Art of Praying

from The Art of Praying
Fr. Romano Guardini  

The basic meaning of the word recollected is "to be unified, gathered together." A glance at our life will show how much we lack this aptitude. We should have a fixed center which, like the hub of a wheel, governs our movements and from which all our actions go out and to which they return; a standard also, or a code by which we distinguish the important from the unimportant, the end from the means, and which puts actions and experience into their proper order; something stable, unaffected by change and yet capable of development, which makes it clear to us who we are and how matters stand with us. We lack this; we, the men of today lack it more than did those who lived in earlier ages. 

This becomes evident in our attempts to pray. Spiritual teachers speak of distractions that state in which man lacks poise and unity, that state in which thoughts flit from object to object, in which feelings are vague and unfocused and the will ineffective. Man in this state is not really a person who speaks or who can be spoken to, but merely an uncoordinated bundle of thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Recollectedness means that he who prays gathers himself together, directs his attention to what he is doing, draws in all thought--a painstaking task--so as to dedicate himself to prayer as a unified whole. This is the state in which he may, when the call comes to him, answer in the words of Moses, "Here I am."

The distractions in prayer come from the disjointedness of life. Some may claim that there seem to be more distractions today because there is a greater amount of information flowing in constantly. We cannot be focused on any issue for more than a few minutes at a time IF we allow ourselves to react to all of that information. And who can argue this claim. However the symptom of this carving-to-overdose on any and everything is our sense of emptiness -  a lack of ontological density. From my mentor Gil Bailie:

Lack of ontological density means a self that is insubstantial and it is seeking in self-defeating ways some way of substantiating itself. There are 2 ways of substantiating the self: 1) that way that perfectly parallels the cultural system that generates false transcendence; and 2) the experience of true transcendence.

However one understands the breakdown in the sense of being centered, of having a focus for one's life, the remedy abides somewhere in the mystery knowing that there is something greater here - in the very mystery of faith. Faith is a gathering up of all the me's into something larger than a self.

“Faith is the finding of a ‘You’ that upholds me and, amid all the unfulfilled…hope of human encounters, gives me the promise of an indestructible love that not only longs for eternity but also guarantees it. Christian faith lives on the discovery that not only is there such a thing as objective meaning but that this meaning knows me and loves me, that I can entrust myself to it like [a] child.” Pope Benedict XVI

To truly practice the Art of Praying in today's fast-paced, distracted and scandalized culture we may want to allow less of the world to intrude into our thoughts and instead hone in on and become participants in all things of beauty, truth and goodness.  

Getting to the Truth - beyond the corpses - learning to read scandal

This short scene in the movie, LINCOLN is a glimpse into scandal. A new book on scandal, Beneath the Veil of the Strange Verses Reading Scandalous Texts by Jeremiah L. Alberg defines scandal: "as those events, scenes, and representations to which we are attracted at the same moment that we are repelled. The scandalous is that which excites without satisfying, seduces without delivering, and promises without fulfilling. In one word it summarizes René Girard's analysis of mimetic desire as the doomed-to-be-frustrated reaching for the skanalon, the object of scandal." (Link here to an excerpt from René Girard's I See Satan Fall Like Lightning.)

Alberg notes that we are confronted with a stark choice: "either turn away from scandal completely or become enthralled and thus trapped by it." 

When watching the movie I thought this scene cuts to the truth of scandal and thus do we turn away from the corpses or get enthralled and trapped in the tragic. Or, as Alberg says, do we allow scandal to open us up to journey beyond the tragic and death to a deeper truth?

[Lincoln rides slowly on the frontline outside of Petersburg, Virginia, saddened by the sight of all the dead and wounded soldiers; later he meets Grant at his headquarters in in Petersburg; they sit outside on the porch]

Abraham Lincoln: Once he surrenders, send his boys back to their homes, their farms, their shops.

Ulysses S. Grant: Yes sir, as we discussed.

Abraham Lincoln: Liberality all around, not punishment, I don't want that. And the leaders, Jeff and the rest of 'em, if they escape, leave the country while my back's turned, that wouldn't upset me none. When peace comes it mustn't just be hangings.

Ulysses S. Grant: By outward appearance, you're ten years older than you were a year ago.

[Lincoln, looking very tired, nods his head]

Abraham Lincoln: Some weariness has bit at my bones.

[he pauses for a moment, thinking]

Abraham Lincoln: I never seen the like of it before. What I seen today. Never seen the like of it before.

Ulysses S. Grant: You always knew that, what this was going to be. Intimate, and ugly. You must've needed to see it close when you decided to come down here.

[Lincoln stands, puts his hat on and shakes Grant's hand]

Abraham Lincoln: We've made it possible for one another to do terrible things.

Ulysses S. Grant: We have won the war. Now you have to lead us out of it.