More Closest Moments
FROM THE RECTOR
Last night, I asked the Inquirers Class what moments during the week—besides Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights—are typically the moments when they feel closest to God. The answers were wide-ranging but not very surprising: quiet moments early in the morning, time spent outdoors, the first few minutes at home after a stressful day, that period of joy and satisfaction after finishing a difficult task. Although many of us experience groundedness or rootedness in different ways, all of us appreciate that those moments are more likely to accompany quiet, safe, joyful, meditative experiences than the noisy, anxious, and chaotic times spent in rush-hour traffic or dealing with a screaming child.
When are you at your best? When do you feel most alive? When do you experience the closeness of God and God’s love? Asking those questions, recognizing the answers, and structuring your life in ways that lead to more of those moments is central to Christian spirituality. When you begin to shape your life in ways that lead to rich encounters with the divine, you are adopting a Rule of Life. How do you find a Rule that works for you? Some people benefit from a spiritual director, who helps guide them in the pursuit of enriching practices. Others borrow from the ancient traditions of prayer, meditation, study, service, and worship and develop their own rule based on a model like the Benedictine Rule of Life. I was first introduced to the concept of a Rule of Life through Cursillo, and, while I am not longer active in that movement, its pattern sticks with me.
Although not active in the Diocese of Arkansas, Cursillo is a renewal movement shared by the Episcopal Church and Catholic Church, and it is similar to the Walk to Emmaus used in the Methodist tradition. Although it starts with a weekend retreat, during which a series of short courses on Christianity are offered, the Cursillo model depends more on the continued reflective practices of participants after they return home. At the heart of those practices is the weekly reunion group, at which two or more people gather to reflect on their faith journey. Typically, individuals share about ways that their faith has been deepened through piety, study, and action, but the question that always seems to catalyze that reunion conversation is, “What was your closest moment to God this week?”
You do not have to be a participant in Cursillo to ask that question, and I hope you will ask it repeatedly. When are you closest to God? What will it take to have more of those closest moments? Sharing those questions and answers with another person or a small group can help, but you can start on your own. Write down in a journal the moments you remember feeling a deep and lasting peace. Then think about the nature of those experiences. What was going on in those moments? How did they come about? What was your role in making them happen? Did they come to you, or did you seek them out? Starting with those questions can help you develop patterns in your life that bring them around more frequently.
In birding, the same people always seem to see the rarest birds. There is a reason for that. Individuals who spend a great deal of time looking and listening for birds are more likely to find the ones that the rest of us never see. While birding is an experience that does not require practice, doing it well takes a considerable investment of time and energy. The same is true in our spiritual lives. You do not need any practice in order to sit down and be present with God. God is already there with you. Taking a few minutes to acknowledge and celebrate that fact is simple. But carrying that reality with you throughout the rest of your day—knowing and feeling the abiding presence of God in the middle of rush-hour traffic—requires a lot of work.
We all want more of the good, peaceful, restorative moments and fewer moments that exhaust us. We cannot always manufacture the positive experiences, and we can only do so much to avoid or mitigate the challenges. But developing a pattern of spiritual practices that remind us that God loves us, that God is with us, and that we belong to God is what enables us to find more of those close moments.
No one is surprised when God shows up at the top of a mountain, but few of us get to stay in those rarified places. I need to feel God’s presence when I am walking through difficult valleys and traversing barren deserts. If I am to know that God is with me in those lean times that are beyond my control, I need to make time to be with God in those moments that I can control. For me, that means waking up a little earlier than I need to so that I can sit and be quiet with God. It means scheduling fifteen-minute windows in a busy day to stop and breathe and say my prayers. It means putting down my phone at night so that I can be more fully present with my family. Those practices are a mixture of ancient and modern, and they help me find close moments more frequently.
What about you? When do you feel closest to God, and what will you do each day to find those moments more and more? The answer is your Rule of Life.
Yours Faithfully,
Evan D. Garner