“Learning to pay attention to God's presence and leading in the flow of our days is the foundation of a life of prayer. Our spiritual life will be no deeper than our capacity to pay attention. And our capacity to pay attention to God will be no greater than our capacity for and practice of paying attention to that which is within and beyond our self in the present moment. Think about what it means to pay attention, and I suspect you like me, will be taken back to times when, as a child, you were told to pay attention by parents or teachers.
The problem when children are apparently not paying attention is, however, not that they are inattentive but rather that they are attending to something other than what adults wish. When, as a child, this would happen for me, I was usually caught up in some interior world of imagination or preoccupation.
What I was usually being asked to do was to focus on something that someone else thought was important - usually a task or an instruction.
However, the kind of attention that is essential if we are to open ourselves to God is quite different from this effortful focussing or our thoughts and constriction of our imagination. In many ways it is the exact opposite.
Prayerful paying attention is not scrunching up our will power and tightening our focus, but simply opening our self to what we encounter. We release any attempt to control attention and instead allow it to be absorbed by our present experience. Paying attention is being open and awake - ready to be seized by whatever is present to us in the present moment. This is why it is a foundation of prayer.
Attentiveness is prayer because attention paid to anything is a doorway to the self transcendent. It moves us beyond our self-preoccupations and opens us to that which is beyond our self. Regardless of how insignificant the object may seem, being truly aware of anything has enormous potential to aid our spiritual awakening. Prayerful attentiveness is not, therefore, reducible to thinking about God. It is prayer when it is offered with faith and openness to the God in whom everything that exists is held together. God interpenetrates every part of creation, and nothing exists in creation that is independent of God. Paying attention to anything therefore, has the potential to open us to this God who is present in all life. Paying attention also demands that we be present to our self in the present moment. We cannot pay attention to something that is in the past or that may be in the future. We can remember things in the past or anticipate those in the future, but we cannot be present to them. We can only be present to that which is actually present. Consequently, paying attention is always an engagement with the now. This becomes prayer when it includes openness and presence to the God who is present to us now. Where else would the Eternal Now meet us than in the present moment?"
- David G Benner, Opening To God, Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove. 2010. 73 – 76.
A person I know once described contemplation as “day dreaming”, which feels very much like what Benner is describing; being open and present; captivated by an awareness, daydreaming - in the moment.
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Benner has a new book out this month: Spirituality and the Awakening Self.
“Being human is a lifelong journey of becoming. This journey defines our humanity, for it is a journey toward our source and our fulfillment, described in Christian theology as union with God. If we remain open to God as our sense of self awakens, we experience a deeper consciousness of being in him. The self that emerges during this process is larger, more enlightened, and whole.
David Benner has spent thirty-five years integrating psychology and spirituality. Following his acclaimed book Soulful Spirituality, Benner offers readers a deeper understanding of the self and its spiritual development in Spirituality and the Awakening Self. Drawing on a broad range of Christian traditions, he shows that the transformation of self is foundational to Christian spirituality.
This book will appeal to professors and students in ministry development and spiritual formation courses; professionals engaged in pastoral care, counseling, and spiritual direction; and readers interested in a psychologically grounded, fresh exploration of Christian spirituality. Questions and answers for individual or group use are included at the end of each chapter.
Contents
1. Human Awakening
2. Mapping the Unfolding Self
3. Growth and the Lines of Development
4. Transformation and the Levels of Development
5. Learning from the Christian Mystics
6. The Body-Centered Self
7. The Mind-Centered Self
8. The Soul-Centered Self
9. The Spirit-Centered Self
10. Spirituality and Awakening
11. The Communal Context of Transformation
12. Transformation and Transcendence
Appendix 1: Dreamwork for Growth and Transformation
Appendix 2: Meditation, Prayer, and Awakening…”
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