In Atlanta spring has sprung; and it’s showing off. Blooms, birdsong, and thick yellow clouds of pollen. The cherry tree in my yard went from a few pink blossoms to a tree-full overnight. But last week just an hour north, I found everything locked in wintry sleep… until I kayaked to the back of a quiet cove. There, in muddy, shallow waters, I discovered hundreds of tiny tadpoles. My eyes widened. I smiled. Floating atop the earliest edge of spring made me happy and woke me up.
If I’m being honest, sometimes prayer (in other words, my connection with God) feels like it’s drifted into long wintry sleep. And I need help feeling the closeness that gives me energy and an inward smile. This is where a guide can really help.
St Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) has been a good guide for me. I’ve learned from him that the first critical step in connecting with God is simply receiving God’s loving gaze. It’s often not a new strategy or resource I need, but a reminder that the setting for prayer matters, and that setting is Love. So I begin again by intentionally returning to Love. It’s a form of repentance, this turning back to Love. I’m not the one who begins this. God begins… with a gentle, soothing whisper to repent, turn around, return to Love.
This prayer tucked within prayer is a real treasure. Ignatius calls it “the prayer before the prayer.” Others have called it “Beholding God Beholding You.” It’s easy to miss, easy to overlook. But according to Ignatius and countless others, it’s most important. Without it, I too easily get caught up in the critical voices around and within me – a cold, barren setting that is anything but love.
“Beholding God beholding You” is a way of consciously coming into awareness of God’s presence with us in the present moment. That can feel abstract and out of reach. So I rush it, go through the motions, or bypass it altogether and the prayer fades instead of deepens.
Rob Marsh, a Jesuit priest, has written about this crucial beginning place in prayer,
“… even when I’m trying to listen to God, even when I’m sincerely asking for an answer to some deep question, I tend to ask and then go straight on to mulling over several possible answers, rather than asking God and waiting for an answer. I wonder what God ought to see or feel or believe rather than discover what God actually sees, feels, believes. I am concerned with what God would say rather than what God does say. The prayer of beholding is very simply inviting us to let God be really real. We do not begin our prayer alone as individuals. We begin with someone else looking at us. When I pause to consider God looking at me, who do I find looking back? Not in general. Not in principle or the abstract – but here and now and specifically. I cannot know how God is looking at me without looking at God. Prayer becomes real conversation, friend to friend, rather than hesitant monologue. God is not content to be a distant observer in our prayers. This God can be encountered, known. This God feels, acts, interacts.”
(R. R. Marsh, 2004, Looking At God Looking At You, The Way, p. 18-19)
That stirs me. And, I have been baffled by it. How do I behold an invisible God beholding me? It’s both desirable and elusive. And I’ve found myself striving, frustrated, and confused. So I kept asking God to teach me how and help me. One of the ways God made this real to me wasn’t as much in formal spaces of prayer, as it was during the course of ordinary, daily life.
My recent months have been full of time in the NICU with my daughter-in-law, a brand-new mom, and her brand-new twin daughters. During one of our days there she shared about a conversation with my son, when she incredulously asked him, “Do you think our parents love us this much? Because I can’t imagine! I never knew you could love this much. I didn’t know this existed.” And I got to be a witness of this newly awakened love.
Only two people are allowed at a time in the NICU. I was in the room with the girls the first time we saw one of them open their eyes. And I took a picture that I later shared with my son in the waiting area. He was mesmerized by it. Kept leaning in closer, saying “Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.” Simply seeing her eyes for the first time through a lousy picture on a cell phone camera. It wasn’t that she could see clearly or think about what she was seeing. I’m guessing it was simply that she opened her eyes, and that by opening her eyes she allowed herself to be a little more seen.
I think God is moved when I open my eyes, when I seek to see God in my midst, and when I’m willing to open myself a little bit more to being seen. Sometimes this looks like honestly sharing my struggles to pray and feelings of disconnect rather than trying to pray ‘right’ or avoiding prayer altogether.
We made a Spotify playlist for the girls. I was sitting behind my daughter-in-law in the NICU as she held one of the girls and whisper sang a John Denver song to her.
“You fill up my senses
Like a night in a forest
Like the mountains in springtime
Like a walk in the rain
Like a storm in the desert
Like a sleepy blue ocean
You fill up my senses
Come fill me again”
In these thin moments, I was beholding someone behold the object of their love. And in my heart, over and over again, I heard God whispering, “It’s like this for me. Yes… it’s like this for me.”
I came across helpful insight from Andy Otto, an Ignatian spiritual director:
“Imagine God gazing down on you and ask yourself how He feels. So often in our attempts to find God’s presence around us, we fail to realize that God is seeking us… Instead of trying to feel God’s presence, let God feel your presence. Imagine what it might look like from God’s perspective as God brings you into His mind, feels your presence, and gains awareness of what you are feeling. Let this loving gaze reveal to you God’s desire to be with you, that your feelings matter, and that God not only wants to know about your day but wants to experience it with you.”
(Andy Otto, Ignatianspirituality.com)
This invited me to shift from willfully trying to access some external sense of “God”, to willingly opening whatever is going on inside of me, to a God of deep love, who is close and watchful. Instead of trying to see God out there somewhere, I’m dropping my guard, my masks and cover-ups (that often come in the form of busy-ness and intellect) and allowing God to see the real me. How does God see me? What does God see in me, today?
I read this, then practiced it. I was looking at Psalm 23, words very familiar to me, (“The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.”) when internally something opened. Instead of screwing my eyes and stiffening my shoulders to will myself not to want. My heart simply opened, and my mouth just said the truth inside of me, “I want. I want. I want.” I named what I wanted – the green pastures, still waters, and right paths of my circumstances. Then out of the blue, a picture popped in my head of me with my dog, Ron. He had been terminally ill for 7 long weeks, during which I spent a lot of time sitting beside him, rubbing his head saying, “It’s OK. It’s OK. I know.” And somehow my words became God’s words back to me, gentle and soothing “I know. I know. It’s OK to want.” I exhaled – a deep soul exhale. I felt seen and I felt safe. I felt my way back home to the setting of God’s love.
I can’t manufacture these moments of beholding God beholding me – but as I ask God and seek His help, they sometimes come – often surprising me, and usually as I’m reflecting back on my day.
Another way God is helping me with this prayer is by becoming more aware of when I get caught up in beholding how someone else beholds me, instead of how God beholds me. When I see myself through someone else’s (or my own) critical, judge-y eyes, I begin to doubt myself. I waver. I lose the solid feel of a foundation of love under my feet.
When I’m intentional to practice this prayer of beholding… (well, let me back up) when I’m intentional to ask God to help me practice this prayer and then reflect on my days and the voices I’m listening to… when I do this, my connection with God feels more alive, more hopeful – and I feel more at peace. Sometimes that’s as far as prayer gets for me, returning home to Love. Other times these daily moments are what I draw on to begin a more in-depth time of prayer. They become my starting place for longer conversations.
I find a shift occurring in me: from willfully trying to willingly showing up, to open my eyes to see and my ears to hear… not just my head to think. Because God wants to fill up ALL my senses.
I’m still practicing. Still and always a beginner. So I’ll close by returning to a beginning moment. I want you to remember this, to store it in a special place inside, a place you can return to as you begin to pray.
A good father is moved beyond words
when his child,
who really can’t see yet,
opens her eyes –
seeking to see,
allowing herself to be seen.
May we return, to become children again.
God, give us grace to see, to behold You beholding us.
Give us grace to return to Love.
Amen.
For Reflection
Some questions to go deeper:
1. Does your connection with God feel fresh, alive, becoming more? Or more like the dormancy of winter?
2. If you close your eyes and get quiet, what do you sense God sees, says, feels when he looks at you? Holding whatever surfaces, consider this: Would a God of Love see, say, or feel that way?
3. You may wish to spend time with the image of child opening her eyes for the first time. What catches your attention? What is happening within, below, and beyond the image? What does this remind you of? Where do you sense deeper meaning? Longing? Invitation? How might this picture mirror the work God is doing in you?
4. Read through these statements – expressions of God’s Love. What draws you? What repels you? What feels furthest away? Could you take the risk of being really honest with God about how these make you feel?
- God created me in love and that love never ends. God loves the ‘child me’ and all the stages of ‘growing me’ exactly the same, all the way, my whole life long.
- God’s knowing me deeply in no ways keeps God from loving me. In fact, it accentuates it. Because it can form fit around the unique shape of me, including what I try to hide about myself. God want to love me here and here … and even here.
- Jesus desires to speak peace and love into my life, particularly in the tormented spaces. They have been dark and stormy and in pain long enough. I can open myself right here to receive love and peace. Love and peace are always grace. I’ve never earned or deserved it. Even in what I might think of as my “best” season of life.
(Statements adapted from “Beloved: A Journey of Prayer”, by Dale Gish)