Honest to God Prayer: Spirituality as Awareness, Empowerment, Relinquishments and Paradox

By Kent Ira Groff

Maybe you're praying and you don’t even know it.

In this unique and encouraging guide to prayer, Kent Ira Groff, a longtime retreat leader and inspiring writer-poet, explores how to engage in spirituality that blesses your soul—and the world. Whether you’re advanced or just starting on your spiritual path, this practical prayer path breaker will lure you in with its novel combination of touching, real-life stories, pithy thoughts and inspiring prayer practices.

For those turned off by shopworn religious language, it offers innovative ways to pray in four metaphorical movements that parallel both Native American traditions and Ignatian spirituality:

• East—Morning / Prayer as Awareness
  Waking up to reality—opening
• South—Noon / Prayer as Empowerment
  Embracing your dreams and possibilities—expanding
• West—Afternoon / Prayer as Relinquishment
  Letting go of attachments—emptying
• North—Night / Prayer as Paradox
  Uniting the opposites of life—integrating

Prayer practices for each of the four "movements" provide for personal and group enrichment at home and work, in formal programs and informal friendships. They interweave the author’s own experience to say: “This is honest to God spirituality and I’m seeing myself.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
• Release date: Oct 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781594734922

Kent Ira Groff

Kent Ira Groff, a spiritual companion for journeyers and leaders, retreat leader and writer-poet, is founding mentor of Oasis Ministries in Pennsylvania. For over two decades, he has practiced and taught the contemplative active life at theological seminaries and retreat centers in the US and abroad. He is author of What Would I Believe If I Didn't Believe Anything? and Facing East, Praying West, among other books.

Book preview

Honest to God Prayer: Spirituality as Awareness, Empowerment, Relinquishment and Paradox

Praise for

Honest to God Prayer: Spirituality as Awareness, Empowerment, Relinquishment and Paradox

Groff blurs the line between the folks who are religious and folks who claim spirituality by mining truths in a variety of traditions and offering them to us in story, insight and poetry. Honest to God ... I love it!

—Nancy Corcoran, CSJ, author, Secrets of Prayer: A Multifaith Guide to Creating Personal Prayer in Your Life; Catholic chaplain, Wellesley College

Will enrich people active in their faith traditions as well as the growing number of people describing themselves as spiritual but not religious. Helps you see God in all things and all things in God.

—Bruce Epperly, author, Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry and Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living

Remind[s] us that prayer has its own movement and rhythm which we can learn to follow…. Weaves together the wisdom to be learned from the seasons of the day, Ignatian prayer and Native American spirituality in ways that respect the integrity of each, but where each is enriched by the other…. Offers the reader a multiplicity of concrete ways to pray that are both ancient and fresh, [and] an enlivening vision in a sometimes tired field of spirituality volumes.

—Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, author, Desert Fathers and Mothers: Early Christian Wisdom Sayings—Annotated & Explained and Lectio Divina—The Sacred Art: Transforming Words & Images into Heart-Centered Prayer

A most excellent presentation of prayer as a wholly different mind and a renewed heart, much more than mere verbal recitations or formulas…. Offers you a truly larger house to live in, and a house that will not confine you, but one filled with doors and windows—and plenty of skylight.

—Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, Center for Action and Contemplation, Albuquerque, New Mexico; author, Falling Upward and The Naked Now

A rich and in-depth exploration of the ongoing expression of prayer in our spiritual journeys [and] an extraordinary resource for all seekers—from those who have well-established prayer practices to those for whom prayer is something new—who are spiritual but not religious. Easy to read yet filled with profound insights that inspire a deeper relationship with Source.

—Kay Lindahl, founder of The Listening Center; author, The Sacred Art of Listening: Forty Reflections for Cultivating a Spiritual Practice; and other books

A sublime spiritual companion on the path toward a life of empowered, authentic prayer. Shares from the wisdom of a variety of faith traditions [and] equips us to embrace a truly awakened spiritual life—the kind we’ve always dreamed of and prayed for.

—The Rev. Peter M. Wallace, host of Day1; author, The Passionate Jesus: What We Can Learn from Jesus about Love, Fear, Grief, Joy and Living Authentically

[A] wonderful trailbreaker on the spiritual life…. If you pray for stuff, don’t read this book. If you pray for wisdom, read it twice.

—Rabbi Rami Shapiro, author, The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness: Preparing to Practice; and other books

If you yearn for real-life spiritual renewal, this book is for you! Wherever you open these pages, you will find resources, guidance, grace and honest companionship for your own prayerful journey.

—Heidi Neumark, Lutheran pastor; author, Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx

Opens the curtains on a new perspective, enabling the sunlight of a new way to break in…. Rubs the eyes of tired ecclesia and provides plentiful resources toward discarding unnecessary angst. Here is a holistic guidebook for prayer, particularly for those who haven’t got a prayer.

—Scott Burton, minister of St. Matthew’s Church, Perth, Scotland; author, Holy Whitewater: Reflections on the Spirituality of Kayaking

Lively and packed with wisdom from many traditions…. Offers a rich feast of possibilities for weaving prayer through daily life. I found myself marking page after page with a resounding, ‘Yes!’

—Nancy L. Bieber, author, Decision Making & Spiritual Discernment: The Sacred Art of Finding Your Way

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Contents

Index of Prayer Practices

Orientation

Prologue: Integrating Native American and Ignatian Spiritual Streams

Theme I: Prayer as Awareness: Opening

Chapter One. Waking Up to Realit

The Grounding for Awareness

Chapter Two. Living Awake to What Is

The Process of Awareness

Practices for Cultivating Awareness

Theme II: Prayer as Empowerment: Expanding

Chapter Three. Claiming Possibilities

The Grounding for Empowerment

Chapter Four. Embracing Dreams

The Process of Empowerment

Practices for Cultivating Empowerment

Theme III: Prayer as Relinquishment: Emptying

Chapter Five. Negative Capability

The Grounding for Relinquishment

Chapter Six. Shedding Attachments

The Process of Relinquishment

Practices for Cultivating Relinquishment

Theme IV: Prayer as Paradox: Integrating

Chapter Seven. Rediscovering Mystery

The Grounding for Paradox

Chapter Eight. The Active Contemplative Life

The Process of Paradox

Practices for Cultivating Paradox

Bring It All Together

Morning Prayer in Four Directions

Acknowledgments

Notes

Resources for Further Reading

About the Author

Copyright

Also Available

About SkyLight Paths

Index of Prayer Practices

Theme I: Practices for Cultivating Awareness

Practice 1: Beginning Prayer If You Can’t Pray

Practice 2: A Daily Prayer of Reflection and Examen

Practice 3: Expanding Personal Prayer

Practice 4: Centering Prayer as Contemplative Practice

Practice 5: Meditative Thanks with Your Body

Practice 6: Open-Eyed Table Blessing

Theme II: Practices for Cultivating Empowerment

Practice 7: Group Experiment with Focusing Energies

Practice 8: Breathing as Prayer

Practice 9: Kything Prayer

Practice 10: The Lectio Process in All of Life

Practice 11: Your Own Portable Monastery

Practice 12: Designing Your Life Mission

Theme III: Practices for Cultivating Relinquishment

Practice 13: Emptiness as Space for God

Practice 14: An Examen of Liminal Spaces

Practice 15: Table Blessing from Latin America

Practice 16: The Clearness Committee

Practice 17: A Focusing Exercise in Three Gestures

Practice 18: Let It Be

Theme IV: Practices for Cultivating Paradox

Practice 19: Sounds of Technology, Nature—and Silence

Practice 20: Table Blessing with Head, Heart, and Hands

Practice 21: Practicing Questions, Telling Stories

Practice 22: Chalice Prayer

Practice 23: A Radio Station, Book, Movie, or Mundane Tasks as Prayer

Practice 24: Cultivating Paradox: Do Things the Opposite Way

Morning Prayer in Four Directions

Orientation

What is prayer? And how does prayer relate to spirituality? Pray can seem like such a religious word that many people may view it as a cliché or dismiss it. So I suggest that to pray is to yearn for something beyond ourselves, and prayer in its many forms is how we express that yearning. I often say, tell me your yearnings and I’ll tell you your prayers.

Religiously motivated people, on the other hand, may know how to pray—they may have memorized certain words, patterns, or methods. However, prayer is an ongoing, transforming process, not a technique. And the fruit of genuine praying is to yearn for bits and pieces of passion and compassion in all of life—in its grit and grace.

We have just landed on a beginning definition of spirituality: the fruit of genuine, honest to God prayer expressed in our relationships in all of life.

By honest to God praying I mean cultivating that intentional yearning or longing to discover traces of passion and compassion in the most heart-wrenching suffering, and in the heart-rewarding successes of life. If the goal of prayer is to lead to genuine spirituality in all circumstances, then, as the saying goes, the way there is to practice, practice, practice.

We might say, then, that prayer is the practice route that leads to the fruit of a passionate and compassionate spiritual life. Spirituality is not a thing you can put in your pocket, but a genuine lived experience of giving and receiving love in all the twists and turns of your journey.

How Honest to God Prayer Evolved: Four Themes

What I offer here is a compass with four directional themes to survey varied stages of your journey. The four movements of prayer in this little book have been gestating for two decades: waking up to reality (awareness), claiming gifts (empowerment), practicing detachment in success and failure (relinquishment), and experiencing mystery (paradox). While developing these four themes, I began to see connections to prayer in four directions in Native American tradition and the four movements or weeks in Ignatian spirituality, which I refer to throughout this book (see Prologue and Bring It All Together).

Awareness marks the beginning movement of prayer in spiritual streams of East and West: to wake up to reality, to pay attention in the morning of life, open to its potential and pain. You keep waking up to begin again, all your life.

A second movement of prayer is empowerment: to embrace your dreams and possibilities in the noon of life, claiming your gifts. Even though claiming power may sound a bit self-serving, honest to God prayer means knocking until a door of opportunity opens for you to use your gifts. And that process of knocking can teach humility.

A third movement of prayer is relinquishment: the great letting-go process of detachment in the afternoon of life, emptying your agenda—or it’s emptied for you. Even though relinquishing may sound a bit self-denying, unless you practice detachment you are not free to receive the next gift.

As a fourth movement, prayer as paradox weds seeming opposites in the night of life: here is the mystery. Prayer becomes a dance that integrates simplicity and complexity, claiming and relinquishing childlike dreams in abilities and disabilities, giving and receiving compassion, living actively and contemplatively—alone yet all one.

The four movements or themes are not always sequential, and you may cycle back and forth in your life experience—and in this book. As in a tapestry, a weaver may introduce a bright amber thread into a primarily turquoise background but create a whole amber section later on. So, for example, I may introduce a small thread that speaks of relinquishment in a chapter that’s about empowerment, while saving the primary message of relinquishment for the chapter on emptying.

In another sense, this book began evolving five decades ago, when Bishop John A. T. Robinson’s classic bestseller Honest to God ushered the Copernican revolution into our everyday language and views of God. Instead of a God up there or out there, Robinson drew on twentieth-century theologian Paul Tillich’s idea of God as the Ground of our being—as depth in every sphere of life. In Honest to God Prayer I aim to integrate such ideas about God with your experience of God as grounding through the process of practicing prayer.

Grounding and Process for Each Theme

First, for each of these four movements, I offer a chapter that surveys the grounding. Here I draw on sacred texts and concepts in varied spiritual traditions and cultural wisdom related to each theme: awareness, empowerment, relinquishment, and paradox.

Second comes a chapter on process, where I explore hands-on ways of living into each of the four movements. I have a passion to link ancient traditions with lived experience. You might say the grounding is more focused on spirituality and left-brain history and ideas, whereas the process has more to do with prayer and right-brain experience and lived life.

At the end of each theme, I invite you to engage in prayer practices as a laboratory for experiencing each theme. Prayer is to spirituality as the laboratory is to science, the place of experimentation and application. Prayer is like a chemistry lab where you experiment with a quandary to discover an aha! Prayer is like an archeological dig inviting you to discover buried treasures. You may go for long periods without discoveries—or find something you aren’t looking for in the grit by surprise.

How This Book Can Work for You

Honest to God Prayer is interactive, offering grist for personal and group reflection, along with prayer practices that can enrich you any way you read it:

• For personal and spiritual growth and formation;

• As a devotional enrichment tool, garnering little bits at a time, not always sequentially;

• As an opening meditation with a group, or board, or committee, using a prayer practice or a brief quotation;

• For nurturing spiritual friendship, by reading and sharing with another person, perhaps of a different faith tradition;

• For short-term classes in your faith community, or