Richard Rohr calls for contemplative prayer to teach us the “art of detachment.” He stresses that in such prayer we don’t deny our feelings, but simply let go of their ultimacy:
We need forms of prayer that free us from fixating on our own conscious thoughts and feelings and from identifying with them, as if we are our thinking. Who are we before we have our thoughts and feelings? That is our naked being. We have to learn to be spiritually empty, or, as Jesus says in his first beatitude, “How blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3). If we are filled with ourselves, there is no room for another, and certainly not for God. We need contemplative prayer, in which we simply let go of our constantly changing ego needs, so Something Eternal can take over.
This may sound simple, but it’s not easy! Because we’ve lost the art of detachment, we’ve become almost fully identified with our stream of consciousness and our feelings. Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not saying we should repress or deny our feelings. I’m challenging us to name them and observe them, but not to directly fight them, identify with them, or attach to them. Unless we learn to let go of our feelings, we don’t have our feelings; our feelings have us.
We might ask: “What does this have to do with God? I thought prayer was supposed to be talking to God or searching for God. This seems to be saying prayer is about getting myself out of the way.” That is exactly what I am saying. As John the Baptist put it, “I must grow smaller so he can grow greater” (John 3:30). [1]
To any of us comfortable people, detachment sounds like losing, but it is actually about accessing a deeper, broader sense of the self, which is already whole, already content, already filled with abundant life. This is the part of us that has always loved God and has always said “yes” to God. It’s the part of us that is Love, and all we have to do is let go and fall into it. It’s already there. Once we move our identity to that level of deep inner contentment and compassion, we realize that we’re drawing upon a Life that is larger than our own and from a deeper Abundance. Once we learn to do that, why would we ever again settle for some scarcity model for life? [2] God is already present. God’s Spirit is dwelling within us. We cannot search for what we already have. We cannot talk God into coming “to” us by longer and more urgent prayers. All we can do is become quieter, smaller, and less filled with our own self and our constant flurry of ideas and feelings. Then God will be obvious in the very now of things, and in the simplicity of things. To sum it all up, we can never get there, we can only be there.
_________________________________
Sarag Young Jesus Listens……
Merciful Jesus, I come gladly into Your Presence—basking in the luxury of being fully understood and perfectly loved. Help me to see myself as You see me: radiant in Your righteousness, cleansed by Your blood. I’m grateful that You view me as the one You created me to be, the one I will actually be when heaven becomes my home. It is Your Life within me that is changing me from Glory to Glory! I rejoice in this mysterious miracle. As I sit quietly in Your Presence, my awareness of Your Life within me is heightened. You are Christ in me, the hope of Glory. I’m grateful that You—the One who walks beside me, holding me by my hand—are the same One who lives within me. This is a glorious, unfathomable mystery. The Light of Your Presence shines within me as well as upon me. You and I are intertwined in an intimacy that involves every fiber of my being. You are in me, and I am in You. This means that nothing in heaven or on earth can separate me from You. Hallelujah! In Your magnificent Name, Amen
PSALM 34:5; Those who look to Him are radiant with joy; their faces shall never be ashamed.
2 CORINTHIANS 5:21 HCSB; He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
2 CORINTHIANS 3:18 NKJV; But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
COLOSSIANS 1:27 ESV; To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.
Young, Sarah. Jesus Listens (p. 122). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
Click Image for John White's Original Vision For CO2's
