Hello,
My friends.
This is Mark Gladman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighborhood monkey and dogs.
Welcome back to our second last session in our 12-part series,
Abiding in Colossians,
Where we're considering what it means to abide and ways to abide,
As we use the lens of Paul's letter to the Colossians to see the way.
We've traveled a long way to this point,
From the very beginning where we noticed what was already growing through steadiness and endurance,
Seeing reality held together from within,
Trusting reconciliation deeper than fragmentation,
Recognizing that presence isn't distant but within us.
Through the rootedness of being stable rather than urgent,
Through discernment,
Attention and relational awareness,
Into the ordinary rhythms of our daily life.
And now as we continue into the last section of this letter,
We come to a very profound instruction.
When I read from the passage in a moment,
You'll hear Paul say,
Devote yourselves to prayer,
Being watchful and thankful.
It's a simple sentence,
But friends,
It holds a remarkable depth.
And so as we come to sit before these words together,
We open our minds,
We open our hearts,
We open our hands,
And we open our ears.
To hear,
To think,
To receive,
And to offer ourselves,
To walk in these ways as the Spirit whispers to us.
Through the words of Paul,
In Colossians chapter 4,
Verses 2 through 4,
Paul writes,
Devote yourselves to prayer,
Keeping alert in it with thanksgiving.
At the same time,
Pray for us as well that God will open to us a door for the Word,
That we may declare the mystery of Christ,
For which I am in prison,
So that I may reveal it clearly as I should.
Now,
Many of us hear that word prayer,
And we immediately shift our thinking to what is probably more like an activity.
On our knees or hands open or whatever posture you use,
There's words spoken,
Requests offered,
Thoughts and praises directed towards God.
We think of prayer as something we do,
Which makes it measurable and visible.
But here,
There's a slight shift in emphasis.
It's deeper,
Deeper into the nature of prayer.
Because this prayer isn't about devotion,
But about watchfulness.
And that word watchful is contemplatively rich.
It suggests alertness,
Awareness,
Wakefulness.
It's the kind of attentiveness that remains present even when nothing dramatic is happening.
Think of what it means to keep watch.
The person keeping watch doesn't make things happen.
They don't control the night.
There's no outcome that they have to try and create.
All they do is remain awake and attentive and present.
And remain aware of what's unfolding as the night goes on.
And that's the kind of posture that this passage is talking about.
A steady awareness,
A gentle attentiveness.
And maybe this is where prayer becomes something that's a bit broader than we imagined.
This is prayer that's not limited to words.
It's not confined to the moments when we decide we're going to stop and kneel or when the church bell goes or what have you.
This is prayer as a posture of life.
A way of remaining aware,
Moment by moment,
Of what's happening within us and around us.
Because after all these days of reflection,
I wonder if you've recognized that abiding can't be sustained by effort.
But rather it's sustained by attentiveness,
By wakefulness,
By returning again and again to presence.
Repeatedly.
It's interesting that Paul pairs watchfulness with gratitude.
Again,
That familiar movement.
Gratitude,
Not because we're obliged to be grateful,
But gratitude that comes from awareness that life itself is a gift.
And that presence continues even when we don't notice it.
That attention reveals what distractions often hide and maybe this pairing matters.
Because watchfulness without gratitude becomes exhaustion.
It can feel like vigilance,
Like regarding against danger.
But watchfulness with gratitude feels different.
It feels like expectancy,
Like readiness,
Like openness to what's already unfolding.
Readiness,
Attentiveness.
And this kind of awareness becomes especially important in our distraction-filled modern world.
Where all the noise,
Information,
Messages and thoughts multiply and surround us and interrupt us constantly.
And because of that,
It's easy to drift into sleep.
Not a sleep where we fall asleep physically,
But one in which our awareness switches off.
And we move through life just automatically.
We respond without noticing.
We react without reflecting.
And slowly over time,
Presence fades from our awareness.
Not because presence disappears and goes somewhere,
But because our attention shifts somewhere else.
And what watchfulness does is restore our attention.
It wakes us gently through small acts of returning attention when it drifts away or when distraction pulls us away.
And this is what sustained prayer begins to look like.
Not words,
But awareness.
Not performance,
But presence.
And maybe this is why this short instruction feels like the culmination of everything that we've been talking about and practicing to this point.
Because we began by noticing growth.
And now we remain watchful over that growth.
We learned what it meant to be rooted and grounded.
And now we remain attentive to what nourishes the roots.
We learned discernment.
And now we stay awake to what truly matters.
Watchfulness really does become the thread that holds everything together.
That quiet continuity of attention.
Steady,
Gentle,
Awake.
And so today,
I really hope you enjoy the invitation that I've gleaned from Paul here.
Because it's an invitation to prayer,
But not to pray more words.
And not to pray more generally.
You know,
More times through the day or get up earlier or anything like that.
But in your prayer,
To be watchful.
And this is a prayer that's not stuck to any one point in the day then.
Because we don't have to have a special moment in time to notice when our awareness has drifted.
To see where our attention narrows and we get distracted.
And what we do when we notice those things is,
You guessed it,
We simply return.
And we remain awake.
And you might imagine yourself standing watch,
But not because you know there's imminent danger.
But just watching to be aware of what's going on around you.
Standing guard at the doorway of attention.
Again,
Not rejecting our thoughts.
But noticing what enters.
And noticing what passes.
Remaining present and awake.
And you might ask yourself the question,
What changes when I live as someone who's awake to presence?
Someone who's awake to watching and noticing and remaining aware.
Because prayer in its deepest sense isn't speaking as much as it is attending.
Asking yes,
But also noticing.
Seeking yes,
But remaining awake to what's already here.
The story goes that a journalist once asked Mother Teresa if she prayed.
She responded by saying,
I'm a nun,
Of course I pray.
And the journalist asked her,
Well,
When you pray,
What do you say?
And she said,
Usually not much.
Usually,
I just listen.
The journalist,
Quite interested then,
Said,
Well,
When you listen,
What does God say?
And Mother Teresa replied,
Oh,
Not much.
Usually God just listens.
You see what's happening there?
Watchfulness.
Gratitude.
Presence.
Being awake.
Abiding.
And may grace,
Peace and love be with you as you abide in God and God abides in you today and every day.
Amen.
Until tomorrow,
Peace be with you.
