Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside, looking into the shining world? Because, properly attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion. Can one be passionate about the just, the ideal, the sublime,...
At its most basic and fundamental level, Christian meditation is simply a loving attentiveness to God.
People who know they will die live very carefully. Not careful as in fearful; careful as in full of care. Every word, every act, every relationship holds the possibility of giving birth to something filled with great care. And that thing need not be showy or dramatic,...
Lord, at the beginning of this Lenten season, I sense my need of you,Yet, I am not quite sure how to reach you. I heard someone say, “Read your Bible.”But too often the words are like Bullets that ricochet off my brain. I heard someone say, “Pray.”But my prayers,...
A story from the Buddhist tradition, probably timeless but in its most recent versions set during the Chinese Communist invasion of Tibet, makes this point very clear. A soldier bursts into a monastery cell and thrusts his rifle into the belly of a meditating monk....
When I was a medical school professor, I invited my students to view their own experiences of sickness and medical care as a way to empathize with their patients’ experiences. Like them, we can prepare for our dying by “practicing” dying in response to situations of...
We must not be led to believe that the Disciplines are only for spiritual giants and hence beyond our reach, or only for contemplatives who devote all their time to prayer and meditation. Far from it. God intends the Disciplines of the spiritual life to be for...