Contemplation: A Catalyst for Compassion

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Reaching deep within, observing the slow unfolding of  ego's heavy and awkward garbs that cling fast to Self's inner light, I burrow deeper beneath layers of my consciousness, towards the center. Flooding my sense of awareness is the realization that there is truly no beginning or ending to God. There is no place where He is not. No heart where the spark of His light does not dwell.  He is All. God is in everything and everything is in God. Acts 17:28  "For in him we move and have our being."

Meditation creates within me an increasing empathy for both humans and non humans.  Integrating it into my spiritual disciplines has brought out the light within me that allows the deepest recesses of my consciousness to unfold like a flower, opening up in a capacity of love, compassion and awe for all that is around me that I had never experienced before. I am starting to see God in everyone and feel I am beginning to relate to these words from spiritual leader and writer Eknath Easwaran:

"Whenever you look into another person's eyes, remember that you are looking into a city where the Lord dwells- and remember always that our arms and hands were given to us for others' rescue, not for their ruin."

In some of the dialogue I've had with others there have been individuals from the Christian perspective that bring up the criticism that meditation is a selfish pursuit. That it is focused too much on dwelling on one's self, on one's own personal encounter with God while leaving the rest of the world out of the equation. The argument is that meditation keeps us from actively manifesting the will of God out to others in the world.  I can't help but view this argument as a substantial misconception towards the practice of meditation and one in which history points very clearly to the contrary.  For some of the world's greatest contributors towards peace and the service of others have also been some of the world's greatest mystics. A mystic is one who seeks to encounter God experientially through means of contemplation and meditation.

 Thomas Merton, Mother Teresa, Teresa of Avila, St. Francis of Assissi...and the list goes on and on...all emphasized charity and acts of service to compliment contemplation. In fact, as I mentioned from my personal experience,  moments in meditation often spur on the sense of interconnectedness and a deep feeling of empathy and compassion for others. This is a common experience for one who meditates. From a Christian perspective,  we are "filled with God" to overflowing so that His love, His compassion, His Kingdom, might overflow through us into the world, through acts of service and love.

St. Teresa of Avila, one of the world's greatest Christian mystics, was also an active advocate of service towards others. She sought to inspire people to spread Christ's love and compassion throughout the world. She didn't see it as an option but a calling for all of those in the body of Christ.

You Are Christ's Hands

"Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which is to look out
Christ's compassion to the world;
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now."

St. Augustine of Hippo viewed both the spiritual discipline of meditation and service towards others as essential in the life of a Christian.  "No man has a right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget in his own ease the service due his neighbor; nor has any man a right to be so immersed in active life as to neglect the contemplation of God."

        

If ever, in these modern times, one was to give proof of contemplation's role in being a catalyst for the involvement of  charitable pursuits and social justice, it would be through the Quakers, one of the most contemplative sects branching off from Christianity.  Quaker meetings, or services, are held in complete contemplative meditative silence. This relatively small religious organization has allowed the impressions of universal empathy and compassion that they have received deep within them through meditation to become catalysts for helping make this world a better place.

Quakers formed the backbone of the Underground Railroad during the Civil War,  risking life and limb to bring thousands of slaves to freedom. Quakers, like Susan B. Anthony, rose their voices against the oppression of women in the women's suffrage movement which lead to the confirmation of women's rights in this country. They have worked hard for prison reform and have time and time again stood as  conscientious objectors towards war, advocating peace,  realizing that violence only breeds more violence.  Far from hiding themselves from the world and being driven by a sense of narcissistic ego to dwell upon their individual selves and merely pursue states of spiritual ecstasy, Quakers have plunged boldly into some of the darkest corners of society unabashedly allowing light to blossom.

Eknath Easwaran, in his book Original Goodness, brings up the truth that we cannot bring effective change towards peace, social justice and the cessation of the suffering of others without bringing change within ourselves first. When we do begin, through the means of meditation, to lose our selfish desires and attachments towards superficial and earthly things we begin to put others first more and more, not because we feel we have to, but because we truly feel led to. And love begets love. When we experience more love within ourselves and express it outwards, others catch quite readily onto it, becoming inspired themselves. Love and positivity are contagious.

" As our desire to draw closer to the Lord within us deepens, it draws self-centered desires into it like tributaries into a great river. The power of that love swells until it becomes cataclysmic; we begin to inspire other people through the transformation we have wrought in ourselves." ~Eknath Easwaran

It is my belief that contrary to some of the criticisms towards contemplative prayer and meditation, in that they keep the believer from manifesting God's Kingdom out to the world, that these practices actually lead the believer into experiential contact with the Kingdom within, creating a reaction in which the impulses to love and perform acts of love are irresistible. Mystics from all traditions, like Gandhi and Mother Theresa have all mentioned that love and service begin at home. Easwaran furthers that in the quote above by pointing to the truth that it ultimately begins within ourselves and spreads outwards.  Meditation is a beautiful and transforming tool to help prepare and aid us in acts of charity and service.

Thoughts? I'd love to hear them! Please leave them in the Comments section. Thank you!

Tuning In

Drop thy still dews of quietness

till all our strivings cease;

take from our souls the strain and stress,

and let our ordered lives confess

the beauty of thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire

thy coolness and thy balm;

let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;

speak through earthquake wind and fire,

O still, small voice of calm.

~ J.G. Whittier

When we rest in silence and seek  within our inner chambers our soul's center where the Spirit's throne abides we enter into a peace that surpasses all understanding. I came across the prayer above while reading a book by David Adam, The Eye of the Eagle. It is a book that meditates on the ancient hymn "Be Thou My Vision". I found this prayer a beautiful expression of this reality and wanted to share it with everyone. It is in his section at the end of a chapter that includes various "exercises" and meditations one can do to grow closer with God.  He suggests praying this prayer multiple times throughout the day, slowly and mindfully, dwelling on the meaning of each word and the reality of which it speaks.

I love the last two lines  "speak through earthquake wind and fire, O still, small voice of calm." It reminds me that even through the trials and busy nature of our lives, if we just center ourselves in the present moment, we can still hear the voice of God. It never leaves us, it is our focus that leaves Him and which makes us feel alone at times. For we are never truly alone, that is just an illusion that we sometimes buy all too readily into. We just need to find ways that work for us to "tune-in" to God's gentle whisper that beckons us forward to experience greater dimensions of His peace and love, which is His presence made manifest.

I am just as guilty as the next person in letting life's distractions carry me away from the peace and presence of God. When I find this happening I can't help but feel a bit of sorrow, for it doesn't have to be that way and many times it's being lost in those distractions that I find myself more apt to sin and wound those around me. And then there's the cycle of feeling guilty and sometimes in our guilt we feel unworthy to enter back into the presence of God. Well, that's also a lie! God always is there to welcome us back with open arms, that's why he sent Jesus, so that our sins and shortcomings, our transgressions could be cleansed from us and we could enter into His presence with a clean heart.

May we all take the time today to seek God's presence and be restored and refreshed, letting the Spirit's life giving waters flow through us. May we all find ways that work for us that help our hearts "tune-in" to the gentle whispers of God.

What are some ways that you find helpful in centering yourself in His presence? Prayer? Meditation? Worship? Please share in the comments section! :)

The Inward Journey

"The seeds of this sublime life are planted in every Christian soul at Baptism. But seeds must grow and develop before you reap the harvest. There are thousands of Christians walking about the face of the earth bearing in their bodies the infinite God of Whom they know practically nothing. They are themselves sons of God and are not aware of their identity...

The seeds of contemplation and sanctity, planted in those souls, merely lie dormant. They do not germinate. They do not grow. In other words, sanctifying grace occupies the substance of their souls, but never flows out to inflame and irrigate and take possession of their faculties, their intellect and will. The presence of God never becomes an intimate reality. God does not manifest Himself to these souls because they do not seek Him with any real desire...

They are men divided between God and the world. They are at home only in their exterior self. They never seek what is deeper within them. They allow God to maintain His rights over the substance of their souls, but their thoughts and desires do not belong to him. They belong to illusion, to passion, and to external things.

~ Thomas Merton, The Inner Experience, p. 48

Earlier this morning I read from the book of Matthew chapter 7 and when I read this passage from Merton, in his exceptional book, The Inner Experience, I was reminded of these verses:

Matthew 7:7-8

(7) Ask and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. (8) For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be open.

I don't necessarily agree with all of Merton's theology in the above passage but I do agree with the fact that God dwells within us and so many of us live our lives missing out on the opportunity of experiencing the presence of God. I have to confess that I have lived the majority of my Christian life accepting God's truths yet failing to experience His actual presence within. I think that the contemplative experience is something that just isn't discussed much, at least in the Christian circles that I have found myself in. That's really unfortunate. To experience the presence of God  is to be transformed in His love.

We have a wonderful opportunity in this life to get to know the God that will always be with us, even when our physical bodies are no more. He is with us now...not as an abstract concept or as some far and distant God that resides in the heavens, but He, through the form of the Holy Spirit, resides within our soul's temples. Let's not be the kind of christians Merton describes above. Let's seek the divine light that is in each one of us. As the verses in Matthew reveal, God never turns down the seeker. He is there waiting to open the door, it is just up to us to knock. Let's take the transformative journey inwards and into the arms of God.

A book that has really helped me with my journey inwards is The Practice of the Presence of God  by Brother Lawrence. You can find some of my favorite quotes from the book here: http://ascendingthehills.blogspot.com/p/brother-lawrence-quotes.html  I hope you enjoy them!

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for your mercy and grace. Thank you for sending your only son down here to teach us how to love, how to give and ultimately to die for our sins. Forgive us our sins and the many times we fall short and help us to forgive others. Our hearts long to bring you glory. Help us open our hearts to your presence. We want to know you intimately and not just know of you. Guide us in our journey inwards and help transform our hearts as by your grace,  your light floods them with your love and peace.

In Jesus' name,

Amen.

Lose Your Religion and Find God: Thomas Merton

"Let no one hope to find in contemplation  an escape from conflict, from anguish or from doubt. On the contrary, the deep, inexpressible certitude of the contemplative experience awakens a tragic anguish and opens many questions in the depths of the heart like wounds that cannot stop bleeding. For every gain in deep certitude there is a corresponding growth of superficial "doubt". This doubt is by no means opposed to genuine faith, but it mercilessly examines and questions the spurious "faith" of everyday life, the human faith which is nothing but the passive acceptance of conventional opinion.

This false "faith" which is what we often live by and which we even come to confuse with our "religion" is subjected to inexorable questioning. This torment is a kind of trial by fire in which we are compelled, by the very light of invisible truth which has reached us in the dark ray of contemplation, to examine, to doubt and finally to reject all prejudices and conventions that we have hitherto accepted as if they were dogmas. Hence is it clear that genuine contemplation is incompatible with complacency and with smug acceptance of prejudiced opinions. It is not mere passive acquiescence in the status quo, as some would like to believe-for this would reduce it to the level of spiritual anesthesia. Contemplation is no pain-killer. What a holocaust takes place in this steady burning to ashes of old worn-out words, cliches, slogans, rationalizations! The worst of it is that even apparently holy conceptions are consumed alone with the rest. It is a terrible breaking and burning of idols, a purification of the sanctuary, so that no graven thing may occupy the place that God has commanded to be left empty: the center, the existential altar which simply "is".

In the end the contemplative suffers the anguish of realizing that he no longer knows what God is. He may or may not mercifully realize that, after all, this is a great gain, because "God is not a what", not a "thing". That is precisely one of the essential characteristics of contemplative experience. It sees that there is no "what" that can be called God. There is "no such thing" as God because God is neither a "what" nor a "thing" but a pure "Who". He is the "Thou" before whom our inmost "I" springs into awareness. He is the I Am before whom with our own most personal and inalienable voice we echo "I am."                    ~ Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Merton is not suggesting losing reverence towards Scripture or faith in the God of the Bible but what he is saying here is to experience God we have to strip away from the layers of our consciousness preconceived notions that we have acquired and absorbed through our culture of who God "is".  As our souls open up to the light and love of God the awkward silhouettes of our illusions start to rise forth and we must have the courage to let them pass by so that we leave our minds and souls empty of them, thus making room for the true knowledge and experience of God. Our faith is to be active, perhaps interactive is a better word to use. We are to interact with God and not just be  passive, accepting truths and knowledge from others and not testing the validity of such claims by asking questions and experiencing the truth for ourselves.

It is not a comfortable process, in fact it can be quite painful and in some ways it can feel almost like we are losing our faith because we are stepping out of the complacency we have rested in for so long, cradled by the words and assumptions of man and plunging into the reality of God through our own experiences with Him, relying solely on the Spirit to guide us.

As he says, " It is a terrible breaking and burning of idols, a purification of the sanctuary, so that no graven thing may occupy the place that God has commanded to be left empty: the center, the existential altar which simply "is". "

I don't know about you, dear reader, but I seek with my whole heart to clear the clutter that rests buried deep beneath layers of subconscious at my soul's center and make my soul a wide and empty space, a space exclusively reserved for God to fill and dwell within it. What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear them!

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for bringing us safely into a new day. We thank you for your love and compassion and for the wonders of creation that surround us. Every beautiful sunrise, every smile joyfully etched on a child's innocent face, every mountain gilded with glaciers and wildflowers sings out in praise to the God who creates and sustains all of life. Thank you!

Help us to open up our hearts to you more and more. May we see reality as it is, clear our minds and hearts so that we may experience you more fully and not be trapped and mired down in the illusions which distract us. Help guide us in our journey for we seek you above all else. We desire to delight in your glory. May we give you all glory, honor and praise.

In Jesus' name,

Amen.

Mindfully Approaching Scripture

"Praying scripture is not judged by how much you read but by the way in which you read. If you read quickly, it will benefit you little. You will be like a bee that merely skims the surface of a flower. Instead, in this new way of reading with prayer, you must become as the bee that penetrates into the depths of the flower. You plunge deeply within to remove its deepest nectar."

                                        ~ Madame Guyon, 7th French mystic

I have to admit there was once a time when I approached God's Word rather causally. Flipping through it randomly, reading passages that I hardly remembered afterwards and feeling content that at least I had opened my Bible in the first place! I never really had a moment of insight, a moment where I thought God was revealing something to me, a moment where peace descended upon me and my heart opened up to embrace the reality of God and where I experienced the realization of the fullness of His glory.  If anything the Bible seemed kind of...well...bland and disconnected to my modern experience. I hate to say it, but in such a state as I once found myself in, I viewed certain books, especially in the Old Testament, as well...obsolete! (I reluctantly write these words because they are not easy ones to admit!...but somehow I don't think I'm alone.)

God has an amazing way of revealing in time His truths to the believer and when the heart is ripe, the harvest will come. I suppose my heart wasn't ripe during those earlier times.  If I was given the seeds of mindfulness to plant into my practice and approach I am afraid they probably would have only sprouted a bit and then wilted. No, it wasn't until I was already aware and deep into the practice of mindfulness meditation for quite sometime, not even considering or thinking of incorporating the practice towards reading and praying scripture, when I read Richard Foster's book, Celebration of Discipline. It was then when I saw the connection.  I have found this practice truly transforming. And honestly, mindfulness applied to anything, whether it be washing the dishes, taking a shower, walking in the woods or meditating, enriches one's experience opening up whole new dimensions of experiencing reality. I encourage all to explore this approach and apply it!

To experience the present more fully is a beautiful way of watching life and reality unfold itself before you. To experience Scripture more fully and plunge into the Word of God and enter the depths of its riches is an experience that leaves one changed and charged with the glory of God. 


As Madam Guyon shares with us, Scripture is unique and shouldn't be read in a trite and flighty manner. Richard Foster supports her view of this and shares his own with these words:

We cannot read Scripture the way we read the New York Times or an article on Wikipedia. The Bible is not susceptible to skimming, to summarizing, to speed-reading; there is a fundamental difference between Google and the gospel. Scripture is deep, rich, complex, and multi-layered. It speaks through nuances and details. It yields its fruit slowly and gently. (Renovare, November 2008 - Vol.15, No. 3)

When we take a few moments before reading Scripture to quiet our minds, pray and then open the holy words of God with a heart leaning forward with eager expectancy, ready to dive into the words and truths they contain, God blesses us for coming to Him with eager and seeking hearts. To be mindful simply means to be fully present. To not be distracted by wayward thoughts that oftentimes compete for our attention and muddle our thoughts, obscuring clarity and hindering perception. May we all be inspired by Madame Guyon's illustration and approach God's Word as bees digging for the sweet and living nectar of God's truths and in doing so, be touched and transformed by His amazing presence and reality.

Heavenly Father,

We thank you for safely bringing us into a new day. We know there are factors in our lives that worry us, pleasantly distract us and otherwise take our attention off from experiencing you in the present moment. May we learn to shed ourselves from such illusions, for nothing compares to your Glory and your Word and the life it offers. When we open the scriptures we ask you to help us be fully present and plunge into its depths. May it refresh and restore us, giving us hope and strength, light and new truths and a deeper sense of compassion and love so that we may, every time our Bible closes, be more and more transformed by your love. May we take the blessings and truths you give us and use them as tools to bring glory to your great name and reflect your love and light to a dim and dark world. May we shatter the darkness that surrounds us with your love and draw others closer to you.

In Jesus' name,

                                           Amen.                                                



Reflections of Compassion

When we meditate, we enter the mind of Christ by entering into meditative states of awareness of all that we hold in common as human beings. We sit, silent and still, and learn the intimate texture of thoughts, feelings, memories, and bodily sensations that all of us as human beings experience. In doing so we drop down into levels of oneness with others that transcends the differences between us. I am not you. But if I have intimately tasted my own aloneness, my own experience of thoughts arising and passing through my mind, my own breathing-then I already have in my intimate awareness of myself an intimate awareness of you.

This knowledge is not that of the words written on the pages of my mind, rather, it is a knowledge of the human experience of the mind itself. The experience is not simply my personal feelings about this or that. It is rather the intimate understanding of the texture of my own heart as feelings play across its surface, flow through it, and alter its state from one moment to the next. Grounded in this self-knowledge, I am grounded in awareness of oneness with you at a level that precedes and transcends the differences between us. I know you with an empathatic, heartfelt knowledge of what it means to be a human being.

It takes time, but little by little we enter the social dimensions of the mind of Christ in awakening to how perfectly one we are with everyone living and dead. As this awareness slowly seeps in, we are able to grow, day by day into a more patient, gracious recognition and acceptance of and gratitude for others. Little by little the graciousness of Christ’s emphatic mind of oneness with others is translated into a thousand little shifts in the way we think about people, our attitudes toward them, and the way in which we actually treat them day by day.

As we learn to see ourselves through the eyes of Christlike compassion we start to see others through the eyes of Christlike compassion as well. In learning to be compassionate towards ourselves as precious in our frailty, we learn to be compassionate toward others as precious in their frailty.”
                                          ~ James Finley, Christian Meditation, p. 96



I've come to believe that compassion is a crucial component in glorifying God and bringing glimpses of His Kingdom to the world.  Jesus lived with great compassion-healing, preaching, teaching and extending himself out to the margins of society where many wouldn't dare to go. To be instruments of His peace and love it's essential as we grow with God to reflect Christ's compassion to others. As important and central as that is in our mission towards service to others, I think sometimes it's often overlooked to invoke that same compassion we extend to others to ourselves as well. It seems that sometimes we are more willing to forgive others and less willing to forgive ourselves. When we harbor guilt, feelings of unworthiness, etc. against ourselves that can only serve as a stumbling block in our mission to help others.

We become imprisoned by our own illusions about ourselves instead of being liberated from them. God offers us full liberation and redemption from our sins! As Christians, I feel it's important to take hold of the offer God holds out in His hands and allow Him to break the chains that bind us from serving Him more fully and living a more joy-filled and productive life. In fact, it should be one of our prerogatives! God wants us to find pleasure in Him, joy in Him. How can we find joy in God if we are trapped by our own prisons we have built around our hearts?

I love this passage from Finley because I can relate to so much that he says. Contemplative prayer, or Christian meditation,  has been an invaluable experience for me in so many different ways. To experience the unfolding of your consciousness, to see more clearly with objectivity your thoughts and realize them for what they are...oftentimes impermanent illusions built upon the shaky foundation of attachments and other impermanent illusions, is transforming. It allows one to enter into and experience a new diminsion of God's reality. When stillness of one's mind is acheived and all of one's desire stretches towards the depths of God and is then enveloped in union with His love and peace...one does not walk away unchanged! It is also a beautiful way to realize profoundly the interconnectedness that we have with all of life that surrounds us. To treasure it, for it is a manifestation of God's glory, it is His love breathed out.

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for bringing us safely into a new day. I pray that You guide our hearts to an ever deeper and fuller understanding of Your love, Your Grace, Your compassion. May You illuminate the areas in our lives where we need to come humbly before You in repentence and help us walk as free sons and daughters of God so that we might reflect Christ's compassion and love fully and boldly in all the corners of the world.

May we give You, and You alone, all glory, honor and praise.

In Jesus' precious name,

Amen.

The Silence at the Center: Thomas Kelly

"Over the margins of life comes a whisper, a faint call, a premonition of richer living which we know we are passing by. We have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all of this hurried existence, a life of unhurried serenity and peace and power. If only we could slip over into that Center! If only we could find the Silence which is the source of sound!"

         ~ Thomas Kelly, 20th Century Quaker

Heavenly Father,

We thank you for your unending mercy and grace. For your love and faithfulness.

May you be soveriegn over our hearts, over  the plans we have for our lives.

May your plans become our plans.

May our will become your will as through your Word and through prayer we come to know you more.

May we seek out and embrace time each day where we find you in the stillness. When our hearts cry out to may you draw us deeper into your presence, into the serenity and peace that only you can offer our souls. May we be children of God attentive to the whispers of your Spirit and may those whispers refresh our souls with your truth, light and reality so that we may radiate your love and the hope of your salvation to a fallen world.

May we never cease to bring you glory, honor and praise.

In Jesus' name,

Amen 

Enter the Gates

"The present moment is a wide-open gate leading to the depths of God."
 James Finley, Christian Meditation, p. 230

There are most likely as many ways to come before God and enter into His presence as there are people. Everyone is so unique, their souls and person stitched together in a unique and differing pattern. I would suggest ,though ,that we are all stitched together with the same thread, for we were all made in the likeness of God.  Those of us that have claimed our inheritance have God within us and if we learn to still our minds we can learn to open up to experience the presence of God and experience a peace that surpasses all understanding.

There is an immense amount of freedom I've found in experiencing the present moment. And I've found that using the tool of mindfulness in worship and prayer and in every moment is a powerful way of experiencing God's presence. I am going to write more on this, but perhaps this is sort of an introduction to this subject on my blog. Oh, and I just want to mention, these are just my own thoughts and reflections on this subject...I'm no way an expert (as this blog's intro states!). This is just an area that fascinates me, that I've experienced personally though am still a novice in fully comprehending and practicing.

I was reflecting the other day that our consciousness is like an onion with different layers. As we peel back the layers less of the onion remains but what does become even more real are the intangible qualities-it's scent and sometimes our physiological responses to it (like involuntary tears!). The more we enter into different levels of consciousness, peeling back the more superficial layers, peeling away our attachments, the ramblings of our mind, the more we start to get to the core of things. I would suggest, God is at our core.

When we let go of ourselves, or who we think are ourselves, and still our mind so that we are an observor to our illusions, to our mind's wanderings, we start to see things more clearly and we start to open our hearts up to God's reality more and more as we become less and less cluttered and hindered by the insufficient things we sometimes cling to for security in our ever-shifting worlds. The fact is, life is impermanent and sometimes it can be downright full of despair and suffering, filled with uncertainty, etc. That is why it is much to our benefit as well as salvation that we cling to the only sure rock there is in which to steady our uneven gait through this life...and that is God. And I believe there is much benefit in centering ourselves and our mind on God and in His presence. It provides us with peace, with direction and with a sense of compassion that we most undoubtedly will extend to others.

On this topic John of the cross wrote:

A soul makes room for God by wiping away all the smudges and smears of attachment. By uniting its will perfectly to God's; for to love is to labor to divest and deprive oneself for God of all that is not God. When this is done the soul will be illumined by and transformed in God.

There are many great writers who speak a lot more eloquently and with more experience than I on this subject. I will be sure to quote passages from them over time on this blog so that maybe we can learn together some of the wisdom and insight God has revealed to them. We all have much to learn from one another, but ultimately God is our infallible source of truth and all His truth is in His Word, so we will explore what His Word has to say about all of this as well.

What are your thoughts? Your experiences, if any on contemplative prayer and Christian meditation?

~many blessings