‘We're All Here to Learn How to Die’

I WAS GOING through a period of grieving when a friend in my St. Stephens’ family told me about a centering prayer/meditation group that met Thursday afternoons at the church. I had never heard the term “centering prayer,” but I had tried meditation a number of times. “I’m no good at that,” I explained, but her quiet kindness was persuasive. Hey, maybe there was something in it for me, too. I thought I’d give it a try.

As I attended more sessions and read more and more about centering prayer, I realized that my initial reaction revealed what was impeding growth. Being good at something, succeeding at it, was how the hardworking, achievement-oriented me had (mis)understood this spiritual practice. That hardy, eager little self—going also by the name of ego—had served me well to get to where I had gotten, but it was often a handicap in the territory I was beginning (cautiously) to enter with my Thursday afternoon group.

I recall at one point complaining, as little selves are wont to do, that I felt like a too-large Alice crammed into a small box when I meditated. I was right. My robust ego, with whom I was overly identified, would never make it through the narrow meditation door and into the beautiful garden. No wonder I had been baffled by phrases such as “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Really? Wouldn’t Jesus want us to be rich in spirit? Poverty empties us for the hugeness of God. I had to let go.

At one point we went around the circle, sharing what had brought each one here. When my turn came, I blurted out that I had come to learn to die. I thought the group would sigh and single me out as a soul in need of some serious work—they wouldn’t have been far off the mark there. Nevertheless, everyone nodded. We’re all here to learn how to die.

I know, it sounds unappealing. But that’s only if we forget the second part of the story: resurrection, new life. Unfortunately, the way there leads through Golgotha, no shortcuts.

It’s not an easy task: the continual putting aside of that eager little self and returning to a prayer phrase (hundreds of little deaths in the half hour). Feelings, thoughts, prizeworthy lines of poetry, amazing insights, mounting to-do lists blow in like weather. We sit quietly until that front blows through, knowing that, inevitably, another front follows. (Did I say hundreds? Make that thousands!) Doing so is a lesson in humility, in letting go, in not succeeding, dying to perfection. “Letting go, letting God,” the popular phrase goes.

There’s a poem by Czeslaw Milosz, “Love,” that summarizes what I’ve experienced on this journey. Milosz writes that love means learning to look at ourselves the way we look at distant things. He adds that this practice will heal our hearts. Birds and trees will call us “friend.”

I like to think of centering prayer as the discipline by which we put ourselves in perspective, breath by breath, moment by moment, so that love in all its forms can enter us, befriend us.

Ultimately, the work is not really done by us. Transformation happens without our knowing or controlling it, even without our understanding it. But, friend, the good news is that healing happens, the door opens a crack, we catch a glimpse of the garden.