Journal of Sacred Work

I already own everything I see.   – Marian Owens Lokvam

   We were standing on a hill overlooking a great river in northern Ohio called the Maumee. It was 1980. As we watched the current ripple by I said to my mother-in-law, "Marian, I’d love to buy a piece of land along this water."

   "That would be nice," she said. "I guess I feel that I already own everything I see."

   What a remarkable observation, I thought. We struggle to gain legal possession of things. The greater wisdom is in my mother-in-law’s comment. Enjoyment comes from being present to the world before us, not from trying to own it. So much of the world’s trouble has come from people trying to take control of territory. Imagine if we turned our attention, instead, to appreciating what is within the reach of our senses and our hearts.

   What does it mean to be present?…

   The qualities of presence for people are not unlike the elements of presence to the rest of the world. We need to allow the door to our souls to slide open.

   What are practices that help presence?

  The first practice is learning to become quiet. Letting ourselves fall silent allows for the noisy demands of the world and our own egos to shrink back, allowing God’s light a chance to shine through. The reason I recommend twenty minutes of silent meditation is that I find that five is usually not enough. It often takes the first three fourths of my meditation time for my mind to clear itself and my body to relax. Five minutes is clearly better than nothing. Twenty minutes is better. More than twenty minutes twice a day is not only unrealistic for most caregivers, but it may even be counter-productive.

   Second, we need to practice full engagement. This starts with the opening of all of our senses to the experience before us. If we seek to be present to another, this means full attention. As a minister once said to me when our son was small, "Presence is a key part of parenting." I stared back quizzically, "You mean I have to spend a whole lot of time with my son? What about my work?" "No," he replied, "I’m not talking about quantities of time, I’m talking about the quality of your presence. Don’t be watching a football game when he’s trying to talk to you. Be present to him. Hear him."

   Third, spiritual presence. Allow your soul to be present to the encounter. This is not a mechanical process but a spiritual one. If we are open to the cues offered by another to us, we may begin to see with our sacred senses. Consider eye contact. We are taught not to stare. This means we knew how to stare as babies and had to be taught not to do so by society. Anyone who has ever looked into a baby’s eyes knows that they can return our gaze without blinking or turning away. Their eyes are fully open as are they. By sustaining eye contact as a caregiver, we may begin to see more than the information coming to our eyes. At some spiritual level, we may begin to sense much more about the state of the person before us. Sometimes, people call this "experiencing the soul of another." Again, this is not a mechanical process. We can merely ready ourselves by quieting down and being fully engaged. Whether we come to see with our sacred senses is a gift of God’s grace.

   The reason Christians worship Christ has a great deal to do with the quality of presence Jesus offered during his time in this world. Two thousand years after his death, Jesus is present to hundreds of millions ever day. Yet how do we see him? Certainly not with our physical eyes. Instead, we see Christ’s spirit with our sacred eyes. And we may feel his presence through the ritual of communion.

   This is what Nancy West, Director of the Siloam Clinic, means when she asks her staff to "see the face of Christ in each patient." She believes that if her staff is fully present to the needs of a vulnerable patient, they will discover, in the faces of their patients, the face of Christ inviting them to a healing encounter.

   My mother-in-law, Marian Owens Lokvam, owned even more than what she could see. Those privileged to know her across her eighty-six years on this earth knew that she owned a remarkable grace. She was present to the world in a way that illuminated the lives of all who encountered her. She was one of those people who raised the light whenever she entered a room.

   To know presence, Marian didn’t need to review a list of its key elements. She seemed to know these things intuitively. The rest of us, however, may benefit from remembering the three keys described here: Quieting, Full Engagement, and Spiritual Presence.

   LIke Elijah, God may come to us not in the storm and the fury, but in the silence of our hearts.

-Erie Chapman