When Baxter is intent upon sleeping soundly, he can get into it. He is lost to this world. He snores and makes strange sounds. He curls in a ball and covers his eyes. He doesn’t respond to his name or any familiar stimulus. He enters into another dimension, free from the mundane concerns of his regular life. I think he dreams in these deep sleeps. That’s the reason for all the uncharacteristic noise he makes. Nothing like a meow is heard at these times. The messages are delivered in another language, and he is lost in the conversation.
This kind of deep involvement in another dimension is what we are called to consider in our prayer. This is a time when we step out of the ordinary activities of our lives, and enter into a conversation with the Holy. This dialogue is unlike any other we may have. It is not about the “stuff” with which we may be dealing. It speaks in a wholly different way. It is an exchange of energy, a union of hearts, a sense of presence, a seeking to understand what is beyond our grasp. In our deepest prayer, we encounter God for Who God is - the Love that moves the stars and the other planets, the Love that died on the cross to save us. Prayer is an experience of our relationship with God when we realize how close God is to us and how wonderful is His Love for us.
Our deepest prayer doesn’t solve any problems for us. It doesn’t teach us any doctrines of our faith or new moral principles. Rather, it shows us who we are as a child of God and how much we matter to our heavenly Father who gave us life. It reveals that God is with us, Emmanuel, and that His unconditional Love never abandons us no matter how severe the suffering or how much rejection we may experience from others. Divorce, betrayal, abandonment or even the separation of death cannot exclude the Love of God from our lives. These experiences may mask His love in the pain of personal hurt and grief, but they cannot conquer this Love. His face remains turned to us, and when we open our pain to His healing power, we can see it again, perhaps even more clearly, for now we better understand the passage from death to new life He marked out for us.
So when we pray, don’t worry about what we are to say or wear. Relax in our Father’s arms. When we pray, enter deeply into the Holy Mystery that envelops our lives every second of the day. Allow God to speak His love for us, and let nothing else disturb us. The first words of the Risen Lord were so often these: “Peace be with you.” We can sleep well knowing we are known and loved by God.
