Our time and
culture place huge importance on results, on value for money, on attainable goals
and measurable outcomes, on clear and often instant gratification. People often come to Christian Meditation
for the first time hoping to see good effects, to become happier, or to cope
better. It seems reasonable to expect
results. Even if life is going on quite
well – “Not a problem…,” as my optometrist says every second sentence – we are
still inclined to assume that the investment of significant time in Christian
Meditation will carry some dividend.
We are
brought up and encouraged to believe that activity is both virtuous and
productive. It is important to be
busy. Our prayer however depends on
coming to a stop for a while. Our
breathing and our heart rate return to their default position – that is to say,
what we require to be sitting comfortably and paying attention. To do this we put in place the mantra we have
chosen. It is a simple word or phrase. It is there, and to it we constantly
return. We need to give ourselves permission to be
still and silent, because it is not something we normally do. Devotees of much more active forms of prayer
sometimes wonder what on earth we think we’re up to. Some ask if we are a little unhinged. I can think of one or two who gave a shudder
and said, Oh, I could never do that. They may be right. They take the view that reward comes from
work and worthy activism. This is deeply
implanted and deeply assumed.
But for all
that, we know that a discipline of contemplative prayer actually makes a
profound difference. The classic reply
of teachers when someone asks, What do I
get out of it? – is, if we must look for results, we should look for them
in our capacity to love and understand, our capacity for compassion, in a
reduced willingness to pass judgement.
If you press experienced meditators on this sort of thing, you will get
eventually stories of how they found their reactions to someone or some difficulty
had changed, or how some poisonous memory had lost its sting, or how they had seen
a way through addiction, or through grief, or through handicap. You may hear how life had opened up in some
unexpected way. I think of Matheson’s
phrase about Joy, that seekest me through
pain – something that becomes comprehensible to us when we have become
friends with silence and stillness and deep inner consent to God.
Openness to
God is inevitably openness to the pain and injustice of God’s world. Our inner and the vast outer worlds are
inseparable. Contemplative prayer and
life means the end of using religion as a personal comfort blanket and insurance
against bad things happening. As we
know, we live with the permanent and ancient dilemma, that there seems little
we can do in any practical sense to heal the world, end the violence, save the
children. Many good people live a
lifetime of brilliant service – and the world goes on to behave as savagely as
ever. But as Jesus taught, our task is
to fulfil the law by love. Our role is
to be sure we live justly, love mercy and walk humbly, in Robert Frost’s words,
this is the road less travelled.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.
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