Contemplative+Tradition

Contemplative Tradition Exercises: EXERCISES IN THE CONTEMPLATIVE TRADITION 1. Set asidefive to ten minutes eachdayfor prayer. Find a time in your schedule that is free of interruption, when you can turn your thoughts to God. You may want to read a Bible verse and meditate on it, or you may want to spend the time talking with God about your needs and concerns. The idea is simply to set aside your busy activities (or not start them) and turn your attention to God. 2. Spend   five to ten minuteseach   day in   silence. Carve out a time that is free from interruption and use this time to be silent. While letting silence and its peace wash over you, pray without words. Very close friends can communicate without words; try this with God. Simply enjoy God's presence, God's loving arms wrapped around you. 3. Read selectionsfrom a devotional book. Find a book on the spiritual life that interests you. It may be a spiritual classic such as St. Augustine's // Confessions,  //  or it may be a devotional classic such as Oswald Chambers's My // Utmost for His Highest. // Devotional periodicals such as // Guideposts  //  or  //  The Upper"Room  //  (or some    other denominational publication) may interest you. However, instead  of reading what you select simply to understand it, read it "with God,"  knowing that God is there in the room with you. Discover God in the  reading.  4.  Pray the sameprayer for ten minutes eachday.    There is a tradition in the Eastern Church called "hesychasm," which is  the practice of repeating a simple prayer over and over. The idea is to  focus our thoughts on God so that God can enter our heart. You might  like to try the "hesychastic" prayer "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me," or use a verse from a psalm-perhaps "Create in me a clean heart, 0 God" (Ps. 51:10).  5.  Write anoriginal prayer.    Take time to write a prayer as if it were a "letter to God." Beginning  with "Dear God," tell God your hopes and dreams, your worries, your  needs. You may even want to confess your sins and ask for forgiveness.  Most important, use the prayer to open the lines of communication  between yourself and God. Do not write the prayer as though it would  be read by others someday. Like a personal journal, keep your prayer  confidential so that you have the freedom to be honest. Once you are done, read and pray it every day until our next gathering.

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From Marti: Indeed, such words adequately describe my contemplative tradition often enough! On the other hand, here's something I wrote for my blog several weeks ago, and you guys might enjoy it too. Plus it will check how easy or hard it is to change a wiki page and even add formatted text....

http://tellingsecrets-mks.blogspot.com/2008/11/anchoress.html


Sunday I had a sad parting with a book I borrowed through the inter-library loan system, a volume called [|What Has Christianity Ever Done for Us? How It Shaped the Modern World], by Jonathan Hill. It’s a book for browsing more than for reading, so while I took in quite a bit of it, I didn’t finish it. Maybe I’ll put it on my wish list.

One of the last things I read was about the medieval mystic known as Julian of Norwich (b. 1342, d. 1416). Actually, that wasn’t really her name, “St. Julian’s” was the name of the church she was part of (literally; see below). How would you like that? Enough to make you join “Grace Fellowship” instead of “Calvary Road Baptist"!

Julian was an anchoress. No, that’s not a lady who hosts the evening news, and it has nothing to do with boats. An anchoress is an unmarried woman (not necessarily a nun) who attaches herself to a community, generally living in a small chamber attached to the church. Actually, she’s supposed to be walled in. It’s a pretty serious commitment. Apparently, they even performed a mass for the dead for you when you became an anchoress!

But that’s only the beginning, not the end, of such a life. Julian may have been a hermit of sorts but it seems to have been her job description to focus on drawing near to God, praying for her community, and giving counsel to those who came to consult her about their thoughts and affairs. In a lot of ways she was right in the middle of things. And she wrote a book about a series of visions she had, 'Revelations of Divine Love.'

Probably the most well-known of Julian's revelations had to do with what looked like a small, brown nut - a hazelnut. The universe is like this nut, God told her: a small thing, compared to its creator. But what's God's attitude toward his creation? He made it. He loves it. Therefore it stays. He keeps it.

Cool.

In Julian’s day, no respectable city was without an anchoress. Would that we were so well “anchored” today!

Julian also lived in dark times - a great plague was sweeping Europe. Taxes soared, harvests were terrible, confusion and persecution were rampant. The people of "St. Julian's" needed the hope, the joy, the love that Lady Julian found in the life and revelations (as well as common sense) God had given her, and that's what she shared with the people who came.

And all shall be well And all manner of thing Shall be well." **
 * "All shall be well

LISA WRITES: Dude! This is awesome. My blah blah blah was a test page, but you took it to the level I wanted & then some :).

You can read about why Julian is often pictured with a cat, [|here]. The image above is by Br. Robert Lentz and is available [|here].