I am finding that Reiki and prayer seem stronger when used together. This seems especially true when using the Jesus prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.), the prayer of Julian of Norwich (God of your goodness, give me yourself, for You are enough for me. And I can ask nothing less that is to Your glory. And if I ask anything less, I shall still be in want. For only in You have I all.), or God's message to Julian (All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.).
This is not to say that these are magical incantations for healing or even that the Reiki is stronger with prayer. It is to say that I seem to be more sensitive to Reiki when I turn my will over to God and trust that God is great enough to be able to use me as a tool no matter how broken or sinful I may be. And I more easily submit to the focus of prayer while channeling Reiki.
I have been listening repeatedly over the past month or so to "Into the Present Moment", a 2007 collaboration between the UK singing group CAIM and Fr Gregory, OJN, with alternating devotional music and meditative reflections on the Order of Julian’s motto: await, allow, accept, attend. This cd is probably the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. Fr Gregory is very much like a Christian Thich Nhat Hanh with the ponderous phrasing and emphasis on the present moment.
Anyway, today the section on "allow" particularly grabbed my attention as very much describing the relationship between healer and Reiki. Here is a transcript of the first 3:47:
Allowing the Present Moment
When we allow the present moment, we give it time and space to unfold its full meaning and reality before us. We are poised to allow what God and reality want to happen.
When an artist comes to her easel, she does not come with a complete plan of what she wants to accomplish. She does not sit down and transfer what is in her head to the canvas. Rather she provides the open space of her imagination and the disciplined skill in her hands to allow the painting itself to emerge, unfold, and blossom through her. She provides an intensely aware presence through which the painting can offer its own life.
So too, when we walk the contempletive way of allowing, while we have intentions and hopes, we do not come to each moment with a plan to impose on that moment. Our ego is not out in front, seizing control and battling with everything to get its will done. We are rather curious to see what the moment itself will unfold for us, what it has to bring, to share, to unveil. We allow reality to emerge into its own truth before us.
This does not mean that we have no plans or intentions. We still walk to the shower in order to bathe. We still slice apples in order to eat. Living in contempletive allowing does not mean drifting in a haze from indulgence to indulgence. This is not contempletive living or spiritual allowing. It is immaturity.
What allowing means is that as we walk to the shower in order to shower and as we slice the apple in order to eat, there remains a part of ourselves that transcends that intention to shower or eat and sees our intention as only one influence in that moment, a moment that includes the steaming water gushing in the shower or the green and gleaming skin of the apple. We are not identified with our ego, posessed by anxiety and driving blindly against the present moment.
Thus when the shower refuses to give water or the apple reveals it is worm-eaten, we do not take it as though we were being attacked because our intention is frustrated. It is not personal. It's not about us. And it's not even bad not to get what we want.
We thus don't rise up to condemn the shower, the plumber, the apple, or the grocery store. Without fighting or condemnation, what we do is to chart a new course in joy based on what this present moment has offered. Our path through life can thus be free and spontaneous, always shifting, always responsive, and always centered in Christ.
[The cd can be purchased at The Julian Shop.]
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