pray daily

Can You Recognize the Signs of a Spiritual Breakdown?

Posted on October 5, 2021October 5, 2021 by Ed Cyzewski

We have a 2002 Subaru Outback that burns through oil. Maybe it leaks oil. Maybe it does both. No one really knows. A mechanic told me the engine from that year was really, really bad.

To make things worse, the dip stick is extremely unreliable, so I’m always just guessing how much oil to add.

All of that is to say, when we used to drive that car daily, I had to keep a really close eye on the oil—among several other things.

It’s my understanding that cars generally have an “oil” light that comes on when it gets low. In our case, we were on a road trip with that Subaru, cruising up a hill on an Interstate, when the light came on and then we instantly heard an alarming crunch in the front of the car.

That was it for our engine.

Besides a useful dip stick and an engine that kept oil inside of it, I also could have really used a warning light BEFORE running out of oil completely.

It turned out that we had driven through a lot of mountains in western Maryland and West Virginia, and we had burned through all of the oil I put in at the start of the trip.

While we could replace that engine with a used one, I often think of the warning signs I see in my life before I burn out or hit rock bottom mentally or spiritually.

Do I have a functioning “warning” light for the times when I’m in emotional, mental, or spiritual trouble and in need of a pause for restoration?

As I’ve explored what spiritual health looks like for me, I have learned that I am at my best when I do at least 3 things every day:

Journal

Pray

Read scripture

These aren’t major revelations or secrets, right? That’s a pretty standard list of daily practices for a Christian. I could list things like exercising daily, getting 7-8 hours of sleep, reading spiritual books and attending church, but those three in my list above form the foundation.

If those three practices aren’t a regular part of my day, I can almost certainly expect to start feeling distant from God, out of sorts, or just kind of lost. Each practice plays a vital role in keeping my head in a good place and helping me to remain aware of God’s presence.

Since it’s so important, I have a schedule each day, and I fit my spiritual routine into it.

Here’s the thing, schedules change, life gets crazy, and the routine sometimes falls to pieces.

We had some pretty disruptive changes to our schedule over the past month, and my routine suffered.

Over the years, I’ve learned to watch for some warning signs that all may not be well. Here is what I look for:

Is My Journal Empty?

When I open my journal, I can know things are difficult or stressful if I don’t have any entries for the past day… or week.

During one really tough stretch, I would show up for church, open my journal to jot down some ideas during the sermon, and start right below my notes from the previous Sunday. That’s a whole week without reflection!

I use my journal for a wide range of ideas, reflections, prayers, meeting notes, and whatever else. It’s a place to get thoughts out of my head, and if my journal is empty, that means my head is likely full of stuff I haven’t fully processed. That is usually not good for my mental health.

Journaling also makes it much easier to pray since a head full of thoughts can lead to a busy mind that will struggle to pray.

Have I Moved My Bookmark?

I use The Divine Hours to read, reflect, and pray through scripture daily. Each day offers a series of readings based on the day of the week and the time of day. It’s a very handy way to read a variety of scripture on a consistent basis.

But when my schedule falls to pieces or life gets chaotic, I may catch myself flipping past a few days in order to find that day’s reading. If I haven’t been keeping up with scripture reading, my bookmark will be off by a few days.

Having grown up in a Christian subculture that attached a lot of guilt and obligation to Bible reading, I’ve really had to rethink WHY I read the Bible. I prioritize devotional reading or using scripture to guide my prayers.

When I open up the morning scripture reading, I take a prayerful posture and ask God to guide me. I’m not looking for answers, prooftexts, or a duty I can check off in my list of spiritual things.

If I’m not guided by the words of scripture and the Spirit’s inspiration through those words, then who knows what will influence me. There are plenty of alternatives!

I shouldn’t be surprised that my head often ends up in an unhealthy place if my daily scripture reading slides.

Do I Have Enough Time to Pray Daily?

There isn’t an easy way to visibly track how often I pray, but generally I aim to land in the 20-30 minutes range for dedicated prayer. Of course there are plenty of opportunities to be prayerful and mindful of God throughout my day, but I benefit the most from focused, distraction free prayer time if possible.

But dedicated prayer time isn’t guaranteed each day. A kid may wake up early, a work project has a tight deadline, I miss an alarm, or who knows what else can spring up.

I do my best to stay honest about prayer. Am I getting at least 20 minutes? It’s not a magic number that guarantees some kind of spiritual epiphany. It’s just a way to keep myself from getting lazy or cutting corners.

Over the years, I’ve found that if I can set aside 20 minutes for prayer, it’s usually a breeze to hit 30 minutes. Of course, stretching my prayer time that long can start to take away time from my morning exercise routine!

What Are Your Warning Signs?

I’m certain that my three essential daily practices aren’t the only ones or that they aren’t unique to me.

I’d love to know which daily practices you rely on to be both mentally and spiritually healthy. If the comments are closed (they close after 2 weeks to prevent spam), you can always drop me a line on my contact page or share this post on social media along with your own list of essential practices.

Why I’m Releasing Flee, Be Silent, Pray a Second Time Even Though Authors Hate Marketing

Posted on January 30, 2019February 11, 2019 by Ed Cyzewski

The best part about marketing a book should be the part when you’re done, but the problem with book marketing is that you’re never technically “done.“

For authors who would rather devote themselves to the large, expansive tasks of book writing where a single focused task consumes hours and hours of your day for months on end (ahhhh!!!!), the multiple directions and endless tasks of marketing can be crazy-making.

Still, releasing a book independently takes significant pressure off when it comes to marketing, and I found that to be true when I released Flee, Be Silent, Pray as an indie title. Sure, you have to do all of the work yourself, but in my mind I’m just replacing a bunch of emails following up with the marketing team, giving feedback, or confirming a task has been completed with actually “doing” that task. There are no schedules other than my own and no one to depend on other than myself, and that can be really freeing.

So why would I willingly inflict another round of marketing on myself for a book that had a rather successful release as an independent title?

As the book’s revised and expanded version release date nears on February 12, I thought I’d invite you into the the decision to go from independent to commercial with Flee, Be Silent, Pray:

* * * * *

Last Spring I brought a few copies of my independent book Flee, Be Silent, Pray to the Festival of Faith and Writing with the hope that I would be able to hand them out to podcast hosts or readers who would share the book a bit more widely.

Since I was picking up all of the costs of the project, I didn’t have grand plans.

It turned out that I met an editor who wanted to look it over. On the last day of the festival, a snow storm blew into town and stranded quite a few attendees, including that editor and a friend of mine who had enjoyed my book and even endorsed it.

When she asked him for recommendations for authors to work with, he included my name among those he shared: “Flee, Be Silent, Pray could use a good edit… and a new cover.”

(No arguments from me on either of those points!)

Soon the editor emailed me with ideas for revisions and re-releasing the book, provided I signed on with her publishing company.

This was the last thing I had imagined for this book. I wrote it when I had given up on commercial publishing and vowed to just share authentically from my own story and to sell it cheap as an eBook so that it reached as many people as possible.

That changed with this editor’s email. I finally had a chance to make the book what I had imagined it could be, and I hoped that this would be worth the risk of a higher price with a publisher. Shortly after signing the documents, we scrambled to clean up and improve the book. Here are some of the ways we revised and expanded the book:

Include More Diverse Authors

For the first edition, I spent the first 30-60 minutes of every work day chipping away at Flee, Be Silent, Pray, and most evenings I read as much as I could about contemplative prayer in order to double check on my use of terms and practices, as well as to fill in any gaps in my knowledge.

The book was structured around Henri Nouwen’s The Way of the Heart, using his “flee, be silent, pray always” structure for the core of the book, and Catholic writers such as Brennan Manning, Thomas Merton, and Richard Rohr played key roles early in my embrace of contemplation and in shaping that first edition. However, there are plenty of other authors, both contemporary and historical, that I didn’t have the time to adequately include. Given a few more months, I was able to expand each chapter without significantly changing the message.

I’m especially grateful to include some of the letters between Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day, as they offer a helpful connection between contemplation and activism, as well as some details about the role of prayer in the Civil Rights movement.

Next Steps with Spiritual Practices

To my mind, each chapter is filled to the brim with practical ideas and spiritual practices that any reader can put to good use. However, with a shove from my editor, I distilled a simple next step into the end of each chapter.

Some next steps simply spell out how to begin with a spiritual practice, while other chapters have a more guided experience. These are all practices that I use daily, and distilling them in this manner will hopefully offer readers more opportunities to adopt them as well.

Better Clarity and Organization

Modest as my plans were, I felt that I had gotten the book to about 80% of what it could be. I didn’t have the money for a professional editor and limped along with the best that reader feedback and bartering for help could get me.

The revised and expanded book still follows the same organization and chapter structure, but the challenge had always been that the ideas in each chapter have quite a bit of overlap, especially the “flee (solitude), be silent (silence), pray (centering prayer)” chapters. Solitude and silence naturally go together, and centering prayer is ideally done in a quiet spot… in solitude. An editor’s watchful eye helped me make better sense of how to structure the book without having to delete anything significant.

The thought of cleaning up the book appealed to me, and then I also considered that I could spend more time on the conclusion.

Write a Better Conclusion

As the publication date loomed for the independent version, I was simply running out of time and struggled to find the right words to help my readers take their next step.

In the following year, I knew how I wanted to end the book, but I lacked the time to make that a reality. Working with an editor finally offered the time and direction needed to polish the ending.

An Improved Book and A Small Press

Working with Herald Press resulted in a book that met my friend’s criteria: a good edit and a new cover. The final book is beautifully designed, and while I’m certain that the eBook version looks better than my own design, I can guarantee you that the print version has a significantly better design.

The price naturally has gone up since the cheap eBook days of my independent version, but I hope that readers will consider the constraints that a small publishing house faces. They didn’t cut any corners when working on the edits, and I think the final version of the book reflects their diligence, from development editing to design to copyediting.

I believe most readers (hopefully!) will find that Flee, Be Silent, Pray is significantly improved and will be the kind of book they’ll want to invest in keeping around on their shelves, virtual or physical, for years to come. Here are some links to learn more ot to check it out:

Flee, Be Silent, Pray:
Ancient Prayers for Anxious Christians

On sale for $8.49 (Kindle)

Amazon | Herald Press | CBD

Evangelicals Need to Sit in a Room and Say Nothing for a Long Time

Posted on June 7, 2016February 11, 2019 by Ed Cyzewski

chair-prayer

I solve most of the world’s problems right before I go to bed. It’s true. Ask my wife. I have so many amazing ideas, and she gets to hear all of them right before she falls asleep.

I recently solved the central problem with my evangelical tribe.

You know us, we’re the people who claim to have the “good news” and then we basically spend a lot of time worrying about being damned to hell, praying enough, proving ourselves worthy of God, proving we hold “sound” doctrines, defending those sound doctrines from atheists and “liberals,” fearing the fiery destruction of the world, and jumping into the political fray as if the death of America is the same thing as the death of God.

Evangelicals are anxious. We are anxious people who need to sit in a room and say nothing for a long time.

We fill concert venues with blaring worship music and shout, “Come Lord, Come! Come! COME!!!!”

We study, study, study the Bible.

We serve and minister and volunteer.

And then? The crash. So many of us crash and burn with our anxious, hard-working faith. I gave myself to all of this. I’m an evangelical who studied, served, worked, and defended, and all I got was a lousy crisis of faith. Almost every evangelical I know has had a crisis of faith in their 20’s or 30’s. Those who haven’t had a crisis of faith yet are the ones who could really use it the most.

Sure, we trust that Jesus has saved us by faith and grace, not by our own merits. But then we expend SO MUCH energy working and worrying in order to prove that profession is true. We struggle with holy living. We wonder if the defenses for the Bible will be enough to shore up faltering faith. And most importantly, we lose our ever-loving minds because God feels so distant and silent.

So we study harder, we worship with even more passion than the trademarked PASSION events, and we plead and beg with God: “Please show up. Please tell me that you’re real. Please tell me that the years of guilt, shame, repression, and fear were worth something.” Something has to give.

Some snap out of that phase, and realize that the game is over. God isn’t real. How could he be? What God would want people to live with such fear, misery, and uncertainty?

Others harbor those doubts, fears, and illusions, but they stick with the practice of their religion. Jesus matters so much to them. They want the story to be true. They want to believe that God is somehow involved in the world, but they simply can’t figure out how to find that God. They settle for mystery, but end up living without any search for or experience of God.

There’s another option that takes the beliefs and, don’t miss this word, practices of historic Christianity seriously. In fact, the problem that plagues evangelicals today may best be described as a selective amnesia. We have fought tooth and nail to uphold the scriptures and doctrines that the early church passed on to us, but we couldn’t give a flying fig (that’s an evangelical swear word) about the practices of the early church.

There is a stream of Christianity that takes the foundational teachings of our faith seriously—so seriously that they are viewed as givens—without devoting our entire lives to defending them from skeptics. This is the contemplative stream that pre-dates the canon of scripture. This stream has been practiced in quiet and solitude, as well as in cities and small towns. It has driven some to serve actively and it has driven others deeper into the desert. Ironically, those who traveled the furthest into the desert were eagerly sought out by many from the cities. These desert contemplatives exercised tremendous influence and their words remain powerful, relevant, and formative until this day.

The contemplative stream of Christianity tells us to sit in a room by ourselves and to be quiet for a long time. It challenges evangelicals to consider how much we’ve become like the ecstatic prophets of Baal who shout and dance and make a tremendous scene before an unseen god while Elijah watches with quiet confidence.

Evangelicals, we have a lot of good things going for us, but underneath all of our media empires that promise to defend us from the big bad world, our universities that continue edging toward sheltered fundamentalism, our large churches packed with programs and offices (not with prayer chapels), and our deeply flawed hero-worship and business-influenced leadership culture, there is a deep need for the loving search for God. By and large, we are not known as people who love.

I know that “love” is my deepest struggle. How do we generate love for God? How do we love people?

If Jesus’ two most important commands are to love God and to love my neighbors, if Paul said everything he does is “shit” (that’s only a translation of a Greek swear word, so we’re cool) without love, and if the apostle John used love as the only measure that matters, then our disconnect from love has to be addressed.

So far as I can tell, I have found love so difficult because I have been cut off from the source of love. This brings us back to our quiet room where evangelicals need to sit and say nothing for a long time.

The contemplative stream echoes the Psalms that tell us to wait on the Lord, to wait in silence.

For being people who love the Bible, cherish the Bible, defend the Bible, and who attack people who don’t love, cherish, or defend the Bible as much as us, evangelicals do a pretty terrible job of actually believing what the Bible says about God’s love.

I know this first hand because the foundational teachings of contemplative prayer are two things that are both very true in the Bible and very hard for evangelicals to believe:

God is here.
God loves you.

Evangelicals could spend years digging up scripture verses to disprove the very two things that we have longed to know all of our lives. This is why we need to sit in a room all by ourselves and say nothing for a long time.

We need to make a space to become aware of God and of God’s love. This isn’t necessarily a space for epiphanies or visions or amazing spiritual encounters. In fact, the contemplatives warn us that desiring spiritual encounters or amazing visions could become quite dangerous, as they can be self-serving and manipulative toward God. We begin to crave validation and experience over choosing to rest in the truths that God is here and God loves us.

This is a far cry from the anxious, hard-working evangelical subculture. Evangelicals don’t have language for a dark night of the soul. We can only think of ways to shine “light” into a dark night of the soul. When we are given the option of silence before God, we are quick to quote scripture and to begin another freestyle, “Lord we just…” prayer.

We desperately need silence. We need to learn what it means to abide. We need to learn what it feels like to finally be still before God for a long time.

This is the path we walk by faith. This will take all of the faith that we can muster.

I have taken a long, winding path into contemplative practices. They were the only things I could hold onto when my evangelical faith crashed and burned. I spent years worrying that they didn’t work, that God wasn’t real, or that I had somehow alienated myself from God. I freaked out because nothing was happening. I have since learned that this is by and large the point.

People who abide and live by faith don’t need God to constantly poke them in order to prove that he’s real. It took years of learning to search for God before realizing that I’d already been found. I couldn’t make God any more present. I couldn’t plead with God to be with me more than he already is. I couldn’t say anything to make God love me more. I couldn’t add any spiritual practices that would change the way God loves me.

I am loved and you are loved right now. This is the deep, abiding mystery of our faith. This is a truth that can revolutionize our lives.

This love of God is so deep and unfathomably wonderful that the only appropriate response is to sit in a room and say nothing for a long, long time until we accept that God is here and God loves us.

Guest Post for Micha Boyett: How The Examen Empowers Us to Pray and Write

Posted on March 13, 2015March 12, 2015 by Ed Cyzewski

I’m guest posting at Micha Boyett’s blog this week to talk about prayer and writing, which is pretty much right in her wheelhouse. I met Micha back in 2012, and was totally blown away by the pitch for her (then) upcoming book Found (as of this moment, it’s $3 on Kindle!). If you haven’t read it yet, I think quite a few of us will really relate this book’s stories about her struggles to pray while parenting little ones. I’m honored to write at her blog about the Examen and how it has transformed both my prayer and writing:

When I try to pray, I often find that my anxious thoughts get in the way.

When I try to write, I often find that I can’t form a single thought.

It feels like feast or famine most days.

How can I face my thoughts for prayerful contemplation without getting swept up in anxiety and worst-case scenarios?

How can I hang on to a few thoughts that are worth exploring through writing before the blank page wins?

Thankfully I’ve found that one practice can help with both problems. The Examen, developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola, offers a lifeline to stressed out, over-thinkers like me, while coincidentally prompting writers to address what matters most.

Praying with the Examen

Ignatius believed the Examen was a gift given directly from God. After spending a significant time in prayer, he found that prayer could move forward best with this time of reflection and meditation.

The Examen is set apart from run of the mill self-reflection right from the start by its first step: Awareness of God’s Presence. We don’t face the most challenging parts of our lives alone. God is with us as we begin the Examen, and as we move forward into it, that awareness will only grow. In fact, the Examen encourages us to invite God into our days and our times of reflection.

The genius of the Examen is the way it stops the roller coaster of worry and distraction when I begin praying, while still offering a path forward. It provides an orderly, prayerful direction to my thoughts so that I can honestly face what I’m truly thinking without feeling restrained.

Read the Rest at Micha Boyett’s Blog.