THE STILL POINT BELOW THE BOOMING, BANGING, BUZZING CHAOS.

This week’s SMC installment returns to the theme of  “obstacles to contemplation.” Some helpful hacks are provided below:                   

To put it in a nutshell, it’s hard to remember to meditate when you’re trying to get dinner ready…while overseeing a kid’s homework…so that… you can pick up your soccer player when practice is over in twenty minutes…while also…keeping your toddler from distracting your easily distracted homeworker.  Clearly, when it comes to the inner life, not all family life-cycle phases are created equal. Some phases are more spacious:  the Empty Nest, Couples with No Children, or Single Person with No Children. Other phases are more crowded: Families with Young Children, Families with School Aged Children, Families with Adolescents. The following hacks were forged in the kiln of my own contemplative practice during the crowded times of my life.

The Power of a Word as Conduit to the Sacred

Find a SACRED WORD, or MANTRA that calls to mind your deep-down relationship with Holy Mystery. Use it the way a recovering Alcoholic calls on their Higher Power to safeguard sobriety when their own power is not enough. Which is to say, consciously breath your mantra in and out, or quietly whisper it to find the still point below the booming, banging, buzzing chaos. My most commonly used mantra back in the day, was, “Just Enough,” which was short for, “give me just enough grace for this moment.”  At other times, that mantra, “Just Enough,” served as a reminder that there would be just enough grace, or energy, or patience, or love for what this moment (and this moment only) is asking of me. The side benefit of this little prayer is the subtle way that it puts the lie to that annoying inner message that, “I am not enough.” Every time you breathe your mantra, it proclaims, that you are enough!

The Bathroom as Sanctuary

Every mother knows this hack. Frequently, the only place an at-home-parent can access the inner part of the self is in the restroom. Don’t hesitate to develop your own spiritual repertoire for these moments. Remember how mystics like Saint Claire and Francis saw beauty in the most unexpected places. Anyone who has ever suffered a lower GI problem that finally resolved, can understand and respect a bathroom gratitude practice.

Build External Rituals that Lead to Internal Spiritual Experience Over Time

MORNING OFFERING in the car on the way to school. Youngest to oldest, take turns telling God your biggest challenge of the day seeking help. Then tell God what you’re looking forward to, and ask for help being fully present to the blessings. Any wrap up prayer that suits you will work. Our family constructed a homemade prayer based upon Richard of Chichester’s prayer that was used in the rock opera, Godspell. “God, give us eyes to see you more clearly, a heart to love you more dearly, and the will to follow you more nearly, each and every day, until that day when we’re re-united with one another, and united with you forever.  Amen.

MEAL PRAYER can take much the same form as the Morning Offering. If your morning prayer was an anticipation of blessings on-the-way, dinner prayer provides a retrospective moment of gratitude covering, perhaps, the same material from a different vantage point.

BLESSING OF CHILDREN OR SPOUSE BEFORE BED. This sacred liturgy can include songs, stories, blessing, and buckets and buckets of warm love. 

PRAYER OVER A FAMILY MEMBER JUST BEFORE A “BIG DEAL.” (i.e. a test, a presentation, a job interview, a speech mommy or daddy have to give.). This can be done in silence, or out loud. The Pentecostal habit of “laying on of hands” adds a nice touch.  Parents holding still for a child’s prayer over them is such a powerful modeling of a noble humility.

LEAN INTO SPONTANEOUS MOMENTS OF GRACE. Hold a baby or toddler with intentionality. Savor. Savor. Savor. Extend serendipitous moments of humor or goofiness with a school aged, or adolescent child as long as you can stretch them. When an adolescent comes into your room late at night to talk. Drink coffee if you have to. Listen like a monk in prayer. It doesn’t get more sacred than this.

INTENTIONAL BURSTS OF DELIGHT.  Pick a landmark two miles from home. Begin grounding yourself in your intention to love your spouse, kids, roommate, or partner with your whole heart, whole soul, whole mind, and whole body. Just before you walk through the door, resolve to meet the people on the other side of that door with delight. Intentionally use your face, your eyes, your arms, your voice, and your words to do that.  Discharge this contemplative spirituality without regard to reciprocation.

The place in the day of highest conflict, is that frenzied spot right after work, and before dinner. If ever there was a fulcrum to place a lever to move a family in a positive direction, this would be it. This is the spot to make a thirty second investment of energy to change a family!

DIALOGUE

Looking back on your family of origin, what were some of the sacred practices you remember?  How did people say, “I love you,” to one another?  Words?  Characteristic actions?  Tell that story to someone, or create a journal entry.

You don’t have to be in a family with small children, or medium, or large sized children to have a busy life.  What are your “hacks” that preserve something of an inner life for you?

If you are in one of those more spacious sections of the family life cycle, looking back, what are some of the more treasured times you remember with your children?  Another way to say that, “What were some sacred memories of your child, or spouse that are easy to treasure?”  Tell those stories including as much feeling content as you can remember (sight, sounds, inner feelings).

Was there one “hack” provided in this article that you could see yourself test-driving for awhile?  How would you have to customize it to make it your own?