Contemplative Prayer

Have you ever heard the term contemplative prayer and wondered what that means?  Without engaging in a "how to" session, one of my favorite authors, Henri Nouwen, in his book Clowning in Rome offers the best insight on the subject I've ever read:

Contemplative Prayer is not introspection.  It is not a scrupulous inward-looking analysis of our own thoughts and feelings but it is an attentiveness to the Presence of Love personified inviting us into an encounter.  Our Companion on the journey is God who knows our minds and hearts.  Although it is important and even indispensible for our spiritual lives to set apart time for God and God alone, our prayer can only become unceasing communion when all our thoughts- beautiful and ugly, high or low, proud or shameful, sorrowful or joyful- can be thought in the Presence of the One who dwells in us and surrounds us.  By trying to do this, our unceasing thinking is converted into unceasing prayer moving us from self-centered monologue to God-centered dialogue.  To pray unceasingly means to think and live in the presence of Love. 

Unceasing prayer is deeply nourished by the discipline of committed time for solitude and prayer.  Setting aside a certain place and time each day to do nothing else but pray creates the context for unceasing thought to become unceasing prayer.  By dedicating ourselves to a specific time and place for nothing but our openness to God’s presence, we focus and wait in hope to welcome God’s Spirit as our partner in a dialogue of life and love.  It is of primary importance that we enter our daily solitude with an understanding of its potential and with hope and expectation of being with God.  The practice, or the discipline, of contemplative prayer is particularly precious and life-giving precisely for busy people like us who are so busy and fragmented.  Contemplative prayer can be a discipline that puts us in a position for radical transformation.  Contemplative prayer is truly quite simple and wonderful.  It is about looking and waiting for God.

 Contemplative prayer can best be described as an imagining of God’s Son Jesus, a letting him enter fully into our consciousness.  Each one of us is invited to develop a personal discipline of spending time with God.  The wonderful thing about discipline is how by its nature it will conform to the particular lifestyle of the individual who is seeking God.  Jesus becomes, for us, a living presence we can relate to.  We are in dialogue with the living God, here and now.  The ideal of making our whole life into prayer remains nothing but an ideal unless we are willing to work at it.  If we choose certain supportive disciplines, they will lead us into the realm of great possibilities.

From: Clowning in Rome By Henri Nouwen

Sunrise, Sunset

One of Joan's and my top five favorite musicals is Fiddler on the Roof (#1, hands down, is Les Miserables!) and we love the song Sunrise, Sunset.  I find it sad, however, that we live in a culture where far too many of us never notice either when the sun rises nor when it sets.  Many sleep right through the sunrises, and there's nothing inherently wrong with "sleeping in" unless we do it so consistently for our entire lives that, in the process, we miss out on a lifetime of beautiful sunrises.  And most of us are simply "too busy" (even though busy might be defined for many as watching television) to see the beauty of sunsets.

Not so with my friend Cary Branscum.  Cary takes some of the most gorgeous photographs of sunsets I have ever seen and shares them with the world on Facebook.  He takes them with his i-phone camera while on his daily walks.  They look professionally done.  But that's what God-designed beauty does for each of us, doesn't it?- It makes us all look good.  When I asked Cary about these beauties, he said, "You know, the sad thing is that so much of the time, we allow the "stuff" of life to prevent us from seeing- really seeing- all of the beauty God has designed and placed all around us to enjoy."  I think Cary is right.  So...next time it gets to be sunset time, "Be still and know...."

When Things are Tough and God is Silent

Have you ever had one (or more) of those times when life became particularly hard and, to compound the woes, God seemed uncomfortably silent at that very moment when you wished He'd sent a telegram.  I mean, granted, silence is His primary language- we've already established that- and it is in stillness and silence spent (invested is a better word) with Him that we come to sense His presence.  But on these kinds of days, there seems to be no sense of His presence at all.  He just doesn't seem to be there.

At such times, it would help to remember three things.  First, His promise is that He IS there- "I will NEVER leave you nor forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5)  He will NOT desert us, divorce us, abandon us, walk out on us, leave us- no matter how much it may feel like He has.  Secondly, He promises to catch our tears in His jar. (Psalm 56:8)  He has to be awfully close to pull that off, holding that jar up close enough to our cheek to catch the tears as they flow- even when it seems like He's the farthest away He's ever been.  Finally, remember your school days.  Your teachers talked a lot- right?  Except for one day each week, when they were noticeably silent.  That was test day.  They passed out the test and you never heard a word from them the rest of the day.  But they hadn't left the room.  They were still close by.  If you needed help, they would do what they could without robbing you of the joy of a job well done.  Their job was not simply to have you pass a test, but to encourage as they saw character grow in you through the process.

On life's toughest days (test days), God has not left the room.  He is still there.  He may be silent, but He's there.  Close by.  Ready to encourage.  Grieving with our pain, yet celebrating when He sees the character of Christ grow to maturity inside of us, because He knows that, as tough as those days are, we'll some day realize that they were well worth the trouble.  Even so, come Lord Jesus!

Holy

Eugene Peterson in The Jesus Way says, "The unique thing about the holy is that it cannot be known or understood apart from entering it... It is not a subject we learn from a book or lecture.  We enter in.  Some things don't change and there are no shortcuts."  It begins with a sense of unworthiness but progresses to the reality of purification.  It is time invested with God.  Holy.  Isaiah.  John on Patmos.  Holy.  Solitude?  Yes.  Isolation?  No.  "Here am I Lord, send me."  Prior to going out, we might do well to journey within.  He is there.  Holy.  And time with Him will change us for the better forever.  "Be still and know..."

Seven Words

Seven words. Just seven. A bit different from the highly-charged political climate today in which politicians can't seem to control their wordiness.  Different from our churches in which a multiplicity of words seems to be the "coin of the realm".  Seven words: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me."  They called it simply "the Jesus prayer".  And, for centuries, it has served as the key element in empowering believers to "practice the presence of God."  It was designed not as some religious mantra, not as the kind of vain repetition that Jesus had such strong words against.  Its design was to be a simple, quiet prayer (always avoiding calling attention to itself) to occupy the heart (not just the lips) of the believer as a constant reminder throughout the day that the Lord is ALWAYS present with us.  He never leaves, never divorces, never deserts, never abandons.  He is present.  And we need to remember that.  When we're loading the dishwasher after dinner, when we're picking up the kids from school, when we're facing that incredible deadline at work, when we're sitting at the computer pondering whether or not to surf the porn sites, when the young secretary asks us if we'd like to "do lunch".  At those times when He either seems far away or something within us wishes for a moment that He were, we need to be reminded that he is close enough to hear the beating of our heart, catch our tears in His jar, and count the hairs on our head.  That close.

As that reminder, the ancients employed the Jesus prayer, always in the heart, ever-so-softly spoken on the lips, never calling attention to itself, but always focusing attention to the One Who is here.  Utterred under one's breath hundreds of times during a typical day, practicing the presence. "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me."  Seven words.  We owe a great debt to those seven words whether we realize it or not.  In the history of spirituality, they helped get us to where we are.  Where exactly IS that with you?  Maybe we would do well to renew the ancient practice.  Maybe we, too, need reminding throughout the day that He is HERE.  "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me."

Silence

Syrian monk, Isaac of Ninevah says: "If you love truth, be a lover of silence. Silence will unite you with God Himself. More than all things love silence: it brings you a fruit that tongue cannot describe.  In the beginning we have to force ourselves to be silent. But then there is born something that draws us to silence. May God give you an experience of this something that is born of silence."  Amen.  Amen.  Silence is God's primary language.  We'd do well to sit as students in His classroom and allow ourselves to be instructed. Come, Lord.

Treasure

The day after Columbus Day, 1992, my dad went home to be with Jesus. Two days prior to Independence Day, 1996, Joan's dad joined him there. Two days after Easter, 2005 my mom celebrated with them around the throne. And the day after Valentine's Day this year, Joan's mom completed the circle. Interesting, isn't it- grief and celebrations- they often surround each other, crowd into each other, follow on the heels of each other. Most of these deaths were immediately preceded or followed closely by a family wedding or the birth of a grandchild or a birthday party for someone in the family- usually a grandchild. Treasured moments. Not easily forgotten. Not meant to be.

Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Joan and I have noticed that ever since October 13, 1992, our hearts are more and more turned toward heaven. I'd preached about it for years- but never from my heart. Sadly, we preachers can do that, you know. But for the past nineteen years, our hearts, our dreams, our passions are lodged in the heavenlies.  As our daughter Laurie said regarding her firstborn son, "I just can't take my eyes off him, dad." We can't take our eyes off HIM. Him. The One around whose throne our parents now celebrate. And so it is: our treasures (those we love and hold dear) are in heaven; consequently, so are our hearts. Jesus spoke truth. Should that surprise us? Even so, come Lord Jesus!

Under Construction

Billy Graham in his new book Nearing Home recalls a time his late wife Ruth, while driving in the hills near their home, saw a sign which read END OF CONSTRUCTION- THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE. She wrote it down the minute she arrived home and informed her family that she wanted these words to be engraved on her tombstone. Appropriate, don't you think? We're all under construction. All the time. Right down to the very last breath we take. He's not finished with us yet. And we owe those in our world a huge "Thank you!" for putting up with the mess we so often are. Then comes that last breath- just like the one experienced by a dear friend today. End of Construction. Project completed. Journey over. Destination reached. Home. Even so, come Lord Jesus!

Be still!

Having given this blog thing a go a few years ago, it is with some degree of hesitancy that I re-enter the blogging world. The irony is that what I'm feeling a need to say is that we all need to work at saying less. I break my silence to plead for more silence in our lives. I speak up to say that we all- including me, perhaps especially me- need to shut up. In our culture of wordiness and noise, I am coming more and more to believe that the most profound Scripture may be the simple sentence "Be still and know that I am God."

So, In the Quiet will offer infrequent, brief, simple observations concerning the value of silence, solitude, simplicity as healthy pathways toward meaningful spirituality. My prayer is that encountering Him will be the result, for no other result matters after all is said (in our world of words) and done (in our zealous hyperactivity). So, each time you pay a visit to this site, if, in fact, you ever return, I urge you...Be still!