“I asked God to spare me nothing but life.”
— Teddy Macker
I first learned to practice from William Johnston’s book Christian Zen back when I was a shaggy haired 20 year old. It was a quake book, a book that shook my foundation, just as Brother Lawrence had done for me 5 years earlier. In Christian Zen the intersection of the disciplined approach of Zen and the pure gift of Christian contemplation spoke to me. As I deepened in my practice, I put Brother Lawrence’s Practice of the Presence of God on the shelf for a few years, as lesser than. It felt too simple. This type of oversight can happen in zeal.
But then later life began to ask me the question, where does this discipline that opens the arms as consent to receive the presence of God go after the bell rings? Is it not still there waiting to be enacted and enjoyed whether in the overwhelm of email overwhelm or flirting with my then-not-yet-wife. I began to welcome back the practice of the presence of God. It dawned on me that it was the outlfow of what was occurring on the pillow of my sitting practice. My desire to become that which I practiced grew. St. Augustine says, “Prayer is nothing but a desire of the heart; if your desire is continuous, your prayer is continuous. Do you wish never to cease praying? Then never cease desiring.”
Words to live by. My favorite poet of desire Teddy Macker, ends a particular juicy poem with the line, “I asked God to spare me nothing but life.” There is desire as prayer in the full embrace of life.
This desire to taste Christ in all of life is the continuous prayer between our disciplined sets of practicing in the gift. With this in mind, I pair Augustine and Macker together this morning to invoke our sit and the day to come, “Prayer is nothing but a desire of the heart; if your desire is continuous, your prayer is continuous. Do you wish never to cease praying? Then never cease desiring. Ask God to spare you nothing but life.”
photo of photo by Contemplify
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