Woody and I just watched the second episode of Shiny Happy People. I am a 75 year old “cradle Catholic.” While growing up in pre-Vatican II southern Catholicism was far from Gothard’s IBLP, it was not that far.

So I was very aware, while watching, that even 5 years ago, I could not have watched that episode without struggling with panic, hatred, sadness, guilt, and remorse, all bundled together in one huge overwhelming confusing package called faith.

Tonight I am thankful for one thing. I am thankful that I now understand that there are realities that I can neither think nor feel my way through. Both paths led to a frightening jungle that kept me largely trapped inside my own thoughts and feelings for too much of my life. I did not know how to pay attention to the external world when it took all I had to control the noise and chaos of my internal world.

I still loved the presentation and liturgies of the Divine that I grew up with, much as I love comfort foods from my childhood (like hot dogs and canned baked beans – neither of which is the kind of food that I typically enjoy). But then my mind reminded me of some of the doctrines and teachings that were at best ludicrous and at worst grooming. And so I was left feeling that the Divine was unreachable, dangerous even. But I wanted to be close to a God I could no longer believe in, and so I pretty much lived within a spiritual/psychological preoccupying inadequacy.

I have practiced yoga for 55 years now. So savasana, yoga nedra, and pranayama were my first introduction to meditation. They helped immensely, but I still longed for my spiritual comfort food.

And that is what the practice of contemplative prayer gives me: both the peace of meditation and the comfort of being within a familiar pattern of the Divine. This is why contemplative prayer is such an unimaginable blessing to me.

Meditation is hard work for me. So is contemplative prayer. But it is hard for natural reasons. It is hard like growing up, like “adulting” is hard. It is not hard because it is tearing me apart from the inside out.

I am slowly learning that thoughts won’t get me to the Divine and emotions won’t get me to the Divine, but the Divine can get me to coherent thoughts and controllable emotions.