Having practiced and studied the Jesus Prayer for over 40 years I have to say that these are the best short essays on it that I have ever read. Thank you! I am not Orthodox, but this prayer is the center of my spirituality. My image is erosion: the prayer wears down the false self over time until you realize its effect. And yes humility is absolutely key.
The importance you (rightly) place on the danger of distractions to prayer raises a critical concern: if it's true that we are, generally speaking, much more distracted than we were in the past (due to streaming, social media, etc., and especially their convenience access via smartphones that we always have with us), then it would follow that in 2025 we will find it much harder to reach any given spiritual threshold.
I certainly find myself less able to simply be bored for a bit now than I was in the past. I have at least some degree of addiction to screens (and I think I am probably less addicted than many, especially than many younger adults). I don't have an easy solution to this, but I think it's worth thinking on. Perhaps the beginning of a spiritual practice will need to be finding ways of simply cutting back time online.
I think at this point in time, that the starting point of trying to grow spiritually, of beginning to pray, is the general awareness--which sadly many don't seem to have today--that I am not generally aware of what I am doing, what I am caught up in, what tugs at me and makes me return to it, what I spend my time doing, and how what I spend my time doing affects my state of mind and soul. With this age of smartphones, digital media, swiping social platforms, many of us have lost the capacity to ever sit alone with ourselves let alone attend to ourselves to the extent necessary to begin to detach from passions and fight the impulse to simply check out and get an instant reward. The general population is already plugged into a reality which cuts them off from general awareness of what is the case in our present environment with our bodies currently and deeper within. The great task, in my mind, of Christianity in this age, will be to nudge people to begin to simply just suffer the boredom or ennui which seems to set in if we're not scrolling or distracted by something.
I don't use social media platforms. I occasionally check the headlines to see if anything actually important occurs in the world. I only watch youtube or podcasts on occasion if there is some content which is not usually the viral kind. Apparently, the current calls me a boomer--no matter that that was my parents generation!--but what that tells me is that there's not only an ordinary generational separation of young adults today, but an invisible sort of wall standing between those who grew up before computers were computers, before phones were smart, and didn't really use a social platform until facebook which came out when I was in college.
Now, I have a friend who is a school teacher and he has his kids turn their cell phones off during class, but once class is done, none of the kids speak to each other, they just go to their phones to communicate at a distance or drop back into the pixelated meta-verse. Other younger people I know, have a language more differentiated than any generational difference I can think of, simply because their language is constantly changing with the ever increasing overflow of information that they are encountering. I hate to sound depressing, but I think this is the issue of our age.
If I lived closer than 60 miles to an Orthodox Church I would seriously consider Hesychasm. I do
take exception to your statement:"If prayer were merely the suppression of of thoughts, it would
remain a negative practice-a retreat an emptiness."
The above statement is exactly what we try to achieve in Centering Prayer. Psalm 46:10 "Be Still and Know That I am God." In the 20 minutes or so of the practice one tries to let the mental thoughts
float down the river so to speak, so God(who is always waiting) can enter the"unblocked space."
It's hard. In fact sometimes if my intent or awareness doesn't ignite the "spark" the divine image
of God in my soul my effort to glimpse God doesn't happen.However, more often than not it does
and just like Hesychasm one feels the Presence Now Today!
Both practices fulfill the goal, the regaining of the longing instilled in us, lost at the "fall" of reaching eternity.
I don’t disagree. Silence centering is point and God doesn’t always appear, but this opens us to God. Be still and know I am God though has connotation that God is and the act of emptying oneself of thoughts is goal to know God / experience his presence. My concern was that readers would see it as the same as Buddhist practice where it is emptiness with no spark or presence of God or that spark but simply nothiness
Having practiced and studied the Jesus Prayer for over 40 years I have to say that these are the best short essays on it that I have ever read. Thank you! I am not Orthodox, but this prayer is the center of my spirituality. My image is erosion: the prayer wears down the false self over time until you realize its effect. And yes humility is absolutely key.
The importance you (rightly) place on the danger of distractions to prayer raises a critical concern: if it's true that we are, generally speaking, much more distracted than we were in the past (due to streaming, social media, etc., and especially their convenience access via smartphones that we always have with us), then it would follow that in 2025 we will find it much harder to reach any given spiritual threshold.
I certainly find myself less able to simply be bored for a bit now than I was in the past. I have at least some degree of addiction to screens (and I think I am probably less addicted than many, especially than many younger adults). I don't have an easy solution to this, but I think it's worth thinking on. Perhaps the beginning of a spiritual practice will need to be finding ways of simply cutting back time online.
I think at this point in time, that the starting point of trying to grow spiritually, of beginning to pray, is the general awareness--which sadly many don't seem to have today--that I am not generally aware of what I am doing, what I am caught up in, what tugs at me and makes me return to it, what I spend my time doing, and how what I spend my time doing affects my state of mind and soul. With this age of smartphones, digital media, swiping social platforms, many of us have lost the capacity to ever sit alone with ourselves let alone attend to ourselves to the extent necessary to begin to detach from passions and fight the impulse to simply check out and get an instant reward. The general population is already plugged into a reality which cuts them off from general awareness of what is the case in our present environment with our bodies currently and deeper within. The great task, in my mind, of Christianity in this age, will be to nudge people to begin to simply just suffer the boredom or ennui which seems to set in if we're not scrolling or distracted by something.
I don't use social media platforms. I occasionally check the headlines to see if anything actually important occurs in the world. I only watch youtube or podcasts on occasion if there is some content which is not usually the viral kind. Apparently, the current calls me a boomer--no matter that that was my parents generation!--but what that tells me is that there's not only an ordinary generational separation of young adults today, but an invisible sort of wall standing between those who grew up before computers were computers, before phones were smart, and didn't really use a social platform until facebook which came out when I was in college.
Now, I have a friend who is a school teacher and he has his kids turn their cell phones off during class, but once class is done, none of the kids speak to each other, they just go to their phones to communicate at a distance or drop back into the pixelated meta-verse. Other younger people I know, have a language more differentiated than any generational difference I can think of, simply because their language is constantly changing with the ever increasing overflow of information that they are encountering. I hate to sound depressing, but I think this is the issue of our age.
You knew this was coming: what people need is a bit of phenomenology!
Brings new understanding to the scripture: “Take every thought captive under the Lordship of Jesus Christ .”! Thank you
If I lived closer than 60 miles to an Orthodox Church I would seriously consider Hesychasm. I do
take exception to your statement:"If prayer were merely the suppression of of thoughts, it would
remain a negative practice-a retreat an emptiness."
The above statement is exactly what we try to achieve in Centering Prayer. Psalm 46:10 "Be Still and Know That I am God." In the 20 minutes or so of the practice one tries to let the mental thoughts
float down the river so to speak, so God(who is always waiting) can enter the"unblocked space."
It's hard. In fact sometimes if my intent or awareness doesn't ignite the "spark" the divine image
of God in my soul my effort to glimpse God doesn't happen.However, more often than not it does
and just like Hesychasm one feels the Presence Now Today!
Both practices fulfill the goal, the regaining of the longing instilled in us, lost at the "fall" of reaching eternity.
I don’t disagree. Silence centering is point and God doesn’t always appear, but this opens us to God. Be still and know I am God though has connotation that God is and the act of emptying oneself of thoughts is goal to know God / experience his presence. My concern was that readers would see it as the same as Buddhist practice where it is emptiness with no spark or presence of God or that spark but simply nothiness