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I've been reading Danielle Shroyer's book "Original Blessing" and some things she says have just stuck with me. One of them is the idea that Christianity isn't just thinking, but more so practicing. It's what we do that makes a difference in the world and makes a difference in the transformation of our own souls. If we want to change both on the inside and the outside, we need to start doing things--practicing things-- differently! We need to develop "practices (or rhythms) that create new pathways" in our lives. The brain is constantly learning new ways of doing things. Our body is constantly changing old cells for new ones, but if we keep doing the same things over and over again, our brain just keeps making the same old cells over and over again. When we start practicing differently, our brain starts creating new pathways in the world--we literally begin to transform into something different.
So how do we start doing that?!? One way for those of us to pray is to learn new ways to pray! To start thinking about and practicing the act of prayer differently.
In her book, Shroyer shares about an incredible South Korean "balance" artist named Rocky Byun. Look this guy up! Seriously! What he does is amazing! I posted a video of his artistry up above). Byun travels around South Korea and the world, stacking motorcycles on rocks and laptops on coffee cups. When you witness him at work, it's hard not to believe that this is all an illusion. How does he get a chair--with a person on it--to balance on one leg?! This guy is truly a skilled artist!
But what he does is also science. Byun knows that every object in the universe has a center of gravity. And he has developed an eye to see it and through practice has learned to find that objects balance.
Danielle Shroyer believes that at the very center of being in prayer each of us is learning to find our own center of gravity. And she believes that at the center of balance for every human being is the steadfast, unwavering, unbreakable love of God. When we find the loving God at our center, we have found our center of gravitas, our essential dignity, our deepest worth. Wow! This is so good!
When I was in college, I took a course in pottery, and one of the things I absolutely loved was the act of turning clay into a pot by using the pottery wheel. But in order to turn a pot on the wheel, one first has to move that piece of clay towards the center of the wheel and find its center of gravity. It was only then that the art of turning a pot could be accomplished. At first, I really found that to be a difficult task. Many a time I would rush things and begin to try to form the clay into a shape too early, only to find that the pot would literally be thrown off the wheel because it was off balance! I also found that the further away from the center of the wheel the pot was, the quicker and harder it was thrown off! But with practice, I got pretty good at this act of centering.
Folks, that is what prayer is. It is us quieting our souls just enough and allowing the hand of God to move us closer to our true center. It's about us turning off the noise of this world just long enough to hear God's still quiet voice saying, "You are loved." It's about us learning to embrace God's "yes" and welcoming it into to our own.
Jurgen Moltmann, a wonderful Christian theologian, once said this: "We are not loved because we are beautiful and good. We are beautiful and good because we are loved." Prayer is our practice of "re-remembering" that over and over again. Of each of us finding our true center again. It is our attempt at letting God mold and shape us from the center of who we are.
Now, let me share my struggle with the way prayer usually goes (at least corporately) in the church. When we pray as a church, it seems like there is a rush to ask God for help. We rush to list the names of the people on our "list" who need help. It seems we are rushing to get God to do something. Sometimes I feel like we are in some way just trying to rub the bottle of the genie in just the right way so the genie will come out and grant our wish. To me, this is almost counter to what prayer might become. Maybe the whole goal of prayer is for us to just find our center again. To catch our balance. For us to re-remember who we are and whose we are. And once we do that, we can learn to co-create with God in a new way. And once we do that, we can allow those new pathways to begin to form and shape and make new.
Your pastor, allowing myself to be moved towards the center of the wheel, Brook
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