Dear brothers and sisters,
新年快樂、Happy Chinese New Year! Hope you and your household will have a fruitful and blessed year to come 恩福滿堂. Our staff will have special hotpot lunch together in our own cafeteria. The weather outside is just gorgeous…no complaint and purely grace. It is indeed like spring time everywhere proclaiming the beauty of God 新春報喜.
Living things need an appropriate climate in order to grow and bear fruit. If they are to develop to completion, they require an environment that allows their potential to be realized. The seed will not grow unless there is soil that can feed it, light to draw it forth, warmth to nurture and moisture that unlocks its vitality. Time is also required for its growth to unfold.
Meditation is the attempt to provide the soul with a proper environment in which to grow and become…How, then, do we provide the right environment? What are the conditions for the soul which are equivalent to the sun and rain, the soil and warmth for the seed.? First of all, the soul requires a spiritual environment with which it can react and in which it can grow and mature. This is the reality of contact with a spiritual world. Then it must be prodded from within by human need, the moisture that makes the seed swell and burst its own limits and so start upon the growth process. Until we realize that we need something beyond our own humanness, neither prayer nor meditation become a reality.
And then there is the reality of love which seeks out and desires to touch us and bring us to itself. This unique Christian understanding of God is the light of the sun which draws us forth. Christians have been entrusted with the knowledge that God is like the loving, caring Jesus of Nazareth who cared enough to die for any individual, even if that person had been the only one. This understanding gives us the assurance that there is nothing to fear in the ultimate confrontation. Instead, it means allowing oneself to be open to this almost incredible love. But this still requires one more condition for the reality of continued meditation.
It is this final step of allowing our lives to be expressions of that love in outer action that provides the warmth needed to encourage the seed to grow. The expression can take innumerable forms. One person may express that love by attempting to change a rotten social structure that warps and deforms human souls, another by making love more real to those one already loves, letting more of one’s concern become apparent. It can be expressed by visiting a crotchety old neighbor with a cup of warm soup, or on a battlefield by lifting some water to the lips of a dying man. And these things are not only the highest good in themselves; they also keep our feet on the ground, guarding us from the danger of becoming so involved in spiritual things that we lose our humanness and our touch with outer reality.
For both the seed and the soul, these things all take time. In both cases there is need for patience. Most of us know enough not to poke at the seed to see if it is sprouting, or try to hurry it along with too much water or fertilizer of cultivation. The same respect must be shown for the soul as its growth starts to take place. Growth can seldom be forced in nature. Whether it is producing a tree or a human personality, nature unfolds its growth slowly, silently.
It is so difficult for human beings to understand that more than one condition may be needed to realize some possibility. We seem to have an insatiable desire to make things simple, to reduce every complexity to one cause. It is difficult for us to adjust to the world around us as it is. While there is no harm in trying to simplify things enough to understand them, too often we try to force reality to fit some rigid pattern of our own ideas. Where meditation is concerned, we need to realize two things. Meditation is simple and natural, like a seed growing and becoming a tree. At the same time it requires the right conditions not provided by the secular world today. If meditation is to touch reality, we must seek out the right climate. Amen.
In Christ,
Lawrence
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Devotional reading 020211
Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. We are so blessed with such beautiful weather in the Bay Area, while the rest of this nation suffers in snow storm. We certainly don’t deserve this blessing. It is purely the grace of God. Amen? Thank you for your prayer for my study. I past through the first reader (The Chair of my dissertation committee), and my dissertation is now in the hand of second reader. I will still have one more reader to do evaluation before my dissertation is finally done for graduation on April 30th at Portland campus. It was truly a miracle that I could finish my degree program in less than two years, which were packed with heavy workload and traveling schedule. When I look back to this one and a half year, it was purely God’s grace to me again. Praise the Lord!!
Let’s continue our reading on The Other Side of Silence…
It is important to realize that each type of person has to take his/her own avenue to find and explore his/her relationship with God. God is found in many different ways. The important thing for me as an individual is to find a way that will get me there, into that relationship, so that I can begin to grow. For teachers of the religious way the important thing is to learn how to encourage different ways of responding, to discover how they differ from their own, and how others can develop their own relationship. They also need to study the language and the expressions of others. Most of the devotional manuals were probably written by introverted intuitive (as they would usually be the only ones who would care about writing them) and so they must be translated to be understood by other types.
Whether we are directing our own lives or others’ it is wise to realize that our type structures can change as life changes within and around us. Thus, practices which may be very meaningful at one time will not be as important at another period of our lives. Real life is fluid and ever changing, and so are real people, particularly in their relationship with the center and core of reality. When we are “stuck in cement” and cannot change our meditational lives, they suffer just like our relationships with other human beings. Creative human beings keep changing and adjusting to the complexities and varieties of life, to new experiences and new people, and also to God.
Each of us becomes the artist as we allow ourselves to be open to the reality of the Other and give expression to that encounter either in words or paint or stone or in the fabric of our lives. Each of us who has come to know and relate to the Other and expresses this in any way is an artist in spite of himself/herself. The reason for the tragedy and futility of so much of modern life is that it has lost this dimension. The art which reflects only the barrenness of life shares in the meaninglessness and absurdity. In the deepest sense religion, in which the individual has not been touched by the center of which we speak, is cold and unfeeling. It does not know the fire and expression of art. Art, which has not touched the same center, either is bravado in the darkness, despair, or debases itself into entertainment. In the final analysis meditation is the art of living life in its fullest and deepest. Genuine religion and art are two names for the same in- credible meeting with reality and give expression to that experience in some manner. The experience of this reality demands expression. This is part of the experience. Those who have been badly hurt or disappointed or perhaps recover something of the reality by seeing the process of meditation and prayer as the final and sublime art form and the most creative way of living out a life.
It is only dangerous to view meditation as art when we do not take art seriously and so refuse to see that real art is working one’s salvation out with fear and trembling. When art is seen merely as one’s attempt to reach aesthetic perfection, then it loses its seriousness and becomes a plaything and not a reality. But this is only possible in a world which does not know the reality of the spiritual world and so sees art merely as a human product and not a revelation of more than human harmony and meaning.
Humankind stands as a bridge between two worlds. Our greatest moments are when we have met, nakedly and face to face, the reality that saves and transforms, and then express this as part of our assimilating the experience. Our records of such experiences give us a further step on the road. They also give others light to find the path they must follow. Everyone’s encounter and record brings more light and consciousness into this world and allows the forces of darkness to be beaten back.
Meditation is an art. It is not a formula we use to deepen our relationship with God. We may wish for a quick fix way to grow our lives by like swallowing a pill. I am sure many young parents wished their kids grow instantly, so that they don’t need to change diapers, enduring sleepless nights, worrying about their baby’s health problem, and so forth. Somehow God does not design human life to grow faster than other animal species. On a contrary, human baby grows slower than poppy. Moreover, God designs each baby to be unique and different. Parents need to grow their babies each in an unique manner, and that is a form of art. Relationship building is an art, no matter how scientific an approach we want it to be. Artistic expression is shaped by a lot of different factors like personality and culture. God is our ultimate reality. He remains unchanged to all cultures and personalities. But our experiences of Him may vary from one to another. The bottom line is we all want to grow in this relationship with God. And when we share our intimate experiences with God in fellowship with one another, we grow as one Body in Christ.
In the bond of His love with you,
Lawrence
Good morning. We are so blessed with such beautiful weather in the Bay Area, while the rest of this nation suffers in snow storm. We certainly don’t deserve this blessing. It is purely the grace of God. Amen? Thank you for your prayer for my study. I past through the first reader (The Chair of my dissertation committee), and my dissertation is now in the hand of second reader. I will still have one more reader to do evaluation before my dissertation is finally done for graduation on April 30th at Portland campus. It was truly a miracle that I could finish my degree program in less than two years, which were packed with heavy workload and traveling schedule. When I look back to this one and a half year, it was purely God’s grace to me again. Praise the Lord!!
Let’s continue our reading on The Other Side of Silence…
It is important to realize that each type of person has to take his/her own avenue to find and explore his/her relationship with God. God is found in many different ways. The important thing for me as an individual is to find a way that will get me there, into that relationship, so that I can begin to grow. For teachers of the religious way the important thing is to learn how to encourage different ways of responding, to discover how they differ from their own, and how others can develop their own relationship. They also need to study the language and the expressions of others. Most of the devotional manuals were probably written by introverted intuitive (as they would usually be the only ones who would care about writing them) and so they must be translated to be understood by other types.
Whether we are directing our own lives or others’ it is wise to realize that our type structures can change as life changes within and around us. Thus, practices which may be very meaningful at one time will not be as important at another period of our lives. Real life is fluid and ever changing, and so are real people, particularly in their relationship with the center and core of reality. When we are “stuck in cement” and cannot change our meditational lives, they suffer just like our relationships with other human beings. Creative human beings keep changing and adjusting to the complexities and varieties of life, to new experiences and new people, and also to God.
Each of us becomes the artist as we allow ourselves to be open to the reality of the Other and give expression to that encounter either in words or paint or stone or in the fabric of our lives. Each of us who has come to know and relate to the Other and expresses this in any way is an artist in spite of himself/herself. The reason for the tragedy and futility of so much of modern life is that it has lost this dimension. The art which reflects only the barrenness of life shares in the meaninglessness and absurdity. In the deepest sense religion, in which the individual has not been touched by the center of which we speak, is cold and unfeeling. It does not know the fire and expression of art. Art, which has not touched the same center, either is bravado in the darkness, despair, or debases itself into entertainment. In the final analysis meditation is the art of living life in its fullest and deepest. Genuine religion and art are two names for the same in- credible meeting with reality and give expression to that experience in some manner. The experience of this reality demands expression. This is part of the experience. Those who have been badly hurt or disappointed or perhaps recover something of the reality by seeing the process of meditation and prayer as the final and sublime art form and the most creative way of living out a life.
It is only dangerous to view meditation as art when we do not take art seriously and so refuse to see that real art is working one’s salvation out with fear and trembling. When art is seen merely as one’s attempt to reach aesthetic perfection, then it loses its seriousness and becomes a plaything and not a reality. But this is only possible in a world which does not know the reality of the spiritual world and so sees art merely as a human product and not a revelation of more than human harmony and meaning.
Humankind stands as a bridge between two worlds. Our greatest moments are when we have met, nakedly and face to face, the reality that saves and transforms, and then express this as part of our assimilating the experience. Our records of such experiences give us a further step on the road. They also give others light to find the path they must follow. Everyone’s encounter and record brings more light and consciousness into this world and allows the forces of darkness to be beaten back.
Meditation is an art. It is not a formula we use to deepen our relationship with God. We may wish for a quick fix way to grow our lives by like swallowing a pill. I am sure many young parents wished their kids grow instantly, so that they don’t need to change diapers, enduring sleepless nights, worrying about their baby’s health problem, and so forth. Somehow God does not design human life to grow faster than other animal species. On a contrary, human baby grows slower than poppy. Moreover, God designs each baby to be unique and different. Parents need to grow their babies each in an unique manner, and that is a form of art. Relationship building is an art, no matter how scientific an approach we want it to be. Artistic expression is shaped by a lot of different factors like personality and culture. God is our ultimate reality. He remains unchanged to all cultures and personalities. But our experiences of Him may vary from one to another. The bottom line is we all want to grow in this relationship with God. And when we share our intimate experiences with God in fellowship with one another, we grow as one Body in Christ.
In the bond of His love with you,
Lawrence
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Devotional reading 010211
Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. Thank God for a beautiful day. The nature proclaims the glory of God and the sunshine symbolizes His merciful kindness because God gives sunshine and rain to both sinners and saints. His unconditional love permeates through the beauty of His creation. Let’s treasure and enjoy it today. Amen? We have been reading from Kelsey’s book on “The other side of silence.” I hope you find this guide to Christian meditation interesting. I like his explanation on how our personality relate to our spiritual formation. I wish somebody told me this when I began my baby walk with God. I still found his teaching beneficial in reviewing this again…
Besides such differing attitudes (introversion and extraversion) toward the outer world as a whole, most of us develop at least one of four functions that we use in dealing with the realities we encounter. Two of these are functions of perception, which involve taking in information about the world, usually about parts of it in which one is interested. The other two relate to judging, deciding about how to organize and use this information.
A mature individual generally develops one of these functions highly, an- other to a lesser degree, and then leaves at least one buried in the unconscious and seldom consciously used. We can sometimes learn to work with this fourth function, but this is usually not wise until we have developed the ones that are easy for us to use.
The first pair of functions, by which one receives information, are the perceptive ones that are called the sensing and the intuitive functions. Those persons who prefer to use their senses, the sensing type, are interested in individual details. Generally they like repeatable situations and are more comfortable in a well-known environment. They live in the “now” time wise and are usually “get-it-done” persons, doers. Action is their response to prayer and also to the rest of life. They often find religious pictures, crucifixes, icons helpful. Their prayer life will tend toward structured and familiar prayers, some often-used Meditation. They are likely to be conservative in their meditational practices. They have real need to go out from their meditation into social action and correct what needs correcting.
In contrast, the intuitive persons are more often interested in unconscious data, in perceptions that are received in some way other than by sense experience. The unconscious is their ballpark, and they enjoy it, either observing its influence in the outer world or directly in the inner one. They are likely to be innovative religious leaders, interested in renewal in the Church. Their time sense is in the future and they are “thinker-uppers.” They seldom can handle the details of what they think up, however. The inner life is very meaningful to them, and since they use images and understand their meaning, they will probably be bold in trying new ways of meditating. They find themselves at home in imaginative praying.
The other pair of functions have to do with two essentially opposite ways of organizing the data that one receives. These are the rational or judging functions that determine how we deal with the experiences that come to us, and they are known as thinking and feeling. The person of thinking type likes to classify and arrange things according to logical or intellectual values, while the feeling individual prefers to base decisions and actions upon human values.
The first term is easy for us to understand. The thinking person is essentially interested in logical relationships and how the world fits together into a total scheme of meaning. The description of a “feeling type,” however, is harder for most people to understand. This term has nothing to do with feeling in the ordinary sense of either emotion or physical sensation. Instead, it means making evaluations on the basis of how things affect people. What is important to the “feeling type” individual is the personal value or the value for others of the act or thing or person or idea. People are important to “feeling type” individuals, and they organize their actions and thoughts around human values. Their sense of time is rotary. Moving from present to past to present. They arrive at their values by matching experiences that are meaningful to them in the present with those that have been meaningful in the past, and they organize their lives according to these values. They are generally quick to grasp and understand the values of others and the meaning of what is happening to them, while ideas and logical connections are seldom important to them.
The thinking types usually build their meditational life through connections with ideas and theology. They find philosophy important and value the effort to understand God within a framework of ideas and in the historical process. To them God can be apprehended by the mind as well as through experience. Feeling individuals, on the other hand, find the greatest religious value and meaning in personal service and intimacy. The intimate Eucharist, where there are horizontal relations between people, is often very important to them and probably more significant for them than a majestic liturgy or a finely constructed sermon. Much of their meditational life is expressed in loving action toward others. But at the same time, they also need help to awaken their thinking function, first simply to evaluate the results of their actions, and then to see their place in a more total framework so that they will be able to communicate to others the meaning they find.
Silence and meditation are dealing with spiritual perception. How do we perceive God in our encountering with Him. In church history, we have a tendency to uplift the intuitive and thinking type of person, as though they alone perceive true “insight” from God. The sensing and feeling type usually become “deacons” who take care of the physical needs in church. Unconsciously, many of the sensing and feeling types of Christians agree with this assumption, and settle with the idea that they will not be able to perceive any true “insight” from God by doing things with people – their conclusion is doers can’t draw very close to God than the thinkers. I hope we will change this mindset after reading Kelsey’s explanation of different perceptions in life.
In Christ,
Lawrence
Good morning. Thank God for a beautiful day. The nature proclaims the glory of God and the sunshine symbolizes His merciful kindness because God gives sunshine and rain to both sinners and saints. His unconditional love permeates through the beauty of His creation. Let’s treasure and enjoy it today. Amen? We have been reading from Kelsey’s book on “The other side of silence.” I hope you find this guide to Christian meditation interesting. I like his explanation on how our personality relate to our spiritual formation. I wish somebody told me this when I began my baby walk with God. I still found his teaching beneficial in reviewing this again…
Besides such differing attitudes (introversion and extraversion) toward the outer world as a whole, most of us develop at least one of four functions that we use in dealing with the realities we encounter. Two of these are functions of perception, which involve taking in information about the world, usually about parts of it in which one is interested. The other two relate to judging, deciding about how to organize and use this information.
A mature individual generally develops one of these functions highly, an- other to a lesser degree, and then leaves at least one buried in the unconscious and seldom consciously used. We can sometimes learn to work with this fourth function, but this is usually not wise until we have developed the ones that are easy for us to use.
The first pair of functions, by which one receives information, are the perceptive ones that are called the sensing and the intuitive functions. Those persons who prefer to use their senses, the sensing type, are interested in individual details. Generally they like repeatable situations and are more comfortable in a well-known environment. They live in the “now” time wise and are usually “get-it-done” persons, doers. Action is their response to prayer and also to the rest of life. They often find religious pictures, crucifixes, icons helpful. Their prayer life will tend toward structured and familiar prayers, some often-used Meditation. They are likely to be conservative in their meditational practices. They have real need to go out from their meditation into social action and correct what needs correcting.
In contrast, the intuitive persons are more often interested in unconscious data, in perceptions that are received in some way other than by sense experience. The unconscious is their ballpark, and they enjoy it, either observing its influence in the outer world or directly in the inner one. They are likely to be innovative religious leaders, interested in renewal in the Church. Their time sense is in the future and they are “thinker-uppers.” They seldom can handle the details of what they think up, however. The inner life is very meaningful to them, and since they use images and understand their meaning, they will probably be bold in trying new ways of meditating. They find themselves at home in imaginative praying.
The other pair of functions have to do with two essentially opposite ways of organizing the data that one receives. These are the rational or judging functions that determine how we deal with the experiences that come to us, and they are known as thinking and feeling. The person of thinking type likes to classify and arrange things according to logical or intellectual values, while the feeling individual prefers to base decisions and actions upon human values.
The first term is easy for us to understand. The thinking person is essentially interested in logical relationships and how the world fits together into a total scheme of meaning. The description of a “feeling type,” however, is harder for most people to understand. This term has nothing to do with feeling in the ordinary sense of either emotion or physical sensation. Instead, it means making evaluations on the basis of how things affect people. What is important to the “feeling type” individual is the personal value or the value for others of the act or thing or person or idea. People are important to “feeling type” individuals, and they organize their actions and thoughts around human values. Their sense of time is rotary. Moving from present to past to present. They arrive at their values by matching experiences that are meaningful to them in the present with those that have been meaningful in the past, and they organize their lives according to these values. They are generally quick to grasp and understand the values of others and the meaning of what is happening to them, while ideas and logical connections are seldom important to them.
The thinking types usually build their meditational life through connections with ideas and theology. They find philosophy important and value the effort to understand God within a framework of ideas and in the historical process. To them God can be apprehended by the mind as well as through experience. Feeling individuals, on the other hand, find the greatest religious value and meaning in personal service and intimacy. The intimate Eucharist, where there are horizontal relations between people, is often very important to them and probably more significant for them than a majestic liturgy or a finely constructed sermon. Much of their meditational life is expressed in loving action toward others. But at the same time, they also need help to awaken their thinking function, first simply to evaluate the results of their actions, and then to see their place in a more total framework so that they will be able to communicate to others the meaning they find.
Silence and meditation are dealing with spiritual perception. How do we perceive God in our encountering with Him. In church history, we have a tendency to uplift the intuitive and thinking type of person, as though they alone perceive true “insight” from God. The sensing and feeling type usually become “deacons” who take care of the physical needs in church. Unconsciously, many of the sensing and feeling types of Christians agree with this assumption, and settle with the idea that they will not be able to perceive any true “insight” from God by doing things with people – their conclusion is doers can’t draw very close to God than the thinkers. I hope we will change this mindset after reading Kelsey’s explanation of different perceptions in life.
In Christ,
Lawrence
Monday, January 31, 2011
Devotional reading 310111
Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. Thank God for such a beautiful morning. I pray that you will find time to enjoy His creation as much as His presence. Lately I have been preoccupied by several projects – my second draft of the dissertation, sermons for winter retreat, mission conferences and teaching materials on Pastoral Theology – something I have never done before. I covet your prayer for me in all these preparation in the next one and a half months. And starting from the middle of March, I will have non-stop (feel like it) out of the country traveling until October. My journey will cover China, UK, Africa, Canada, Mongolia, Indonesia and Singapore…Praise God for answering my prayer to witness His work in all over the world. Indeed, I thank you for your support!
Let’s go back to Kelsey’s book on Christian Meditation…We are still in chapter 2.
Since each person is unique, each one will have an individual way of relating the totality of his or her being to God. Other people’s ideas may be helpful, but only one’s own way which is uniquely individual and personal, will offer a relationship with the Other that is real and meaningful. Many of our fundamental divisions over prayer and ritual may well be understood as different ways in which different types of individuals prefer to relate to religious realities. When we love another person we try to understand and relate to that person just as he/she is, and we do not expect him/her to be a carbon copy of ourselves. My experience of God is that He is far more understanding than we are at our best. After all, He is the Creator who has made us and given us different ways of responding and relating to this world. Apparently He wants each of us to seek Him in whatever way is the best for us individually, and He honors each personality and does not try to force us into any particular pattern or mold in order to relate to Him.
Our task is for each of us to find the way that is best for oneself as an individual, by first learning how one functions best, and then developing one’s own relationships to the Other in that way. There are certain universal principles, of course, which must be followed. Beyond that, in order to find the deepest kind of relationship with the Divine, one needs to know oneself and the strengths one has been given so that they can be used in seeking and responding to God. Later on there is a time to try other approaches and methods. But until one has tested one’s own way, it is not wise to adopt another person’s meditational practice without knowing whether it will lead as far as one might go by following one’s own way.
It is so easy for a religious leader to assume that the way which is meaningful for him or her must be equally meaningful for everyone else. This has presented a real problem in many denominations, and also in religious in which the actual devotional practice of one leader could be made the rule for all. God experts those of us who seek Him to keep on growing, learning to use our personalities more fully so that we will be able to know and relate to Him more and more completely. This goal makes it even more important to know one’s own strengths and weaknesses so that each of us is prepared both to share with others and also to learn from them. At this point, trying out and sharing someone else’s way of meditating is important. Both for the leader and for the follower. This is one way that each of us can find hidden parts of ourselves and bring them to the meeting with God. With this in mind, let us take a look at our differences in personality structure and how they relate to devotional practice.
There is first of all the very basic difference between the extravert and the introvert, between one whose interest lies in the outer world of people, affairs and tangible things, and one who is comfortable being alone and turning in- ward. Since extraverts find meaning among people and in doing things, their prayer life will probably be geared to service with and to others. They are likely to find God more often present in the outer physical world than through inner experiences of quiet. Yet extraverts also need time for quiet and reflection; otherwise they have no chance to integrate what they have experienced among others and find its significance for their growth and their deeper relationship with God.
Introverts, on the other hand, already find the inner world fascinating and easy to deal with. They are very likely to have no trouble finding an inner experience of God’s presence, and then look down on those persons who find their meaning largely in the outer world. Since they enjoy quiet, it is relatively easy for them to find time to meditate and seek a personal relationship with the Other. Their need, then, is to be called back to the outer world in service to other humans and to society, which is difficult but necessary for them. Unless they will get out and deal with the realities of the outer world, both beautiful and sordid, their devotional life tends to become unrealistic and detached. Certainly it would seem that the introvert and extravert need each other if each is to find the deepest and most fulfilling devotional life.
In his tremendously important book Psychological Types, Jung has suggested that type structure may have been a basic factor in the great theological split of the Middle Ages when reason and revelation, the natural and the supernatural began to part company. In this clash between nominalism and realism, the nominalists were basically interested in the outer world. The realists were caught up by the inner world and its structure. This seemed to them to be the ultimate reality, For them the image or idea that came to the mind was more real than the outer physical thing which was mediated by sense experience. Because of this personality difference, neither side could see the possibility of getting along with the other, and so the conflict was brought to a head.
I tend to be introverted and my wife extraverted. We certainly have different preference and inclination on spiritual practices. Yes, it takes time for us to understand and appreciate our different ways in approaching God. However, the more I learn how my extraverted wife perceived God through people and services with others, the more I realize how I need to balance my introverted approach by being alone with God through quiet time. I saw how she could make spirituality more personable and dynamic in her interpersonal relationship with others. God created each one of our personalities differently, not for the sake of rivalry against one another, but for synergizing with one another, in order to accomplish a more holistic perception of God. By doing so, our life is enriched and the Body of Christ is beautifully decorated for His glory.
In Christ,
Lawrence
Good morning. Thank God for such a beautiful morning. I pray that you will find time to enjoy His creation as much as His presence. Lately I have been preoccupied by several projects – my second draft of the dissertation, sermons for winter retreat, mission conferences and teaching materials on Pastoral Theology – something I have never done before. I covet your prayer for me in all these preparation in the next one and a half months. And starting from the middle of March, I will have non-stop (feel like it) out of the country traveling until October. My journey will cover China, UK, Africa, Canada, Mongolia, Indonesia and Singapore…Praise God for answering my prayer to witness His work in all over the world. Indeed, I thank you for your support!
Let’s go back to Kelsey’s book on Christian Meditation…We are still in chapter 2.
Since each person is unique, each one will have an individual way of relating the totality of his or her being to God. Other people’s ideas may be helpful, but only one’s own way which is uniquely individual and personal, will offer a relationship with the Other that is real and meaningful. Many of our fundamental divisions over prayer and ritual may well be understood as different ways in which different types of individuals prefer to relate to religious realities. When we love another person we try to understand and relate to that person just as he/she is, and we do not expect him/her to be a carbon copy of ourselves. My experience of God is that He is far more understanding than we are at our best. After all, He is the Creator who has made us and given us different ways of responding and relating to this world. Apparently He wants each of us to seek Him in whatever way is the best for us individually, and He honors each personality and does not try to force us into any particular pattern or mold in order to relate to Him.
Our task is for each of us to find the way that is best for oneself as an individual, by first learning how one functions best, and then developing one’s own relationships to the Other in that way. There are certain universal principles, of course, which must be followed. Beyond that, in order to find the deepest kind of relationship with the Divine, one needs to know oneself and the strengths one has been given so that they can be used in seeking and responding to God. Later on there is a time to try other approaches and methods. But until one has tested one’s own way, it is not wise to adopt another person’s meditational practice without knowing whether it will lead as far as one might go by following one’s own way.
It is so easy for a religious leader to assume that the way which is meaningful for him or her must be equally meaningful for everyone else. This has presented a real problem in many denominations, and also in religious in which the actual devotional practice of one leader could be made the rule for all. God experts those of us who seek Him to keep on growing, learning to use our personalities more fully so that we will be able to know and relate to Him more and more completely. This goal makes it even more important to know one’s own strengths and weaknesses so that each of us is prepared both to share with others and also to learn from them. At this point, trying out and sharing someone else’s way of meditating is important. Both for the leader and for the follower. This is one way that each of us can find hidden parts of ourselves and bring them to the meeting with God. With this in mind, let us take a look at our differences in personality structure and how they relate to devotional practice.
There is first of all the very basic difference between the extravert and the introvert, between one whose interest lies in the outer world of people, affairs and tangible things, and one who is comfortable being alone and turning in- ward. Since extraverts find meaning among people and in doing things, their prayer life will probably be geared to service with and to others. They are likely to find God more often present in the outer physical world than through inner experiences of quiet. Yet extraverts also need time for quiet and reflection; otherwise they have no chance to integrate what they have experienced among others and find its significance for their growth and their deeper relationship with God.
Introverts, on the other hand, already find the inner world fascinating and easy to deal with. They are very likely to have no trouble finding an inner experience of God’s presence, and then look down on those persons who find their meaning largely in the outer world. Since they enjoy quiet, it is relatively easy for them to find time to meditate and seek a personal relationship with the Other. Their need, then, is to be called back to the outer world in service to other humans and to society, which is difficult but necessary for them. Unless they will get out and deal with the realities of the outer world, both beautiful and sordid, their devotional life tends to become unrealistic and detached. Certainly it would seem that the introvert and extravert need each other if each is to find the deepest and most fulfilling devotional life.
In his tremendously important book Psychological Types, Jung has suggested that type structure may have been a basic factor in the great theological split of the Middle Ages when reason and revelation, the natural and the supernatural began to part company. In this clash between nominalism and realism, the nominalists were basically interested in the outer world. The realists were caught up by the inner world and its structure. This seemed to them to be the ultimate reality, For them the image or idea that came to the mind was more real than the outer physical thing which was mediated by sense experience. Because of this personality difference, neither side could see the possibility of getting along with the other, and so the conflict was brought to a head.
I tend to be introverted and my wife extraverted. We certainly have different preference and inclination on spiritual practices. Yes, it takes time for us to understand and appreciate our different ways in approaching God. However, the more I learn how my extraverted wife perceived God through people and services with others, the more I realize how I need to balance my introverted approach by being alone with God through quiet time. I saw how she could make spirituality more personable and dynamic in her interpersonal relationship with others. God created each one of our personalities differently, not for the sake of rivalry against one another, but for synergizing with one another, in order to accomplish a more holistic perception of God. By doing so, our life is enriched and the Body of Christ is beautifully decorated for His glory.
In Christ,
Lawrence
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Devotional sharing 260111
Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. We read Psalm 139 in our staff prayer meeting this morning. The Psalmist reminded us the fact that God knows everything – even the dark side of our lives. We have nothing to hide before Him. God wants to have a transparent relationship with us. He wants us to tell Him and ourselves who we are. He wants us to develop a genuine relationship with Him, like the way He treats us. If God does not reveal who He is to us, there is no way we can know Him at all. Through prayer and meditation, we grow in His love and learn how to love others…
We can begin to love and be loved only as we bring all of ourselves to the other person, all of our disappointments, our joys, our angers and hopes. This is the nature of love and communication. It applies as much between God and a person as it does between person and person, and perhaps even more. For this reason we shall say quite a bit about prayer in fear and anguish, in anger and sorrow, since modern piety mostly seems to assume that we cannot find God through these experiences. Yet, any good parent expects to love and comfort children, to help them pick up the pieces when things seem to go wrong. God is certainly not less than a human parent.
Communication is a growing process. As one comes to trust more and more, one reveals more and more. Sometimes these will be things which looked so black that we buried them deep in the unconscious. We could not bear to keep remembering them. As trust and concern and love begin to grow, even these things can be brought out of the darkness. And until then few of us can ever become free of the nagging fear, hidden in the heart of nearly every person, that no one could really stand us if we actually let them see the totality of our being. I recall one young man with whom I worked for over two years before he was able to reveal the things he disliked most about himself. When he finally did, the change in him was miraculous.
It is not easy for us to realize that the One who is love does care for us. We have to bring the more secret parts of ourselves up slowly and let the reality of the One who is love be tested. This takes courage, patience, time. In fact one of the reasons why I believe in a life after death is the way communication with the Other develops. Even in the best of lives this reality is just beginning to grow at the end of that life. Even when we have known this experience of communication with the Other early in life, and realize all along that this Other is trying to communicate with us, our lives are just not long enough to bring all the parts of them and all of our actions into accord with the Other. There is no good reason to believe that the One who begins this process, and offers us all the care we are able to take, then will end the process just as we are beginning to experience it. On the contrary, every now and then an experience comes to one or another of us which strongly suggests that this process goes on after our physical death.
The promise of eternal life is not just to help us overcome the fear of death. It gives us new strength to deal with life today. If we practice this loving relationship with our eternal God, we will find assurance that He is active in our lives and in our relationship with others. There is not by coincidence that we encounter the people in our lives today. God puts us in their midst for a purpose – that is to mode our characters to become more godly or Christ like. Without entering into daily communion with God through prayer and meditation, we easily lost sight of our priority in life and true values of relationship with Him and others. Pause and enjoy His presence now. You can tell Him your naked feelings that you dare not share on Facebook. He understands.
In Christ,
Lawrence
Good morning. We read Psalm 139 in our staff prayer meeting this morning. The Psalmist reminded us the fact that God knows everything – even the dark side of our lives. We have nothing to hide before Him. God wants to have a transparent relationship with us. He wants us to tell Him and ourselves who we are. He wants us to develop a genuine relationship with Him, like the way He treats us. If God does not reveal who He is to us, there is no way we can know Him at all. Through prayer and meditation, we grow in His love and learn how to love others…
We can begin to love and be loved only as we bring all of ourselves to the other person, all of our disappointments, our joys, our angers and hopes. This is the nature of love and communication. It applies as much between God and a person as it does between person and person, and perhaps even more. For this reason we shall say quite a bit about prayer in fear and anguish, in anger and sorrow, since modern piety mostly seems to assume that we cannot find God through these experiences. Yet, any good parent expects to love and comfort children, to help them pick up the pieces when things seem to go wrong. God is certainly not less than a human parent.
Communication is a growing process. As one comes to trust more and more, one reveals more and more. Sometimes these will be things which looked so black that we buried them deep in the unconscious. We could not bear to keep remembering them. As trust and concern and love begin to grow, even these things can be brought out of the darkness. And until then few of us can ever become free of the nagging fear, hidden in the heart of nearly every person, that no one could really stand us if we actually let them see the totality of our being. I recall one young man with whom I worked for over two years before he was able to reveal the things he disliked most about himself. When he finally did, the change in him was miraculous.
It is not easy for us to realize that the One who is love does care for us. We have to bring the more secret parts of ourselves up slowly and let the reality of the One who is love be tested. This takes courage, patience, time. In fact one of the reasons why I believe in a life after death is the way communication with the Other develops. Even in the best of lives this reality is just beginning to grow at the end of that life. Even when we have known this experience of communication with the Other early in life, and realize all along that this Other is trying to communicate with us, our lives are just not long enough to bring all the parts of them and all of our actions into accord with the Other. There is no good reason to believe that the One who begins this process, and offers us all the care we are able to take, then will end the process just as we are beginning to experience it. On the contrary, every now and then an experience comes to one or another of us which strongly suggests that this process goes on after our physical death.
The promise of eternal life is not just to help us overcome the fear of death. It gives us new strength to deal with life today. If we practice this loving relationship with our eternal God, we will find assurance that He is active in our lives and in our relationship with others. There is not by coincidence that we encounter the people in our lives today. God puts us in their midst for a purpose – that is to mode our characters to become more godly or Christ like. Without entering into daily communion with God through prayer and meditation, we easily lost sight of our priority in life and true values of relationship with Him and others. Pause and enjoy His presence now. You can tell Him your naked feelings that you dare not share on Facebook. He understands.
In Christ,
Lawrence
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Devotional sharing 250111
Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. It has been two exciting two weeks that packed with meaningful fellowship with our comrades in the Gospel. Overseas Missions Fellowship (OMF) is a 150 years old mission organization started by Hudson, who gave his whole life to serve in China. We are a 15 years old mission organization following the footsteps of missionary like the Taylors. We have a lot to learn from their many years of experience. We praised God for giving us the opportunity to learn from them and hopefully partner with them in the future. I hardly have time to digest all the information that I learnt from these two weeks of gathering. But one thing is certain. We share the same value and commitment – to fulfill the Great Commission of God. One of the regrets that OMF missionary shared was that they had planted churches but not missions in China in the past 100 years. In another word, there are a lot of Chinese churches and Christians who had not participated in the mission movement of God, which is the ultimate purpose of our new life in Christ. Together we committed to change this phenomenon in planting indigenous Biblical mission movement in Asia and around the globe. We invite you to join us in prayer, giving, encouraging, or direct participation in short term and long term missions.
Hope you find time to read the following paragraphs on prayer and meditation by Morton Kelsey:
Sometimes we conceal our relation with God in prayer because we are afraid that others are closer than we are, that someone may be further ahead. But once we have turned and are actually seeking to confront the Other (God), then we will almost certainly find a need for someone to talk with. Real confrontation with love demands sharing of this experience. And in sharing we realize that all us, even the best, are babes in the woods.
So much growth and transformation are possible in one’s relationship with God that those who are trying are like the laborers in the vineyard. There is little difference between the one who has labored all day and the one who has been at work for only an hour. The first and the last are not far apart. And each of us, the best and the least alike, needs other human beings with whom we can share our deepest experiences and safeguard against deceiving ourselves. We each need some person with whom we can talk about any of these things, any level of experience, and we also need a group—which of course can be only two people—with whom we can pray. Although a real confrontation with the God revealed in Jesus Christ often comes alone and apart, in the desert or on the solitary mountain top, it draws us toward other human beings. This is a natural and integral part of the experience of meeting God. When it fails to happen. Something is wrong.
The practice of prayer and meditation is as complex and varied as human life itself. As we confront the reality of the Other, we bring every part of our being, our ideas and thoughts, our plans for the day, for the week, for our entire life to the Other. We disclose our fear, our hopes, our human love, our thirst for more than human love, our anger and vengeance, our depression, sorrow and lostness, the values that are important to us, our adoration and joy and thanksgiving. Leaving out any part of the spectrum of human life makes prayer and meditation incomplete, and that is like meeting a person whom one hopes to know better, only to find that the relationship cannot grow because the other person dares to share only a small part of himself/herself.
What is true of human relationships at their deepest and best is even more true of the relationship with God. It is not very hard to know when we are at our best in relating. At those times we want to know all about the other person. Including the darkness and shadow, so that we can love or care for that individual better. If one loves, one can bear everything. And the incredible mystery of Christianity is that God wants to know us in that way, in total depth and reality, the darkness as well as the light, the anger as well as the love. Indeed our human desire to know and love some other person in depth springs out of the very nature and reality of God Himself. This is perhaps the most essential way in which we are made in the image and likeness of God, this way of needing to love and to be loved…
As long as we feel that there is some part of ourselves that we cannot lay out and share with God, then we cheat Him fully as much as ourselves. For some inscrutable reason, something hidden deep in His nature, He wants to meet the totality of us, good, bad and indifferent, in the greatest depth. And only then can His love touch every part of us and transform or change the whole. For this reason the meditative process is a many-faceted jewel. There are as many different sides of meditation and prayer, of meeting and confronting the Other, as there are sides of human life. If there are parts of us that we do not bring to the Other, it is like letting part of the gem go uncut. So many people like to emphasize certain forms of prayer or meditation such as prayer of thanksgiving or adoration. But these are completed only when one’s prayer life involves all the other aspects of his life, from one’s anguish and despair to volcanic and explosive anger. There are prayer forms appropriate to each of these sides of life. It we want the transformation that can come, we need to bring all parts of ourselves before the Presence of God. Sometimes the very things of which we are most ashamed can become the most brilliant part of our being when they are touched by that Presence and changed.
It is certainly not an easy practice for us to expose our whole being to God, even though we know that God knows everything within us, regardless of whether we tell Him or not. Openly communicate with God through prayer and mediation is a healthy exercise to surface the dark sides of our lives to the Light. The more we harbor our “dark” feelings, the more we give Satan a foothold to launch his evil attack against us. None can handle our dark side more than our Lord Jesus Christ could. Only when we experience His healing more in prayer and meditation, we can truly share with others the healing words that edify in a deeper level. That’s why solitude and fellowship are like two sides of the same coin. Beware of fellowship if we don’t enter communion with God in solitude frequently. Beware of solitude if we could not share our lives in fellowship with others in a deeper level.
Have mercy on us O Lord! Give us the desire to enjoy our communion with you and with your people, because this is what you prescribe for all those who genuinely want to grow in you.
With love in Christ,
Lawrence
Good morning. It has been two exciting two weeks that packed with meaningful fellowship with our comrades in the Gospel. Overseas Missions Fellowship (OMF) is a 150 years old mission organization started by Hudson, who gave his whole life to serve in China. We are a 15 years old mission organization following the footsteps of missionary like the Taylors. We have a lot to learn from their many years of experience. We praised God for giving us the opportunity to learn from them and hopefully partner with them in the future. I hardly have time to digest all the information that I learnt from these two weeks of gathering. But one thing is certain. We share the same value and commitment – to fulfill the Great Commission of God. One of the regrets that OMF missionary shared was that they had planted churches but not missions in China in the past 100 years. In another word, there are a lot of Chinese churches and Christians who had not participated in the mission movement of God, which is the ultimate purpose of our new life in Christ. Together we committed to change this phenomenon in planting indigenous Biblical mission movement in Asia and around the globe. We invite you to join us in prayer, giving, encouraging, or direct participation in short term and long term missions.
Hope you find time to read the following paragraphs on prayer and meditation by Morton Kelsey:
Sometimes we conceal our relation with God in prayer because we are afraid that others are closer than we are, that someone may be further ahead. But once we have turned and are actually seeking to confront the Other (God), then we will almost certainly find a need for someone to talk with. Real confrontation with love demands sharing of this experience. And in sharing we realize that all us, even the best, are babes in the woods.
So much growth and transformation are possible in one’s relationship with God that those who are trying are like the laborers in the vineyard. There is little difference between the one who has labored all day and the one who has been at work for only an hour. The first and the last are not far apart. And each of us, the best and the least alike, needs other human beings with whom we can share our deepest experiences and safeguard against deceiving ourselves. We each need some person with whom we can talk about any of these things, any level of experience, and we also need a group—which of course can be only two people—with whom we can pray. Although a real confrontation with the God revealed in Jesus Christ often comes alone and apart, in the desert or on the solitary mountain top, it draws us toward other human beings. This is a natural and integral part of the experience of meeting God. When it fails to happen. Something is wrong.
The practice of prayer and meditation is as complex and varied as human life itself. As we confront the reality of the Other, we bring every part of our being, our ideas and thoughts, our plans for the day, for the week, for our entire life to the Other. We disclose our fear, our hopes, our human love, our thirst for more than human love, our anger and vengeance, our depression, sorrow and lostness, the values that are important to us, our adoration and joy and thanksgiving. Leaving out any part of the spectrum of human life makes prayer and meditation incomplete, and that is like meeting a person whom one hopes to know better, only to find that the relationship cannot grow because the other person dares to share only a small part of himself/herself.
What is true of human relationships at their deepest and best is even more true of the relationship with God. It is not very hard to know when we are at our best in relating. At those times we want to know all about the other person. Including the darkness and shadow, so that we can love or care for that individual better. If one loves, one can bear everything. And the incredible mystery of Christianity is that God wants to know us in that way, in total depth and reality, the darkness as well as the light, the anger as well as the love. Indeed our human desire to know and love some other person in depth springs out of the very nature and reality of God Himself. This is perhaps the most essential way in which we are made in the image and likeness of God, this way of needing to love and to be loved…
As long as we feel that there is some part of ourselves that we cannot lay out and share with God, then we cheat Him fully as much as ourselves. For some inscrutable reason, something hidden deep in His nature, He wants to meet the totality of us, good, bad and indifferent, in the greatest depth. And only then can His love touch every part of us and transform or change the whole. For this reason the meditative process is a many-faceted jewel. There are as many different sides of meditation and prayer, of meeting and confronting the Other, as there are sides of human life. If there are parts of us that we do not bring to the Other, it is like letting part of the gem go uncut. So many people like to emphasize certain forms of prayer or meditation such as prayer of thanksgiving or adoration. But these are completed only when one’s prayer life involves all the other aspects of his life, from one’s anguish and despair to volcanic and explosive anger. There are prayer forms appropriate to each of these sides of life. It we want the transformation that can come, we need to bring all parts of ourselves before the Presence of God. Sometimes the very things of which we are most ashamed can become the most brilliant part of our being when they are touched by that Presence and changed.
It is certainly not an easy practice for us to expose our whole being to God, even though we know that God knows everything within us, regardless of whether we tell Him or not. Openly communicate with God through prayer and mediation is a healthy exercise to surface the dark sides of our lives to the Light. The more we harbor our “dark” feelings, the more we give Satan a foothold to launch his evil attack against us. None can handle our dark side more than our Lord Jesus Christ could. Only when we experience His healing more in prayer and meditation, we can truly share with others the healing words that edify in a deeper level. That’s why solitude and fellowship are like two sides of the same coin. Beware of fellowship if we don’t enter communion with God in solitude frequently. Beware of solitude if we could not share our lives in fellowship with others in a deeper level.
Have mercy on us O Lord! Give us the desire to enjoy our communion with you and with your people, because this is what you prescribe for all those who genuinely want to grow in you.
With love in Christ,
Lawrence
Monday, January 10, 2011
Devotional reading 100111
Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. It is a blessing to have quiet time before the Lord and be ministered by the presence of the Holy Spirit. God cares about His children and wants to always nourish us like mother to a baby. And when we are contented with the fact that He is the Shepherd of our lives, we can rest to know that He will provide us with green pastures and still waters. As I meditated on Psalm 131 this morning, I was reminded of the importance of being as calm as a weaned child, “I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me” (Psalm 131:2). A weaned child is not restless and cry out for his or her own needs from time to time. A soul rests in the assurance of God’s love finds inner strength to deal with uncertainty of life and complexity in human relationship. A rested soul seeks not his or her needs being met, but how he or she can be blessing to others. Contemplative prayer is to focus on the inner voice of the Holy Spirit, who whispers His love to my soul from day to day.
It is easy enough to say that God is seeking us, and even to stress how central this understanding is to Christianity. But it is harder to realize that we have to prepare so that God can break through to us. Meditation is simply the way we prepare, setting up the conditions that can help to make this possible. It includes various practices, even quite diverse ones, all aimed at making experiences of God as available as possible…bat meditation does mean is a way for us to unlock the door and come out from the places where most of us have been hiding. It is the process of opening ourselves to the realm of nonphysical reality in which God can touch us far more directly than in the physical world. It is that kind of prayer in which we seek relationship with God, and in this sense meditation is the preparation and foundation for prayer.
In meditation, there is a fresh emphasis on prayer as one and learning what God wants of us become far more important than what we want of God. Yet the amazing thing is that when we pray in this way, we often receive better than we would have dared to ask on our own. This is also the way Jesus taught His followers to pray. In the Lord’s Prayer we are told to begin by speaking directly to the Father and hallowing His name, putting the first emphasis on meeting God and expressing appreciation for what we have found. We then direct our attention to His kingdom and His will, showing our readiness to relate to His ways and wishes. Only then do we go on to ask for ourselves.
Today most of us are so caught up in the outer, material world that we forget that there is a nonmaterial inner or spiritual realm of existence. Our task is to come to know that realm again, and to realize that in it one can find sustaining and fulfilling experiences of God that give direction to the whole of life. Unless there is some such reality that can be reached, how can prayer itself make much sense? Why pray, if one is only calling out blindly into the void! Yet through meditation and the images that are evoked, one can touch and come to know the reality of the Other who is actually there.
Yet the masters of the devotional life and the depth psychologists need each other. They have each discovered something of the reality of the human soul, and each discipline has something important to say to the other. There is a burning need for us to see meditation in this new light. So many modern Christians have trouble with praying because they do not see how it can make sense in this complex modem world. Some psychological thought has made the complexity more understandable for us. The work of C.G. Jung and his followers has led farther than that. Their thinking and practice have helped many people to become aware of a need for prayer today. When the discussion of prayer leaves their discoveries out, it cuts off much of the sophisticated reading public and these people have as much right to prayer as anyone.
One of the great weaknesses among even the most religious depth psychologists is simply that their findings have not been tempered with the experience of those men and women who have plunged deepest into their relationship with God. These psychologists have not grasped the range and depth and richness of that experience, and so they can offer guidance only part of the way toward it. They often do not realize how common these experiences are to the ordinary “normal” person. Then there are psycho- legists who mistrust the entire experience of prayer and religious meditation, and these psychologists leave a great gap just where most of us need some direction and assurances that the road ahead leads somewhere worthwhile.
On the other hand, devotional writings, even down to the present day, have often left much to be desired. Some manuals insist upon the idea that we cannot grow in relationship with God without developing contempt for our emotional lives, our bodies and the physical world in general. Many of the classical Western writers have neglected the immanence or ever-present quality of God and the ways of finding Him within this world as well as beyond it. The result has often been practices so ascetic, one-sided and rejective of the world that they even caused emotional disturbance in some followers. It is difficult for the even average reader, lay or clerical, to sift the wheat from the chaff in this writing, even though popular devotional works of the last fifty years have sometimes suggested practices quite foreign to the total message of Jesus of Nazareth. Through the best of psychological understanding, however, we can find balance in our devotional lives and a return to His wisdom and practical directions.
I agree with Kelsey that we need a balanced view in our understanding of our practice of meditation. After all, it is God who created within us a mind to interact with Him. This mind exists within our soul which can be analyzed by a psychological approach. Of course, an atheist psychologist will not be able to understand the dynamics that go on within our soul in terms of our interaction with the Deity, until they humble themselves to accept the reality of God’s presence in the life of His faithful.
With the presence of His love,
Lawrence
Good morning. It is a blessing to have quiet time before the Lord and be ministered by the presence of the Holy Spirit. God cares about His children and wants to always nourish us like mother to a baby. And when we are contented with the fact that He is the Shepherd of our lives, we can rest to know that He will provide us with green pastures and still waters. As I meditated on Psalm 131 this morning, I was reminded of the importance of being as calm as a weaned child, “I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me” (Psalm 131:2). A weaned child is not restless and cry out for his or her own needs from time to time. A soul rests in the assurance of God’s love finds inner strength to deal with uncertainty of life and complexity in human relationship. A rested soul seeks not his or her needs being met, but how he or she can be blessing to others. Contemplative prayer is to focus on the inner voice of the Holy Spirit, who whispers His love to my soul from day to day.
It is easy enough to say that God is seeking us, and even to stress how central this understanding is to Christianity. But it is harder to realize that we have to prepare so that God can break through to us. Meditation is simply the way we prepare, setting up the conditions that can help to make this possible. It includes various practices, even quite diverse ones, all aimed at making experiences of God as available as possible…bat meditation does mean is a way for us to unlock the door and come out from the places where most of us have been hiding. It is the process of opening ourselves to the realm of nonphysical reality in which God can touch us far more directly than in the physical world. It is that kind of prayer in which we seek relationship with God, and in this sense meditation is the preparation and foundation for prayer.
In meditation, there is a fresh emphasis on prayer as one and learning what God wants of us become far more important than what we want of God. Yet the amazing thing is that when we pray in this way, we often receive better than we would have dared to ask on our own. This is also the way Jesus taught His followers to pray. In the Lord’s Prayer we are told to begin by speaking directly to the Father and hallowing His name, putting the first emphasis on meeting God and expressing appreciation for what we have found. We then direct our attention to His kingdom and His will, showing our readiness to relate to His ways and wishes. Only then do we go on to ask for ourselves.
Today most of us are so caught up in the outer, material world that we forget that there is a nonmaterial inner or spiritual realm of existence. Our task is to come to know that realm again, and to realize that in it one can find sustaining and fulfilling experiences of God that give direction to the whole of life. Unless there is some such reality that can be reached, how can prayer itself make much sense? Why pray, if one is only calling out blindly into the void! Yet through meditation and the images that are evoked, one can touch and come to know the reality of the Other who is actually there.
Yet the masters of the devotional life and the depth psychologists need each other. They have each discovered something of the reality of the human soul, and each discipline has something important to say to the other. There is a burning need for us to see meditation in this new light. So many modern Christians have trouble with praying because they do not see how it can make sense in this complex modem world. Some psychological thought has made the complexity more understandable for us. The work of C.G. Jung and his followers has led farther than that. Their thinking and practice have helped many people to become aware of a need for prayer today. When the discussion of prayer leaves their discoveries out, it cuts off much of the sophisticated reading public and these people have as much right to prayer as anyone.
One of the great weaknesses among even the most religious depth psychologists is simply that their findings have not been tempered with the experience of those men and women who have plunged deepest into their relationship with God. These psychologists have not grasped the range and depth and richness of that experience, and so they can offer guidance only part of the way toward it. They often do not realize how common these experiences are to the ordinary “normal” person. Then there are psycho- legists who mistrust the entire experience of prayer and religious meditation, and these psychologists leave a great gap just where most of us need some direction and assurances that the road ahead leads somewhere worthwhile.
On the other hand, devotional writings, even down to the present day, have often left much to be desired. Some manuals insist upon the idea that we cannot grow in relationship with God without developing contempt for our emotional lives, our bodies and the physical world in general. Many of the classical Western writers have neglected the immanence or ever-present quality of God and the ways of finding Him within this world as well as beyond it. The result has often been practices so ascetic, one-sided and rejective of the world that they even caused emotional disturbance in some followers. It is difficult for the even average reader, lay or clerical, to sift the wheat from the chaff in this writing, even though popular devotional works of the last fifty years have sometimes suggested practices quite foreign to the total message of Jesus of Nazareth. Through the best of psychological understanding, however, we can find balance in our devotional lives and a return to His wisdom and practical directions.
I agree with Kelsey that we need a balanced view in our understanding of our practice of meditation. After all, it is God who created within us a mind to interact with Him. This mind exists within our soul which can be analyzed by a psychological approach. Of course, an atheist psychologist will not be able to understand the dynamics that go on within our soul in terms of our interaction with the Deity, until they humble themselves to accept the reality of God’s presence in the life of His faithful.
With the presence of His love,
Lawrence
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