Archive for February, 2010

Jugular Prayer with Father Edward Hays

I’m wallowing in the wonder of the prayer consciousness of Father Ed Hays this Lenten season. Spirituality & Practice, the website created and flourishing under the direction of Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, is offering this 40-day course via email. Each day an excerpt from Father Hays’ work appears in my inbox. His work is so rich that an email bite is about all I can take in.

Here is an excerpt from Day 4:

Day 4: Use Your Fingers in Prayer

The Koran says that God is closer than the vein in your neck. What a beautiful invitation to pray. In fact, it suggests a new way to pray. Begin by placing your first and second fingers on your throat’s jugular vein. Linger there as you feel the vigorous throbbing of life within you. Praying with your fingers on your jugular vein can be a sensual affirmation that God is not distant or remote but is pulsating within you. I personally have found this prayer gesture to be extraordinarily affirming of my core spiritual and intellectual belief, and so I present this practice for your consideration.

God is life. What better way to be mindful of the nearness of the Presence than to actually feel it vibrating on your fingertips? To gain the attention of God, your intimate Beloved, does not require bellowing prayers, clanging bells or thunderous pipe organ preludes. A silent sensual touch can profoundly awaken you to God’s perpetual attention to you and your needs.

Besides being an excellent preface to any prayer, this tactile throat prayer gesture is useful whenever you are in need of God’s presence. Use your Jugular Prayer whenever you feel yourself sinking deeper and deeper in the quicksand of an argument or trapped in a no-win discussion — or in any difficult encounter. . . .

A Jugular Prayer expresses a fidelity to the Master of Hidden Holiness. You can use it in the crowded shopping mall, at your desk, and driving home from work. Prayer rituals and postures have great value since they influence the mind and heart. Yet as one of God’s secret agents, you need not drop to your knees or piously fold your hands to pray. By innocently placing your two fingers on your jugular vein, you can silently pray to your God throbbing at your fingertips.

— Edward Hays in Prayer Notes to a Friend

To Practice This Today: Several times during the day in different locations, try the Jugular Prayer. Report on your experience of it in the Practice Circle.

I have been a fan of Father Edward Hays for many years. His books on prayer have opened my eyes for years. He’s a deep practice kind of guy. The Brusatts say:

Edward Hays has been a Catholic priest since 1958. After thirteen years in the parish ministry, including seven years as pastor to Native Americans, he made an extended prayer pilgrimage to the Near East, Israel, and India. He served as director of Shantivanam, a contemplative center in the Midwest, and as the priest chaplain at the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing. A co-founder and moving spirit of Forest of Peace Publishing, he is the author of more than 30 bestselling books on contemporary spirituality.

Over his long and illustrious career, Hays has been a pioneer manifesting a daring mystical sensibility and an unbridled imagination that makes his vision consistently fresh and invigorating. He creatively uses parables and stories to discern God’s presence within the precincts of everyday life. He often presents startling images for believers; tears are “prayer beads,” a question mark is a “holy symbol,” sleep is “a sacrament as God’s Good Night News,” and a smile is “an outward sign of a laughing soul.” His prayers, original psalms, and daily rituals provide a framework a fresh and wide-ranging devotional life.

Edward Hays is above all a master of everyday spirituality. This is a tradition that goes back to Celtic Christians who sought the presence of God in household duties, and even farther back to Jesus, who framed his teachings around common activities. Hays encourages us to read and interpret what shows up in our lives, to find places of meditation and silence where we live and work, to keep an open house in our heart for all things, to sustain the art of long looking, and to cultivate a sense of wonder.

Consider visiting Spirituality & Practice to sign up and catch up with Lent and Father Edward Hays. You’ll be glad you did.

The Red Clock

As we all know, humans are creatures of habit. Witness our experience when the red kitchen clock I’ve owned for more than 30 years died last week. We keep looking at the nail in the wall for the time.

Admittedly, I had a certain nostalgia for that clock. It was the first thing I ever charged on a credit card right after I got out of college. I remember going to The Cellar in Macy’s in New York City and feeling oh, so grown up. I’ve schlepped that clock all over the country. It’s lived in my homes in New York City, Bridgeport, Kansas City, southeastern Washington state, and Boston. That red clock has witnessed a lot.

When I brought it home the first time, I hung it low on a kitchen wall-space. I told my then housemate that the red reminded me that time was valuable, and low on the wall meant it was also unimportant. Over the years, I’ve babied my clock. The thingies that held the battery oxidized over and over again. I fixed it. A fix-it friend fixed it. The top had a chip from when it fell off the wall once and bounced. It kept great time.

My red clock has been a metaphor for my relationship with time over the years. Time is a funny thing for humans. We have a love/hate relationship with time.

But the thing is: time is the great equalizer. We all have the same amount of time. 24 precious hours in any given day. And it doesn’t matter if you’re the Sheik of Araby or Little Miss Thang. Every one of us has the same 525,600 minutes in a year.

The issue is not time itself, but how we choose to spend our time. The amazing thing is that time, as we “spend” it, is a great illusion. The only real time there is happens to be Now. This now, and then the next now. That red clock reminded me of Now.

Fortunately for the Universe in its whirl, Amazon had a slew of red kitchen clocks to choose from and a new one is winging its red way to me right now. It will go on the kitchen wall, and if it lasts as long as the former one, I’ll be 81 when I need a new one.

There’s no time like the present, and there’s no present like the time.

Fear of Death

Seeds XII, 8

Seed: Fear of Death

It is said that the greatest fear of humankind is the fear of death. It could very well be, but I wonder.

What can be said truly is that we no longer have customs which sustain us when we face death. Just think of this one: wearing mourning clothes. Mourning clothes told everyone the mourner encountered that mourning was going on—without a word. Furthermore, mourning clothes were worn for designated periods of time depending upon the closeness of the mourner to the one who died.

My elderly mother-in-law died this year. I loved her; she was a pistol. I do not mourn her the way my spouse, her daughter, does. To look at my sweetie, you wouldn’t know she was in mourning. Should we reinstitute mourning clothes? Probably not, but it’s not a bad idea to wear a reminder of mourning for ourselves.

In this life, we all face death, dear one. Small deaths in disappointments, and factual death in the cessation of life in those we love. There are as many kinds of mourning as there are souls. If you are one who mourns right now, bring your fear of death with you into the process and let that be healed as well.

Be passion,

Susan Corso

Dr. Susan Corso

Seeds are remarkable gifts. Sown in consciousness, they bring you to the most important part of your being—your Divine Spark.

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