In my youth, I remember a night when I was coming home from a friend’s house. It was late and my senses were weak. About halfway home this song came on the radio and the lyrics that I heard from this song saved my life. They were “keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel”. When I heard this, I followed the instructions. It was difficult because I was tired, but I knew it was the right thing I needed to do to get home. Within seconds of this decision, a car just ahead of me began to spin across the road. Thankfully, I was ready, I was safely able to move around it. Those instructions I followed saved my life.
I’m sharing
this story because you will find in it the Byzantine spiritual tradition called
Watchfulness (Nepsis). Watchfulness is like driving a car. When you drive you
need to keep your body in the right place and your mind attentive to your driving.
If there is any lack in these 2 things your driving will not be efficient and possibly
dangerous. For instance, have you ever started thinking deeply about something
while driving? Sometimes miles will go by, and then you wonder how you got to
where you were. It was as if you were on autopilot. This is not efficient for
driving and sometimes it can be dangerous. This is also, as I will share,
something that happens in prayer, something that the tradition of Watchfulness addresses.
It’s important
to keep in mind that this tradition of Watchfulness truly is like driving. Like
driving, it involves the body and the mind. The vehicle for this driving is the
experience of Jesus Christ. This driving can be expressed in various ways. In
trying to keep this simple, I’m going to focus on one expression which is the tradition
of saying the Jesus Prayer. The prayer is normally said in repetition with a breathing
exercise. Normally, it’s taught that you breathe in as you are saying the first
part of the prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, son of God) and exhale during the last part
(Have mercy on me a sinner). In this instance,
the prayer is the car, the repetition is the work of the mind, and the
breathing is the activity of the body. Keep in mind there is a harmony in these
things. When we drive, we don’t split ourselves up. Driving is one activity. It involves the
vehicle, mind, and the body. Likewise, this is the case with Watchfulness and I’m
now going to give some brief details on that.
I want to
start these details by speaking about the mind. In doing this, I want to go
back to the example that I gave about going on autopilot when driving. Sometimes
when we pray we go on autopilot. This is not a good thing. The goal in Watchfulness
as it is in driving is keeping the mind on the task at hand. In this case, thoughts,
good or bad, are not to be engaged. I want to emphasize it's not wrong to think.
What’s wrong is how or how much we think. In driving we should be thinking about how we
are going to drive around the next corner and that’s it. We should not be
thinking about let’s say what we are going to have for dinner. When it comes to
the mind with the Jesus Prayer the words in that prayer should be the only things
we are thinking.
Now when it
comes to the body this is sometimes a strange subject for people. It’s strange because
we are not used to the idea that our bodies are made to experience God. As a
result, we don’t think of our bodies in spiritual terms or believe that like
the mind the body prays too. Just as it is with driving, how we use the body is
essential for prayer. The goal in Watchfulness is keeping the body geared
toward that vehicle of Christ. You literally keep that “hand upon the wheel” as
with the lyric from that song. You will find that this can be done in various
ways. In the example that I have been using the breathing exercise was the way
to do that.
Going back to my original story. I was saved from a car accident by following the instructions that I heard from that song. Salvation is the goal of Watchfulness and what I’m sharing with you are simplified instructions given to us by the fathers of the Church. These fathers have shown us in numerous ways how we can at this very moment participate in the mystery of salvation, how we can experience God. God wants to be experienced in everything that we are, and he doesn’t want to wait until the Last Judgment. God wants to be experienced right now! Remember, this experience of God is not meant to be complicated it can be as easy as driving a car.
Here is the youtube video of this topic: (click)
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