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{"id":565,"date":"2019-04-04T20:29:19","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T01:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lorrainekisly\/?p=565"},"modified":"2019-04-05T06:05:14","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T11:05:14","slug":"the-awaiting-lord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lorrainekisly\/2019\/04\/04\/the-awaiting-lord\/","title":{"rendered":"The Awaiting Lord"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A Path between Trees<\/em>. Pieter Stevens (1589-1624). National Museum Warsaw. (WikimediaCommons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There have been long periods when it seemed the prayer held me fast and nothing could disturb its embrace. And long periods\u2014weeks, months\u2014 when it seemed to have abandoned me.<\/p>\n

Teresa of Avila said of the Lord\u2019s Prayer that \u201cif we try to grasp we will lose all.\u201d Inevitably, we will<\/em> try to grasp, and will<\/em> lose all. We may arrive at a period when we feel desolate and empty, and the prayer seems devoid of meaning. If we don\u2019t discern that it was the demand for \u201cresults\u201d that led to our isolation, our discouragement may grow into despair. Finally we may stop altogether, giving up on both ourselves and the prayer.<\/p>\n

This kind of discouragement is particularly apt to occur when we approach the prayer again after a deep experience of it. We may notice that a part of us is expecting the experience to repeat itself. Perhaps something feels that it has finally learned how to \u201cdo\u201d the prayer and comes to the next encounter confident and a bit self-satisfied.<\/p>\n

This confidence is soon lost in a gloomy fog of confusion. We don\u2019t know what happened or what we are doing wrong. As this happens again and again, we begin to see that we are fogged in because our trust has shifted: we have come to the prayer relying on our own abilities.<\/p>\n

A \u201cdemand for results\u201d\u2014the results we have somehow, somewhere, decided we would like to have, should have, even deserve<\/em> to have\u2014may be hidden, or it may be loud and clear. This demand seems to me now to be the only real obstacle. You can\u2019t go over it, you can\u2019t get under it, and you can\u2019t get around it. There is nothing you can do about it. This obstacle will appear as you undertake the practice of the Lord\u2019s Prayer, and you won\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n

Raising the Sail<\/h2>\n

Words of others won\u2019t help much, but you can be warned, expect the difficulty to come, and not be surprised by it. The spirit, as we have been told, is free, and like the wind, blows where it will. We can only raise the sail, while learning meanwhile something of patience and humility.<\/p>\n

We begin to understand why spiritual teachers unanimously counsel us to pray daily\u2014not to miss a single day\u2014whether we are satisfied by our prayer or not, whether it seems profitable or not, whether is a success or not, even if it is uncongenial or seems pointless. We are faithful and patient, acknowledging our helplessness, and a new way to begin again is found just there.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody can learn to see,\u201d says, French Cistercian abbot, Andr\u00e9 Louf. \u201cFor seeing is something we can do by nature. So too with prayer\u2026.It has its own instructor within it. Prayer is God\u2019s gift to him who prays.\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, the other observation I can offer is that as you go on, the prayer begins to inspire a sense of awe. What appears evident when you begin, that Christ in the prayer is inviting us to come into the presence of the Father, becomes actual. I wrote earlier that, said attentively, the prayer invites us into \u201ca divine atmosphere.\u201d Now it seems the invitation is to the<\/em> divine atmosphere, to the awaiting Lord of all worlds. Waiting for me, waiting for you.<\/p>\n

Adapted from a note to the reader on the publication of the Revised Edition of The Prayer of Fire: Experiencing the Lord\u2019s Prayer<\/em>. http:\/\/www.lorrainekisly.com<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been fifteen years since I began to approach the Lord\u2019s Prayer as a contemplative practice. Through all the gifts of life, through grief, loss, separation, change, the onset of old age, the Lord\u2019s Prayer has been a constant. There have been long periods when it seemed the prayer held me fast and nothing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4027,"featured_media":589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Awaiting Lord<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It has been fifteen years since I began to approach the Lord\u2019s Prayer as a contemplative practice.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Awaiting Lord\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It has been fifteen years since I began to approach the Lord\u2019s Prayer as a contemplative practice.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lorrainekisly\/2019\/04\/04\/the-awaiting-lord\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lorraine Kisly\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-04-05T01:29:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-04-05T11:05:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1183\/2019\/04\/AWAITING.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"320\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"424\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lorraine Kisly\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lorraine Kisly\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lorrainekisly\/2019\/04\/04\/the-awaiting-lord\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lorrainekisly\/2019\/04\/04\/the-awaiting-lord\/\",\"name\":\"The Awaiting Lord\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lorrainekisly\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-04-05T01:29:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-04-05T11:05:14+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lorrainekisly\/#\/schema\/person\/12af083f7f104e2d83109d6141d0deb8\"},\"description\":\"It has been fifteen years since I began to approach the Lord\u2019s Prayer as a contemplative practice.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lorrainekisly\/2019\/04\/04\/the-awaiting-lord\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lorrainekisly\/2019\/04\/04\/the-awaiting-lord\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lorrainekisly\/2019\/04\/04\/the-awaiting-lord\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lorrainekisly\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Awaiting Lord\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lorrainekisly\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lorrainekisly\/\",\"name\":\"Lorraine Kisly\",\"description\":\"The Lord\u2019s Prayer as the foundation of a contemplative Christian practice\u2014and where it leads\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lorrainekisly\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lorrainekisly\/#\/schema\/person\/12af083f7f104e2d83109d6141d0deb8\",\"name\":\"Lorraine Kisly\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lorrainekisly\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1286b6432c7062b5b63116ddd5580340?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1286b6432c7062b5b63116ddd5580340?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Lorraine Kisly\"},\"description\":\"For many years the Editor of the quarterly journal,\u00a0Parabola: The Search for Meaning. 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