Meditation
Christian meditation and contemplative prayer
Christian meditation is not emptying the mind. It is filling it deliberately with one thing — which is what the first Psalm means by meditating day and night. Unhurried practices, each short enough for an ordinary day.
Meditation basics
An introduction, if you have never done this · 6 minutes
Christian meditation is not emptying the mind. It is filling it — with one line of Scripture, held still long enough to sink. The Bible commands it more often than it commands almost anything else.
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night.
Joshua 1:8
Lectio Divina
Divine reading — sixteen centuries old · 10 minutes
Four movements: read, meditate, pray, contemplate. It is how the church read the Bible for over a thousand years before anybody owned a printed copy — slowly, aloud, a few lines at a time.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
Psalm 1:2
Imaginative contemplation
Put yourself inside the scene · 9 minutes
An Ignatian practice: enter a Gospel story with your senses, not just your intellect. You are not inventing Scripture — you are paying attention to it with your whole self.
And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow.
Mark 4:38
Reflective prayer
Guided exercises, when you have no words · 7 minutes
For the days when prayer feels like talking to a ceiling. These are scaffolds — you borrow the words until your own come back.
The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought.
Romans 8:26
Bible reflections
Meditations on one passage · 8 minutes
One passage, held long enough to give up its meaning. Not a study — a dwelling.
I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways.
Psalm 119:15
Stress and anxiety
Reflections on trusting God · 8 minutes
Anxiety is not unbelief and it is not a moral failure. But it responds to being told the truth slowly, in the body as well as the mind.
Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
Philippians 4:6-7
Laments
For the things there is no bright side to · 9 minutes
A third of the Psalms are complaints. God put the language of grief and protest into His own songbook, which means He is not offended by yours.
How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?
Psalm 13:1
Christmas reflections
The incarnation, slowly · 8 minutes
The most familiar story in the world, read so often that it has stopped landing. These meditations slow it back down until it does.
And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
Luke 2:7