I was emailing with someone who wants to take up the Jesus Prayer, and I thought it might help to picture how the Prayer has gone, for me. Here is what I said:

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I can tell you more about what the aim of the Prayer is, what condition it gradually brings you to. Maybe if you can visualize the “destination” it will help you begin.

I’ve been saying the Jesus Prayer every night for thirty years; depending on which prayer rope I have at hand, I say 100 or 200 or even 300 of them.

At first I was mostly bored and distracted. I kept passing the prayer rope through my fingers and thinking of other things—usually, mentally reworking something I was writing. But gradually I developed the feeling that I should be more respectful, and do my best to apply my attention to the prayer. I wasn’t able to do that very well; my mind was still flying around with just about every repetition.

Gradually-gradually I began to sense something. It was something quiet. It was the quiet strength of the Lord, who upholds all things, who holds all of Creation in his hand.

I think it’s a fallacy of our age that, if God is going to intervene in your life, it will be like the Red Sea parting, something utterly unimaginable and huge. But it’s usually the opposite, I think; it’s that “still, small voice” (1 Kings 19:11-13).

This was a mostly-wordless thing, and I found it very easy to ignore, because I preferred to think about other things. (If it wasn’t mental rewriting, there was always the endless “things to do” list.) But I could tell that it was impossible to register this quiet presence if I was waltzing around with other thoughts.

Slowly I discovered that saying the Jesus Prayer could help me keep my attention on that quiet thing. The Prayer itself could help me keep listening. Though I was still operating at about 85% failure, an alive thing inside the Prayer was gradually making itself at home and slowly expanding.

Somewhere in there I had another shift, where instead of just repeating the prayer, or kind of thinking respectfully about Jesus, I began saying the prayer to him. It seems obvious now; it’s a prayer, after all, and I should have been saying it to him all along! But I hadn’t been doing that, I’d just been repeating it, reciting it, just saying it. Now I gradually-gradually became able to say the prayer to Jesus. And then I could feel a connection! I began to sense him listening to me. It was so wonderful, so life-filled. It pulled together everything inside me.

You can get an idea of what I mean if you picture yourself speaking to a friend about something important. You see that your words are going into her mind and heart, and that she is contemplating them and reaching back to you in love. As you welcome her back in return, you feel it inside, somehow; it’s like you can feel your heart get warmer.

Well, that kind of exchange is literally what the Jesus Prayer is. You are speaking to your friend Jesus, and he is listening and sending his loving attention back to you. When you are able to sense that returning love (and I certainly don’t always, even now), it comes with a beautiful sense of just-rightness. There’s a quality of bright alive-ness, too. You can just sense his love coming back in return.

This connection is the most beautiful, most wonderful thing in the world. It is so quiet and strong and full of life—just bursting with life.

To me there is usually not much content to the communication, not any words or message, but just a presence. But it’s the presence of the Life-Giver, so it’s galvanizing. And you can tell that it is true, that it’s the truest thing ever, so you just want to cling to it.

Somewhere along in there I began to sense that the Prayer was changing its location inside me. Instead of being repeated in my blah-blah-blah head, it was creating a lodging-place inside my chest, in my heart. It was the place inside where the attention of your loving, listening friend would hit the center of a target. In time I came to be able to locate this place (central upper chest), and to send my thinky-mind there, when it’s time to pray.

It’s surprising how honest it is in there. It’s totally honest. Everything I say there is effortlessly sincere. When I request something in prayer, as I present it, it is getting gently reshaped to the reality that God intends; my prayer is in tune with his will. Well, it’s wonderful to discover this inside-place.

So that’s where I am about now. Often enough, I still pray in a very distracted way. I know that’s not very respectful, and it blocks me from some of that infusion of beauty and life. But the marvelous thing is that, even at the start, when I was praying the Jesus Prayer very badly, he was still faithful, and he led me step by step to learn how to connect with him.

I hope that’s encouraging. When you start saying the Jesus Prayer, the Lord accepts the offering you are capable of, and gradually teaches you to do it better. His presence is so alive and so beautiful that it gives you plenty of motivation to keep on.

It’s always good to have a spiritual mother or father to guide you, but many parish priests say they aren’t competent to give that kind of guidance, and monks and nuns may be already over-burdened. Even if you can’t find an earthly guide, just say the Prayer as best you can, and trust God to hear and help you.