A Cup of Coffee with God

            I was in my late twenties when I began my spiritual life in earnest. After a long struggle with dependencies, bad decisions, and the consequences of youth, I came to a place where I was hopeless. This turned out to be the greatest blessing of my life. The truth is that I am a person who always believed that self-reliance was the way. But on a sunny day in late March, many years ago, I was out of ideas and strength, and self-reliance had utterly failed me.
            Luckily for me, there were people to help. Sadly, for me at the time, they said the answer was God. That was not what I had wanted to hear. But I had tried everything, and nothing had worked. Therapy was one the avenues that I really wanted to work for me, but in the end, it came down to more self-reliance. I saw that therapy worked for so many people, but for some reason it just wasn’t helping me. I could say the same of going to church. I went, of course, but nothing much seemed to happen there.
            But when I became desperate enough, I was willing to try anything, even God. I was told by my spiritual guide that every day in the morning I was to get on my knees and ask God for help and that every night before going to bed I was to get on my knees and thank God for another day. My response was a philosophical debate about how God doesn’t need me to kneel. That if God is truly everywhere, then I can just talk to him standing up, or lying in bed. My friend told me that God doesn’t need me to kneel. If I kneel or don’t kneel when I talk to God, it does nothing for him. However, kneeling does do a great deal for me.
            I really didn’t understand what she was talking about. She told me that it was I who needed to be changed. I had been seeking for answers my whole life, but I had looking for them outside of myself. If I had a better job or the right relationship, if I had more money or lived somewhere else, then everything would be ok. My friend told me that if the world was wrong, then that was very bad news indeed because I cannot change the world. But, she said, if I were the problem, then that was very good news, because I could change. The easiest way to do this was through the action. And the best action to start with was prayer and meditation.
            Now, I didn’t believe in prayer or meditation, or rather, I didn’t believe that either would change me or help me. Perhaps it was good for other people but not for me. Of course, I had in my mind a picture of prayer and meditation that was not helpful or realistic. I have no idea where these ideas came from, but they were facts for me. Of course, I argued with her, as I often did, and she calmly said, “Well, what have you got to lose?” That was one of her favorite things to say, that and “How’s that working out for you?” The truth was that I really didn’t know how to pray or meditate.
            She gave me some things to read that had simple prayers in them, “practical prayers,” she called them. They were prayers asking God to direct my thinking and give me inspiration throughout the day when it came to my problems. At night I was to ‘review my day’ and think about how I had done with the problems I had encountered during the day. Then, I was to ask God to help me where I hadn’t done what I should, where I’d been dishonest or selfish, and to ask for the help to do better tomorrow. These were all very difficult things for me to do. She said the goal was to stop relying on self (how’s that working out for you?) and to start to rely on God (what do you have to lose?) I agreed to do all of the above. But often I would forget some part of what she had asked me to do. I would try every day. And I felt as though I would fail every day. She told me it really didn’t matter. Just to keep doing it.
            When it came to meditation I was stuck. In my mind, meditation was sitting in the lotus position and clearing my mind of everything. IMPOSSIBLE!!!! I had so many things to think about. So many problems to solve. So many situations to try and figure out. As a friend of mine used to say, my mind was busier than a bus full of monkeys! How was I to quiet my mind? Lucky for me, I had it all wrong. Now perhaps there are people who can meditate in this way. For me it was just not possible. She suggested that I start by having a cup of coffee with God. I was to do my reading and those prayers that were written in them, and then I was to sit still until I finished my cup of coffee. That was all. But that was a ridiculous demand as far as I was concerned. I couldn’t sit still for that long. I found that I would drink my cup of coffee, and my mind was still running amok.
            I was miserable. I was depressed. I felt alone and separate. Nothing seemed to be getting better. This stupid prayer and meditation thing wasn’t working. I needed help and I felt like a failure. Why did everyone else seem to have good lives, successful careers, loving relationships, and not me? My friend told me to sit with a cup of coffee… how was that going to solve any of my problems? But I could see that what I had been doing to that point wasn’t working very well and I certainly didn’t have much to lose by trying.
            She suggested that I should try to become present. To just be in the moment. I didn’t know what she was talking about, let alone how to do it. And this is the advice she gave me; I was just to sit, either outside or in front of a window, and tell myself what was happening. I was to do this until I finished my cup of coffee. And so, I did it. I would sit in my back yard and name everything I was looking at. There is a tree, there is a bird, it is windy, there are clouds, the sun is shining, a car is driving by…. The more I did this the easier it became. Little did I know, and in truth she herself probably didn’t know, that this is Augustinian.
            St. Augustine believed that there are things to be loved in themselves, such as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and there are things to be used to bring us to God. All of creation has been given to us to use in a manner that brings us into a loving relation with our Creator. My meditation was the beginning of this. I would sit and watch, simply looking at my surroundings, and little by slowly I began to see beauty in the world around me.  The darkness of depression began to lift but it was a long, long time in the coming.
            The other suggestion she had was for me to take a ten minute walk every day. This in fact turned out to be a trap. I would walk for ten minutes in one direction and then I’d have to turn around and walk back. So, in fact, the ten-minute walk was a twenty-minute walk. However, a strange thing began to happen, I noticed that after ten minutes I actually started to feel better. I wasn’t sure how it worked but it did work so I kept doing it.
            This was the beginning of my spiritual journey. Simple actions that began to ground me in basic truths. I took these actions every day. And over time they began not only to become a habit, they became fruitful. When I had my daughter, my schedule was turned upside down. I became unsettled and frazzled. I blamed it on lack of sleep (which was certainly somewhat to blame!) However, I saw that if I did not have my time of prayer and meditation in the morning and evening, things were often more difficult. Well, I shouldn’t say often, things were always more difficult. And so, I made a point to find time for this prayer and meditation. Even if it meant getting up at 4:00 a.m. to get a few minutes to myself with God before my daughter woke up.
            And of course there were times of doubt. Did this prayer and meditation thing really work? At one, very low point, in my life I could barely get out of bed. My marriage had failed, I was essentially homeless, living off the charity of a friend with my four-year-old daughter. I was back in school at forty years of age. No job, no husband, no money. As my friend is fond of saying, there seemed to be no friendly direction. But I continued with these habits of prayer and meditation. Many times, my prayer to God when I awoke was simply “God, please just help me make it to the coffee pot.”
            By this time my prayer life had evolved to praying the Divine Office. I prayed Morning Prayer when I got up and Night Prayer before going to sleep. I remember that I would struggle to get out of bed. Get to the coffee pot. Take my cup of coffee back to bed with me and do my prayer and meditation. And the doubts! Oh, so many doubts about God, about Truth, about meaning. But I continued the routine. One particularly difficult morning I remember that I got my coffee and went back to bed. I began to pray: “Oh God, come to my assistance. Oh Lord, make haste to help me!” And as I prayed, I began to feel better. To feel lighter. My reaction to this was; this coffee sure is helping! I was so low I just couldn’t believe that it was God and prayer that were changing me. I was still so reliant on self and the world.
            One morning, however, I didn’t have any coffee. I got up and started my morning prayer. And I began to feel better. I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t the coffee after all! It was the prayer! And that is how it works. God comes to me in the most natural of ways. He created me to have a relationship with him and prayer and meditation are the simplest way of doing this. My friend used to say that prayer is talking to God and meditation is listening.
            I have been blessed with the gift of perseverance. Life has not always been easy, but I have continued with these two simple practices which have grown and changed over the years. Guided by the Divine Office and moments of silence, I have now become more reliant on God and, I hope, less reliant on self. The fruit of this is a sustained inner peace and strength, even in times of trouble and sadness. Through these simple practices I have been able to find joy during times of sadness, peace during times of pain, and calm in the midst of many a storm.  God was looking for a way in, and all I needed to do was ask and listen.