A Prayer for Cullen

Even in a family crisis, I had trouble quieting my mind enough to listen for God

- MARY HIX

My niece's two-year-old son, Cullen, had recently been diagnosed with cancer. AlI though I was sending up prayers for him left and right, I felt no assurance that God was even listening to me let alone responding. With each prayer, I grew more anxious.

Even in my spiritual director's cozy living room, my mind couldn't settle, zigging and zagging every which way. I met with Martha once a month to help me sort out what God was saying to me in the everyday events of my life.

"I can't seem to pray with any intensity or consistency," I told her.

Martha looked at me through her bold, red-framed glasses. "Maybe you're trying too hard," she said.

Trying too hard? Didn't the Bible say to pray without ceasing? I'd been meeting with Martha for several years now. I had been feeling spiritually adrift after moving from Florida to North Carolina. Martha wasn't so much a director giving me answers as a companion on my faith journey, one on which I often felt I was going in circles like Winnie the Pooh.

Martha seemed to sense my confusion. "I feel God's presence most when I'm sitting in silence," she said, "not asking anything of him."

"Sit in silence?" I said. Impossible. "I can't even keep myself focused on urgent matters, like my niece's toddler, who just got diagnosed with cancer." Martha nodded. "We all struggle with monkey mind."

I couldn't help but laugh. What a perfect description for my thoughts, which screeched and jumped and swung wildly through the jungle of my mind when I tried to pray.

"Try it," Martha said. "There's more than one way to pray. You just need to find the practice that works best for you, Mary."