Carolyn Arends ( www.CarolynArends.com)
is a recording artist, author and director
of education for Renovaré. Find more of these
columns at www.Faith Today.ca/Go WithGod.
There’s a humorous bit that recurs on The Ellen Show. A celebrity is placed in a situation with unsuspecting citizens – Dennis Quaid
ordering a coffee at a Starbucks,
say, or Jennifer Lopez interviewing
potential assistants in her office.
Concealed in the celebrity’s ear is a
tiny speaker, and he or she must say
whatever Ellen – watching via a
hidden camera – dictates through
the earpiece.
As Ellen’s improvised “script”
repeated obediently by the celebrity becomes increasingly bizarre,
the hapless participants become
progressively more confused, and
the audience is wildly entertained.
I found myself thinking about
the Ellen bit, oddly enough, reading
a luminous passage from the Quaker
devotional writer Thomas R. Kelly.
In his 1941 work A Testament of
Devotion, Kelly describes a transition
he experienced in his prayer life.
At first he needed to practise “an
alteration between outer things
and the Inner Light.” (The “Inner
Light” is the way Kelly describes his
experience of the active, directive,
intimate presence of God.)
Eventually he was able to enjoy a
state of “simultaneity”– the Inner
Light became “the continuous
current and background of all mo-
ments of life.”
Kelly’s transition to simultaneity
was clearly transformative – it
fuelled his journey from a restless,
ambitious scholar to a God-infused
teacher, friend and advocate for
social justice.
Kelly’s vivid description of this
simultaneity leaves me longing.
The Apostle Paul said we could
“pray without ceasing” (1 Thessa-
lonians 5: 17), and the language of
simultaneity helps me to remember
the exhortation to pray in all things
is an invitation to dialogue – not
monologue.
Praying without ceasing includes
as much listening as speaking. It
makes me wish I could have a
speaker in my ear through which
God would offer clear directions.
But of course the biblical witness
is that while God does speak directly at times, He’s just as apt to be in
the whisper. A constant stream of
commands into a concealed earpiece might reduce ambiguity, but
it would make God more puppet
master than Father.
Simultaneity seems to be an invitation into the sort of communion
that will leave me increasingly able
to sense how the Spirit is moving
– with or without a verbal exchange.
Sometimes it only takes a bit of eye
contact across the room for my
husband Mark and me to know
what each other is thinking. That
sort of connection is the product of
thousands of hours together and
countless conversations.
If I long for the simultaneity
Kelly so deliciously describes, the
first step may be getting to know
the Light better – in Scripture, in
worship and in time together.
A second (rather giant) step involves an openness to the remaking
of my heart, to be more in sync
with His.
“I will give them a heart to know
me,” God promised through Jeremiah (24: 7).
“Let it be so,” I find myself pray-
ing. “Break and excite my heart
with what breaks and excites yours
– until I start to see the world the
way you do.”
I wonder if a third step in bring-
ing together outer concerns and
Inner Light might involve getting
better at detecting the Light already
present within those outer con-
cerns.
If I began to see every human
being as a sacrament of God’s presence, how much of my experience
would become flooded in His light?
If I realized there is an invitation
from God (to lean in, to trust) in
every circumstance, would there be
anywhere I could hide from His
presence?
I feel shy confessing this, but
lately I’ve had fleeting experiences
of the nature Kelly describes. It’s like
I’ve put on 3-D glasses, or flipped the
music from mono to stereo – so there
is more than one plane of experience
happening at the same time.
Sometimes it’s a simple pronoun
shift. I notice where I typically might
pray, “What am I going to do about
this, Lord?” I find myself asking,
“How are we going to handle this?”
This simultaneity occurs only in fits
and starts, but Kelly urges me to
trust God’s good purposes in even
my own slow progress. “Wait upon
His guidance through the stages for
which [you] are prepared.”
No hidden earpieces. No parlour
tricks. Just the Light of the World,
gently, slowly reshaping us – mak-
ing ever more room for His pres-
ence. /FT
A continuous conversation
Is it really possible to pray – and listen – without ceasing?
GO WITH GOD
CAROLYN ARENDS
“Break and excite my heart with what
breaks and excites yours – until I start to
see the world the way you do.”
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