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At mayor's breakfast, Ryan urges practice of ‘quiet time’ in noisy world
By LINDA M. LINONIS
GIRARD
Tim Ryan put aside the U.S. Rep. of Howland, D-13th, designation and pitched something completely nonpolitical to those who gathered Tuesday for the 31st annual Interfaith Mayors’ Prayer Breakfast, sponsored by Mahoning Valley Association of Churches.
He left the hubbub and sound bites concerning his challenge to Nancy Pelosi as House minority leader and asked the 175 or so in attendance at Mahoning Country Club, 710 E. Liberty St., to observe some quiet time by engaging in a basic mindfulness practice.
“Quiet time is what we need more of,” Ryan said. “There’s so much noise now ... around us and even in our heads.”
Ryan said he witnessed “quiet time” as a boy. He would bicycle to his grandparents house a few blocks from his home in Niles and often find them praying the rosary. “That meditation time stuck with me,” he said.
As a student athlete at John F. Kennedy High School in Warren, Ryan said people he admired all shared a practice of prayer and silence. When he was writing “A Mindful Nation: How a Simple Practice Can Help Us Reduce Stress, Improve Performance and Recapture the American Spirit,” he realized that important people in his life had something in common. “Great teachers, coaches and people had a foundation of who they are,” Ryan said, noting they spent time in quiet prayer and meditation. “They were grounded in God,” he noted.
Ryan referred to C.S. Lewis, a British novelist, poet, academic and lay theologian, who described heaven as music and silence and hell as noise.
Ryan asked the room full of clergy, who preach and teach, and others of faith to “put their feet on the floor, their butts in the chairs and sit up straight, shut up and close their eyes.”
He said once you do that you’ll start to notice the “intention of breathing and being grounded in the present moment” and experience “a moment of awareness.”
The practice, based in the Buddhist tradition, can be secular or religious. The member of Blessed Sacrament Catholic Community in Warren said contemplative prayer is a Catholic tradition but can be used by anyone for meditation. “Pick a prayer word – love, peace, Jesus – and say the prayer word from your heart not your head,” he said. “Connect with God and be in presence.”
Ryan said repeated practice of meditation will eventually allow one “to carry a bit of silence with you.”
The practice of mindfulness and meditation will bring about a new awareness of one’s self and others. “We can realize we must love each other even when we don’t always like each other,” he said.
Those who offered prayer shared a common thread of working toward peace, race reconciliation and appreciating diversity. Prayers and reflections were offered by Dr. Sudhakar V. Rao, Hindu priest; the Rev. Rebecca Kahnt of First Presbyterian Church in Youngstown; minister Theodore Brown, MVAC board member and member of New Bethel Baptist Church in Youngstown; Imam Walid Abuasi of Islamic Society of Greater Youngstown; and Rabbi Franklin Muller of Congregation Rodef Sholom in Youngstown. The men’s choir of St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church in Warren sang.
The Rev. Robin Woodberry, MVAC director, welcomed the group; Tom Sauline, MVAC board secretary, introduced the speaker; and Chester Cooper, MVAC board president, was master of ceremonies.