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Today begins an ongoing series that I have entitled “The RIFF.” The podcast will be lest scripted and more reflective. It will be a departure from my exegetical biblical exposition, with a focus on the experiential awareness with the purpose of mining the depths of our human experience and big questions in order to access the beacon which broadcasts the love story which is our lives, found in God.

“Keven, what is REAL prayer?”

Prayer isn’t a thing to be described, a ritual to be performed, or a command to be obeyed. Prayer is Ultimate Reality to be experienced. As such it may be easier to speak of what prayer is not.

Very few prayers actually exist. What most of us call prayer is a fictional wish derived from a delusional or despairing self directed to an imaginary construct within one’s mind. Though this piece of wood be adorned with gold, our fluffed up like a pillow with our many words, the false self or worse, the religious false self, cannot pray anything but a perfunctory dirge. A false self remains unknown to God and false prayers are the womb which births Atheism or fundamentalism.

Yet, a pseudo-prayer, if believed, can open us, over time, to the invitation to real prayer. Only the real self can really pray, for the real soul, hidden in God cares for little else than God’s will. Real prayer is the Word, contemplated by God and geolocated within the most feeble and muddy containers. Thus when our soul, who is found in God, becomes aware of God contemplating us into existence each moment, we respond, or resonate a sort of tonal agreement which goes beyond words, emotions, theologies, or thoughts. Real prayer is thus a timeless, fully encompassing yes which satisfies us more than any aspect of life.

I hope you understand that I’m not making these statements in a condescending way, I make them because I know that 50+ years of “so called” prayers have revealed themselves to be anything but prayer. I share this for your own self reflection.

1. Real Prayer is first of real. (authentic, humble, honest) Poor in spirit…
2. Real Prayer is never Godless or vague. (Prayer is unto God, not a nebulous force TBD)
3. Real prayer is NOT “talking to God” or performance. (God as buddy)
4. In Real prayer, God is NOT “Up There.” (Immanence…Kingdom here)
5. Real prayer is always a petition for God and nothing else. (Everything comes from God)
6. Real prayer is an unavoidable invitation or calling. (Proven by thirst and satisfaction)
7. Real Prayer is wordless existence. (Habituated Eternal Flow)
8. Real Prayer is subject to subject, not object to object. (knowing, not knowing about)
9. Real Prayer is transformational, not transactional. (Life giving, life changing, infusion)

Reflection:

Do you possess a thirst for real prayer? Would you like to get past fictional prayer?

Begin by finding a place where you can sit undisturbed and where you are comfortable. Once there, sit in a quiet humble posture, hands resting or folded, legs relaxed and comfortable. Slightly bow your head, close your eyes and begin to bow your inner self.

Begin noticing your breath. Take in a full breath nice and slowly. Notice any tension in your body and begin releasing it with every breath. Do this until you feel your body settle down. Now, exhale gradually as you become aware of it leaving you. When you have expired this breath, sit for a brief moment without inhaling. In a few seconds, notice the discomfort of not breathing coming over you, sit in the discomfort for a few seconds and then begin to take a slow, deep cleansing breath and recognize the satisfaction of inhaling the Spirit and life of God. Prior to receiving this new breath, you were not just out of breath, you were dying. you were literally minutes from physical death had this new life-giving breath not poured into you. Receive this sustaining life, found in every breath, in gratitude, surrender the life you cannot hold every time you exhale.

This sobriety of our frailty is the beginning flashes of real prayer. This is how we ground ourselves in our bodies and become conscious of our desperate need for God who graces us with breath after breath though we forget to thank Him. Breathing is not merely an autonomic nervous system function, it is the Word becoming flesh moment to moment in and as you. Our lives are the life of God, not that we are in any way deity, but in our absolute nothingness apart from God, as evidenced by our breath.

From here, our words are only self-serving. Words, thoughts, ideas, emotions, and sense perceptions keep us from sitting still. They indulge the distraction of life. Far better to sit still in silence and darkness and exist as God exists in you. If your mind takes you away, don’t go with it. Be still and know God. Seek divine union by way of humility and forgetting of yourself. That version of you that believes it is all these thoughts will discover a deeper version who observes all of these thoughts and learns to mortify anything which isn’t God’s luminous darkness and silence.

In this moment you are real, eternally known, and no agenda matters more than this Presence. If you cannot perceive it, it isn’t your time. This graced awareness cannot be obtained through human will. Try again when you embrace humiliation. Here God reveals all, shows all, reflects all, as each revelation arises on the scene, do not latch onto it. Just receive it as it is, then set it free to do the work God wills to do. Receive correction. Do not defend yourself. Ask for forgiveness without words by simply agreeing. Nothing more. As we do this we will become quieter and quieter until divine stillness sets in. Then you will taste freedom and ultimate satisfaction. Stay as long as He allows.

When we have bore all that we can, God will release us back to our necessary surface level corporeal reality which feels small and fictional by comparison. Living in the world, the formula is simple. It’s not religion. It’s response. In faith, receive each moment as it comes, bringing this agreement into each moment. See your human life as a vital, beautiful, but brief aspect of your eternal life, found in God. Ask yourself: “What is the most loving thing I can do to respond to this moment? Then take immediate action to do it. Do this action with excellence and service with the best of your ability. Then greet the next moment without judging it. Now your life has become a prayer, and even the temporal bears witness to what has become very real.

Heavenly Father,

Within every one of us is an eternal name, an identity that has always existed because your perfect mind and wisdom has always existed. This real name for us was never a new idea for you, nor can this name ever be forgotten by you, and it’s this reality which we seek this moment. Please grace us with a glimpse that this deep, true self who exists in You. Allow us enough sight and self awareness to compare the self we have constructed so far in our life with this true self. Grant us the ability by your love, to see our thoughts, emotions, habits, reactions, behaviors, and assumptions for what they are, and allow us forsake any confidence we have put in them.

Your Word says that if we deny this version of our self, even being willing to let it suffer and die, that we will find and learn how to live in this eternal self within our temporary state. You have told us that if we cling to the fictional part, that we will lose the true part. We ask now, loving Father, that you would have mercy on us, for the confusion in our minds over what is ultimately real is so overpowering, we can hardly find our True North. So we ask for the thirst which will drive us to utter dependence upon You. Only this eternal, real self can pray this, so Lord test our hearts with these following words.

I surrender everything. I hold nothing back. You can take my wealth, my status, my health, my family. There is nothing in this life that I desire more than You. Like Paul, I count it all as loss, recognizing the fictional existence that it really is. Nothing that I cling to will last even 100 years. All I have has been given to me by You, and so I willingly surrender it all to you. Every fear, every hope, every dream, all I want and all I need. It’s all yours anyway, so whatever you grace me with, I’ll receive with gratitude and seek to honor You as a good custodian of your graces.

Lord, please orient me toward your Truth and give me a hunger for Reality, give me the eyes to see the temporal world and all of the goodness that is latent within it, and direct my gaze so that I can look at everything long enough to love it, and guide my next step so that I can greet each moment as a gift from you which contains everything I need to remain right here, right now.

And we thank you for the gift of your Son, Jesus Christ, who alone makes this awareness and experience of new life possible. May He shepherd each of us by His love and bring us into union with You.

Amen.