The Inarticulate Speech of the Heart

I had very sad news this week.  A good friend told me that her daughter had delivered a still-born baby boy at 26 weeks.  The tears welled up in my eyes as she told me. The words to say at such times never come easily to me and any words that do come seem so ineffectual and inadequate and seem that only the inner and outward sigh is in anyway authentic.  After a time I finished the conversation saying to my friend that in my morning prayer and meditation I would draw her daughter and husband and all the family into my prayer where my longing for them would be comfort and support and that I might be present and aware of their great suffering of which I can be only a friend or perhaps a companion.

For some time now I have found morning meditation an important part of my day.  For years I struggled with forms of personal prayer that I found unhelpful and dare I say, inadequate and inane.  The notion that prayer is about me talking to God was formative in my Christian development, but over the years the words increasingly got in the way of my deepest longings.  Then a couple of years ago I discovered meditation.  Through the careful instruction of a meditation teacher and a monthly gathering with a rather secular Buddhist meditation group, I found a deep stillness and openness with in me.  The simple practice of lighting a candle, breathing slowly and attentively, being aware of my body and the life within, has become a liberating experience.  Nowhere to go, nothing to do and most importantly, nothing to say has become for me the door way to true prayer.

Meditation has brought me back to prayer, but a prayer of the heart, prayer that listens, and practices stillness and wonder, much more the prayer the Apostle Paul speaks of in his letter to the Church at Rome, “we do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.” It’s strange that groans and sighs can be more articulate in prayer than a litany of words; words and words and more words.

I think we’ve got prayer wrong in the Christian church today and it is imperative that we start to get to right. This may not be the view of many Christians, but I’d suggest that the deepest longings of the human soul are not expressed in theology, philosophy or doctrines and beliefs; they are expressed in the inarticulate speech of the heart, in sighs and groans too deep for words and in awe-filled silence.

Perhaps the first posture of prayer must always be humility.  Again from the letter to the Roman’s Chapter 8, “those who search their hearts know the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for others in accordance with God’s will.”  When I am confronted with someone’s pain and suffering it is not for me to assume I know what is best for them.  It is presence, my presence and attentiveness that is most needed.  Yes some simple words can be helpful.  But being truly present and opening my soul to the other is the essence of true prayer.  And I believe it’s in this place that we encounter the real presence of the living God.

The next morning after the conversation with my friend, I light a candle, slowly breathed in and out, became aware of my body and my place in this world and I imagine a circle, at its centre was the loving presence God and there in God’s presence I named my friends daughter and her husband and the little one they had lost.

Christopher