Seeking and Finding Our Best

When do we experience the "best" of who we are -- our best self?  I would venture a guess that our best "self" is activated by love, both the giving and the receiving of love.  Love, though, is not always 'felt' love; sometimes, it is entirely sacrificial and even painful.  The mother or father, for example, who crawls out from under the warm blanket on a cold night to clean up and comfort a sick child, to change the sheets and to rock the child back to sleep is the "best self," though it may feel only painful and unpleasant at the time. 

The question then becomes, "How can we on a daily basis find this 'best self,' the one that is not seeking our own comfort and pleasure, but the good of others?"  If the seeking of the highest good is activated by love, it is found through prayer.  As Evelyn Underhill states, As the social self can only be developed by contact with society, so the spiritual self can only be developed by contact with the spiritual world.*

Prayer, for most people, means asking.  That's an unfortunate perspective.  St. Teresa of Avila maintains that prayer is simply familiar conversation with Someone Who loves us.  When we open to "Someone Who loves us" our impulses, our reveries, our feelings, our most secret inclinations and thoughts, without control, without reserve --- that is the essence of prayer.  It embraces the entire range of human experience and reaction; nothing is held back or reserved. 

In prayer, we take our special needs, aptitude, longings, and moments of life -- and we hold them up to Eternal Truth and Love.  Where do we 'match' the highest values; where do we fall short?  Jesus said that when the Spirit of Truth comes, He will convict the world of sin.  That "conviction" is not blame, nor is it condemnation.  It is conviction.  "Yes," we admit to ourselves and to the Spirit of Truth, "that is not the way it should have been.  That was not 'my best self.'  I really don't want that to be my pattern of response to the world at large.  Show me another way."

And by our submission to the Spirit of Truth, of Righteousness, of Holiness, we begin to change from "the empty way of life handed down to us by our fathers"  -- i.e. "original sin" -- to a different response and pattern of life.  We grow in holiness, goodness, and truth.

In the world of prayer, the soul sometimes wanders as if in green pastures and running waters; sometimes, it sees things the world cannot see and stands breathless and awed at the beauty revealed to it.  Sometimes, we encounter the most difficult truth, and see ourselves as we wish we did not see.  It is a world of darkness and light, but it always changes us. 

In prayer, all the powers of the self are united, looking at the One Goal.  And all the powers of the self are submitted to the Truth of the One and Holy God.  Physically, Mentally, Emotionally, we begin to change in the Light of the Eternal Good.  Only by constant contact with and recourse to the energizing life of Spirit can we find our best selves and be true to the vocation of our daily lives.

This "discipline" or "education" of all of our powers is the function of prayer.  "Discipline" means "discipling." We become disciples of the Holy Spirit, and begin to walk in His ways and not our own.  In doing so, our deepest instincts find and feel the Eternal breaking into our lives all the time.

On the physical plane, we can do nothing of ourselves if we are cut off from our physical sources of power: food to eat, air to breathe.  So too our spiritual lives are dependent upon the heavenly food, eaten daily.  Jesus said, "Without Me, you can do nothing."    So many people want to do good and love their neighbor, so they just go ahead and try to do so without prayer or contact with the spiritual world.  They leave no time for silence, for quiet attention to the spiritual dimension, which is essential for us to develop all of our latent powers and energies.  Otherwise, we are distracted and divided; we respond to the needs and demands of the moment, rather than operating from the center of our "best self."  We are starving that self; it has no energy to meet the demands of life.  Instead, we are always operating on "emergency power," on the generator, and we feel anxious and scattered.

Be still and know that I am God; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength.  These are practical, not idealistic, statements.  They tell the truth.  And they are addressed not to saints, but to ordinary men and women.  If this "balanced" life is to be ours, if we are to find our best selves, and the Eternal breaking in at every moment into our lives of time and space, we must give time and place to prayer in our lives.