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Scripture Meditation: The Fear of the Lord and Contemplative Prayer

Posted on September 27, 2016September 26, 2016 by Ed Cyzewski

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; those who act accordingly have a good understanding; his praise endures forever.”
Psalm 111:10

While Jesus tells us to not be afraid, and Paul says that God has not given us a spirit of fear, the Psalms have a way of putting us in our place. Those who are wise rightly fear the Lord, even if God does not come to us with thunder and fire.

The gentleness and meekness of Jesus is much like the same approach of Moses, who veiled his face after seeing God’s glory. God does not seek our worship or reverence through intimidation, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fear the holiness and power of God.

A healthy “fear” of the Lord keeps us humble and helps us see God’s love and mercy with greater clarity and gratitude.

For Reflection

Book of the Month: The Way of the Heart

Posted on September 26, 2016September 26, 2016 by Ed Cyzewski

Week Four: Finding God in Silence…

Perhaps you’ve hoped, prayed, and waited for God to speak or you’ve spoken many words in your pursuit of God. Henrí Nouwen writes that God is present in the silence and that our pursuit of silence may be one of the surest paths to God.

While acknowledging the place of speaking and teaching, Nouwen reminds us that our words can often get us in trouble. James assured us that the tongue is a restless evil that the Desert Fathers and Mothers sought to overcome by “fleeing” the use of many words.

Out of this pursuit of silence, they found freedom to speak less but with greater insight and awareness of God.

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“Silence is the way to make solitude a reality. The Desert Fathers praise silence as the safest way to God.”

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“The Word of God is born out of the eternal silence of God, and it is to this Word out of silence that we want to be witnesses.”

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“Speaking gets us involved in the affairs of the world, and it is very hard to be involved without becoming entangled in and polluted by the world.”

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“Sometimes it seems that our many words are more an expression of doubt than of our faith. It is as if we are not sure that God’s Spirit can touch the hearts of people: we have to help him out and, with man words, convince others of his power.”

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“In order to be a ministry in the Name of Jesus, our ministry must also point beyond our words to the unspeakable mystery of God.”

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Reflection

Scripture Meditation: The Freedom in Surrender

Posted on September 20, 2016September 19, 2016 by Ed Cyzewski

“And Mary said,“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…”
Luke 1:46-47

After hearing news that I suspect no one can fully comprehend, Mary responded with words of praise for God. The word to “magnify” is sometimes translated as extol or praise, as we don’t often speak of “magnifying” someone these days.

Mary saw her role in the salvation plan of God as a reason to praise God. She didn’t have to bear the burden of seeking her own glory, defending her own name, or exalting her own plans.

There is great freedom in our surrender to God’s direction for our lives.

As we limit ourselves to the actions that draw glory to God, we shake away the many ambitions and fears that can drag so many down. May we find the joy of Mary as we surrender ourselves to God’s loving direction.

For Reflection

Friday Favorites for Prayer and Writing

Posted on August 19, 2016August 12, 2016 by Ed Cyzewski

Each Friday I share some of my favorite finds related to praying or writing. If I think it could help you pray or write better, then I’ll include it below.

Do you have someone else’s article or post to share? Join the Contemplative Writers Facebook group, comment on today’s post on my Facebook page, or follow me on Twitter (@edcyzewski) to nominate your favorite articles, blog posts, and books by Thursday at noon each week.

Contemplation in the Age of Trump

The Common Prayer app is FREE. See the link under the video.

Pray as You Go. I’ve mentioned this before, but if the app is new to you, check it out. It’s great for imaginative scripture contemplation.

Two Things Are Killing Your Ability to Focus (also featured on Wednesday’s post)

How to Get Into a Rhythm at Work if You Can’t Stick to a Schedule

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Featured Article: Tips for Overcoming Distraction

Posted on August 10, 2016August 8, 2016 by Ed Cyzewski

Whether at work with our writing or seeking the quiet of contemplative prayer, distractions will become a major challenge. Thankfully, there are some tried and true ways to approach our days and to organize our tasks in order to make the most of our time.

This article in the Harvard Business Review offers a great summary of the latest research in overcoming distractions in our day to day lives:

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“Start trying a simple mindfulness practice when you wake up, which can be anything from quietly taking a few deep breaths to meditating for 20 or 30 minutes. Dr. Seppälä explains why this is so important: ‘Meditation is a way to train your nervous system to calm despite the stress of our daily lives.'”

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“Instead of struggling to accomplish what matters, you can take advantage of your body’s natural rhythms. Focus on complex, creative tasks in the morning; these things will tend to be ones you accomplish individually or with 2–3 other people. Push all other meetings to the afternoon.”

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“If you want to avoid wasting time and burning out, add buffer time between each meeting. For every 45–60 minutes you spend in a meeting, make sure to take 15 minutes or more to process, reflect, and prioritize.”

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Book of the Month: Thoughts in Solitude

Posted on August 8, 2016August 8, 2016 by Ed Cyzewski

Week Two: Transformation in Solitude

Can you make yourself more loving, holy, or virtuous?

I suspect that you could try, but Thomas Merton suggests that you’ll fail and feel quite bad about it. His alternative is far from flashy: solitude.

In solitude we can rest fully in the love of God and trust the rest to God’s presence within us. Merton writes:

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“If man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit. Everything must be elevated and transformed by the action of God, in love and faith.”

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“There is no hope for the man who struggles to obtain a virtue in the abstract—a quality of which he has no experience. He will never efficaciously prefer the virtue to the opposite vice, no matter how much he may seem to despise the latter.”

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“What is the use of praying if at the very moment of prayer, we have so little confidence in God that we are busy planning our own kind of answer to our prayer?”

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Learn more about Thoughts in Solitude…

For Reflection

Featured Article: The Church Fathers on Mindfulness

Posted on June 29, 2016June 25, 2016 by Ed Cyzewski

Mindfulness has been a favorite of psychologists and behavioral researchers. In a purely secular sense, mindfulness simply means becoming aware of your thoughts or thinking about thinking. However, mindfulness has also been a part of the prayer practices of the historic church.

The early church and the desert fathers and mothers in particular routinely practiced a form of mindfulness that they used in conjunction with prayer. This practice has continued throughout the history of the church, although it has been called different things over time, such as the Ignatian Examen that I use each evening. Here is one analysis of this prayer practice and its Christian background:

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The early fathers of the Eastern Christian Church talked about the vigilance of the mind and heart [nepsis], which is similar to the cognitive-rational-emotive therapy technique employed by psychologists in helping patients to be ‘mindful’ and thus learn to control their thoughts and feelings. In response to this technique Beck (2011) writes that “. . . mindfulness techniques help patients nonjudgmentally observe and accept their internal experiences, without evaluating or trying to change them.”

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A vigilance and watchfulness of the mind and heart somewhat similar to the cognitive-rational-emotive therapy technique employed by psychologists in helping patients to be ‘mindful’ and thus learn control of thoughts and feelings is a frequent theme in the writings of the early Fathers of the Eastern Christian Church.

These early Christian spiritual teachers taught their disciples to develop nepsis, that is, to be wakeful and attentive (from the Greek verb nepho: to be vigilant, mindful)iii to that which was inside and around them. Thus, we also need to practice being completely “present” to our thoughts and surroundings.

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Featured Contemplative Book: The Ragamuffin Gospel

Posted on June 6, 2016June 4, 2016 by Ed Cyzewski

Week Two: What the Cross Tells Us

Brennan Manning writes that we can make the mistake of turning salvation into a process or transaction when the cross itself is God’s ultimate act of love for us. The cross tells us just how deeply God loves us.

As I’ve read the works of contemplative Christians, I’ve noticed that many of them had their most profound revelations while meditating on the cross. It’s on the cross that God demonstrated his commitment to saving us through a different kind of power that doesn’t resort to force or degrading others. The cross tells us just how far God’s love will go for us.

The cross tells us that God saw a violent, self-centered people and still preferred to sacrifice himself at the mercy of our religious and political institutions rather than demanding the love and honor that is his due.

We are continuing our feature of Manning’s The Ragamuffin Gospel this month where he reflects on the love of God and the meaning of the cross:

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“We need a new kind of relationship with the Father that drives out fear and mistrust and anxiety and guilt, that permits us to be hopeful and joyous, trusting and compassionate…

The gospel of grace calls us to sing of the everyday mystery of intimacy with God instead of always seeking for miracles or visions. It calls us to sing of the spiritual roots of such commonplace experiences as falling in love, telling the truth, raising a child, teaching a class, forgiving each other after we have hurt each other, standing together in the bad weather of life, of surprise and sexuality, and the radiance of existence.” Page 77-78

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“In his monumental work The Crucified God, Jürgen Moltmann writes, ‘We have made the bitterness of the cross, the revelation of God in the cross of Jesus Christ, tolerable to ourselves by learning to understand it as a necessity for the process of salvation.’” Page 108

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“Do you really accept the message that God is head over heels in love with you? I believe that this question is at the core of our ability to mature and grow spiritually. If in our hearts we really don’t believe that God loves us as we are, if we are still tainted by the lie that we can do something to make God love us more, we are rejecting the message of the cross.” Page 165

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For Reflection

Contemplative Profiles: Teresa of Avila

Posted on May 26, 2016May 25, 2016 by Ed Cyzewski

Teresa of Avila (1515 to 1582) is remembered as a practical mystic whose combination of contemplation and service make her a particularly friendly guide for Protestants seeking an introduction to contemplative practices. Her writings on spirituality, the soul, and spiritual direction are viewed as classics, and she used her considerable leadership abilities to found 14 Carmelite convents–a point that made her less than popular among the defensive men leading the church throughout Spain during her lifetime.

While we would do well to remember the writings of Teresa, another aspect of her legacy may provide particular encouragement. Her first 20 years in a convent were largely unproductive as she wavered with her commitment and struggled with sin. It took a dramatic spiritual encounter with Christ to finally propel her into deeper spiritual practices.

How many of us have worried about missing opportunities to draw near to God or struggling with sins for years? Teresa reminds us that there is always hope.

The Interior Castle is one of her best-known books on prayer, but this brief profile in Christian History offers a helpful introduction:

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“Whoever has not begun the practice of prayer, I beg for the love of the Lord not to go without so great a good. There is nothing here to fear but only something to desire.”

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The Interior Castle describes the soul as a “castle made entirely of diamond or of a very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms.” Some are above, some below, some to the sides, “and in the very center and middle is the main dwelling place where the very secret exchanges between God and the soul take place.” Teresa wanted to teach her readers how to enter this castle, that is, how to pray, so that they might commune more intimately with God.

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For Teresa true suffering comes from being in the world and serving others. Spiritual progress is measured neither by self-imposed penance nor by the sweetest pleasures of mystical experiences but by growth in constant love for others and an increasing desire within for the will of God.

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For Reflection

How have your attempts at prayer been stifled by fear?

Friday Favorites for Prayer and Writing

Posted on May 20, 2016May 19, 2016 by Ed Cyzewski

Each Friday I share some of my favorite finds related to praying or writing. If I think it could help you pray or write better, then I’ll include it below.

Researchers Find More Changes Are More Effective (Out with the Old)

Is Solitude the Secret to Unlocking Our Creativity

The Age of Loneliness Is Killing Us

The Busy Person’s Lies

Ed’s blog: The Hidden Danger of Business for Creative Workers

Looking for more recommendations? Check out our Prayer Resources page.