Lisa notes

When You’re Anxious about Praying – Book Review of “Flee, Be Silent, Pray”

By LisaNotes June 23, 2017 Book reviews, Prayer, Spiritual disciplines 22 Comments

Be-Present-for-God

How’s your spiritual life going?

Do you think you don’t do enough? Don’t read your Bible enough? Don’t even pray enough?

And if you get in the quantity, is your quality good enough?

These issues can haunt us as Christians.

  • When a church near my house put “Centering Prayer—Wednesday Mornings” on their front billboard, I wondered if it would be a good thing for me to join or too weird?
  • When a local monastery offered a Silent Prayer Retreat, I wondered if I could do that or would it drive me crazy?
  • And when I read about mindfulness practices, I wondered if it was possible to do that 20 minutes a day with my Christian faith without being a Buddhist?

Ed Cyzewski addresses those kinds of questions in his latest book, Flee, Be Silent, Pray: An Anxious Evangelical Finds Peace with God through Contemplative Prayer, based on Henri Nouwen’s three actions in The Way of the Heart.

Flee-Be-Silent-Pray_Ed-Cyzewski

Ed pulls from a variety of sources (inspiring me to read more Thomas Merton books).

But he also shares very personally, drawing from his own background after a grudge (he resolves) with a restrictive Catholic Church and then a fight (he resolves this too) against an evangelical angst of doing things “right.”

While he doesn’t intend this book to be a how-to guide for prayer—he doesn’t want to add to a to-do list—he does offer many tangible suggestions on how we can pray more by praying differently.

“Evangelical anxiety focuses on results and progress, but God is more concerned about loving presence.”

Get Out of Your Own Way

Here are just a few of Ed’s suggestions on praying more contemplatively taken from his book.

  1. Let go of your own words

We don’t always have to use our own words. We can still convey our own thoughts through the words of others. Too often we think God only wants our “freestyle” prayers, but he can be just as pleased when we pray a Psalm, for example.

  • Pray with scripture.
  • Use words Jesus prayed.
  • Pray through others’ words written through the years.

“We have nothing to prove, to defend, or to fight for when we pray with the scriptures. We are only devoting ourselves to God. We aren’t in charge of producing results.”

~ * ~

“We don’t read the Bible in order to know ‘the Bible’ or to improve ourselves spiritually. We read the Bible in order to be present with God.”

~ * ~

“[Enter] into prayer with the foundational truth that God loves us. Prayer is the practice of becoming present for that love. We cannot impress God with our many words or few words.”

  1. Examine your thoughts

Ed highly recommends using the Examen, a spiritual practice from St. Ignatius in the 1500’s.

  • 1-Become aware of God’s presence.
  • 2-Review the day with gratitude.
  • 3-Pay attention to your emotions.
  • 4-Choose one feature of the day and pray from it.
  • 5-Look toward tomorrow.

Because of Ed’s passion  for practicing the Examen (after three months it “completely blew his mind”), I reloaded on my phone the Examine app that he recommends.

https://examineapp.wordpress.com/

I also bookmarked the Divine Hours online after he suggested it. (See it here at Vineyard Church Ann Arbor.)

Divine-Hours

Praying through the Examen and the Divine Hours are ways to be present to God that Protestants don’t often use. But they are valuable, especially when they help us release our expectations of getting “results” from prayer.

  1. Go quiet altogether

Try silence. Contemplative prayer invites us to let go of our words altogether. Our own words are often one of our biggest distractions.

“I have learned that while silence is something we can learn to value and even crave, it doesn’t happen by accident. It calls for intention and discipline supported by simple spiritual practices.”

Centering Prayer is one form of silent prayer that Ed explains as a “simple way to be lovingly present for God.”

Why Contemplative Prayer?

It realigns our expectations of what prayer can be.

“God’s Spirit is already in us, and we can’t improve on God’s presence. We can only improve on being present for God, turning away from our distractions.”

It’s not meant to necessarily replace other disciplines or forms of prayer, but as an addition to any spiritual practice.

“One evangelical generation after another earnestly studies the scriptures in search of Jesus, trying to get past the fact that Jesus said studying the scriptures is not the same thing as pursuing him.  Contemplative prayer gives us that path to pursue Jesus and Jesus alone.”

And my wonderings about the Centering Prayer group, the retreat at Sacred Heart Monastery, and the meditation practice?

I gave them all a try. And loved each one.

None were a slippery slope to anywhere except into more awareness of the presence of God.

A greater awareness of God is where I want to end up anyway.

“Each time I pause to become aware of God, face my thoughts, and look for the ways that God has been at work in my day, I open myself to God’s power and presence.”

I’m looking forward next to more mindfulness practice beginning Monday with my in-person book club. We’ll begin discussing The Power of Now, one of my favorites.

By trusting God with the present moment we’re in, we become more peaceful. We receive his grace more freely. We worry less about the past or about the future.

And that’s what I hear Ed affirming to us in his book about contemplative prayer.

“We have to train our minds to sit still and learn how to be fully present for God in the now. We won’t find God by dwelling on the regrets of the past or worrying about the future. If we want to find God, we must train ourselves to be in the present moment.”

Rest in the presence of God—there we find peace, transformation, and love.

* * *

Have you wondered about contemplative prayer also? Have you experimented with it? Please share in the comments.

You can connect with Ed at edcyzewski.com.

Read some of Ed’s blog posts about contemplative prayer:

Ed’s other books are also great faith resources. I’ve benefited by all I’ve read. Here are just a few that I’ve shared about.

Thanks to Ed for letting me read an advance copy.

Is Your Phone Changing You?

By LisaNotes June 21, 2017 Book reviews 47 Comments

12-Ways-Your-Phone-Is-Changing-You_video

After my blog post “Where’s Your Phone Right Now?” your comments made me feel better.

I’m not the only one who struggles with finding a balance with my phone.

We want to use our phones for good things only, but even at best, they can become time-drainers. And at worst, they are tools to say mean things, watch ugly things, and steal our hearts from God.

One suggestion you gave in the comments that day (thanks, Lynn Morrissey) was to read the new book by Tony Reinke, 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You.

12-Ways-Your-Phone-Is-Changing-You

I read it. I’m glad I did.

Here are quotes from 4 of the 12 ways our phones are changing us.

  1. Addicted to Distraction

If you’re a typical American, you check your smartphone an average of every 4.3 minutes. That’s 81,500 times a year.

Facebook? 70% of people check it daily (over one billion others around the world do the same!). On Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram alone, we spend at least 50 minutes a day.

Why are we so addicted? Reinke suggests we use digital distractions to keep work away, keep people away, or keep thoughts of eternity away.

  1. Ignore Flesh and Blood

While I often use my phone to connect with flesh and blood people, I don’t want it to replace in-person encounters. Given the choice, face-to-face beats digital.

“We become content to ‘LOL’ with our thumbs or to cry emoticon tears to express our sorrow because we cannot (and will not) take the time to genuinely invest ourselves in real tears of sorrow. We use our phones to multitask our emotions.”

And in the car? Let’s please stop checking our phones while driving. It’s killing us.

“Talking on the phone while driving a vehicle makes you four times more likely to get into an accident, but texting while driving makes your chance of a crash twenty-three times more likely.”

  1. Lose Our Literacy

Reinke points out that a few people actually read more books as a result of online interactions. (He is also the author of Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books, one of my favorite books I read in 2012.)

But more commonly, smartphone users read fewer books now.

“It can be said that literacy has fallen to such a degree that, for many Christians today (perhaps most Christians today), the Bible stands as the oldest, longest, and most complicated book we will ever try to read on our own.”

Plus, reading digitally teaches us to scan at fast speeds. Can we train ourselves to read online text slower?

  1. Fear of Missing Out

Do you know what nomophobia is? No-mobile-phone phobia. FOMO (fear of missing out) hits us on two sides: anxiety that we’re not staying updated on information if we’re not checking our phone, and insecurity of not getting the affirmation we want if we’re offline.

“This desire for personal affirmation is perhaps the smartphone’s strongest lure, and it is only amplified when we feel the sting of loneliness or suffering in our lives. At the first hint of discomfort, we instinctively grab our phones to medicate the pain with affirmation. This habit could not be more damaging.”

Suggestions

Along with the bad news, Reinke also gives lots of suggestions in the book for ways to live smarter with our smartphones. (He doesn’t say get rid of them altogether; he’s no technophobe.)

These include:

1. Turn off all nonessential push notifications.

2. Delete expired, nonessential, and time-wasting apps.

3. Use a real alarm clock, not your phone alarm, to keep the phone out of your hands in the morning.

4. Guard your morning disciplines and evening sleep patterns by using phone settings to mute notifications between one hour before bedtime to a time when you can reasonably expect to be finished with personal disciplines in the morning (9 p.m. to 7 a.m., for example).

5. Recognize that much of what you respond to quickly can wait. Respond at a later, more convenient time.

Ask Your Family

Are you brave enough to take this suggestion?

“Invite your spouse, your friends, and your family members to offer feedback on your phone habits (more than 70 percent of Christians in my survey said nobody else knew how much time they spent online).”

Our phone use affects others in more ways than we realize.

“If I’m a social-media junkie, my lack of self-control feeds the social-media addiction in you. And the more I text and tweet and Snapchat, the more I drag you and others into the digital vortex of reciprocating obligation. . . .

Even something as simple as pulling out your smartphone in a crowd is ‘the new yawn’—everyone else around you will feel the immediate pull and lure to check their own phones.”

I highly recommend this book. We all can benefit by periodically evaluating why we are using our phones.

“Apps can help me stay focused on my Bible reading plans and help me organize my prayer life, but no app can breathe life into my communion with God. . . .

What shall it profit a man if he gains all the latest digital devices and all of the techniques of touch-screen mastery but loses his own soul?”

* * *

How do you use your phone the most? Calls? Texts? Apps? Please share your thoughts here.

Read the preface and introduction here of 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You.

Related:

My thanks to Crossway
for the review copy of this book

Don’t Take This Personally

By LisaNotes June 19, 2017 Encouragement 64 Comments

blank

Too Sensitive

I know this about myself: I can be too sensitive. It’s a detriment to me. And a detriment to others.

When I got a phone call about the dishwasher, I was bothered. I was in my 20s. I had recently sold my home to an elderly gentleman. The following week, he was calling to yell at me that the dishwasher in the home had overflowed. The kitchen floor was soaked. And it was all my fault.

He was rude.
I was offended.

As we talked, I learned he had put dishwashing liquid in the dishwasher instead of dishwasher detergent. It had bubbled to overflowing. Of course it would.

How was this my fault?

Don’t Believe Everything

We suffer unnecessarily when we take things too personally. That’s why I love my third agreement of the four I’ve compiled for myself (See #1, Give the Benefit of the Doubt, and #2, Let Go of Being Right).

# 3. Don’t take it personally.

me center of world

When we assume someone is being rude to us, we often react badly, defensively. It causes conflict and creates mountains out of molehills.

  • How can they do this to me?
  • Why don’t they like me?
  • Why are they so mean?

And when we get too much praise? We can hold compliments too closely as well, believing every word that is said. We grow proud and haughty and entitled.

When we think everything is about us—good or bad—we’re actually being selfish.

And unrealistic.

The stories we make up in our head are usually just that: stories.

Whose Movie Is This?

We each cast ourselves as the star (and director and producer) in our own movie. All our life’s plots revolve around us. And all the people in our relationships are supporting actors.

But here’s the catch:

The supporting actors in our movies are actually busy starring in their own movies.

We all make ourselves the center of our universes.

So when our plots intersect, there’s always more going on than we realize.

It’s Not Personal

So don’t take it personally.

blank

The way someone treats us reveals less about us and more about them. Less about our life and more about theirs.

Knowing that others aren’t centered around us keeps us humble.

  • It frees us from arrogance.
  • It reduces conflicts.
  • It stabilizes our relationships.

We are more free to love others with no strings attached when we are less dependent on their approval for our self-worth and when we’re less disturbed by their disapproval.

Emptying ourselves of taking everything personally helps us live with more peace, more joy, and definitely more grace.

What You Think

The motivations we attach to others’ thoughts may have portions of truth in them, but they also contain large doses of our imagination. (Don’t take your own thoughts too personally either—you may just be tired or hungry or stressed.)

I later learned more truth about the gentleman and the dishwasher and his soap suds. I met one of his daughters. She told me how concerned they were about him. His dementia was getting worse. They weren’t sure he should even be living alone.

Dementia? I hadn’t known that.

Now it made sense. His rant to me wasn’t about me at all. It was about him.

I didn’t need to take it personally.

I rarely should.

It’s not about me as much as I think it is.

* * *

When have you been too sensitive? Do you ever take things too personally? Please share your thoughts here.

~ * ~ * ~

See all 4 agreements (click on individual infographics)

1-Benefit-Doubt 2-Being-Right 3-Take-Personal 4-Show-Up

image map infographics

1-Give the benefit of the doubt | 2-Let go of being right | 3-Don’t take it personally | 4-Just show up

When You’re Spiritually Thirsty, Where Do You Drink?

By LisaNotes June 15, 2017 Community, Guest posts 2 Comments

Back in ancient Israel, communities gathered around wells, natural places to come at the beginning or end of the day to load up on the precious commodity of water.

But nowadays we only walk to our kitchen sink for a glass of water.

Where do we go when we’re thirsty for community?

Where are our modern wells?

Thirsty-4-Ways-to-Quench-Thirst_DoNotDepart

Read it all here

* * *

I’m writing today at Do Not Depart for our series, Water in the Word.

Will you join me there?

Being Right – Table of Contents

By LisaNotes June 12, 2017 Grace, Trust 4 Comments

Being-right-bring-out-worst_Kathryn-Schulz

We all like to be right. But sometimes we don’t do it well.

Below are ten articles on how to be right and wrong in healthy ways.

1.  Being Wrong

Four things to do with our insatiable certainty to be right. Including excerpts from Kathryn Schulz’s excellent book, Being Wrong.

2. How Little We Know – More Compassion, Please

Are we more kind when we admit we don’t know? Three exercises to make peace with not knowing everything.

3. I Thought I Understood

Why I thought we were right and everyone else was wrong. And why my theory cracked.

4. I’m Afraid of Being Stupid

I’m afraid I’ll miss the easy fix if I’m not smart enough. But fearing stupidity distracts me from my true purpose of depending on God.

5. Know-It-All Faith?

Talk yourself down from your arrogance. The more we know grace, the more we grow in humility. Review of Josh Harris’s book, Humble Orthodoxy.

6. Let Go of Being Right

Sometimes being right is wrong. And dangerous. Three dangers in always being right, and three solutions to combat pride.

7. Unity? But We Believe Differently

Can we still be united when we don’t think alike? Yes, if we remove obstacles we set up against unity. Suggestions from Ed Cyzewski’s book, Divided We Unite.

8. When “I Don’t Know” Is Good

We’ll never have all the answers. Is this ever good? Should we make peace with uncertainty and “I don’t know”? See the good side of uncertainty.

9. When We Eat Our Own

Stop eating your own, church. Nobody knows it all. Don’t confuse being biblical with being right.

10. You’re Not Sure? That’s OK

If in doubt, err on the side of grace. Don’t be so scared of being wrong that you do nothing. Even if you make a poor decision, God can redeem it.

Color Blind? Us vs Them

By LisaNotes June 8, 2017 Community, Discrimination 25 Comments

life-in-color-than-color-blind

Us Versus Them

It was time for a stack of pancakes. My friend goes to another church now. IHOP has become our new sanctuary. Every few months we meet to eat and catch up with each other’s lives.

She’s a brave woman. Beautiful. Strong.

And black.

We’re not color blind with each other. I know her color has influenced who she is, just like she knows my color has influenced who I am. It’s inescapable.

During our last conversation, she made a comment about how the black people at her church traditionally dress very nice.

That’s when I made my blunder. I still feel bad about it.

I told her, “Yes, y’all always look so sharp, and we look like slouches.” (Myself included.)

Ugh. It was the classic duality I don’t like to make.

As if we are on two separate teams. As if we can categories whole races of people into two little words: us versus them. Whites versus blacks.

Awkward Conversations

Those goofs are why we sometimes avoid having conversations.

  • We don’t want to offend anyone.
  • We don’t like feeling awkward.
  • We don’t know how to handle our white guilt.

Above all, we don’t want to appear racist. Because we don’t want to believe we are racist.

But here’s the biggest misstep:

When we’re too afraid of saying the wrong thing, we too often say no thing. . .

. . . which is the wrong thing.

Mess Up Anyway

What can we do about it?

  • Speak scared
  • Have awkward conversations
  • Ask if we’re offensive
  • Listen
  • Listen
  • Listen

(If you like to read novels, I highly recommend Small Great Things, a powerful story that speaks directly to discrimination. The title is taken from Martin Luther King Jr’s famous quote: “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.“)

We are going to mess up when we talk to each other. We do that at some point with everyone we talk to, regardless of the sameness or difference of our color or gender or religion or political preference.

But if we don’t talk about touchy subjects, we mess up even more.

Talking is one way to be the change that needs to happen. Grow closer. Get smarter. Bring more peace and love and joy into the world.

Humans are better when colorful kids play together. Our differences can be beautiful, not alienating.

Intentionally celebrate diversity.

My friend let my blunder slide that day. We just kept talking. Maybe she thought nothing about my vocabulary of “us vs them”. Maybe she did. Next time I’ll bring it up and find out.

But love is like that: It covers a multitude of sins. I know my friend loves me. And she knows I love her.

Live in Color

Later that week she sent me an affirming text, a prophetic word related to a spiritual decision we had discussed that day.

She ended her text with this: “I love you to life.”

Love.
Life.
Together.

We’re not in a race against each other. Life isn’t scored like a ballgame.

It’s not: If I win, you lose. Nor is it: If you win, I lose.

It’s both/and. Not either/or.

Seeing life in color is more beautiful than being color blind.

* * *

Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Related Reading: