Prayer Journaling? Finding Words, Giving Voice
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by Carolyn Tanner Irish
"What we need is a prayer book with as many blank pages as printed ones; a book in which we may write things that are of personal weight and concern; in whichwe make or paste pictures or poems or fragments of letters; in which we note the questions we find we must face." (Alan Ecclestone, Yes to God)One of the college application essays my son had to tackle last fall was, "Why write? Why communicate?" It was a good question, though one I had never seriously asked myself. I have always loved words, language, thinking, writing, talking, and--appreciating others who do so as well--the general "why" of it seemed a bit rhetorical to me.
But the question does have interest in the context of contemplative practice. As I have begun to prepare for a short series of workshops on spiritual journaling in the coming year at Shalem, I do wonder what of spiritual significance might be at work in those of us drawn to "finding words and giving voice" in journaling. Shalem groups mostly encourage and protect silence, wordlessness, unknowing, though we usually offer a few moments for journaling as well, thus honoring the images and thoughts that may arise. But why? "Blank pages," yes, but why pages at all? What does journaling serve?
My deepest response to these questions comes simply from awareness and affirmation of the witness of all generations that spiritual life--the mysterious, life-giving interface of human spirit and Holy Spirit--quite naturally "has issue." We are not left unchanged, for it is in and through communion with God that spiritual community and communication are conceived, formed, birthed and nourished. Spiritual communion draws us together and to a variety of forms (including images) which may serve continuity and connectedness in our personal and common life with God.
Very simply, I find that the practice of journaling assists my desire and willingness to stay in direct, immediate communion with God. I know I don't always do so, but the journal reminds me that this is my best and deepest hope. Blank pages awaken my attention to what is real here and now, beyond and beneath all the coverings of pretense, illusion, egotism, fear, woundedness, unfaith and stinginess. Such pages--open, waiting, inviting--also remind me of my freedom for the possibility embedded in this moment. They challenge the dull comfort of automatic pilot, as though to say, "You are a person, alive on this planet earth; now look! listen! learn! live!"
Thus it is the engagement of prayer journaling, more than any particular issue or product of it, that is most helpful to me. Yet it, too, like so many other helpful means, has considerable potential for distorting our ongoing openness to God. It may take on a life of its own, for example, so that we become attached to our journals, enamored with our filled-up pages, hardly wanting to pray without them there to "overhear" us. Journals can become literary masterpieces, or at least the seed of a good sermon, letter or book, but this cannot be the primary intent of prayer journaling. Alternatively, the journal may demand our attention in such a way that we feel guilty if we haven't kept it up. Journaling is often part of a dedicated discipline, but all disciplines exist to serve, not to be served.
Realities and possibilities, burdens and attachments--all of these point to some of the struggles we face in journaling, as in life. But journaling is also about celebration. "Finding words and giving voice" are among the deeply joyful ways we are given to live out our vocation of "glorifying and enjoying God forever."
In the context of human and divine communion, "vocation" means what we hear of God's voice speaking to us through various mediating structures as well as directly. Vocation also names our response--in life, work, word, song. We find words and give voice in myriad ways because God's voice invites response.
There are familiar traces of ongoing struggle and celebration in the pages of my journal. Here I noted the questions I found I had to face and sometimes the few insights that came to me; there I tried to name and honor the Spirit at work in me--in my disillusionment, my liberation, my grief and my thanksgiving. Even with all the messiness and gaps--the missed days and weeks, the fragmented thoughts and irrelevancies--it remains a kind of witness to my life with-in-for God.
Who is it for? God knows. What does it serve? God knows. But Alan Ecclestone, an Anglican priest, seems to have a good guess:
...our business is not to invent a peculiar song of our own or make do with a hotch-potch of scraps got from others, but to discover our part in the song of the earth, the music of the spheres, the Lord's song, and the hymn of creation...and give it utterance. - (Yes to God)
© 2008 The Shalem Institute.