CCI – On Silent Prayer

I’ve been thinking about Silent Prayer ever since I came upon that Mother Theresa quote about it. I’ve attempted to integrate the idea into my prayer life–NB: Different things work for different people, prayer advice is kind of like stock advice, just because something works for me doesn’t make me an expert, and doesn’t mean it will always work for me, nor does it mean it will work for you.

My brain is a loud and conflicted one–every time I try to pray silently a million thoughts rush into my mind. It takes effort to restrain them, like holding back a big dog on a leash. When I was a kid, I developed an exercise I could practice against this crowded and noisy mind in order to help me stop thinking and get to sleep. It’s a visualization exercise: I would place myself in the center of a dome whose walls had fallen down and all my thoughts were flying through and knocking down more walls and creating chaos and revealing a starry night sky in the background. So I would lift up these giant panels of the dome and fix them into place, and that part of the dome would be black, even if just a square. Sometimes I would fix the bottom ring into place and build up, sometimes I would fix a hemisphere into place before building out the rest. But as I completed the dome, I would obstruct the flow of thoughts, and I would be left with a peaceful mind. Occasionally a chaotic thought would break through and I would visualize a panel falling out of place in the section I already completed, but I would just put it back. In the end, my visualization would align with what I could see through closed eyes–perfect, uniform darkness, and so peace.

This always helped me sleep, sometimes I would fall asleep naturally in the process of building my dome, kind of like counting sheep. But once I realized this was effective I began to explore my mind because I had the room to do so. I did not really have religious predilections when I was a child so conceiving of this time as prayer did not cross my mind, even though that’s exactly what it was. God used this time, even if I didn’t. One of my explorations was that, once I completed the dome, there was still one thought that remained, and that was my internal monologue. But even when I would hold my internal tongue, I still had an awareness of myself, which I would seek to suppress. In moments of unusual clarity, I could succeed in a mere moment of thoughtlessness, of pure black void, and instead of peaceful sleep I would have tasted the experience of death.

As a child–even well into college–this exercise would send a chill down my spine that lasted for days. Nothingness. I feared death more than anything else. This gave me over to imagining the process of death. A question I would return to: Where does my brain go? My consciousness would evaporate into nothing and be lost for eternity.

It never occurred to me after I became Catholic that I stopped having these fearful visions as I fell asleep.

A loving God replaced the empty void. After reading the quote by Mother Theresa, I started turning my dome-construction exercise to the purposes of my prayer life. I’ve used this to positive effect–when I try to talk to God it is chaotic and rambling and I don’t know what I am saying but hoping that somewhere in my prayerful “word-salad” God will have mercy and hear my supplications. Silence has helped me embrace the fact that God knows what I need before I ask–so it is better for me to listen to Him, at least at this point in my life. I’ll construct the dome and sometimes I can visualize an altar in the middle, illuminated by a faint and distant light. And I will tame my wayward thoughts and occasionally let them wander, and occasionally they will wander in productive ways, ways I presume are aided by the Holy Spirit. But I must hold the leash tightly, because if I let go then my thoughts will run wild and knock down panels of the dome. I don’t know how it works, but I feel spiritually fortified after attempting this manner of prayer for a few weeks. I understand now what Mother Theresa meant when she said it takes practice. I feel as if I am exercising a muscle I have let atrophy.

All this to say, Silent prayer is working for me, right now. May it work for you; and if not, may your prayer life be fruitful in the way best suited to you.

AMDG