InSpirit Resources - Prayer and Meditation

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Pray as you can, not as you can’t.
John Chapman

Perhaps the most difficult part of growing in prayer is understanding that where we are right now is where we are supposed to be.
Ron DelBene

Nobody finds time for prayer. You either take time for it, or you don’t get it. If I am waiting for it to be given to me, it shall never be given.
Joan Chittister

We all have a deep desire to pray and a deep resistance against it. We want to be close to God, but also want to keep some distance. Henri Nouwen

The facilitator of our dialogue with God is the scriptures.
Elizabeth O’Connor

This is an absolute necessity for everyone. You must have a room, or a certain hour or so in a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anyone . . . This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.
Joseph Campbell

What happens in meditative prayer is that we create the emotional and spiritual space which allows Christ to construct an inner sanctuary in the heart . . . a portable sanctuary which is brought into all we are and do.
Richard Foster

The very best and utmost attainment in this life is to remain still and let God act and speak in thee.
Meister Eckhart

There is but one road that reaches God and that is prayer. If anyone shows you another, you are being deceived.
St. Teresa of Avila

No one is so advanced in prayer that they do not often have to return to the beginning.
St. Teresa of Avila

Taking time for prayer is standing against the spirit of busyness in this age.
Seeking God’s Face: A Prayer Journal

Pray in humility as the earth creature you are; pray in confidence as the child of God you are.
Seeking God’s Face: A Prayer Journal

Starting to pray where our hearts are, rather than where we think they ought to be, brings us closer to God.
Seeking God’s Face: A Prayer Journal

God calls us into relationship, but does not demand instant intimacy.
Seeking God’s Face: A Prayer Journal

Pray? Some people do, but most don’t, except when they’re in the midst of a crisis. Many people who do pray just go through the motions, never expecting God to answer. Yet every Christian, if not every person, has some thoughts about God. Everyone has a personal theology. Even if it is primarily unconscious and seldom articulated, every person thinks about God in a particular way. ... Consequently prayer and theology are very closely related. What we think about God shapes the way we experience him in prayer, and how we experience him in prayer transforms what and how we think about him.
Kenneth Swanson

In prayer, will and grace cooperate.
Evelyn Underhill

In this relationship with God it is he who takes the initiative, and for that reason there is nothing that can be said with absolute dogmatism about prayer.
Robert Willet

Prayer is not a responsibility I have to fulfill. Prayer is a deep need within me, striving for expression, waiting and hoping for fulfillment.
(author unknown)

Everything that one turns in the direction of God is prayer.
Ignatius of Loyola

Petitionary prayer remains primary throughout our lives because we are forever dependent upon God. It is something we never really get beyond, nor should we ever want to.
Richard Foster

In meditative prayer, the truth being meditated upon passes from mouth into the mind and down into the heart, where through quiet rumination it produces in the person praying a loving, faith-filled response.
Richard Foster

Anyone who imagines that he can simply begin meditating without praying for the desire and the grace to do so, will soon give up. But the desire to meditate and the grace to begin meditating should be taken as an implicit promise of further graces.
Thomas Merton

The desert father Ammonas, a disciple of Saint Anthony writes, ‘Know that it is by silence that the saints grew, that it was because of silence that the power of God dwelt in them, because of silence that the mysteries of God were known to them.’ It is this recreating silence to which we are called in Contemplative Prayer.
Richard Foster

We have been teaching classes and working with individuals in the areas of prayer and meditation since the mid-1980's. We are both certified in Group Contemplative Leadership through The Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation.
Robert has done basic and advanced training in Centering Prayer through Contemplative Outreach

We offer

Theology of Prayer class - a six-week course
The Gift of Prayer, Exploring Different Ways of Prayer - an experiential six-week course
Centering Prayer Groups
Contemplative Prayer Groups
Praying with Nature -- a six-week course
Journal Keeping as a Prayer Discipline - a six-week course
Praying by Hand, Making and Using Prayer Beads and Rosaries - a half-day workshop

When we think of what has shaped our understanding and practice of prayer, we think first of our Anglican liturgy, the corporate praying of the people of God. We also think of Anglican spirituality, Benedictine spirituality, Celtic spirituality, contemplative prayer, Franciscan spirituality, healing prayer, lectio divina, prayer beads, retreats, silence . . . The list could go on. We are grateful for the wisdom gained from experience that continues to be shared down through the generations.

There are as many ways to pray as their are individuals. Too often prayer is thought of as something we should do or wish we need how to do more effectively, but that kind of thinking is not helpful once we understand that there are no right or wrong ways to pray and that prayer is about relationship.

Of many good definitions of prayer, the definition of prayer that has enlightened my understanding the most is the one comes from the 1979 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. "Prayer is responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words."

It begins by stating that prayer is RESPONDING TO GOD. God is always the initiator in prayer. How prayer works is a mystery that somehow involves our participation, but we don’t need to learn how to be effective because we never need to talk a loving God into anything.

Anything or any person we care about, God cares about more. Prayer is learning how to be in a relationship of trust and learning how to discern God’s voice in our lives more than it is about anything else.

Nevertheless, prayer is a unique relationship and most of us do need to learn how to pray. We should not be surprised or embarrassed about that since even Jesus’s disciples who kept the Jewish traditions of prayer several times daily asked Jesus to teach them to pray.

PRAYER IS . . .

. . . responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.
1979 Book of Common Prayer

. . . a quality of attention that gives so much room for the Given that it appears as Gift.
Stephen Mitchell

. . . a wine which makes glad the heart of man.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux

. . . not a way of making use of God; prayer is a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He should be able to make use of us. It may be that one of our great faults in prayer is that we talk too much and listen too little. When prayer is at its highest we wait in silence for God's voice to us; we linger in His presence for His peace and His power to flow over us and around us; we lean back in His everlasting arms and feel the serenity of perfect security in Him.
William Barclay

. . . not asking for what you think you want but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine.
Kathleen Norris

Three Steps Into Prayer

1. Quieting our bodies.
2. Quieting out minds.
3. Opening our hearts.

PRAYER BEADS

Praying with beads or a rosary is an ancient method of praying. InSpirit ReSources offers a variety of handmade rosaries, Orthodox prayer beads, Anglican prayer beads, and creation prayer beads. We can also custom make a set of prayer beads from your own beads. For more information, contact info@inspiritresources.com.

From the Catechism of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, 1979

Q. What are the principle kinds of prayer?
A. The principle kinds of prayer are adoration, praise, thanksgiving, penitence, oblation, intercession, and petition.

Q. What is adoration?
A. Adoration is the lifting up of the heart and mind to God asking nothing but to enjoy God's presence.

Q. Why do we praise God?
A. We praise God, not to obtain anything, but because God's Being draws praise from us.

Q. For what do we offer thanksgiving?
A. Thanksgiving is offered to God for all the blessings of this life, for our redemption, and for whatever draw us closer to God.

Q. What is penitence?
A. In penitence, we confess our sins and make restitution where, possible, with the intention to amend our lives.

Q. What is the prayer of oblation?
A. Oblation is the offering of ourselves, our lives and labors, in union with Christ, for the purposes of God.

Q. What are intercession and petition?
A. Intercession brings before God the needs of others; in petition, we present our own needs, that God's will may be done.

PRINCIPAL KINDS OF PRAYER WORKSHEET
The Rev. Elizabeth W. Libbey, Copyright 1986 - 2001

ADORATION: In what way(s) do I become aware of and enjoy God’s presence? Do I know how to be still in God’s presence? (Psalm 45:10) In what way(s) do I express my love for God?

PRAISE: For what things does God deserve my praise? How do I praise God in my personal prayer time?

THANKSGIVING: Do I regularly express my thanks to God? For what areas or specific things am I thankful to God?

PENITENCE: Do I daily or regularly confess my sins of “omission” as well as of “commission” to God in my personal prayer time? Do I make restitution when and where possible?

OBLATION: To what tasks, ministries, persons is God calling me to offer myself at the present time?

INTERCESSION: Who needs my prayers? For which persons and/or situations is God calling me to be faithful in intercession at the present time?

PETITION: Do I regularly make my own need and desires a part of my personal prayer time? Am I aware of my own needs at present? What are they?

MEDITATION/LISTENING: In what ways do I listen to God? In what ways do I reflect on the reality of God and God’s will in my life?

Are all of these types of prayer included regularly in your personal prayer time? Which types of prayer needs more attention in my personal prayer rule?

L I N K S

The Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation

"The mission of the Shalem Institute is to be an ecumenical community responding to a call to help mediate God's Spirit in the world through the loving wisdom of contemplative tradition."

Contemplative Outreach

The purpose of the Contemplative Outreach organization is to share the method of Centering Prayer and its immediate conceptual background. They also encourage the practice of Lectio Divina, particularly its movement into Contemplative Prayer, which a regular and established practice of Centering Prayer facilitates.