Photo by Simon Matzinger

 

“Pray Without Ceasing”     Thessalonians 5:17

When I was studying counselling one of our instructors defined spirituality as anything that gives your life meaning. This idea had broad potential. It could be the trees, helping refugees, visiting an elder, a deep connection with a friend. It could be your children, he told us.

My approach to spirituality is an integrative, holistic one, not religiously oriented, but not exclusive of religion either. Currently I’m moving towards continuous prayer. Not prayer using words, although I do pray regularly  for specific people and situations, but being in union with the Divine continuously.

We cannot pray in a deliberate, analytical way 24/7. Our creative right brain with its holistic design, using intuition and visualization, enables us to create a different type of reality for ourselves. It lets us feel our way into the essence of life. It helps me create a vision for my prayer, one my soul can relate to.

Prayer is joining with whatever represents God to you. In my prayer visuallization I picture Light pouring onto the planet from the Source. This Net of Light, or Cosmic Web, is the spiritual power that heals and protects the planet and all of us. It is pure love. “The Net of Light is a pattern/network/fabric or grid of love. It is love. It anchors, supports and penetrates everyone and everything on earth.”, say the Grandmothers.

During my day, whenever I think of it, I cast the Net of Light and draw down spirit, both to help all beings on our planet, and to heal myself. Breathing in the Light and calling on the Grandmothers, aspects of the Divine, fills me with relaxation. The Grandmothers invite us to do this in many ways throughout the three books channelled through Sharon McErlane. When we call on them, our nerve endings relax, they tell us.

Going to Richard Rohr once more, the Franciscan friar who founded The Centre for Action and Contemplation, I find that Jesus taught prayer beyond words. He joined with God in his predawn prayers, in what many today call contemplation, Rohr says, “…union with God’s presence; resting in God more than actively seeking to fully know or understand.”

My way of prayer embraces a broad and deep spirituality, wordless for the most part. The Grandmothers nudge me towards the giant coniferous tree at the bottom of our garden, where we do our Grandmother empowerments and cast the Net of Light. The more often I remember to cast the Net and call in the Grandmothers, the more comfort I receive.

This visualization is my pathway to the Divine, the route most available to me. It did not happen right away after my “discovery” of the Grandmothers and the Net of Light a couple of years ago. It has been a slow opening, a melding of my various spiritual beliefs, with the Net becoming a powerful co-ordinator, a focus that encompasses my various spiritual beliefs. Our journey to our first Net of Light gathering at Joshua Tree Retreat Centre last spring deepened the process.

I asked three friends for their unique perspective on praying without ceasing. Pastor Jaz of Christian Life Assembly Church, the sponsor of our two Syrian refugee families says:

“To me to pray without ceasing means that we are constantly keeping Jesus on our minds and hearts and bringing not only our needs to him but also our thanks to him through out the day. Praying without ceasing being less about staying in a constant state of prayer, and more about having a constant heart and mindset of communication with Jesus.

Judy, who has been part of the Divine Love prayer group for more than thirty years wrote me:

“Sincere prayer and longing for the Creator’s Love transforms or awakens the soul…then a longing for an ever deepening communion with God grows…we become more trusting and willing to call upon God to help us in our daily lives.

The challenge of the soul to remain in constant receptivity of God’s infinite Love is the mind.  We have a choice whether to allow our mind’s dominance or to grow our soul in the love of God…eventually a tipping point is reached – we move in grace, enveloped in the flow of God’s Love. In this state, our lives become a constant prayer. God’s Love within our soul becomes our inner compass.

My dear friend Rose says: “For me, it’s noticing my breathing, through the day. Because I know, and deeply feel, that I am breathed into life by the loving Creator, consciously attending to my breathing, without trying to change it, puts me in a prayerful state, more feeling than thinking.”

Athough my words differ in certain ways, my friends’ beliefs segue with and enhance mine. Visuallizing and calling on the Net of Light and the Grandmothers allows me to get my mind out of the way, the left brain, dominant part particularly. My hope is that as I grow into this way of being more and more, that it will lead my heart and soul to the Light.