I used to think that I would start meditating when I got my sh** together and was a calm and peaceful person, then the meditation would be really good. I also used to think that I would pray when I was good and God would like me and want to hear my prayers, until then I would try to hide because I didn’t want God to see me or know what I was really like. I am guessing, based on a lot of conversations I have had, and comments I have heard in passing, that a lot of people feel like I felt. That somehow meditation is for the already enlightened and that God is for the good. What I know now, at least what I believe now, is that meditation creates calm and that prayer is for all of us. Both help us move toward good in halting, stumbling, messy steps. That’s okay and it is kind of the point.

I decided that I wanted to post some short videos that included a little prayer and just a minute maybe of focused breathing. I have been enjoying the prayers in the Book of Common Worship around Advent, and I find so much peace in my meditation practice I thought to myself, I want to share this, maybe someone else who doesn’t already know about this will like it too! I don’t think I have any great wisdom or insight but I really feel like this has all helped me in my life so I want to offer it to others. That was the idea anyway.

When I started meditating it was just a short phrase I would say over and over, usually in the middle of the night when I was on the brink of a panic attack. My life was in crisis and while I could manage through the day because I felt like I was “doing something” about it, at night I would just lay there spinning on what was done, what had to be done, what had been said and needed to be said and… you get the idea. I had always liked the idea of meditation but my life was never peaceful enough to feel like I could sit down and do it. Until I had to because there was nothing else I could do, it was a tether to survival not a reflection of my inner well being. That was also how I started praying. I hit a bottom and with no where else to go, no more imaginable pain to be in and what felt like nothing left to hide I figured I might as well start talking to God. And then I slowly found moments where I was calm enough that I could also start listening to God. And even more slowly I found that I was just generally more calm, generally less reactive, more able to bend without breaking.

It’s been over fifteen years now and I’m sorry I missed so much time thinking I had to already be something or somewhere before I could start because it turns out if I had started earlier I would have understand that the something and somewhere is not the goal to begin with. It’s a paradox; that’s how God seems to work.

So I thought, I want to share this in another way, not just writing about it; I want to offer a moment of coming into my messy office everyday and just ‘having a sit’ as Jim Finley says. I wanted to show that we could sit, that you could sit for a moment, maybe just one minute to start, with a dog barking or a cat climbing over the desk or the chainsaw at the neighbor’s next door, or whatever it is that is distracting and noisy and irritating, and just not perfect. Because that is when and where you need to start, in the mess, in the chaos, with just one minute. That’s enough and it is just exactly the right place to start.

The first video of just under four minutes took me thirty minutes to actually get right and then it only uploaded ten seconds. The second video took over an hour. It’s over four minutes and I tried six times, two different browsers, and finally just used my phone (check it out). It’s messy, my office is cluttered, the audio isn’t perfect, the video is wonky (that’s a technical term), and I look like what I look like. That’s the point. Start where you are and whenever you start is the perfect time. Take three breaths or seven, enlightenment could be a month away or in another lifetime. You could be good or bad and either way God is going to say, “I’m glad you’re here, I’ve been hoping to talk with you.”

We start in the mess because it is the practice that helps us see that the mess is the point, it will always be there, we don’t have to let it get in our way.