“ ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.’ Though repeated, it’s not a mantra, it’s not a spell, but an act of extremely beautiful contrition. It’s powerful…
“A wilderness idea from a Christian source is that this is only possible when the mind is nested within the terrain of the heart. What could that mean?...
“For me the heart is a place that feels both wholesome and immeasurably deep. This Christian kind of heart at least. What we could call the Romantic heart is often a more conflicted terrain. The Christian heart at best feels combed through, receptive, quiet, patient, denuded of urgency. The [Jesus] prayer rests there, like a pulse. Any wishes I may have, God already knows about, and the urge to petition at such a moment is absolutely redundant. For a while, I am in the Garden, or as near as a human can be.”
