Tag Archives: lectio divina

Coming Home to God: A Family’s Experience with Centering Prayer

by Mindy Durias

Our world is moving forward at an unprecedented pace.  The ability to be so easily connected to one another has made this planet very small indeed.  Endless information and people around the world are literally a touch away. Yet, it is quite possible that we have never been more disconnected from our true selves and to God.  The moments of our lives are filled with the buzz of technological noise that never sleeps.

As a mother of five children, in this age of concrete technological advances and scientific breakthroughs, I wrestle with how to communicate the abstract, mysterious, and intangible relationship we are created to share with the Divine.

In the past three years, I have been practicing contemplative prayer as a way to connect more intimately with God. This has included introducing my children to Lectio Divina as a way to listen to the Spirit of God speaking uniquely to their individual hearts. They have been very open and receptive to this practice, and consequently have grown in their day-to-day awareness of God speaking into the moments of their lives.

Lectio Divina is a very accessible contemplative prayer practice.  Especially in the sense that it allows for verbal response.  This makes it one of the easier practices to introduce to anyone unfamiliar with contemplative prayer, and to children in particular.

But what of the apophatic (non-verbal) prayer practice Centering Prayer? This prayer has been transformative in my life.  I’ve found abundant grace in the silence, stillness and solitude of this practice.  It has helped me to disconnect from the noise and activity of life and find myself in God’s embrace.  And more profoundly, Centering Prayer has created a deeper awareness of who I truly am in God.  In the practice, I’ve come home to myself and God.

In the fall of 2014, I decided to experiment with my children and see if they would have a similarly positive experience with Centering Prayer.  At first, the struggle was to find language to communicate the practice to children ranging in ages from five to sixteen.  It became clear right away, that while she could understand what Centering Prayer was, my five year old was not ready to sit in silence, stillness and solitude for any amount of time!

My other four children ages nine, twelve, thirteen and sixteen also quickly grasped the concept of the practice, so we began trying it out.  We started with three minute sits.  Gradually, we lengthened the time to five minutes, then eight, ten and so on-until we reached the twenty minute mark.  That is where we are now.  Our intent is to practice everyday after breakfast and before we begin the rest of the day.

It has not been perfect.   In fact, some days it feels like a complete waste of time.  Wiggling limbs, wrestling in chairs, bodily noises, rough starts to the day, the irritation of relational conflict, you name it.  We have experienced it.

Yet, I keep reminding myself, that this is a practice.  A perfect experience should never be the goal.  For no such experience truly exists.  The fruit of the practice itself, is seen in the rest of life.  My hope is that we are becoming more aware of God in everything.

So, we continue to practice.  To open our hearts together to the presence and action of God within us.  We enter with the invitation of Psalm 46:10 which says, “Be still, and know that I am God”.

Little changes have been made along the way to accommodate the needs and development of each child.  Currently, most days my husband, sixteen and thirteen year old and I sit for twenty minutes together.  Then, my twelve and nine year old and I sit for ten minutes together.  Our five year old talks about joining us when she is bigger.  For now, she is learning Breath Prayer and the beauty of God being as near to her as every breath she breathes.  It is perfect for where she is at right now.

In Centering Prayer we are all learning to come just as we are, and to find our true home in God who continues to affirm that we all belong.  

In this place of belonging, it is my hope that each of us will choose to embrace one another in love and help bring healing to this world in search for peace with God and humankind.


 

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Mindy Durias lives in Portland, Oregon. She’s been happily married for 16 years and is the mother of 5 lovely children. Her passions are teaching her children, running outdoors, and advocating for children living in poverty around the world.

 

Following my Children to God’s Heart

by Mindy Durias

I am pretty new to contemplative prayer, but not new to faith.  I have spent more than half of my life seeking God and learning about Him. But two years ago I was introduced to contemplative prayer.

To be honest, I struggled with it at first.

I found that there were obstacles in my own heart and mind that got in the way of me embracing solitude, silence, and stillness before God.

  • Fear that I wasn’t doing enough, a wrong perception of what I was doing;
  • Doubt that there would be any benefit, anxiety wondering what might be stirred up.
  • And most of all doubt that with my busy life raising five kids I could make room for this way of spending time with God.

However, I was so intrigued by the idea of it that I continued thinking and reading about it, even sporadically trying out a few different prayer practices.

I did not realize it at the time but I was saying “yes” to God.  Even with the inconsistent time I spent in contemplative prayer, God was clearing away all my fears, doubts, wrong perceptions and anxieties.  God was introducing Godself to me in a new, very personal way.

After the first year of getting my feet wet, I began considering how I might share this with my children.

I have five children, ranging in ages from four-fourteen years old. I had just begun to recognize the treasure that contemplative prayer was becoming in my own heart and was curious if this way of praying would be possible for my children to engage in.

From the very beginning, I was apprehensive. This was unlike anything I had done with them before. We had sought to understand scripture together, prayed, memorized scripture, talked about God and created opportunities to serve Him.  But this was to be totally different.  I realized that contemplative prayer would not be teaching them more about God, but it would be introducing them to God.

Lectio Divina, meaning “divine reading” or “sacred reading” is an ancient practice of praying the Scriptures. This was the first contemplative prayer practice that I taught them.

Day after day, I was amazed by how quickly they were able to enter in.  It dawned on me that they did not have the heavy burden of anxiety, fear, and doubt that I carried coming into contemplative prayer.  Nor did they feel compelled, as I so often do, to interpret the text they were hearing.  Their hearts were ready to receive God just as God is.  

In truth, as I led them in Lectio Divina and heard them respond to the living Word of God spoken to them, I was humbled.  They would say things like, “I hear God saying I love you, I am with you, don’t fear, you are mine, you belong, rest in me, you do not have to try harder…”  My own heart was healing as they affirmed these things which, as it turned out, I really needed to hear.

They were enjoying Lectio Divina so much that I decided to teach them Breath Prayer. Known as the “Jesus Prayer” or “Prayer of the Heart,” early practitioners would repeat to the rhythm of their breath the phrase, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” In time, the prayer was shortened to, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy” or simply, “Jesus, mercy.” These words, or other similar words of your choosing, are repeated silently within.

Being a completely non-verbal way of praying, I was curious how they would do.  Once again, they jumped right in!  Yes, they had things that would distract them from time to time, mostly things in their physical bodies-the pulsing energy of a child that I wish I still possessed.  But much less so than I would have thought.  I realized that as children they don’t have the on-going to-do list in their head shouting at them to be productive.  During Breath Prayer, they were not  wrestling in their minds with the demands of life.  This, too, served as a teaching tool for me.

For several months, we would do Lectio Divina followed by Breath Prayer.  To be truthful, it was not always great.  Not because of them, however.  In hindsight, I can see that  the days when it was particularly difficult for us to enter into contemplative prayer usually were the result of where I was at.  I was setting a negative, rushed, closed, tone to our time.  If they were struggling to engage in the prayer practice that day, it was because they were following my lead. Such is the mirror of parenting.

At the beginning of this year, I decided to teach them Centering Prayer. This prayer practice is grounded in a relationship with God, through Christ, and is a practice to nurture that relationship. It facilitates resting in God. Centering Prayer offers a way to grow in intimacy with God, moving beyond conversation to communion.

I thought this to be a challenging step to take, simply because I had heard that it can be the most difficult of contemplative prayer practices. It requires a letting go of yourself that I was not certain children could appreciate or understand.  However, I felt that we were all ready to give it a try.

We had practiced listening to God through His word and responding in faith with Lectio Divina.  We had quieted ourselves and connected with God’s constant presence and grace towards us in Breath Prayer. It seemed we were ready to at least attempt to be still and sit for an extended time with the divine presence that dwells in each of our very hearts.

I spent a few days introducing Centering Prayer to them, allowing them time to think about it and to ask questions.  We began slowly.  First sitting for five minutes, then eight, then ten.  Currently we sit for eighteen minutes.  When we debrief after our prayer times, I regularly hear words like, “Centering Prayer is my favorite,” or  “Was that really fifteen minutes?  It seemed like two!”

What I am realizing is that children have no trouble at all resting in God’s presence.  They have no preconceived notions of what God should be like or expectation for God to speak.  They are comfortable with God’s silence and just love the chance to curl up in God’s lap and be held.  They are comfortable with the lack of need to do anything or say anything in these contemplative prayer practices; because they feel no need to perform for God or say anything to please God or others.  They do not have any deep wounds that they are concealing from God or fear that God will not love them just as they are.

Oh!  If I only I could be more like my children!  Isn’t this precisely what Jesus taught?  That we should become like little children–who are neither afraid of God nor doubt God’s all encompassing love and acceptance. I am certainly seeing with fresh eyes that to become like a child is not a digresson. It is a progression toward intimacy and union with God.


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Mindy Durias lives in Portland, Oregon. She’s been happily married for 16 years and is the mother of 5 lovely children. Her passions are teaching her children, running outdoors, and advocating for children living in poverty around the world.