October 24, 2021: Resilience: Prayer
Psalm 46:1-11
Rev. Rhonda Blevins
God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
3 though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
5 God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
God will help it when the morning dawns.
6 The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.
7 The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.
8 Come, behold the works of the Lord;
see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
10 “Be still, and know that I am God!
I am exalted among the nations,
I am exalted in the earth.”
11 The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.
______
I love it when science catches up with what Christians have known for centuries. Let me explain.
True story: “When Danilo Ramirez, 44, was diagnosed with stage 2 lymphoma, his doctor told him chemotherapy and radiation would offer him his best shot to survive. But the thought of medical treatments with harsh side effects overwhelmed Ramirez.” The anxiety prevented him from getting good sleep. He was too claustrophobic to endure radiation treatments, because it would require him to wear a large protective mask. His oncologist was distraught that Ramirez was almost “willing to refuse treatment for a potentially curable cancer.” Without treatment, Ramirez would die. The doctor “tried to calm his anxiety by talking him through his initial radiation therapy. But Ramirez's anxiety only seemed to get worse. Sedatives did not make much difference.” Ramirez suffered a panic attack; he couldn’t deal with the treatment and broke down into tears. So his oncologist recommended “that Ramirez attend meditation sessions to control his fears.”[1]
A doctor prescribing meditation? Like, an M.D.? Yes, indeed.
Ten years ago, a Harvard Medical School study revealed that over six million Americans had been encouraged to meditate by their doctors.[2] At that time roughly 4% of Americans practiced meditation. That number has more than tripled since then.[3] Medical schools “including those at Harvard, Georgetown and Emory universities, have begun to integrate mindfulness and meditation into their curriculum.” The Army provides a course in mindfulness-based mind fitness training.[4]
The Army? Like, the United States Army? Yes, indeed.
The military, top-rated medical schools, social scientists have all jumped on the meditation bandwagon as if it’s some new thing; Christians have been doing this for centuries. It’s just that we call it “prayer.”
This spiritual practice that Christians have been doing for centuries—science is figuring out it’s a powerful tool for building resilience (my theme this month, just to remind you). Here’s how, according to mayoclinic.org:
When you meditate, you may clear away the information overload that builds up every day and contributes to your stress. The emotional benefits of meditation can include:
Gaining a new perspective on stressful situations
Building skills to manage your stress
Increasing self-awareness
Focusing on the present
Reducing negative emotions
Increasing imagination and creativity
Increasing patience and tolerance
Meditation might also be useful if you have a medical condition, especially one that may be worsened by stress . . . some research suggests that meditation may help people manage symptoms of conditions such as:
Anxiety & Depression
Asthma
Cancer
Chronic pain
Heart disease
High blood pressure
Irritable bowel syndrome
Sleep problems
Tension headaches
Mayoclinic.org cautions that “meditation isn’t a replacement for traditional medical treatment. But it may be a useful addition to your other treatment.”[5]
If my argument has been at all compelling so far, some of you may find yourself thinking, “If meditation or prayer can be so transformative, why, when I pray, does it seem that my prayers don’t get past the ceiling?”
I want to suggest that all prayer is not created equal. Now, I do believe that God honors all forms of prayer, but that many people have not grown much in their understanding and practice of prayer since the days of “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. And if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” (What a creepy prayer to teach kids, by the way! Who ever thought that was a good idea?)
Simple, word-based prayers are the perfect prayers to teach young children. But we can’t stop there (although I’m guessing most American Christians do stop there). Think of it like this: we begin teaching children math with simple addition equations, 1+1, 2+2. It’s important that they learn simple addition. But what if we stopped there? “Awesome, Johnny! You’ve learned addition up to 10! You’re done! No need for subtraction. No need for multiplication or division or fractions. No algebra. You can forget geometry, trigonometry, calculus, and statistics. That simple addition is all the math you’ll ever need!”
Do you think Johnny would be served well by the educational system if that were the case? Of course not! Yet the church has largely failed to teach deeper, more robust forms of prayer. We haven’t taught our people to pray. Grown ups substitute the Lord’s Prayer for the “Now I lay me down to sleep” prayer, and we’re good. Now, don’t get me wrong—I love the Lord’s Prayer. And while it’s certainly deeper than “Now I lay me down to sleep,” it’s still a rote, word-based prayer. Great for beginners! But you don’t see an Olympic swimmer doing the doggie paddle, do you? And what if the Bucs just ran the option every single play?
For many years, I was a frustrated pray-er. Because the church, even the seminary I attended, failed to teach deeper forms of prayer, I continued to try these word-based prayers well into my 20’s. So when a medical crisis hit my family, I found myself stringing words together, attempting to pray.
I began to sense that my prayers weren’t getting anywhere as my loved one grew more ill. It’s like I was writing messages to God, giving them to a carrier pigeon, and the pigeon would get lost along the way to that heavenly throne “somewhere out there.” After my loved one died, I reevaluated my entire belief system. I didn’t intend to do this. I didn’t want to do this. But my understanding of God and prayer was not working. If I couldn’t come to some peace with God and with prayer, I knew I would need to give up on my lucrative ministry career and maybe become a supermodel (or something equally as attainable).
Part of what I would discover in my reevaluation of God and prayer is that word-based prayer is not the same as the practice of “meditation” touted by many and practiced by soldiers and chemo patients alike. And as I’ve considered what separates the two practices, when I drilled down to the deepest reason why these two forms of prayer are so different—is less about language and more about location.
The word-based, carrier pigeon approach imagines that our prayers must ascend to some remote God on some different plane—and that remote God reaches down into the universe (or not, depending on whim) to affect change. Because God is so distant, because the carrier pigeon must travel so far, it often seems like the prayers just get lost along the way.
There’s a deeper kind of prayer—a prayer that remembers the indwelling nature of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul says it this way in 1 Corinthians 6:19: “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” That Spirit, the indwelling Spirit of the Most High God,—that Spirit doesn’t need your words. Again, the Apostle Paul: “that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” Other translations say: “groans too deep for words.” (Romans 8:26)
As I’ve grown in my prayer life (and admittedly, I have more growing to do!), I’ve discovered that words can scant convey what my heart feels whether joy or sorrow or fear or anger or love. It takes the pressure off when I remember that sighs, emanating from the very center of my being where the Spirit of God dwells, those sighs are far deeper than any words I can think or speak or send via carrier pigeon.
That was a powerful realization for me. But there’s more.
As I continued to grow in my prayer life I began to realize that those same “sighs”—the sighs deeper than words—are far deeper than even thoughts or feelings.
One of the shortcomings of the human condition is that we humans tend to overidentify with our thoughts. We tend to believe that our thoughts are reality. But what are thoughts, really?
The human brain is composed of about 100 billion nerve cells (neurons) interconnected by trillions of connections, called synapses. On average, each connection transmits about one signal per second. Some specialized connections send up to 1,000 signals per second. “Somehow… that’s producing thought,” says Charles Jennings, director of neurotechnology at the MIT McGovern Institute for Brain Research.
Simply put, thoughts are little more than a biological function. Thoughts are simply signals in our brains.
But remember, there’s something more, something deeper than neurons firing and chemical releases. There’s the spiritual, indwelling Spirit.
To connect with that Spirit, we need not send a carrier pigeon. All we need to do is to quiet our minds, to slow down the physiological thought processes in our brains, remembering we are more than our thoughts, allowing ourselves to detach from our thoughts, and as we grow more adept at this, we can begin to find the peace that passes all understanding. This is centering prayer or contemplative prayer—the Christian nomenclature for what pop culture likes to call “meditation.”
When the Psalmist wrote “Be still and know that I am God,” I used to think that meant be physically still. I wasn’t wrong. There’s just more to it. Be still—physically still and mentally still—and know that I am God.” Sometimes you hear the process of centering prayer or meditation as “emptying.” I prefer to think of it as “detaching.” Because what I have experienced, on occasion, is a tremendous “filling” of peace and contentment. That’s not an emptying, but a detachment from the many anxieties and ruminations that constantly fill my monkey mind.
Who would have thought that an ancient Christian practice that dates back at least to the 4th Century would remain one of the best ways, according to contemporary social science, to build resilience? We would! It’s about time science catch on!
Remember Danilo Ramirez from the beginning of my message? Claustrophobic, with too much anxiety to undergo life-saving radiation treatment for lymphoma, whose oncologist recommended meditation? Mr. Ramirez followed his doctor’s recommendation and began attending meditation sessions. Within a few weeks, he was able to breeze “through his round of radiation treatment without sedation.” “I was able to stay right there for 20 minutes without medication and just relaxing, working on my mind,” said Ramirez.[6]
“Be still and know.” It could save your life.
[1] https://abcnews.go.com/Health/w_AlternativeNews/meditation-prescribed-doctors-study-finds/story?id=13563912
[2] Ibid.
[3] https://www.vox.com/2018/11/8/18073422/yoga-meditation-apps-health-anxiety-cdc
[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/a-doctor-puts-his-mind-to-mindfulness/2015/10/19/d191fc48-57c3-11e5-8bb1-b488d231bba2_story.html
[5] https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/meditation/in-depth/meditation/art-20045858
[6] https://abcnews.go.com/Health/w_AlternativeNews/meditation-prescribed-doctors-study-finds/story?id=13563912