The time I spent away this last winter was full and rewarding, and going over journal notes I do further reflection. And I discover that it all reinforces what has been there from the beginning with the Prayer of the Lamb: meditation is a form of intercession.
When we offer the Prayer of the Lamb, “Jesus/Yeshua, have mercy on us,” with “the intention that this meditation is for the service of intercession, whatever quietness of body and mind, peace, joy, love that comes to us during the meditation sitting is then explicitly offered for those for whom we are praying. Meditation is intercession. We are simply being the loci for this occurring for all the world. It is no small matter, however. This is vital for the world.” That’s what I had written in my India journal.
When we sit down to meditate, we cease from our own actions and put ourselves at the disposal of the working of God’s mercy within us, grace in operation, unseen yet really present, at operation without interference from the thoughts we are having, or meaning we may want to attribute to our experiences in meditation. This space of mercy is all outside of our control, our personal intentions or desires. How we offer the Prayer of the Lamb may be with increasing ease and purity, or it may be a mixed expression of our own anxiety and confusion, but nevertheless God’s mercy is there abundantly, unqualified by how we may judge our practice to be going. The cloudiness of our limits of recognition does not diminish God’s Presence. How can the Unlimited, the Unconditioned be constrained in its essential potency by the limited vision of any of us?
Therefore our faithfulness in offering the Prayer, in doing the practice, counts. Just show up, every day. Sit there and offer the Prayer. It is vital for the world. And it goes beyond our specific intentions, because all is connected, all is related. We benefit ourselves even as we offer specific intercessions. And there is also an effect upon the whole of creation. There is no way to separate out the effect of one from the other. The mercy is at work in us as we sit in practice, on those for whom we have specific intentions, and on those for whom we would never think to pray for, on our enemies we may think to form for ourselves, on those with whom we would not care to associate, on all. We contribute to the whole world addressing all the violence, war, suffering, and darkness reflecting the Light that brings healing and reconciliation and wholeness.
I keep forgetting that meditation is a faith practice. I need to remind myself about that frequently. It is the obedience of trusting God, trusting that simply being is all that is asked. It is the surrender of myself as the doer, the recognition that I am not the one doing. This is clear in sitting meditation, and it becomes clearer in the rest of life as we trust in the spontaneous flow of Life here, just as there is that spontaneous flow that can be observed during meditation practice. This helps me just to sit there without trying to accomplish anything. It’s all been taken care of within the broad embrace of Yeshua, the Lamb of God, whose loving arms took in all the suffering and sin of the world for all time and all places.
Blessings in the Lamb,
Beverly
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