Journal of Sacred Work

Note: Today’s Meditation is written and
edited by Catherine Self based on the writings of Erie Chapman (in quotes) on
High Purpose Leadership and her own reflections.

    Quaker writer Richard Foster offers an invitation to a celebration of discipline. In our
largely undisciplined and comfort-seeking culture, this is a radical call.
Avoidance of discipline is but one symptom of our tendency toward instant
gratification. Yet, it is in the practice of discipline that we may discover a
path that brings us to true and lasting fulfillment. According to spiritual
director Robert Mulholland, Jr., a balanced practice of discipline becomes a
means for Love’s grace to reach out through us in service of others…

   For the caregiver, frantic schedules and overwhelming
demands often block out the expression of Love’s grace. For many, our hearts
and souls lie “mostly undiscovered, unrevealed, asleep. At best, we may live
out our best only through random and unexpected moments.” In our Friday
meditations we have so far learned that “our souls can be revived when we make
a personal commitment to purposeful work. This commitment, to be
powerful, must be infused with passion.
It is then our responsibility to discover our potential because we have accepted the opportunity to serve. None
of this can endure unless we are persistent,
and our actions must always be informed by positivity.”
Today we look to the gifts of stillness and prayer “as a pathway to the recovery of a dismantled soul and a process by which
we can discover our best voice.”
    “Even though it is often offered in public, prayer is a
deeply personal thing. Indeed, the tendency is first for us to think of prayer
in a specifically religious context, but prayer here is meant to refer to any
quiet process of meditation. Almost all prayer and the practice of meditation
seem to acknowledge the presence of some power greater than ourselves. We look
within and recognize that we are, indeed, a very small part of something much
greater, and we close our eyes in awe, honor, and respect.” The choice to be
silent and the discipline of stillness offer the opportunity to change the
focus of our attention from the busy and demanding to the inner voice of Love,
healing and compassion.
    We know the benefits of stillness and a quiet focus from
much publicized research. A simple practice of sitting quietly, in stillness
and quiet, for as little as twenty minutes a day has proven healing benefit, but
what of the practice of prayer? What is prayer, really? Perhaps prayer meets “a
yearning built into us a birth – a yearning to have our best voice be heard. We
find our best voice when we connect with the voice of a greater power. We hear
the voice of ourselves in the silence of prayer and meditation. We drink from
the well spring of inner peace when we enter the cave of quiet.”
Bill W. understood the power of prayer, meditation and
stillness. His belief that prayer is a discipline essential to making important
change in life patterns is foundational to a movement he began that has changed
our world. In fact, “Aldous Huxley called Bill W. the greatest social architect
of our century.” This man, whose last name most of world does not know, founded
Alcoholics Anonymous. His understanding of the value of a discipline of prayer
as a pathway to wholeness has supported healing in millions of people all over
the world.
    Two of my favorite poets have spoken to the discipline of
stillness, of listening to Love’s quiet voice, of prayer. I offer these to you
today for your own meditation and invite you to let their words cascade over
your soul as you sit quietly and still.

I don’t know exactly
what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay
attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to
kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and
blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have
been doing all day.

Tell me, what else
should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die
at last, and too soon?
Tell, me, what is it
you plan to do
with your one wild and
precious life?

(From The Summer Day,
by Mary Oliver)

I am
A hole in a flute
That Love’s breath
moves through –
Listen to this
Music.

(Adapted from the poetry of Hafiz)