Joshua Minden (00:06):

Hello and welcome to Stories and Other Things Holy, a weekly podcast where we invite you to join us in encountering stories and how they can serve as doorways to move beyond the superficial aspects of our lives and to grapple with life and death, hope and grace. This week, our principal storyteller, Dr. Terry Nelson-Johnson, shares a story that challenges us to reflect on prayer in those moments when nothing is in our control. In our conversation, we also attend to the fact that there is no refuge from suffering and suffering has no refuge from the deathless, love that permeates the suffering, unexplainably all pervasively and in all directions. So settle in, take a deep breath, and join us for more Stories and Other Things Holy!

Terry Nelson-Johnson (01:05):

Stories and Other Things Holy. Sometimes I think we feel obligated in certain environments. We feel obligated to be holy, like going to church, keep it down, adoration, and I'm not making fun of any of these things. I just think sometimes we think we pick our spots to be holy, and then of course, then we live our lives. But the question is, is any of our holiness organic? Does it come in context with our actual lived experience? And this story, whoa, so beautifully captures that, and it involves Sister Joan Chittister, Benedictine sister. She's very prolific and extraordinary storyteller and a fierce human being, an advocate for progressive spirituality. Catholicism, I can't say enough about Sister Joan. So she travels internationally, speaks all over the world, and she's on one of those trips. I think she's going to Rome maybe. Anyway, she's on a plane and at some point there's some disturbance and sort of obvious in the plane, and then it becomes more pronounced.

(02:26):

And then the guy gets on and he's like, I don't want anybody to be alarmed, but it looks like we have some potential difficulty with our landing gear. There's a distinct possibility that it's a technical flaw that we can handle between now and landing. There's a slight possibility that this would be difficult. I just want to prepare you and ask you if the stewardess and flight attendants ask you to do anything, please respond accordingly. People are like, oh, well, comes back on and says, we've not resolved the issue. It may be that we need to land on the runway. It will be prepared with foam, et cetera. Your flood attendants will now tell you how to prepare. And we have about 10 minutes. And then he says that she gets on and they say, you want to keep your hands against the headrest. You don't want to bend your neck, take off jewelry, take off your glasses. This is what you want to do. This is what you don't want to do. They finish all that, and then that's it. And then there's just this silence.

(03:51):

Here's the irony of the story. I don't remember if the landing gear came down or not. If we want to go the dramatic route, we just say there was foam all over the runway. Plane landed. Actually, I can't remember that part of the story, which is fascinating because that's not the point of the story. The point of the story is Joan Chittister having dinner with one of her colleagues two days later. She's explaining the situation. We were in deep trouble. We didn't know if the plane was going to land or not, whether phone would be involved. And she's telling the story two days after it happened. You can only imagine. And her compatriot said, Joan, you prayed. And she said, I did. What prayer did you say? Joan said, well, I didn't say a prayer. Boom said, well, you just said you prayed. I said, I did pray. I just didn't say a prayer. The woman looks very confused. It's like, well, Joan, no, no, really, I'd be very interested to know what prayer you said under those circumstances. Joan Chittister says, I didn't say a prayer. I became a prayer.

(04:58):

The root word of the word mystery comes from a cluster of words, which means shut up. And her dinner companion became very, very quiet. What would it mean to become a prayer rather than say prayers? Do you feel the difference? And what circumstances in our lives would invite us to get to a place of becoming a prayer? And the Christian imagination suggests that we are incarnate and that our bodies can pray. What a concept that our entire being can pray. Not just our craniums, but I became a prayer God, I want to become a prayer. A couple moments in my life, especially while I'm dying. I want to become a prayer. Stories and Other Thing Holy.

(06:03):

 I don't have an abundance of thoughts. When I heard the story, it just did soul chiropractor on me, which so many stories do. And so often I say, I don't understand it, but I get it. If you ask me to diagram what it means to go from saying a prayer, to becoming a prayer or to define it very, very cleanly, probably couldn't do that. But intuitively I'm not like, oh, yeah. And we've talked a lot about I think our struggle to take seriously enter into receive the gift of the incarnation, which I'm sympathetic to different religious sensibilities, bring different gifts to the table. Theoretically, one of the gifts that the Christian imagination brings to the table is this outlandish notion, the scandal of the particular that God is in.

(07:17):

Our bodies are chaotic, they're beautiful, they're extraordinary, they're mysterious, they're also chaotic. And we proclaim that God is in them and still we struggle to, I think, to integrate that, to live into that too. So something about the phrase I became, a prayer leans in that direction of like, oh, this integration of mind and heart, body, spirit, all those, the dualistic ways that we're seduced to live. And for a moment they were just brought together. And so there's something simple about it, but all simple things. It's unbelievably complex. And while theoretically I would want to become a prayer all the time, it's just not, doesn't happen naturally. I think one of the notes I wrote with respect to this was every once in a while I want to remember that I want to pray with a modicum of desperation. I think there's a correlation for me between the desperation of my prayer and my body praying someplace in scripture, which it's what guys like me as opposed to guys, you have a more facile relationship with scripture, which I'm sort of jealous of guys like me. I know it says this someplace in there, and it correlates praying with a groan. My body groaned in prayer. I forget the context. I think it's Paul. It's

Joshua Minden (09:00):

The Holy Spirit praying in us with sighs too deep for words. (Romans 8.26)

Terry Nelson-Johnson (09:05):

And that's when I find my body praying. I got nothing. I got no words for this, but I know I need to pray badly. And then my body sort of takes over rather than saying some prayer that I've memorized or whatever. So I delighted and was humbled by the story. And someone, Joan Jester knows a lot of prayers. She could have gone to a lot of her prayer lexicon and her body prayed. I dunno.

Joshua Minden (09:43):

If you or someone has been impacted by the power of stories or the work of Dr. Terry Nelson Johnson, then please consider supporting stories and other things wholly with a one-time contribution or recurring gift. Learn about the various perks of membership, including early access to episodes, behind the scenes content and more. Consider signing up with us at Buy Me a Coffee. You can access the link on our support page at our website, stories and other things, holy.com. Thank you. The reason I asked you to open us is because the first place I went wasn't maybe the most fruitful for the beginning of a conversation, but in being a convert, I left a lot of my way. I experienced my faith growing up behind when I became a Catholic. And in recent years, the Lord's kind of invited me to rescue the baby that went out with the bath water.

(10:42):

Oh, that's beautiful.

(10:44):

And so when I've kind of gotten back to this temperament of when I hear someone say, what prayer did you pray? And I don't mean it as an insult, but I cringe a little, almost like intuitively instinctually, in the same way that we're seduced into a dualistic worldview, were sometimes seduced into what to me looks a little transactional. What magic words did you say? What quote or what prayer that some dead person 700 years ago who was in love with the Lord say that magically made it all? Okay. It is kind of where it kind of goes in my mind. And I'd much rather that I became a prayer because at least then there's some acknowledgement of I and the one who hold me in being met at a deeper level of the incarnation. In that moment, I experienced a deeper reality of, I didn't understand it more, but I experienced the incarnation more because I and God became less separate. And don't get me wrong, I have lots of prayer books on the shelf behind you, so I love that too. But it's where I went first, and I am always thankful for those opportunities. To your point about praying with a modicum of desperation, those moments of like, oh, I prayed because there was nowhere else to go. I needed to pray. Not I needed something from God, but I needed to pray. And it's not like God's down the hall, we're over the mountain or in the clouds. He's right here. Yeah.

(12:47):

One of our last conversations, we talked about being suspended in God's breath, and that comes back to me in this moment. I became a prayer, right? Because you don't have to do much when God's right here and not for our benefit, because he's coming after us, but not to sound self-serving about it, right? It's like, oh, yay me. But it's like, no, it's about what love, love is this.

Terry Nelson-Johnson (13:22):

Yeah. Interestingly, this is not point, counterpoint or out of the other side of my mouth, but it's fascinating when I think about it from this angle.

(13:36):

I referenced some point in these conversations that I had a near death experience. And in the very maybe couple months or a year before that experience, I just had this inclination, I should memorize more stuff. And I often do it organically. I can repeat something so often that I don't need any notes. Now it's sort of become incorporated into my being. But I felt this inclination I should memorize stuff. So I had three files. One was to memorize, middle file was memorizing, and the third file was memorized. And so I've gotten maybe 15 items onto the memorized, and they were all spiritual related, either explicit prayers or reflections, or not full multi paragraphs.

(14:35):

And while I was dying, I was sort of, as I reported, I was doing four things. I was panicked, I was grateful, I was proud. I had regrets, and I was praying. And if you ask me like, well, which did you do when it was just this ping pong wild ping pong of experience? How long did it last? No idea. But I have a memory of those things happening. And if you ask me what prayers did you pray, my answer would be only the ones that I knew by heart. And when I went into it, I said, oh, I memorized these things. When I came out of it, the phrase like, oh, that's what you knew by heart. And there was something so powerful. I subsequently went to a cardiologist who said, you realize it's very shocking that you survived and it would appear that you survived not insignificant because of your heart. And he was looking at the numbers and it just did the test. And I thought to myself, you have no idea. I'm glad my heart was strong and I'm glad I survived, but I think I survived because I knew a couple prayers by heart, and there were, so I used that image of soul Vix Vapo rub that I, you remember Vix Va rub and you got it. And I used to like it. I used to sort of fake being sick like, mom, how about some of that Vix Vapo rub?

(16:14):

And then at night you do the, oh, baby, right? So I took these prayers: Life is short, we don't have much time to gladen the hearts of those with whom we travel. So be quick to love, make haste to be kind so that we might send one another forth on the good road of blessing." I repeated that we, life is short. And to say life is short while you're dying. It was so tender. But in some ways, memorizing it means it becomes part of you. It's not just here. It's sort of here. And so

Joshua Minden (16:56):

That's beautiful. I've always struggled to memorize. I mean, there are a handful, like you said, that I know by heart because memorization of scripture was a very prominent part of my upbringing intermittently. But in these things called sword drills, and half of it was how quickly could you find the reference in the Bible when someone either referenced a king or a point in history or just a book and verse. But there's a small number that made it into that, that are in my heart. But the most prominent ones are the ones that come back to me through song.

(17:38):

Music was a lot more part of my life when I was younger. And there's certain scriptures that I remember the scripture, I know Galatians chapter two, verse 20, for I'm crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in, the body, I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I know that because it's a song in my head: "For I am crucifed..." I won't sing it, but I know it as a song and it just lives in me and just what I think of some of those songs I haven't sung in a decade. And then I'll be really hurting about something or weighed heavy about something and be walking to the grocery store, walking into work, and all of a sudden a song I haven't sung in 20 years will come to mind. Yeah, it's

Terry Nelson-Johnson (18:30):

So good.

Joshua Minden (18:32):

It's just a balm. It's that vapor rub. It just kind of like loosens you.

Terry Nelson-Johnson (18:41):

Yeah. Just remembered boy's version of that findley thing, please. He says, God protects us from nothing and sustains us in everything.

(18:53):

And I remember editing boy while I was dying, and I didn't ask for a lot of apologies or permission, but I'm like sustains. I don't know. It's very iffy whether I'll be sustained here. So I edit it to God protects us from nothing and abides with us in everything.

Joshua Minden (19:12):

(Oh, I love that.)

Terry Nelson-Johnson (19:15):

And so I'm laying on this gurney, and my instinct was to pray, and what I could turn to was that that was in my body. That's the correlation between the story. I became a prayer. Those prayers were ingested, and so they were part of my body. Yeah. God protects us from nothing and abides with us and everything.

(19:49):

Bless us the Lord,

Joshua Minden (19:51):

These thy gifts,

Terry Nelson-Johnson (19:52):

Which we have just received

Joshua Minden (19:54):

From thy bounty

Terry Nelson-Johnson (19:55):

through Christ our Lord.

Joshua Minden (19:56):

Amen.

Terry Nelson-Johnson (19:57):

Amen, brother.

Joshua Minden (20:00):

Amen. Thank you for joining Terry and me as we continue to explore and encounter the limitless depths of grace through the power of stories. I encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our email newsletter. You'll receive additional written reflections as well as prayer prompts that go with each week's story. Learn more at stories and other things. holy.com. We invite you to share these episodes with your friends and loved ones, and maybe consider hosting a gathering where you and your guests can share what grace stirs up in your heart in response to each week's story. Until next time, thank you for joining us for Stories and Other Things Holy!