Be Here Now

Thanksgiving week we offered our college students the opportunity to participate in a contemplative retreat. Twenty-some students chose to become monks for the week, trying out contemplative practices such as centering prayer, lectio divina, the examen. We kept silence every morning, and they also tried out using art, breathing, meditation, and pottery as means of prayer. The week was a gift to me as a teacher, as I watched the students start to become aware of themselves, be present to the moment, even notice God in the everyday. Many of these students have been wounded by the preaching of the "executioner God" at their churches (the idea that God is love, but only if you're good. Otherwise you're fried...), and have a hard time with the Bible and Christian cliches. Even the word "Jesus" stings some of them. By getting at this God stuff through the back door, it seems many found some freedom to meet God on their own terms, in the here and now. They saw the divine presence in the horizon, in piggy back rides from other students, in our infant daughter. Our scripture for the week was the story of the healing of a blind beggar, Bartimaeus, in Mark. In the story, Bartimaeus cries out to Jesus to have mercy on him. Jesus hears him, stands still, and says, "call him here." All week I heard the echo "call her here" (I took the liberty to change the pronoun) as a reminder to be HERE, present, and to see God in each moment. My hope is to carry this mantra with me in the days to come. We'll see how it goes...