Mindful Living
Prior to Advent we had been exploring the depth of meaning in the John Main prayer which we say before meditation. The second sentence of the prayer asks God to: ‘Lead us into that mysterious silence where your love is revealed to all who call.’ In this article I want to reflect on the phrase ‘to all who call’.
Some meditators add the word ‘Maranatha’ at the end of the prayer, but many prefer not to do so in case the prayer is interpreted to mean that God’s love is revealed only to those who call ‘Maranatha’.
At different stages of our lives, we all experience a mysterious call to begin a journey of discovery into the depths of our being, to discover our true-self”
It is surprising sometimes to realise how many meanings a single word can have. We say things like “I called around to my friend’s house last night” when we mean we visited them in their home. Or, “I must give Mary a call tomorrow”, when we mean we will talk with her by phone. Or, “When my granddaughter got lost in the shopping centre, I heard her call out and ran to get her”. These are just three variations on the way we use the word ‘call’ and all three of them apply to this prayer.
When we sit in meditation, we can see it as if we are dropping by to visit a close friend. The more accustomed we become to meditation, the more it can feel like that. The more you know someone, the deeper the relationship, the easier it is to sit with someone in silence; not speaking but mysteriously in communion with one another nonetheless. The second example, to give someone a call, meaning to speak by phone, replicates the fact that while on a phone call we can speak with the other person, we can’t see them. Silence on a phone call can be very awkward and when we first start meditation, we can experience that awkwardness too – we can feel an urgent desire to fill the silence with our own thoughts.
The third use of call, where I heard my granddaughter anxiously call out when she got lost in the shopping centre also applies to meditation. Speaking to God, St Augustine once wrote: “You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless, until they rest in you.”
Human desire
He was writing about the human desire to discover meaning in life, that impulse we all feel to live life with authenticity and, for him, that meant discovering the depth of his relationship with God. At different stages of our lives, we all experience a mysterious call to begin a journey of discovery into the depths of our being, to discover our true-self. And I think that is the kind of ‘call’ that John Main had in mind when he wrote this prayer; when he wrote: “Your love is revealed to all who call.”
But the word ‘all’ is also very significant. Even though we have learned about meditation from our Christian tradition, we acknowledge that all the major religious traditions – and many in secular society – practice meditation. And while all who meditate will experience something of the mystery of being in the silence, each tradition has its own unique way of describing it and assigning meaning to it. But ultimately the words we use to describe what we experience are just words, they are not the experience itself. While words may help us to understand it better, ultimately words can only point towards the truth. Our experience of God – even as it happens at a level of consciousness deeper than ordinary self-consciousness – transcends the capacity of language. So the language in which we call out to God, the language of the tradition into which we were born, is not the only valid language. God’s love is revealed to all who call.
As John Main observed: We have to be able ourselves to recognise the life of God in all situations and peoples, to identify it for a sceptical generation looking for signs elsewhere, and then to place it in the context of that ultimate revelation of God’s life which Jesus brought to us all in his own person. To see God in the world, in other faiths, in our lonely cities and dismal suburbs, we have first to have found the image of God in ourselves. And, having found it alive within we know for certain the same is true for all. The language of meditation is silence, which makes meditation a universal practice. That is why Christian meditation groups are open to all.
While our experience of God is always personal, it is never individual but universal”
Meditation is not just for your benefit but for the benefit of all. It is not about you but about the grace your daily practice generates in the world around you. Likewise, meditation is not just about the time you sit in meditation, but it generates a grace-filled energy that informs how you live in the world in every aspect of your life. While our experience of God is always personal, it is never individual but universal. Meditation is not a practice for personal salvation, but for awakening fully to the present moment and responding with compassionate action in the world, in our daily lives.