Turning Down the Noise

As best I can, I quietly get out of our creaky bed. I’m up before everyone else, already looking forward to my morning ritual. I tip-toe into our bathroom where there is the least chance of being disturbed by others as they wake up. 

I grab a drink of water, light a candle, and pull out the cushion from the closet. I open the window, letting in a slight breeze and the sounds of crickets, birds, and the neighborhood. Sometimes I leave it open, and sometimes I don’t. I grab the nearby blanket if it’s cool. 

I pull a book from a small library and settle down to read a few pages or re-read from the dog-eared, annotated pages. I read the daily meditation from The Center for Action and Contemplation and, on Sundays, the Word of the Week from Contemplative Outreach. Depending on the season, the reading may require the headlamp which is housed in the library. (“Library” might suggest a visual that doesn’t match the small section of shelf in my overcrowded little closet.) And I often re-read this version of the Welcoming Prayer to try and quiet down my constant, egoic pursuits of security, affection, and control. (Links to all these resources at the end.)

My meditation spot

And then I meditate for 20-30 minutes. That could just be listening to the morning through the window, paying attention to each sound - the different birds, the trees, the breeze, the jogger’s footsteps as they pass, the “urban ocean” waking up in the distance. 

Or it might be Centering Prayer, sometimes with noise-cancelling headphones on. 

Often it’s a guided meditation from my bookmarked favorites on the Plum Village app, Insight Timer, or Closer than Breath. Again, noise-cancelling headphones for the win.

All that is the morning ritual I’ve landed on this moment, fully appreciating that it will continue to evolve into other things too. Over the years, I’ve tried a range of things, propelled by each of those to the current ritual. 

For me, my morning ritual is one step toward more contemplative living, grounded in a deeply connecting love. 

Parker Palmer has written, “The function of contemplation in all its forms is to penetrate illusion and help us to touch reality.” And I love this from author Carmen Acevedo Butcher: 

One of the things that contemplation does for me is what Meister Eckhart calls Gelassenheit. It allows me to let go of my own stories. We all have these stories going through our minds … these different aspects of ourselves that are always having an inner conversation. When I practice contemplation, whether it’s walking down the street … or just returning to love, somehow, I’m letting go of my stories for the moment. There comes a quiet where I can hear again what Beatrice Bruteau calls that “radical optimism.” What I love about contemplation is that it’s kind of like that record scratch … where everything stops and you go, wait, what am I doing? Who am I? Why am I just participating in this blather inside … when I could sink into this real love that is who I am and who everyone is? 

That points to what has been important for me to recognize. My morning ritual and meditation, while providing a great moment in itself, is also preparing me, a tiny bit at a time, to take those habits of heart and awareness into a more contemplative, loving existence in the ordinary moments that fill each day. And that’s a life’s work.

There’s soooo much that pulls me right out of that contemplative life. I can literally finish my morning ritual, walk out into the kitchen, get all my buttons pushed by my teenager, and be anything but loving and kind. 

Other places I find I’ve lost the contemplative life include: obsessing about making money or something I think I need to buy; having made-up arguments with my wife in my head because I’m running with some made-up story; riding health fears waaaay down the rabbit hole into all the possible terrible outcomes; being pulled to my phone while I’m sitting at the dinner table with my family or friends; swirling over something I said or did that I think may have cast me in a bad light to others. ALL things I’ve done. Recently.

But that’s why I practice. Maybe I can get the moment right two out of ten tries instead of one. Baby steps. 

So I lean into my morning ritual. And, using Parker Palmer’s guidance of contemplation as anything that penetrates the illusions we get lost in, there are other contemplative experiences that connect me to the current moment and all the life in it. A walk can do that for me. An honest, below-the-surface conversation with a friend does that for me. Playing music always does that for me. Three deep breaths can be surprisingly effective (try it out!). 

All these things connect to a different way of knowing/being, much deeper inside of me. That knowing and disposition is not some cognitive exercise. As I’ve written before, it is allowing, not striving. Along those lines, Richard Rohr rightly points to our common struggles to turn down the left-brained, rational, linear mind and turn up the right-brained, intuitive, non-dualistic mind. 

And I’m not sure it’s ever been harder to lead a contemplative life, rooted in love. It’s almost like the world around us is increasingly designed to distract us from that, toward anything but presence and a deep connection to one another. It makes it hard for me to imagine any good religion these days without some intentional practice of contemplation. 

So that’s why my morning ritual matters for me. It’s a small act of resistance to the lesser temptations of modern life and a move toward a divine, connected, present love. We can’t give away our attention to the most alluring bidder. I really don’t think any workable notion of “us” happens if we don’t each protect some time for contemplation, to turn down the noise, to know that we are deeply connected, and to experience “how good it is to center down” as Howard Thurman said. Even if just for a moment.

I’ll wrap up with these words from Episcopal priest, Adam Bucko:

To sit in contemplation is to open ourselves to the living presence at the heart of everything, a quiet but insistent movement towards wholeness, towards justice, towards communion. ​This movement of living presence longs to live through human bodies, through human choices, through human courage. It needs consent, and contemplation is where that consent is learned.

May we tune down the noise and notice the rhythm of that love that is always surrounding and connecting us. May we choose the walk outside instead of the phone. May we opt for the distraction-free meal together. May we consent to that living, communal presence longing to flow through us. 

With love,

Matt

P.S. Getting started with meditation but not sure where to begin? Try a 5-10 minute “body scan” meditation…there’s thousands out there. It’s a great way to connect to your body in the present moment. Don’t beat yourself up if you get lost in thought - we all do. Just return to your body and breath. As I heard from one meditation teacher, nobody is good at meditation. But we can all practice. 

And here’s links to resources referenced in the post:

• Daily meditation from The Center for Action and Contemplation

• Word of the Week from Contemplative Outreach

• A version of the Welcoming Prayer

• Centering Prayer guidance from Contemplative Outreach

• Plum Village app (my favorite is the Calm-Ease meditation with Thich Nhat Hanh, also found here)

• Insight Timer - tons of free meditations

• Closer than Breath meditations