barefoot prayer

When was the last time you deliberately went barefoot outside? Can you remember how it felt? I often stand outside in bare feet to do my version of ‘tai chi’ in the morning. It connects me to the earth, but it also connects me to myself somehow.  A poem by Ian Adams talks about being barefoot as ‘the shedding of more than shoes, the softening of more than tread.’

Wednesday was the day when the church remembers a feisty Spanish saint called Teresa. Teresa lived in Avila, a city near Madrid, about 500 years ago. She was a mystic who at times entered into a deep union with God through her practice of prayer. But she was also a dynamic forceful woman who reformed the religious community which she belonged to. She was attacked for it and was made to ‘retire’ for a while. Maybe that is why she wrote the words in her prayer book that our music was based on:

Let nothing disturb you. 
Let nothing make you afraid.
All things are passing. 
God alone never changes.
Patience gains all things. 
If you have God you will want for nothing.
God alone suffices.

Psalm 62 says something similar:

On God alone my soul in stillness waits; 
from him comes my salvation. 
He alone is my rock and my salvation, 
my stronghold so that I shall never be shaken. 

Teresa understood that for our inner life to flourish, we need to pay attention to our outer life. She wanted her Carmelite sisters to live simpler lives and be less involved with worldly visitors, so they could focus on prayer. One of her reforms was that they go barefoot. I wonder if their connection to the earth beneath them made a difference to their life of prayer.

Teresa also understood that if we root ourselves deeply in God in our inner life, then that will make a difference to our outer life. There are some words which are often attributed to St Teresa, which says something about the way that our inner life and our outer life are connected.

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

Making time for our soul to wait in stillness on God may help us respond to the invitation of Jesus to be his body, his hands, his feet, looking out with his compassion on the world, bringing blessing to others.

As you bring all this into prayer you are invited to open yourself to the presence of Jesus,  asking him to connect with you more deeply in both your inner and your outer life.

Begin by being aware of your body.

Notice the way you are sitting...
your weight pressing down on the chair and the floor.

Notice where you feel any tension... 
your shoulders, your neck, your face. 

Pat attention to your breathing - connecting your whole being, body and soul.

Remembering the invitation to be Christ’s body, be especially aware of your hands, your feet, your eyes… 

We give thanks for these bodies of ours, 
and offer them to be God’s own, for the world.

Now focus on your inner life.

Amongst the external sounds and feelings 
and the busyness of your mind, 
settle into the stillness.

Be aware of connecting with your soul, 
and with God here with you, 
God here within you… 

Rest in this awareness.

Lord Jesus, 
may we become more and more deeply rooted in your life, 
so that you may live and love more and more fully through our life.