For Father Richard, true prayer begins with a positive “yes,” a surrender to God and Reality:
When I entered the Franciscan seminary in 1961, part of our training was learning to avoid, resist, and oppose all distractions. It was such poor teaching, but it was the only way we thought back then. It was all about willpower: celibacy through willpower, poverty through willpower, community through willpower. But willpower isn’t what we need—or it’s not all that we need! We need the power to surrender the will, to face, and even to trust what is. Now, that’s heroic! Anything less is a fruitless and futile effort, because if we start with negative energy, a “don’t,” we won’t get very far (see Romans 7:7–11). That was the extent of the teaching I received, and it was really no teaching at all—just “Don’t!” When we hear that, the ego immediately pushes back. Some days we have strong willpower and we succeed, but most days we barely succeed. [1]
We know the old shibboleth, “Don’t think of an elephant.” If we try not to, that dang elephant invariably sneaks back into our minds! Just wait. To actively oppose something actually engages with it and gives it energy. That’s why so many spiritual teachers say, “What you resist persists.”
Our first energy has to be “yes” energy, an acceptance of what is. From there we can move, build, and proceed, even if in opposition. We must choose the positive, which is to choose love, and rest there for a minimum of fifteen conscious seconds. It takes that long for positivity to imprint in the neurons, I’m told. [2]
Father Richard advises “neither clinging nor opposing” when it comes to facing distractions in contemplative prayer:
If I had told my novice master I wasn’t going to fight my distractions, he would have said, “So you’re going to entertain lustful or hateful thoughts?” But that would have missed the major point. The real learning curve happens when we can admit we’re having a thought or feeling and recognize that it’s empty, passing, and part of a fantasy that has no final reality except as a source of information.
We must listen honestly to ourselves. We must listen to whatever thought or feeling arises long enough to ask, “Why am I thinking this? What is this thought revealing in or about me? Why am I willing to entertain this negative, accusatory, or lustful thought?”
We don’t have to hate or condemn ourselves for a thought or feeling, but we do have to let it yield its wisdom. Then we will realize it is a wounded or needy part of us that creates these unhealthy thoughts. Our true self, our whole self, doesn’t need them, and will not identify with them.
If we can allow our thoughts and feelings to pass through us, neither clinging to them nor opposing them—and without ever expecting perfect success—I promise that we will come to a deeper, wider, and wiser place. Even our inability to fully succeed is, in itself, another wonderful lesson. [3]
References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Morning Sit, June 12, 2023. Unpublished meditation.
[2] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Just This (CAC Publishing, 2017), 43, 44.
[3] Rohr, Just This, 44–45.
Image Credit and inspiration: Patrick Hendry, untitled (detail), 2015, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. A person stands in a contemplative “just this” moment with the night sky.
Story from Our Community:
A morning writing practice gets me centered each day. Over the past few years, three Haiku stanzas surface from the Silence most mornings. This was given today:
breathing noticing / opening now to presence / I find it all here
patiently waiting / I hear welcome we missed you / we breathe together
grounded and rooting / in darkness reaching for light / practicing just this.
—Bob D.
