Practicing Presence.

When it comes to spirituality, are you more like my home-chef, mother-in-law, whose culinary skills grew on the trellis of a multi-generational tradition?  Or are you like my Grandma Francie, who accumulated her craft like a wild honeysuckle vine growing on a Central Illinois fence a little at a time? 

Some people travel around the world and pay a guide unfathomable sums of money to summit Mt. Everest.  For others, Mt. Everest comes to them.  It came knocking on Mary’s door unbidden, in the second half of her life in the form of a debilitating, potentially fatal brain condition.  For Larry, it occupied the bedroom next to his for the balance of his childhood.  In back-to-back resilience interviews, I couldn’t help but notice that, spiritually speaking, Mary was more like my mother-in-law.  Larry was my Grandma Francie.  For both of them, spirituality ended up being the oxygen that sustained and mended them as they scaled their respective mountains.

Mary’s spirituality grew organically on a carefully constructed multigenerational, Catholic frame.  The seasons of her life moved to the rhythms of Catholic education, the Sacraments, and daily prayer methodologies.  In our day, many see their religious tradition as more of a confining fence than a growth-promoting trellis.  Sitting in Mary’s sunny, well-ordered dining room, it occurred to me that her multi-generational tradition never fenced her in.  Rather, its timbers gathered to form a scaffold from which she could construct her own structures to practice the Presence of God.   Together with her husband, Pat, they co-created a spiritual home on that well-seasoned lumber, spacious enough for the both of them. 

You might say that Mary and Pat occupy a spiritual space where Christianity looks a little like Buddhism.  Their decades-old practice of twice-daily Centering Prayer appreciated into a robust fund of equanimity and peace.  That spiritual reserve came in handy when a rare neurological disorder disabled and threatened to kill Mary.  Despite the fact that the odds were never in her favor, fortunately, the skilled hands of an expert surgeon restored her health and functionality.  What struck me in my lengthy interview with her, was the fruit of her practice with Pat:  a solidness and peace throughout the entire ordeal.  That interview changed me.  Lisa and I now engage in our own daily Centering Prayer contemplative practice. 

Within the same week of talking to Mary, I interviewed Larry.  He came to his spirituality much more free-form, like my Grandma Francie’s culinary art.  Unlike my grandma, his childhood was riddled with poverty and brutality, compliments of his violent step-dad.  The abuse moved in when Larry was three.  It concluded dramatically fourteen years later.  In blood soaked clothing, he finally escaped, and found his way to sanctuary in a buddy’s home where he would finish Junior and Senior years of high school.  By and by he joined the Navy.  I’ll let him tell you about what happened on the back of a huge Naval vessel.

Looking up at the stars, and the bioluminescence of the wake, it put everything in perspective.  I did feel like God was there.  Especially at night.  There’s a dark that’s darker than dark.  The ship was in the middle of the ocean.  But I always felt so comfortable.  It was very calming.  It was then that I felt, there’s something healing in me.  He continued. 

As a young man, I should have been like the other sailors on that boat.  I should have been too busy to look for all that.  I wasn’t too busy.  If I would have had a normal childhood, I wouldn’t have been looking for something more.  My abusive past…created a need to go to the back of that boat, and look up.”   

(Larry, Interview, Jan. 25, 2022)

Larry, would eventually stitch together his own approach to spirituality that would eventually lead to his inclusion in a faith community.  A major part of his recipe has involved being in, on, or near bodies of water.  Larry was able to internalize his spiritual experiences and allow them to knit his soul back together.  He caught and taught himself a way to God that healed him enough to raise children, enjoy a life-long marriage, and excel in a profession until he retired.  Larry’s story reminds me to “look up” even in the dark places for a Presence that offers further healing, and a soul-satisfying Beauty. 

Conclusion

Taken together, these two accounts remind me that there’s room for all of us when it comes to the Sacred.  Contemplatives throughout the ages have given witness to a Presence that pulses at the core of the human heart.  Lives like these two remind us that we’re built to make contact with that Presence, however we get there.  That’s why you can’t ever bet against anyone’s power to endure, to heal, and even, to eventually, turn a wound into an unlikely gift. 

Dialogue

Whether your spirituality was “caught,” or “taught,” how do you feed it on a regular basis?

What is your spiritual comfort food?  Is there a practice that maybe doesn’t even make intellectual sense to you, but somehow, when you engage in it, there’s a “coming home” feel to it? 

Can you think of a time when you were moved by something?  It could have been scenic beauty, a piece of music or art, a video that captured something profound, or a connecting moment with someone.

If you’re not comfortable with the language of “spirituality,” what tends to bring you into the experience of awe?  How do you create more space for that experience?

Have you ever felt your sacred practices begin to feel stale and boringly rote?  What helps you to breathe new life into them?  Have you ever sought advice from someone about it?