Prayer beyond Words:  A web conversation.

I:  Prayer after tragedy

ANDY:  Some months ago there was a tragic death in the village - a 14-year-old had been knocked down after school by a 17-year-old on a motorbike, witnessed by large numbers of the 14-year-old's friends.  It was, as you can imagine, horrendous, particularly for the two families involved, but also for the whole community.  BBC and ITN newsteams scoured the village, and the police were involved in investigating the death.

After the funeral we kept the church open.  In ones or twos or bigger groups, in came schoolchildren who weren't used to being in churches.  Some just wanted quiet, but it was obvious that some wanted something more, and were looking to us (a clergy colleague, a youth leader, and myself) to lead them in some sort of prayer.  But what sort of prayer do you choose?

My colleagues made the decision to go with kataphatic prayer - prayer that uses words.  We passed a candle round, and anyone who wanted could tell God how they felt about Tom or what they wanted God to do for the people who miss him.  It worked OK, but somehow I had a sense it wasn't what the friends had been looking for.

Well, my colleagues went home, and I stayed in the dark church for a bit, seeing if any other youngsters would drop by.  A couple of girls, aged around 15, came in.  They said they wanted to prtay, but had never prayed before.  What should they do?  It was the verb that got me thinking.  They didn't ask 'what should we say?', they asked 'what should we do?'  So I introduced them to apophatic prayer - prayer beyond words.  I talked them through a basic relaxation exercise, then I told them 3 minutes' worth about the God who made and loved them and the Saviour who died for them and now sits with God, praying for them.  I invited them to be themselves quietly in the presence of God and Christ, without feeling a need to say anything if they didn't want to.  So we sat there, in companiable silence - three of us down in Galleywood, three Persons of God up above.  It felt right.

I met one of them a few weeks ago.  She said she's prayed like that everyday since, and she felt different because she had.  No, I haven't seen her in church.  But it lad me to think - why not teach apophatic prayer to Pathfinders in church?  Are we afraid they won't be able to cope?  Or are we afraid that we won't?

GEORGE BEERS:  While I understand the concept and agree with your thoughts and experience, a sense of caution should be stated.

People in the new age take a similar approach to "connecting with god." It's assumed that if you're a believer Christ will protect your heart and mind from the enemy's deceit and designs, but does the same protection apply to a non-believer? We've also seen even in the news recently, people with a "Christian" background doing strange and/or harmful things because "god" told them too.

Scripture teaches that Satan masqarades as an "angel of light." One could argue that the emotional response and feeling from the experience would tell you "who" was communing with you. But can we really? The discerning of spirits is a spiritual gift, that is available to us all, but is stronger in some than others. In most cases, our sense of discernment is weak from unuse, or from being ignored. If our conscious mind won't heed our gift of discernment when we're watching t.v., why would we listen to it in the context of prayer when we generally wouldn't even expect to use it.

We need to remember that the spiritual realm has two kingdoms vying for the hearts, minds and spiritual destinies of mankind. I have been saved for 40 years, and even I would be very cautious about 'direct contact' with God in the spirit realm.
ANDY:  thank you for your concern, George. I'm sure you're right to say that apophatic prayer is a rather different proposition for those without an explicit Christian faith than it is for those who have such a faith. Certainly I didn't feel able in this example to talk about 'the Spirit within' or 'groaning through us', as I probably would if I was introducing apophatic prayer to a committed Christian.

However, I'm slightly worried by the level of your caution about 'direct contact with God in the spirit realm', as you put it. Most forms of Hinduism promise contact with the spirit world; as do Islam (in its Sufi form), Judaism (in its very popular kabala branch), Sikhism, Rastafarianism, as well as the more recenmt religious groups such as Baha'i and, as you say, the groupings known as 'new age'. Wouldn't it be ironic if christianity, which has a God who is in God's self relationship, and centres around the coming to earth of Jesus to be one with us forever and enable us to know the Father, was the only faith in the marketplace that only promised knowledge about God, and not knowing God directly?
HAL:  Andy - you write:
Wouldn't it be ironic if christianity, which has a God who is in God's self relationship, and centres around the coming to earth of Jesus to be one with us forever and enable us to know the Father, was the only faith in the marketplace that only promised knowledge about God, and not knowing God directly?
You're suggesting it would be ridiculaous if other religions offered religious experience and Christianity did not. But surely the truth is that what Christianity offers is not 'experience' but Story - the story of God's interaction with humanity, into which we (without necessarily 'experiencing' anything 'spooky') can fit our lives. This may not be the most attractive package on the marketplace, but it's the one that will transform reality.
ANDY:  mmm, interesting. It seems as if my contention that God is beyond words, but can be known, is being met with resistance both from George (who fears it will open us to the New Age) and Hal (who fears it will relativise biblical Story). I'll need to think a little more about how to respond (especially to Hal, because I naturally warm to people who use the word 'Story' the way he does!). But my first answer to both is this: Surely a Christianity that does not provide a relationship with God beyond words is as flawed as a marriage in which the partners do nothing but talk to each other?
AARON: When I was at college, Christians were always saying 'other religions may offer some knowledge ABOUT God, but only Christianity allows you to KNOW God'. Now George and Hall are saying 'other religions may allow you to know god(s), but Christianity only allows you to know about the true God.'
PAUL BOSCH:  Can I help?

1. In Word and sacrament, we meet the God of Israel and of Jesus "immediately": a "real presence," one might say. But that presence is always "mediated"; that is, there is always the "sign," the earthly elements -- the bread, the cup, the water, the personality of the preacher -- that provide the vehicles for the divine presence to meet with us "in, with and under."

2. Further: I'd be willing to argue that, beyond a certain point, apophatic piety begins to become increasingly sectarian and non-Trinitarian. Beyond a certain point, apophatic piety begins to ignore the First Article of the Creed.

3. So when I claim to have a 'direct contact with God' - and I do - I mean that I meet God in bread, wine, water and a preacher's words. I do not mean that I meet him 'beyond' all of these. That's why people who speak of 'relationship with God' without defining what they mean mislead the public so badly.

4. So I am bound to say that what you tried (obviously with great sensitivity and care) to do for the teenager mentioned was ultimately unhelpful, and leading her to a position in which she could hear God in preaching and receive Christ in communion would ultimately have helped considerably more.
PHIL:  Personally, I have found that the greatest lesson of my bisexuality has been as a realized practice of non-dualistic thinking, an important concept for apophatic mysticism; though it is difficult to be non-dualistic in this world and our daily lives, it certainly has heightened my awareness of the number of unexamined dualisms which are part of everyday existence. I classify my gender as "metagender," since I am not a man, nor do I think of myself as male, but also neither am I female or woman. I don't know what Meister Eckhart would have said to me, but I certainly feel I have an advantage in the mysticism stakes.
JON:  I'm not sure I understand this at all. How can there be prayer without words? I understand prayer where I speak, I understand listening prayer, but prayer where I don't speak and God doesn't either - that makes as much sense as saying that my wife and I communicate when neither of us speaks.
though, come to think of it, my wife and I do communicate like that sometimes. Is this what you mean? Do we have apophatic marriage?

II: Is Prayer beyond words for you?

ANDY: Yes, it's a quizzila quiz, and you're probably fed up of quizzes asking 'what small rodent are you?', 'what '80s boysband would you be?' or even 'which church should you join?'  They pander to a warped desire to classify ourselves and gain spurious significance by discovering 'who we are'.  But I've written the quiz for three reasons:

 

1.  I'm involved with helping people pray/spiritual direction, and some people need to know which, out of the hundreds of possible 'approaches' to spirituality they could follow, is likely to be the one that 'fits' them best to start with - then they can read something that resonates with them.

2.  Whenever I post something on this site about prayer beyond words, I get a group of conservative evangelicals who express their disquiet that I'm dabbling in the New Age, and a group of 'emergers' who say in effect 'I joined the emerging church because they didn't promise a direct encounter with God, and frankly I don't want one.'   The whole point of this quiz is that we need balance: prayer with words and without words, emotional prayer and reflective prayer.  In fact, all the great writers on prayer will eventually bring us to a point of balance.

3.  It's my contention that entire churches have spiritualities, and it might help to explore your own church's preferences!

 

OK, now feel free to do the quiz:  it's on

http://quizilla.com/users/andygr/quizzes/Schools%20of%20Christian%20Spirituality

 

Or, if you're interested, here is the rationale behind it:

 

This is based on my amended version of the typology in John Westerhoff's Spiritual Life (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994).   The idea is that all of us have a 'home base' spirituality which can be plotted along too axes: one goes from affective to reflective/active (pretty much the same distinction as 'F' and 'T' on Myers-Briggs; and the other from verbal to beyond words (or if you prefer kataphatic to apophatic, non-mystical to mystical, a mediated knowing God to a direct knowing God, etc).

 

                                                         Active/reflective

                  Active;                                                            Active/reflective,

                  prayer beyond words                                       verbal

 

 

Beyond words                                                                                       Verbal

 

 

                   Affective;                                                        Affective,                                   

                   prayer beyond words                                      verbal

 

                                                             Affective

 

In addition, it's Westerhoff's contention (and it makes sense in my experience) that we tend to be fascinated by the diagonally opposite 'school' of spirituality as well.  So for example my natural territory is highly emotional and wordy, but I feel a need to balance that with some active 'beyond words' prayer.  Anyway, try it.  See if it's fun.  See if it helps.

 
III: From business partner to child

ANDY:  It is the beginning of the fourteenth century.  You long to learn of prayer beyond words - prayer which is direct communication between God and human beings.  You have heard that in the Dominican Order there is a man who can help you, so you've travelled for weeks through the dense forests of the Rheinland in order to came and see him.  His name is Meister Eckhart.

He grants you a meeting, and his first question to you cuts through all the vague notions that you had about 'techniques' or 'methods' of prayer.  'Who are you?', he asks.  'Who are you in relation to God?  God's business partner, doing things for him so he'll return the favour (or doing things for him to try to pay back the gift he's given you)?  God's servant?  God's friend?  Or God's child?  The obstacles to prayer beyond words will be different according to which of the four answers you give, so go back down the valley for a while, and when you know who are you can come back and we can take the next step.  I told your boatman to wait for you.'

So what will you tell the Master?  Who are you in relation to God?

If you said 'I'm a business partner', Eckhart would congratulate you on your honesty.  He lives at the beginning of the merchant age, and he comments that he's seen people whose whole lives have been taken over by the spirit of capitalism (he called it the merchant mind).  There is a place for merchants, but they should be driven out of temples, he says.  Prayer beyond words is not likely to occur for people who are serving God because they think God will reward them with wealth or answered prayer or health or a happy family, or by putting them in the forefront of a new and more flexible church configuration (the early Dominicans).  And there are also those who serve God in an attempt to repay him for what he has done for us in Christ - a dispiriting and futile attempt that can destroy our joy and make our delight into duty.

It won't do, you know, Eckhart would say.  The only healthy relationship you can have with God is open-handed giving, you giving freely out of love and joy, God giving freely out of love and joy.  Until you relate to God in this way, don't even think about coming to God in apophatic prayer.    To you, Eckhart prescribes certain things that you must let go, in order that you see yourself not as God's trading partner but as God's child. 

MUTE TROUBADOUR:  I love your site. A quotation:

"In the depths of contemplative prayer there seems to be no division between subject and object, and there is no reason to make any statement either about God or about oneself. He IS and this reality absorbs everything else.

So it gives great praise of God to remain in His silence and darkness and when we have received this gift from him it would be poor thanks indeed to prefer our own dim light and desire some feeling of Him that would give us some false and human sense of his being".

From "New Seeds of Contemplation" by Thomas Merton

ANDY:  'What harm can come to you from letting God be God in you?  Jump out of your skin to meet God - God has jumped out of his skin to meet you.'  - Meister Eckhart, Sermon 5b. 

The road from seeing ourselves as God's business partners to seeing ourselves as God's children lies, says Eckhart, through the valley of 'letting go' of certain things: of ourselves; of methods; and of god.

Letting go of yourself does not mean denying your personality, or pretending you don't matter.  Remember, the aim is to get to a point where, in simplicity without words, you can simply be there in the presence of God like a child in your parent's arms, knowing that God's word to his Son is his word to you, in him: 'You are my child, whom I love, I am pleased with you.'  Letting go of yourself is a never-ending process, because we're always finding something new that stops us moving forward.  The over-examined life is not worth living, so don't be endlessly introspective; when you're aware of an area where your self-interest is holding you back from being yourself, in the presence of God being Godself, just admit it, receive God's forgiveness, detach yourself and turn to God.  Stopping trusting in ourselves is part of starting trusting in him.

Letting go of methods means all the means of prayer you've ever learned - extempore, liturgical, meditative...  Not because they're bad or 'lesser', but because for the next fifteen minutes you'll be doing something different and riskier, just being without words in the presence of God. 

Letting go of god means accepting that the view of God we have is partial and inadequate.  Eckhart got into trouble for saying 'God is not good'.  He didn't mean to diminish God, but to diminish our human word 'good' which cannot possibly describe how much greater than and beyond our conception of goodness God really is.  Is there a Christian spiritual tradition you don't feel quite at home in?  Perhaps an investigation of it will help break down your little god and make space for the big One.

IV: From servant to friend

ANDY: Before I get started again, I'm still pondering the comments above - have a look at them, if you've got a minute.  The general consensus appears to be that a relationship with God that is 'direct' or 'unmediated' is impossible or dangerous, and the people maintaining this range from George (a conservative evangelical, I imagine), to Hal (postmodern evangelical?) to a Lutheran professor of worship.  Leaving me almost alone with a North American bisexual arguing that we really do 'know God' even in a postmodern setting.   I read somewhere (on paper) that a Vineyard leader in Brighton had argued that the real difference between emergent churches and charismatic ones was that the former had no place in their theology for a direct encounter with the Holy Spirit.  I do hope this isn't true...

OK, on with Meister Echhart.

The story so far: you've been to see Meister Eckhart.  He's asked you how you see yourself in relation to God: a business partner, a friend, a child or a servant?  In our last section, we've seen his advice to those who see themselves as God's business partners, whether they're trying to get something from God or trying to repay God for what he's done.  Today we look at what he'd say to the person who sees him/herself as a servant of God.

Well, actually we know what he'd say:

'The last moments of a life are moments of truth - before we die, the masks fall off and the roles are discontinued.  Jesus' last moments show how he sees those that have been with him for the last months of his ministry, and he does not use them to transmit orders or organise the church.  He leaves them on the memory of brothers and sisters eating a meal together, of himself as the only servant in the room, and of a plea that they see themselves not as his servants but as his friends.  Human being, you are not a servant, even of God.  You are a friend.'     (Eckhart , 'First interview', my translation of Jean-Marie Guellette's free paraphrase).

If we see ourselves as God's servants, apophatic prayer will clearly not be an option - why would a master choose just to 'hang out' uselessly with his servants, not achieving anything?  Far better to go for intercession, that gets the job done.  So if we're serious about prayer beyond words, we'd better find a way to see ourselves as friends of God.  Eckhart suggests that letting go of penitence and action is the way to get there. 

JIM:  You're right, the conversation is fascinating. I'm particularly interested in Paul's assertion that to say we meet God means 'merely' that we meet God in bread, wine, water and a preacher's words. I'd like to add 'the community's life' to that list, but certainly a big reason why I left the Vineyard set-up was that I don't encounter God 'directly' except through these things, and Vineyard was expecting me to have 1:1 experiences with God. I suspect many other 'emergers' are like this too.

Sorry Andy, I know that isn't what you believe. Are you arguing for a more charismatic kind of emergence?

ANDY:  No, not necessarily more charismatic, but certainly conscious of God's presence beyond 'bread, wine, water, a preacher's words and the life of the community'. Please don't misunderstand me; I'm no spirituality expert, and I often evade or neglect the presence of God. But the centre of my life is or should be me being me in the presence of God being God.
MUTE TROUBADOUR: You are a refreshing voice. Today's pastoral vision seems to insist -- or at least some pastors do -- on aping the hustle and bustle, the faux importance, of the commercial world; the busyness of business. Suits, coats, ties, "business casual" define the appearance of a pastor. The proliferation of cell phones and beepers attached to the belt underscore the business model. No wonder a Japanese business man observed, "Whenever I meet a Buddhist leader, I meet a holy man. Whenever I meet a Christian leader, I meet a manager." Need anything more be said?

Yet on it goes. Why do so many pastors feel the need -- for a felt need it must be -- to take their identity from the secular world, from that part of secular world which is the most secular? And then justify it in the name of the Great Commission?

Pastors are to be holy. Not stuffy, self-satisfied, peacocks of piety (apologies for the purple prose). But, taking their cue and their identity from the Incarnation itself, situated on the margins of the secular world, where cell phones have no image-making magic, beepers are silly, dress style insignificant. On the margins, calling people into the real world, the Kingdom of God.

ANDY: Mute, I'm flattered and alarmed by your comment. Alarmed because I'm certainly not suggesting that Christian leaders should be gurus (gurus are bad), or that there's a 'more real' world out there somewhere. But like you I do long for all Christians to have a secret life with God. On Wednesday I spoke about the parable of the sower, and my refrain was 'the secret of fruit is roots'.

'the secret of fruit is roots'. 'the secret of fruit is roots'. 'the secret of fruit is roots'. 'the secret of fruit is roots'.
MATT:  I'm sorry, when I hear people say things like 'other religions know about God, we know him' I just hear 'blah blah blah blah.' It's meant to be about being like Christ, transforming the world with Christ, building community, loving our neighbors. It's not about speaking in tongues, hearing voices or discovering a still point at the center of our being.
PASTOR LARS LARSON: The emerging church needs I think to beware of the spirit of the world. Now we have movements within evangelicalism which advocate a complete setting aside of thinking rationally as the true means of coming to know and experience God. There are people who now claim that it is more spiritual to set aside the mind completely and thereby experience God directly with the heart. This is pure mysticism in Christian dress. A prime example of this type of thing is what characterizes the popular Toronto Blessing movement. Today we have many who clam to experience and know God apart from the teaching and preaching of the Word of God; in fact, they have disdain for preaching and teaching. They chaff at sitting and listening to biblical and doctrinal exposition. Although they may not say it is so, the study of the Scriptures to them is irrelevant and even deadening to true worship and true spiritual knowledge. Their claim is, "churches have too much head knowledge, what is needed is heart knowledge."

The only thing which will 'emerge' from such soil is deception.
ANDY:  Ah good, I was wondering where the opponents of prayer beyond words had gone. Matt, it's about the Spirit within you transforming us so that we will naturally do all those good things you mention, I think. And part of this transformation is you being still with God. Or even if being still with God doesn't lead to you being transformed it's still important. Don't get me wrong, I do see what you mean that what we do is more important than our self-gratifying little spiritual experiences. But I fear for myself and for the emerging church movement the curse of BUSY-NESS WITHOUT REALITY. Thank you for your view, pastor, we need it in this conversation. And I'm glad of the reminder to take scripture seriously (and obey it - see for example the article on usury posted on this site). But even after I've said all that, I still want to know God, not 'apart from Scripture' as if God were set over against Scripture, but as God's self.
PASTOR LARS LARSON:  Paul Negrut argues that it is this apophatic--inspired mysticism that undermines any true concept of community within the redemptive scheme for the Orthodox:

"mystical union with God does not constitute a solid foundation for communion. The Church's dogma and sacraments are only the starting points of the mystical journey. The higher the ascent of the mystic, the more isolated he becomes, until eventually, in total separation from other human beings, he reaches that point of "total ignorance" when he knows only that he knows nothing ...
If man's ultimate purpose in "knowing God" is unknowing, or releasing himself from all creaturely forms of knowledge (for God is above all rational understanding or comprehension), then this "ascent" toward God through theosis will of necessity alienate men from one another, and plunge them into this nebulous abyss where propositional truth knows no place." (end of quote)

The Christian's aim should be not 'union with God' or 'prayer beyond words', but his own sanctification and fruitful mission - both of which tend to create, not destroy, community.
ANDY:  Pastor, thank you for your thoughtful comments once again. I think I may have misled you by my use of the word apophatic.  I am not arguing for a wholescale apophatic theology, nor would I know what that involves; I am not suggesting that 'sanctification and fruitful mission' are unimportant; I do not advocate 'total ignorance' as a sensible goal of the Christian life. All that I am saying is that, alongside the prayer-with-words that is very important, we should also learn to be quiet with God and stop talking for a while, and that doing so would be life-giving. Surely you would agree?

You quote Paul Negrut, so perhaps I might quote Blaise Pascal?

'All human unhappiness arises from the fact that people cannot stay quietly in their own rooms! We turn to diversions in order not to be at home to ourselves and to our creator; that's why people are so noisy, why prison is a punishment, and why people cannot understand that solitude could be a pleasure. And yet we have also another secret instinct - it's still there from the days when human nature was a great thing. This secret instinct teaches us that happiness consists not only in rest, but in not being stirred up.'

Community, sanctification and fruitful mission (all of which, believe me, I am concerned for) would only be served if more christians learned how not to be stirred up, but simply to be themselves in the presence of God being himself.
DAVE: You seem surprised that many of the contributors mistrust the idea of 'unmediated contact with God'. I am not surprised by this. Evangelicals have long distanced themselves from that which cannot be 'managed' rationally; while post-evangelicals are post-liberals are united in a view that religious language, far from expressing a hidden 'religious experience', is in itself the content of our faith. If I am a billiard ball, I do not have 'layers' to be peeled away like an onion; if there is an 'inner me' it is ultimately unknown and unkowable.  Thus 'alternative worship' does not offer a chance to 'hear God' or 'be with God', but to 'reflect' or 'meditate'. And I think this is not only the reason why many enter the 'emerging' movement, but the reason why they frequently get tired of it too; they lack the source of refreshment within them.
ANDY: Letting go of penitence: this doesn't mean that we will somehow get to a point where we wn't have to confess our sins any longer.  But it does mean that having confessed them, we will learn to accept that they are forgiven and move on.  Until we have learned this, we will not be ready to be ourselves in the presence of God being God without fear or a servile sense of duty.  The moment you are no longer afraid of being in God's presence, because you are blazingly sure of God's merciful acceptance, is like the moment someone who's been struggling with fear of snakes suddenly comes face to face with an adder and realises he is unafraid.
Letting go of action: doing things for God is not bad.  On the contrary, when you build a relationship of stillness in which you know God, you will probably find yourself released to new forms of ministry and service, undertaken joyfully and without fear.  But if you're finding stillness difficult, one reason may be that you value too highly what you can do for God.  Let it be, the universe will get on without you.  Meditate on God's words to Jesus (and you were in Christ): you are my child, whom I love, I am pleased with you.
V: How to pray beyond words.
OK, you've travelled with us.  You no longer relate to God as if you were a servant or a business partner.  How do you pray beyond words?
Just stop.  Like a game of musical chairs: the music has stopped, flop down exactly where you are.  If you relate to God as God's friend, meditate on that.  If you relate to God as God's child, meditate on that.   Then stop, and be with God.
The only 'techniques' for this are purely technical, and not in themselves 'spiritual' at all.  For example, you'll want to make sure your body is relaxed before you begin - tense and release each muscle and tendon in turn, then release.  This will reduce the distractions from your body during your prayer beyond words. You'll want to breath deeply from the bottom of your lungs - not because doing so is more spiritual, but because when your mind wanders, you can focus once again on your breathing and retrieve your concentration. 
God may spoeak to you in some way (but he probably won't).  You may be prompted to do something (but you probably won't be).  You're more likely to feel nothing at all, at the time.  But afterwards, you will discover that it makes a difference that you have been with God.  Others may notice too.  And you will start to look forward to the next time that you pray without words.
It's that simple. And that hard.