chris erdman

The alarm goes off before dawn. I hit snooze . . . at least once. My wife finally nudges me and I turn off the alarm and click the prayer app on my smart phone. For ten drowsy minutes we lie there, listening to the guided prayer from Pray As You Go.

A bell begins this morning meditation on scripture. The summons to prayer is followed by an introduction by a lovely British voice, then a piece of sacred music. All this prepares us for the reading of the text for the day, and a few sentences spoken reflectively, inviting us to listen for the whisper of God illuminating our lives, preparing us to experience God this day.

Look, I don’t always stay awake for the whole thing. But that doesn’t matter as much as the fact that the sounds are awakening my mind and heart to the Holy even before I put my feet on the floor. It has an effect beyond my rational awareness of that effect.

Of course, sometimes, I’m stunned by the appropriateness of the meditation to what happened the day before, what came to me in my dreams, or what I sense is before me. But much of the time, it’s just a gentle influence upon my first conscious thoughts . . . a better way to start the day, than stumbling in the dark, muttering to myself about the day that’s already coming hard at me with its many obligations.

Take a look; better, listen in daily as a way to start a fire of prayer on the hearth of your heart.

Pray-as-you-go, http://www.pray-as-you-go.org

Intention: I’ll try this simply guide to prayer, either tonight as I prepare for sleep or tomorrow morning as I awaken.

Kon Leong is co-founder, president and chief executive of ZL Technologies in San Jose, California. Adam Bryant of the New York Times recently caught up to him and chatted about leadership and life and advice for students fresh out of college.

“Experiment,” he says. “You can go in any direction. So experiment and you’ll have a much better chance of finding your sweet spot. And the sweet spot is the intersection between what you’re really good at and what you love to do. A lot of people would kill for that because, at 65, they’re retiring and never found it. Try to find your sweet spot and, once you find it, invest in it.”

Yes, to be spiritually and vocationally alive you must lean into your own God-breathed originality. There are so many bullying voices–inside and outside your head. If you can refuse them and find the sweet spot God’s made you for–what you’re good at and what you love to do you’ll not only live a better live, you’ll made life better for others.

Intention: Today, I’ll take note of those times when I’m in the zone, doing me and doing me well. I’ll look for those times when I’m happy, feeling good, and see if I’m doing things well at the same time. That’ll tell me something I need to hold on to.

I was working with a group of preachers this morning to help them find their voices.  On a regular basis, preachers use their voices publicly.  But as these preachers recognized today, the voice they use publicly isn’t always their real voice–their own voice.

Your voice–my voice–is deeply spiritual.  Your voice arises out of who you are–your own God-breathed originality.  Your voice is different from the words you may speak.  Your voice is the living witness to all that makes you who you are; it comes directly out of the experiences that have shaped you, the truth that’s real to you, your intimate connection with the Divine.  It is the true you God’s made you to be.

If you know your distinctive, God-breathed voice, you’re on your way to owning the gift you have to offer for the healing of the world.

The trouble is, our voice is usually hijacked by the voices in our heads that come from parents, older siblings, friends, enemies, religious leaders, affinity groups, and so on.  The voice we usually present to the world is the voice we think the world around us wants to hear.

If you want to live with integrity, to live as God desires you to live, you must find your own voice–peel back the masks we wear, strip away the falsehoods, stop the charades.  Only then can you live as the unique person you are meant to be.

Finding your voice is critical if you want to live a more focused, strategic, purposeful life–a life aligned with the God who made you–and to make a real difference in the world.

Intention: Today I will begin my search for my one, authentic God-breathed voice–so that I may live a more focused, compassionate, purposeful life.

EXTRAS . . .

Here’s a witness to a young Indian woman who has found her voice and is leveraging it for good:

Pranitha Timothy: a voice for the voiceless

Here are two good pieces that can help you find your voice:

4 Steps to Finding Your Voice

10 Questions that Will Help You Find Your Voice

In window into What or Who you’re partnering with when you open yourself in prayer. Richard Rohr and the Pattern of the Trinity (this is a video; it starts as a black screen here on my blog; be sure to click the play button below):

If your browser won’t play this film directly from my site, follow this link to the video at Work of the People.

People often dismiss the contemplative life, the praying life, as disconnected from the realities of daily life.

That’s a terribly naive and myopic assessment.  This site is dedicated to a robust and compassionate life lived in public, sourced by Divine power.

Here’s a recent book I’ve come across…an important work on the relationship between the contemplative and active life.  Contemplation ought to lead to the deepest forms of involvement in daily life–especially the struggle for all to live well on this increasingly trouble, yet beautiful planet.

“The key to compassion is conversion of self; prayer enkindles the grace of conversion. As Francis prayed, he became more deeply attuned to the experience of God in his own life which in turn deepened his compassion for others. Through prayer Francis reached the deepest oneness with God; he realized this oneness by sharing in the human poverty and humility of Christ. Compassion transformed Francis into another Christ ‘because of the excess of his love.’”

There’s a growing emergence of compassionate folks whose acts are sourced by prayer.  You’re among them.

For stuff about the book, click on the image.

In the past, I’ve suggested a few important books on contemplative prayer, including:

John Main’s Word Into Silence (which I reviewed here), and

Cyprian Consiglio’s Prayer in the Cave of the Heart (reviewed here),

Here’s another I’m reading now.  Fr. Laurence Freeman is a Benedictine monk and the director of the World Community for Christian Meditation, following the path set out by John Main (above).  And he’ll be in Fresno this coming February 8-10, 2013, as part of our annual Prayer of the Heart Conference!

I strongly urge you to read this extended meditation on the person of Jesus as the one who prays within us.  Freeman extricates Jesus from centuries of doctrinal debate that’s left us with very little of the Jesus who seeks a genuine relationship with us at the core of our beings, that is spiritually.  It’s this relationship that we’re most hungry for–not an idea to be debated, nor an ideology to be defended, but a living presence to be befriended with more than our brains.

This book does what my teaching on my site aims to do:

• to reach and empower those who seek “a deep and continual experience of intimacy with God,”
• those who long to awaken “to the fire of the sacred in every day life and walk continually in it through unceasing, interior prayer.”
• those who wish “to pray in such a way that we live with a nearly continuous sense of the Holy no matter what we’re doing or where we are.”

Dr. Curt Thompson, author of The Anatomy of the Soul: Surprising Connections Between Neuroscience and Spiritual Practices that Can Transform Your Life and Relationships, on the relation between prayer, scripture, story, and neuroscience:

Prayer is ultimately about relationship.  It’s so much more than asking things of God, or even saying things to God.  It’s a participation in the relationship shared by the Trinity and the relationship shared between the Trinity and humanity.  It is, in two words, about becoming whole.

Neuroscience offers us some marvelous insights into the power of relationships to make us whole (they can also wreck us).  And interpersonal neurobiology, a branch of contemporary psychology, teaches us about the power of safe, secure attachments to literally remake the brain.

Here’s a recommended book exploring all this.  I’ve been researching this area for the past year and exploring the implications for spirituality.  I’ve just started this book, but a perusal suggests it’s just the right book to bring the primary sources (Allan Schore, Dan Siegal, and so many others…see the Norton Series for source materials) into conversation with Christian spirituality.

Dr. Thompson’s book is short, well-written, and deeply immersed in the wellspring of Christian spirituality.

See also Thompson’s useful website for more.

. . . fully awake to the splendor of God’s creation, united with the One whose glory fills the whole earth (Isaiah 6.3):

From my journals, Friday, November 23, 2007

I’m reading the Cloud of Unknowing. The medieval teacher urges me to attach (adhere) to God:  ”in a manner take hold of our God by devoutly taking hold of his feet.”

I recall family systems therapist, Edwin Friedman, in his book of therapeutic fables, writing about attachment and detachment. There, I learned that detachment from what is unhealthy or unholy is only possible because of a corresponding or counter balancing attachment to something health-giving or something Holy. Utter detachment is devastating—a leap into the abyss. Attachment to God as the safest, securest primary caregiver makes letting go of every lesser thing possible.