Contemplative prayer is a journey that tends to passthrough three phases, from meditation (me and God) to contemplation (God and me) to communion (only God). This may sound pretty heavy but I guarantee you do it already, and with a little practice you can go deeper and learn to enjoy God’s presence in prayer more than ever before.
1. Meditation—the “Me and God” Stage
As it says in the very first sentence of the first Psalm: “Blessed is the one who . . . meditates on [God’s] law day and night” (verses 1-2). Contemplation begins with meditation—fixing your thoughts on a picture, an object, or most frequently, on a phrase from the Bible. Sit quietly, reflecting on a verse, exploring it from every angle in your mind. Whenever you get distracted, bring your thoughts back to focus again on this simple, single phrase or sentence. Meditation takes effort, but it does get easier with practice. “No other habit,” says pastor Rick Warren, “can do more to transform your life and make you more like Jesus than daily reflections on Scripture.” Poet Mary Oliver says that we have only to “pay attention” to the wonder of the world—even its less beautiful bits—to step through the doorway into that contemplative “silence in which another voice may speak.”
Praying –
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.
As we enter into contemplation through the gateway of meditation, we may well find that particular concerns begin to knock at the door of our minds. When this happens, the contemplative approach is neither to shut them out nor to start interceding about them, but simply to welcome them as guests and lift them to the Lord in silent prayer. We acknowledge the situation that is troubling our minds or the person who is weighing on our hearts and lift them to the Lord.
“Intercessory prayer is not primarily about thinking that I know what someone else needs and trying to wrestle it from God,” suggests Ruth Haley Barton. “Rather, it is being present to God on another’s behalf, listening for the prayer of the Holy Spirit that is already being prayed for that person before the throne of grace, and being willing to join God in that prayer.” Referring to the apostle Paul’s description of the Holy Spirit interceding for us in groans beyond human vocabulary, she continues: “As I enter into the stillness of true prayer, it is enough to experience my own groaning about the situation or person I am concerned about and to sense the Spirit’s groaning on their behalf.”
2. Contemplation—the “God and Me” Stage
As I meditate on the Lord and become aware of his presence, my center of gravity shifts from “me and God” to “God and me.” He takes center stage. I’m no longer slogging away, trying to fix my attention on him, using that logical left hemisphere of my cerebral cortex, because I can now see that his attention is already fixed on me! “Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage,” teaches Jesus. “The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.” Words become less necessary as prayer becomes no longer something I’m doing but something I’m being in the presence of God. “The discovery at the heart of contemplation,” says Bishop Stephen Verney, “is not that I am contemplating the divine love, but that the divine love is contemplating me. He sees me and understands and accepts me.”
3. Communion—the “Only God” Stage
Sometimes it’s possible to become so absorbed in God’s reality that I forget myself completely. I am no longer consciously praying or worshiping. Words would be inadequate and even inappropriate. It’s as though time has stopped and I’ve somehow stepped into eternity. Anthony of the Desert described this experience more than 1700 years ago like this: “Perfect prayer is not to know that you are praying.”
You may be surprised to learn that you probably embark on precisely this kind of meditative and contemplative journey every time you go to the cinema. First, at the start of a movie, it’s “you and the movie.” You are eating popcorn, working hard to pay attention, tutting at anyone who’s chatting, trying to get into those all-important opening scenes. But then, if the movie is good, it starts to affect you. It draws you in. You laugh and cry. You find yourself caring about the characters, forgetting that they are actors. You no longer need to work at getting into the film because the film is getting into you. Meditation has turned into contemplation.
If a movie is better than good—if it is truly great—you will eventually get completely caught up in its plot, utterly absorbed and deeply affected. Your popcorn will be forgotten. It will no longer be “me and the movie” nor even “the movie and me” but “only the movie.” The story will have transported you into a place that seems more real than reality.
This blog is an extract from How to Pray, chapter 8
Such all-consuming experiences and the overwhelming human desire for them—in art, in sex, in nature, in moments of sporting euphoria, in deep conversations late at night with dear friends—are rumours of another world. They whisper that we are made for eternity, wired to worship, happiest whenever we abandon ourselves to something greater and more beautiful than our own little lives.