Forgetting to Remember God

I forget to remember god several times a day, do you?  It’s like I just can’t seem to hold god in my mind for any length of time.  No matter what my intention, however earnest, one minute I have this conscious awareness of god’s presence, and 30 seconds later I’ve lost it- again.  The thing is, it is kind of like the same experience as sitting meditation, in that, you don’t realize your mind has drifted off until you catch yourself- sometimes seconds later, sometimes minutes later, sometimes more.

Some of you who read this blog know already that I am a psychotherapist by day, and I am currently working with a patient who has this same difficulty, except it is me she cannot hold in her mind/heart, and I feel for her.  At this phase of her treatment she still gets so lost in relationship with me, and has to  repeatedly ask with anxious worry, “are you still here with me?” I truly get how hard it is to want to be able to maintain an internal representation of something safe, compassionate, loving and meaningful when the mind/heart just does not seem to be cooperating.  From a psychological perspective, some might call this Object Relations Theory.

In Trappist monk Thomas Merton's Seeds of Contemplation this ability to hold god's presence is a virtuous flexibility.  He says:

"The best thing beginners in the spiritual life can do, after they have really acquired the discipline of mind that enables them to concentrate on a spiritual subject and get below the surface of its meaning and incorporate it into their own lives, is to acquire the agility and freedom of mind that will help them to find light and warmth and ideas and love for God everywhere they go and in all that they do. People who only know how to think about God during certain fixed periods of the day will never get very far in the spiritual life. In fact they will not even think of Him in the moments they have religiously marked off for ‘mental prayer.”

I remember the first time I was really conscious of this habit of forgetting to remember god.  It was in 2013 when I was pregnant with my daughter.  By that time I had, for the first time in my life, a consciousness of my relationship with god, and for that reason it felt important to me that I remember to remember god during the birth of my daughter; if only I had had that awareness for the birth of my son 5 years earlier…

But to do this, to remember god, I felt I would need external help to have the experience of noticing god’s presence during a moment of profound difficulty and physical pain.  So I emailed the minister of the Unitarian Universalist church I had been attending periodically and asked for a meeting to talk over some of these things together.

Then, on one rainy evening in October, we did.  I asked Reverend Jan: “How can I remember to remember god during the throes of childbirth? Because I have a feeling I am going to forget again, and I don’t want to because I could really use god’s presence during that moment.  My first childbirth experience was really painful and difficult, and I’m scared.  It would help so much if I could feel god’s presence to coach me through the second time.”

The minister, god bless her, responded with compassion and kindness.  She said to me that we all forget to remember god, all us imperfect humans with all our unfinished parts.  That is why multiple religions and philosophers and writers and poets and theologians and prophets and ordinary men, women, and children have come up with all kinds of spiritual practices to bring our consciousness back to god again and again and again.  Within a minute. Within an hour. Within a week. Within a year. Within a lifetime.

Since that October evening, I have thought about my spiritual practices differently. I think of it like a meditation practice.  The fruits of the meditation practice are not the 20 minutes of sitting.  The benefits come in the ripple throughout the day.  Like a pebble thrown into the middle of a pond that causes ripples all the way to the shoreline.  In other words, if I regularly engage in spiritual practices each morning, afternoon and/or evening where I consciously open myself up to god’s company, then I manifest the possibility for a warm, loving presence throughout the rest of my day.

What might some of those spiritual practices be where you show up in person to your relationship with god? Here’s a list of some of mine to name a few…

     Reading about god through spiritual memoir

     Reading about god through poetry

     Talking to god on my walk from my parking lot at work to the building where my office is

     Sitting meditation

     Yoga

     Lighting a candle to invite god’s presence into the room I’m in at the time

     Praying to god

     Taking a large or small pilgrimage

     Going to church to sit in a pew

     Going to church to listen to a sermon

     Standing or sitting in front of some body of water (river, lake, ocean, stream)

     Walking in a forest

     Reading the works of formal and informal theologians

I know there is nothing here that is rocket science.  It is all about concentrated intention though.  And  I think the heavy lifting comes in with the necessary discipline.

For me, in the last two days I’ve been going back to poetry.  Yesterday was a little Oliver.  This morning was little Rilke.  Here’s one that I’ve loved for some time… “Go to the limits of your longing”

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,

then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,

go to the limits of your longing.

Embody me.

Flare up like a flame

and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.

You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

So what is the take away message of all this? To me, it is to embrace the forgetting.  Forgetting to remember god is just what we humans do; like the mind generating thoughts during meditation, which is just what minds do.   And god does not judge this. God is not shaking her head in disappointment.  God is smiling at us when we unnecessarily burden ourselves with worry about such human traits and biology, and she kindly says “of course you forget me. Of course.  That’s just what you do.  It is not a problem for me, I just wish it did not cause you so much suffering.” So she humors us while we concrete and literal ones light our candles. Go to the ocean. Sit in the pews. “Okay she says, if that’s what you need to do to remember me. Whatever works for you, I’m still here.”

I will end here by including the email I sent the UU minister after I had my daughter, exactly one month after that rainy October evening when we had met in her office of the church.  It was a first for me.  How do you remember to remember god?

Dear Rev Jan,

It is 2:34 am. I am at the hospital. I wanted to send you a note to tell you that I finally remembered to remember god.

My daughter Grace was born 11/24/13 at 3:28 am by storm, not by calm sea.  And you were right.  It was sacred.  36 weeks just, and all not ready to go.  She did and does very well.  5 lbs. 12 oz and a strong hearty soul I can tell. I had more complication, or my body did. But after now 5 days here I just got transferred to the lowest level of care and I feel more clear than I had through the many tests and procedures.

And as I lay here, with my 4 year old sleeping soundly at his grandparents, my 4 day old sleeping soundly in the nursery, and my husband sleeping soundly in the chair-bed in the room, I know everything will be ok.  God is with us and with me.  I don't know what will happen next.  But for now, that is ok.

This probably seems strange or weird, but i wanted to say thank you.

Blessings to you.