around us, of the feeling of the grass or the floor under our feet, the feeling of our own breathing. Getting grounded helps us connect to God. When we stop being carried away by the whirlwind of our worries and busyness, we can dip into an undercurrent of peace. Try stopping and just noticing your environment, tune in to your senses, and then, if you can, go deeper within yourself where it is quiet and God waits for you.
I found myself unconsciously putting up a hand in a one handed prayer pose as a kind of “Selah” in personal sign language. Sometimes coming up with a simple, unobtrusive gesture to myself can really help my state of mind. I still do that hand gesture sometimes without thinking, and it can bring about the inner calm and readjustment of attitude I need without saying anything or particularly thinking any word.
Selah: Lift up. Especially when I am feeling overwhelmed, I try to think, “What is going on?” Sometimes something is really bothering me, but I don’t realize it. Prayerfully accounting for my inner state with God often helps me to step out of my anxiety, to get organized inside, gain perspective. I can lift the whole thing, and myself to God and in this way give over to Him any and everything that is a mess, inviting Him into it to arrange it to His will. Sometimes I have to repeat this step. OK, I almost always have to repeat it several times. When I can let go and let God, he sets me on a high rock, so I can see.
Maybe I just want to hug God, for no particular reason. A little Selah can help me stop and do just that.
Prayer is, for me, an outburst from the heart; it is a simple glance darted upwards to Heaven; it is a cry of gratitude and of love in the midst of trial as in the midst of joy! In a word, it is something exalted, supernatural, which dilates the soul and unites it to God.
Selah: Praise. It seems to me that it is a praise of God to focus on Him, to be grateful for His beauty and presence, to focus our attention on Him, to love and acknowledge Him. We can praise God by a simple glance in His direction. Sometimes I say, “ The lot marked out for me is my delight because it is You Yourself Who are my prize.” Sometimes it is easier to say than others. Sometimes I don’t say anything. I just place myself in His light and do my best to adore.
A good way to do this is to imagine Jesus with you. Really, this isn’t your imagination because it is the truth. You are just tuning into it.
Or remember that the Holy Spirit, the giver of life, fills the universe, and is Love Itself, always drawing us into the life of the Blessed Trinity. You are a part of that vastness that is filled by the Spirit of God, along with the sky and the sun and the stars and planets beyond them, and every bug, butterfly, and blade of grass or drop of rain on the planet. The Scripture says that all of it praises God.
Let yourself join in the praises of Heaven and Earth just by remembering what you are: a child of God, a little brother, a little sister, of Jesus. All these things are good to think about.
Or think of God speaking to you through your senses. Because He is. Let tuning into your senses quiet your body, your heart and mind, and then step further, inside that quiet, to be with God in your soul.
St. Elizabeth of the Trinity said the name she wanted in Heaven was “Praise of His glory.” St. Paul says in Ephesians 1:12 that this is what we are. Stopping and listening puts us in touch with this. It’s about just being for a moment. It gives us a glimpse of divine perspective.
…that we may be unto the praise of his glory.
Pause. Lift up. Praise.
St. John of the Cross said, “With what procrastination do you wait, since from this very moment you can love God in your heart.”
Sometimes, that’s all it takes. A stop in the path. This very moment.
Bethany Hang Out 