Stillness Amid Chaos: Reflections of an Orthodox Christian Lawyer on the Jesus Prayer
By: Charles E.A. Lincoln, IV (baptismal name: Panagiotis (Greek: Παναγιώτης)
You wouldn’t expect J.D. Salinger, the author of The Catcher in the Rye,[1] that quintessential portrait of 1950s Americana — only to be rivaled with Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar[2] — to be the one introducing readers to the deeply esoteric traditions of Orthodox Christianity. And yet, there he is, in Franny and Zooey,[3] unpacking the Jesus Prayer — a spiritual practice with roots in ancient monasticism, whispered in quiet monasteries on Mount Athos, and, somehow, shouted into the chaos of the protagonists’ family living room in mid-20th-century New York.
It’s a striking juxtaposition. Here’s the man who gave us Holden Caulfield — a character so rooted in the American experience of alienation and rebellion — now turning our attention to something as ancient, mystical, and frankly unfamiliar to most Americans at that time as the Jesus Prayer in Eastern Orthodoxy. But Salinger makes it work. In fact, he doesn’t just make it work; he uses it to crack open something universal: the deep hunger for authenticity, meaning, and connection to the divine in a world that often feels overwhelmingly false.
What makes Salinger’s inclusion of the Jesus Prayer even more remarkable is how it draws directly from the hesychastic tradition — a deeply contemplative practice of inner stillness, originating from the early desert fathers of Orthodoxy. It’s the same tradition beautifully described in The Way of a Pilgrim,[4] an anonymously authored 19th-century Russian spiritual classic that Franny herself clings to like a life raft in a sea of modern disillusionment. The pilgrim, like Franny, seeks meaning in a fragmented world, finding solace in the ceaseless repetition of “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
As a Greek Orthodox Christian lawyer, I often think about how this same juxtaposition plays out in my own life.[5] In courtrooms, writing memos, and conference rooms, the Jesus Prayer feels almost out of place — an ancient phrase carried into a world of modernity and legal jargon. But, like in Salinger’s writing, that dissonance is precisely the point. It’s not about fitting the prayer into the world; it’s about letting the prayer reframe how I see the world. Like Franny, I often find myself repeating “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner” in moments when everything feels too loud, too fast, too shallow.
And like Zooey, I’ve had to confront the fact that the prayer isn’t just a way to “escape” the phoniness around me. It’s a way to confront it — to see Christ in the people I’d rather ignore, to engage with the tasks I’d rather avoid, and to embrace the flaws in myself that I’d rather deny.
It’s surprising that Salinger — so rooted in American individualism — found his way to a prayer that’s all about surrendering the self. But maybe that’s the genius of Franny and Zooey. It reminds us that the hunger for something greater transcends time, culture, and even the conventions of mid-century American literature.
All of us — or so it seems to me — experience an existential crisis. Such a crisis may affect our religious beliefs or it may not. In my personal observations, I’ve seen how some people lose their faith during such times, overwhelmed by the weight of uncertainty. Their pain deeply resonates with me, and I quietly hope they find a path to healing and peace. In my personal experience, the Jesus prayer has helped me be more focused and give me hope for a better future. Like the pilgrim wandering through 19th-century Russia, or Franny sitting in that living room, I have found that this ancient prayer has a way of making even the most chaotic modern life feel anchored.
I share this not as a statement of faith but as a reflection of how it has helped me through difficult times. I share this specifically, because in the anxiety and chaos of being a lawyer that deeply affects me on a physiological level in such a way that like others I have spoken to, we can physically feel the stress through our work. I have found solace in silently repeating the Jesus prayer to myself, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
[1] J. D. SALINGER, THE CATCHER IN THE RYE (1951).
[2] SYLVIA PLATH, THE BELL JAR (1963).
[3] J. D. SALINGER, FRANNY AND ZOOEY (1953).
[4] THE WAY OF THE PILGRIM (Reginald Michael French trans., 1965). French’s translation was first published in 1930.
[5] The following passage from Dan Edwards is what inspired me to write this current article on being an Orthodox Christian lawyer:
I had the distinct sense that I was repeating meaningless sentences to myself-that I was the only one listening. About this time I took up the “Jesus Prayer,” the ancient prayer practice of the Eastern Orthodox Church, popularized in America by J. D. Salinger’s novel, Franny and Zooey.1 The Jesus Prayer is an attempt to follow seriously the admonitions of Jesus and Paul to “pray without ceasing.” Practitioners recite the prayer like a mantra, “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” One plants these words in one’s consciousness by meditating with the prayer for a protracted period of time, then continues rolling the prayer through one’s mind constantly throughout the day. Usually, one links the words to the pattern of one’s breath or heartbeat. So, I was saying the Jesus Prayer in those days, methodically, by rote, but not really getting anywhere with it. I was thinking the prayer over and over as I drove from the Probation Office to the jail.
Dan Edwards, Reflections of Three Stories: “Practicing” Law and Christianity at the Same Time, 27 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 1105, 1106 (1996).
