Cave divers can plumb great depths in circuitous underground chambers thanks to their specialized gear. Their side slung double tanks ensure oxygen, and their fancy dive computers keep check of their remaining air. But it is the diver’s guide line back to the surface that provides these daredevils the most relief from their anxiety. If they lose their way, they can simply turn around, tracking back with their lifeline to sun-drenched waves, gulps of natural air and a bobbing boat.
As a psychotherapist, I like this metaphor when considering the mind, that subterranean cavern between our ears with its secret vaults and forgotten artifacts. And as a Christian, I like a good guide line to keep my mind from getting lost.
What can that guide line be?
Many of my clients ask me about mindfulness, a regular practice of attuning oneself to the present via thoughtful breathing or an activity like coloring, walking or even eating. It sounds simple, but our minds naturally wander to laundry lists, the ticking of an air conditioning unit, irksome coworkers or childhood humiliations. Taking time with this practice strengthens the mind to better deal with intrusive thoughts and improves emotion regulation and impulse control.
Our minds naturally wander to laundry lists.
Christians, whether in therapy or not, have the powerful practice of contemplative prayer to not only receive psychological benefits but also the spiritual nourishment we seek in strengthening our relationship with God.
But prayer can be just as rife with the struggles that reveal themselves in any mindfulness practice. How many times have you sat to pray and watched as your mind swam to the magazine on your night table? Maybe that decade in the rosary floated away to tomorrow’s to-do list, then to a strange memory in the far reaches of the past and then back to a Hail Mary.
We might even have darker reasons that prevent us from praying. We may choose to remain distracted by our phones and televisions out of fear. We may be afraid of what God might communicate to us in prayer as we consider our flawed condition, our sinful nature. How often do we occupy our minds with material concerns like career advancement or lofty fantasies of breaking away from vocational responsibilities?
We might even have darker reasons that prevent us from praying.
The parable of the Prodigal Son provides us direction when our minds wander. The lost son who leaves home after demanding his inheritance from his father lavishes his money on prostitutes, squanders his savings and finds himself a starving hired hand on a pig farm in a faraway land. The son hungers for home in a land of famine; he returns to his father in ragged clothes; he is welcomed with a celebration.
It is a story of reconciliation that consoles with the message that no matter how far we stray from the Father, no matter the sin, we will be welcomed back into his arms if we simply ask.
The physical placement and geography of the parable’s plot, the journey away from home, into dissolution and back home to forgiveness, echoes strongly: It is the story of our disordered interior lives. Like the son, at any time we can decide not only to turn back toward the sacrament of reconciliation but to our interior lives. The shift is sudden. “Coming to his senses, he thought” (Lk 15:17). Just as the lost son first had to think and ruminate on his inheritance and what he would do with it, he just as quickly could think of how to ask for forgiveness.
God tethers all of us to his home because we are his children and he seeks reunion.
God provides us with our own specialized gear in the depth of our minds. No matter how deep or lost in sin or in prideful ambition we can check our senses. We can check our sense of hunger and pain that sin naturally leads us to, and we can first think our way back home. God tethers all of us to his home because we are his children and he seeks reunion.
We must normalize that our minds will wander and be lost. And let’s be frank: Mortal sin does not always rupture our interior and exterior lives. It is simply hard to stay focused on prayer, just as it is difficult to remain focused on any mindful exercise. The parable of the Prodigal Son teaches us that we benefit from not being so hard on ourselves.
Prideful embarrassment and a sense of failure can keep us hungry on that pig farm. But in acknowledging our suffering we can always turn back. How many of us know the power of regular prayer but believe we do not deserve it or that we are not doing it properly or that we are not getting the results we desire from it? It is at those very moments we might recognize those pangs of hunger for our Father and return to him, wanting only what he desires for us.
On the in-breath take My God into your heart, imagining a tether to your creator, and on the out-breath release My all back into the world.
So how can we integrate the lesson from this popular parable into our contemplative prayer lives?
We must train our minds to always return to the Father when we wander. St. Francis offers a meditative phrase that you can try in your home or at work: “My God, my all.” In a comfortable position, with eyes closed or open, marry your breath with each half of the phrase. On the in-breath take My God into your heart, imagining a tether to your creator, and on the out-breath release My all back into the world, aware that God tethers the entirety of space in union with his creation. Attempt this for several minutes, and notice how difficult it is to keep this phrase in mind. Still, “come to your senses,” just as the lost son does when he wanders from his Father, and gently return to the phrase, aware that as an individual created by God you are tethered to him.
St. Paul exhorts Christians to “pray without ceasing.” This meditative breathing exercise provides the spiritual training to make ceaseless prayer a reality. We might not even need to set aside time in our day to specifically engage in this exercise. We can integrate it into the banal moments of our lives: Instead of reaching for your phone in that twisting line at the bank, return to this exercise; on your nightly stroll with your dog, pace your stride with your breath. When you wander away from St. Francis’ phrase, practice returning home to the Father in the interior of your mind.
With regular practice you will find God’s graces realize themselves in other areas of your life. By becoming more mindful of your tethered relationship to God, you will become more aware that in your exterior life you can always be reconciled and ask forgiveness. You can always turn away from negative thoughts and experiences, just as the lost son turned home. By becoming more thoughtful, we may even prevent ourselves from acting out as the lost son did.
If we can ruminate on that which separates us from God, we can ruminate on what tethers us to God. We must simply come to our senses and think.
