Prayer – The Kingdom of Enough

Lent in 2025

Once a year, midwinter, a question starts percolating in my mind: what should I give up for Lent? These days I also wonder how to steady myself as a citizen witness in a time of chaos and discord when men in power willfully inflict suffering. On Ash Wednesday my answer boiled down to resistance. Instead of fasting from candy or alcohol, I stopped shopping at Amazon and withdrew from Facebook and Instagram.

Will my individual action make a difference? Honestly, no. Boycotting companies owned by oligarchs can’t be effective unless some critical mass of consumers join in and sustain the embargo for as long as it might take – like the bus boycott or the UFW grape boycott. And would scaling up be a fair ask? Lots of people rely on Meta platforms to promote their businesses, and online shopping is a lifeline for the homebound — not to mention all the employees who depend on these companies for an income. Lent has made me realize how lucky I am. Shopping local and taking a break from social media for forty days haven’t turned out to be much of a sacrifice.

The forty days before Easter are not just about giving something up though. Fasting is meant to be joined with prayer and almsgiving, an intertwining of traditional practices that braid action and contemplation. This Lent has brought me new prayers: a friend taught me to chant the Mangala mantra, which includes the plea, May the leaders of the earth protect in every way by keeping to the right path,* and Abbey of the Arts introduced me to earth psalms. Meanwhile, an old prayer has become more heartfelt: deliver us from evil. To whom shall I give alms? I have only to pose the question for answers to come. Last week I got an email from Second Harvest Food Bank asking for help as they try to “overcome the challenges created by recent shifts in U.S. policy, including federal funding freezes that have disrupted our food supply.”

With its threefold practice of fasting, prayer and almsgiving Lent has given me hints for how to be a good citizen. The personal is political, and, as it turns out, the spiritual is too.

* Translation from Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, Yoga Shala Nashville. I’ve also heard this translated May the citizens, lawmakers, and rulers walk the right path.

Look As Though with Your Arms Open

I sometimes wonder about Saint Paul’s admonition in his letter to the Thessalonians to pray without ceasing. Did he mean this literally? Surely not. Maybe he thought that by setting a ridiculously high standard, he was giving his readers a worthy if unattainable goal to aspire to, one that in real life only monastics can come close to. Or perhaps those early Christians who believed the end of the world was nigh could detach enough from the cares of daily life to devote every waking moment to prayer, but for me, caught up in all the demands of 21st-century life, it seems impossible. I feel impressed with myself when I find twenty minutes a day to meditate.

One foggy summer morning while on retreat at New Camaldoli in Big Sur, I took a walk as usual on the road that winds steeply down from the mountaintop monastery to Highway 1. This question of how to pray unceasingly lingered in the back of my mind as the mist and morning sun teased and flirted with each other up and down the mountainside. Along the way is a magnificent oak tree bearing a plaque with a verse from Psalm 34:

Here I was startled into stopping. A spider web hung between the oak’s branches, each silk festoon precisely limned with delicate droplets, and sunbeams pouring through the canopy above lit them up like jewels in a tapestry. This same glow highlighted each mote of mist wafting around the tree, and I stood transfixed, watching until the fog completely dissipated. With my mind empty of thought and my heart full of gratitude, an answer to my question came to me.

In her poem “Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End?” Mary Oliver explains how she reaches for things, like the idea of God, that cannot be reached:

I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.

Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around

As though with your arms open.

In my moment of wordless wonder that foggy summer morning, it was as if I were embracing the scene with open arms, and I realized suddenly, this was prayer. My attention was my praise.

I wish I could say that ever since I’ve been a model of mindfulness, but no, I’m still working on this not-so-secret trick to blessing the Lord at all times, still aspiring to pay constant attention. As always, I’m grateful for Mary Oliver as a role model. Like her, may I morning to night never be done with looking as though with my arms wide open.