Mindfulness can be experienced in many different ways

Mindfulness can be experienced in many ways. I associate it with “body” prayer. In 2007 Great Falls Central Catholic High School moved from the temporary location at the University of Great Falls (It is now the University of Providence) to their newly built school on 18^th Avenue South. I was hired in 2000 to be the theology teacher for the new school in Great Falls, Montana. 

My responsibilities were not limited to the classroom. I hosted a retreat each year for every class, trained the students in the various liturgies including Mass, provided opportunities for them to do mission work in Great Falls and in the summers to go on mission in Yakima, Washington including Toppenish, Washington, and Eugene Oregon. 

From 2000 to 2007 and before we moved to the permanent location, the youth developed a school retreat called a Prayer Day in which they hosted a day-long fair. In those first years of establishing the school, the kids did not have very many things to join. So, the idea of this Prayer Day grew because they needed to do something together as a community. The students divided into teams. The teams came up with a theme, developed the idea for the workshop and created a venue in which to present it. They taught the theology around the theme they would present. Some workshops were as simple as “Hangman” with Christian concepts and Catholic thought through word associations, and as complicated as creating a “Labyrinth” to learn body prayer. 

When we moved from the University of Great Falls to the newly built Great Falls Central Catholic High School, the project was no longer done because it took too much of my curriculum time to do and because the number of students had increased making the project unwieldly. Clubs and athletics were finally in place and our students were very busy being involved at multiple levels.

I continued teaching and our educational programs matured as our students, faculty, and staff grew and matured into an institution. Bibles and Catechisms of the Catholic Church were mainstays of my teaching. Textbooks were added and all manner of cooperative teaching was taking place. I worked alongside a phenomenal music teacher in preparing Mass and other liturgies as well as some retreats. I was also able to do a lovely curriculum on Icons dovetailing with the art teacher. And the history teacher and I had a wonderful curriculum we hosted a couple of times on the Holocaust. When the Mel Gibson movie, “The Passion of Christ,” came out, the incredible English teacher and I led the students in a teaching in which they developed their own story summations based in the movie and putting them alongside the Christian Scriptures. There were many opportunities to creatively teach students the religious subject matter, bringing the ancient and fully developed thought into their lives and their histories.

The classroom often buzzed with many different activities from the four different grade levels. When I was hired my skill set was working with youth in youth ministry. So, I was geared toward a hands-on form of teaching which included a great deal of “doing.” However, the “being” was equally important for developing a spiritual life that would include caring for themselves as well as others. That meant that meditation needed to be utilized in its myriad forms. We had several meditations: written journals, guided meditation, Bible readings, and formal prayer which was not limited to but included the Rosary, Chaplet of Divine Mercy, Litanies to various Saints, and growing in understanding and awareness of the rituals within the Mass. We also used Mindful Walking. 

Thich Nhat Hanh and Sister Jose Hobday were my influences for this form of “body” prayer. The instructions were: bring sensible shoes for walking the neighborhood, bring some money to buy something at the coffee bar at the hospital, be very quiet and respectful when walking so anyone who drives by or sees us knows your good manners and will not be frightened by you. Last but not least: be prepared to stop and sing a blessing over different clinics, nursing homes, juvenile jail, hospitals and neighborhoods. I allowed them to visit quietly with the caveat that no one make a partner visit in case that person wanted to be more meditative (be mindful of their walking).

As we walked along, I would stop and talk about the different places that were in the neighborhood of our school building. Different points were made about the people who lived there or the workers who worked there and what needs each had. Sometimes we would stop and just raise our hands in blessing and sing: “May the blessings of the Lord be upon you~We bless you in the name of the Lord~May the Spirit of the Lord be upon you~We bless you in the name of the Lord.

Arriving at the hospital we would stop and the ones who brought money would buy coffees or Italian sodas for themselves and some even bought for their friends. Then, we would go back to the school by another route but continuing to walk quietly and to talk about the neighborhood and to sing a blessing now and again. In between the talking and singing, we focused our attention on the act of walking.

Back in the classroom, the students would take out their journals and write about their experience. It never failed. Every time we returned to the school, they were quieter, gentler and easier with each other and with their journaling. Some wrote about their actual walk and what they learned. Others shared the song of a bird or the nice weather. Some others were thrilled to just get out and go get an Italian soda. The whole of it, was the change of pace, being in nature and not sitting at a desk. Mindfulness can be experienced in many ways. It was a joy for me to learn to do mindful walking and to introduce that “body” prayer form to the students.