Not long ago, I was listening to a dear person trying to get started on a spiritually aware life. They described themselves as “stuck in their head.”

“I want to feel God,” they said. Then they paused and said, “I guess I just want to feel, period.” A few minutes later they said, “I’m afraid to feel, because it will all come up.”

Their awareness all started with a pause, or two, and a turn – a turn into their true self and toward the spiritual horizon beyond their present place along the way of Jesus.

It takes more effort to stay stuck than be free

They saw themselves as stuck. But they were hardly inactive. They had been working rather hard to keep “what might come up” stuck somewhere out of their consciousness. But as soon as they came to rest, did a little mentalizing, and did some listening with their “spiritual ears,” they began to consciously know what they already unconsciously sensed about themselves.

I admit I was kind of stuck on the fact they felt stuck. They looked at me with a look that meant, to me at least, “What am I going to do about this?”  I had no idea, so I told them what I do about it.

Usually, as soon as I get up, I go to my big brown chair and listen. I give thanks for the glories of the previous day. I list the times I saw signs of the Spirit at work and Love. I consider where I followed my false self around. Sometimes I caress my Episcopal prayer beads. Sometimes I investigate my icon wall. Sometimes I use my kneeler. Sometimes I read. But at some moment, maybe more, something will stir in me and I will pause, I may have to turn, to listen. And I feel myself in the presence of God. It is joy.

My accoutrement of prayer is very useful, but I don’t really need it all. I pause when I’m watching a show on TV. I turn into sunsets. I stand in awe of the work of God in others. I have heard one person tell of a series of visions, lately, and I stay very still for those epiphanies. I sing.

Practice the pause

It helps that I just finished a book called Practice the Pause: Jesus’ Contemplative Practice, New Brain Science, and What It Means to Be Fully Human, by Carolyn Oates.  It is a chatty, dissertation-like teaching organized around the author’s discovery of her personal relationship with God. It is a review of spiritual practices and a tale about how she found them when she scratched the surface of her superficial faith community.

She says: “The spiritual journey begins with a pause, a centering-in-God pause, and over time becomes a constant and ceaseless prayer, an honoring of and a connection with the Divine in you that awakens your essential self.”

She also says a lot about how recent brain science verifies that contemplation is life-giving.

“By returning to inner silence, solitude, and stillness in these few minutes a day, your amygdala will be smaller. We know now you will be much less reactive and forgetful. We know you will have a larger insula, more gray matter, and overall much smoother connections to your very human pre-frontal cortex. You will have greater awareness and insight and focus and even compassion.”

Jesus was a pauser. His disciples noticed the pattern of His life and emulated it. Before Jesus does his greatest and most-remembered works, he most likely has returned from some lonely place where he reconnected in the center of his being with who he was.

Oates says,

“This returning to our center again and again is a kind of in-and-out, in and out movement, like breathing: breathing in, we gather strength and calm, maybe an insight, maybe a sense of an injustice needing to be righted, and then breathing out, we go back out into the world to live into what we’ve been given and what we’ve received.”

Lent is the pause in the Christian calendar

I know some people come up against Lent and groan, ”Ugh! 40 days to feel stuck,“ or maybe, “40 days not to experience what others do.” It hurts me to mention that. But I know it is true for some people and they end up ratcheting down their desires and hopes until it seems like their insides will burst.

But I have to bring it up. The spiritual awareness we can all experience is in the pause. Lent is like a pause in the year. Sitting down to pray is a pause in the day. Going to a church meeting is a pause in the week. If you really turn into it, saying thanks before you eat your sandwich pauses all sorts of automatic behavior that could make your stuck.

The other day in worship, we sang a bunch of songs I didn’t really know, and I felt disappointed, because singing is a big awareness time for me. I was feeling, but when it came to church, I was not feeling it. My dear pastor was speaking and I was kind of looking like I was listening but I was turned away. I was too sleepy not to be moody and resistant. But he said something about glory and it hit me. The word kind of popped the cork of my bottled up desires.

I did not start listening, but I did start daydreaming about a song I led at my best friend’s funeral a long time ago, an unforgettable time in my life. I never liked the words of the song much, but I loved the way it brought about 800 of us together in the hushed and loving presence of God. And it was one of my dear friend’s favorites, so I loved it by association. The new words I daydreamed gave me the feeling of the old song with my own sensibilities worked in. If you want to sing it, here’s a version of the tune.

See the glory. Feel the glory. Be the glory come round.
In His name, love constrains us.
See the glory come round. Feel the glory come round.

I did feel the glory. Why wouldn’t I? I paused the week to be in worship. I paused my resistance to listen to a word. And I still feel the joy of it.

I immediately thought this would be a good little song to sing when our new small group meets. We’re building community with desperate hope in a turbulent time – a time when we need to pause, and see, and feel a glorious sense of oneness with God — and we need to be a place of rest for the world, too. Jesus says,

“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Mathew 11:28)

I’m not as alive, not as human as Jesus, if I am not in his rest. If I am not there, I’ll be trying to get unyoked from my burdens or trying to pretend I’m not yoked, but I won’t be led into the true life I need. If Lent seems like a lot of responsibility or useless trouble, pause and listen to what Jesus is teaching above. Pause with him, be gentled and humbled and find rest. Turn into it. It was in that place of oneness Jesus was  recharged with joy and courage and it was from that place he changed the world, and still does.