Paying Attention

Mary Oliver's poem, A Summer Day [http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html captures our attention on a grasshopper chewing his food. She says, I don't know what prayer is, but I do know how to pay attention.

Is prayer paying attention? I think that prayer is communication between ourselves and God. Whatever way that happens: with words or without words, it is the language of our hearts. Most of us learn to pray by speaking our concerns and anxieties to the Spirit. We find release as we let go of our burdens and rest as we realize our inability to control the world. Prayer brings us to end of ourselves and to feet of Jesus. Prayer also moves the heart of God to action and to answer. This is mysterious for certainly I believe that God is always at work in our lives, wooing us, seeking us, loving us, and at times disciplining us. I know that God has our very best interests at heart and so it seems unnecessary to beg God to act, for certainly God is acting out of great love and compassion. Yet, I do not doubt that God's heart can be changed, motivated, moved by our requests. As in John 15, God partners with us in the work of the kingdom and so I believe changes God's perspective as we open up our hearts.

I have found, however, that the deepest form of prayer for me is not in my requests and pleadings, but in paying attention to the Holy Spirit at work in my life. As I listen to God, both in a group with others who listen, or on my own in solitude, I find that when I get to deepest places, the places where words cease and I lose sight of where my heart ends and God heart begins, is the place of prayer. When I enter into this mysterious land, it is as if reality becomes Reality and what was simply random events and chaos beings to reveal beauty and challenge and life and truth. When I pay attention more deeply, it is prayer.

So I listen deeply in this moment--I pray--I pay attention: to the sound of the whirring of the fan, to the dog asleep on a pile of laundry, to the cars going by through the open window, to the clicking of my fingers on these keys, to all of the anxiety of my heart as I try to manage, hold on, take control, conquer...and I breathe, and I melt into this chair and am quiet.

What will I do with my one beautiful and wild life?