The Heart of Prayer: An Interview by Stephan Bodian with Bro. David Steindl-Rast O.S.B.

The most basic, most universally satisfying definition of God that I can find is "the one to whom we belong." God is the reference point for our deepest sense of belonging.

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What about the relationship between contemplation and social action? Most people think that the one precludes the other, whereas I sense that you have combined them in your life.

Given the misunderstanding of contemplation that I just shared with you, it becomes obvious that the two belong together, because where do you draw the line in transforming the world?

So both social action and contemplation attempt to put the world in order.

That's right, attempt to bring order into life. The monastery draws a line and erects a fence, but only in order to set up a model or a focal point or a workshop whose influence radiates out.

In practice, however, it isn't that easy. For one thing, the pursuits are obviously quite different, more now than in former times. In the Middle Ages you could run a school or hospital right in the middle of the monastery itself. Nowadays, a school or hospital has become something so totally different in its demands from a monastery that it is almost impossible to hold these two dimensions together. Life has become highly specialized, the demands are quite divergent, and our energies are limited. You might well think, "Life is too short to become a really good social worker or a really good monk who stays in the monastery all the time." And that is true. But since life also demands both activities from me, I find myself trying to respond to the demands of life, and I end up not doing either one so very well. I have great compassion on others who make different choices, because I see how difficult it is for me. Right now, in fact, I'm cutting down on the time I spend traveling, saying no to three out of four invitations to speak just because I feel it is more and more important for me to stay in the monastery. I need to weigh whether I can do more at this point, by writing than by going out and meeting a relatively small group of people.

So the two are compatible in your eyes, in fact, contemplation seems to imply social action. Yet our time and energy are limited.

They're not just compatible; they are two aspects of the same reality. But to put the two together is very difficult. One solution is to go back and forth between these two poles. Sometimes you totally immerse yourself in the vision, to the exclusion of all action, as far as possible. At other times you totally immerse yourself in action, translating the vision into action. For example, you go out and work with the Catholic Worker for a month at a time, then you come back into the monastery and go into hermitage.

Of course, individuals operate on different wave-lengths. Some may go back and forth in rapid succession. Others may do it on a long-term basis, spending a year in a secluded hermitage somewhere in a cave, then immersing themselves in the city for a year or two. And many will say, "My center of gravity is not in the monastery, it is outside, in my family, in the world, in the society in which I live. But I need the monastery to counterbalance that." Such people may need to spend a week in a monastery every year, in order to find a sense of vision and give meaning to their lives.

Br. David, you titled one of your books Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer. I wonder what you mean by that? How is gratefulness in fact the heart of prayer?

In the sense in which I'm using it here, prayer is not just saying prayers: it is the activity of religion. "Religion" is one of those strange nouns that have no verb. You can't say, "I'm religioning." I think the word "praying" is the closest equivalent.

At the heart of religion, as I mentioned earlier, is a sense of belonging. And at the heart of gratefulness, in its deepest sense — as when you say "thank you" and really mean it — is an expression of belonging. When you say "thank you," you are really saying, "We belong together." That is why some people find it so difficult to say, "thank you" — because they don't want to be obliged. But in a healthy society that's exactly what you want, mutual obligations. Everybody is obliged to everybody else; we all belong together. One way in which we in our culture express that sense of belonging is by saying: "thank you."

But behind that custom stands the vast phenomenon of gratefulness, which is an attitude toward life that we can cultivate. We can be alert in each moment to the gift that life is. If we can cultivate that attitude, we're right at the heart of religious living. And that is true prayer: a deep awareness of our limitless belonging — to self, to others, to the universe, to God, to ultimate reality. In fact, the most basic, most universally satisfying definition of God that I can find is "the one to whom we belong." God is the reference point for our deepest sense of belonging. And gratefulness is the joyful living out of that belonging. Every moment can spark that joyfulness in us.

This interview first appeared in the
May/June 1985 Yoga Journal.