Meditation: We are one

You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
Ephesians 2, 19-22

We are many different packages but, if we can see it,
all, one at heart.

Many drops of rain but, if we can open our eyes,
one river flowing to one sea.

Many perfect unique snowflakes but, if we look,
one glacier collecting the weight of each and grinding to the ocean.

Many perfect people in lives of solitary pain but open your eyes,
throw aside your dark dream of individuality, 

see our one spirit, already redeemed.

Individual grains, ground together, quickened and baked, now we are
one bread, one body, one sacrament of grace and life.

Suggestions for meditation

Always begin by offering your time to God: something like "My loving God, I love you with my whole heart and above all things. I give you this time when I am reaching out to you" and then a few moments reminding yourself of some of the blessings God has given you - the clear signs of God's love for you. The exact words of the prayer are not important but you do need a firm intention to open yourself to God's input.

Read the mediation over slowly a couple of times.

Listen for Jesus' personal message for you.

If you would prefer a more authoritative reading to focus your meditation try Paul speaking to the Ephesians 2, 19-22

You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

OR listen (and maybe sing) One Bread, One Body: https://youtu.be/R6xIdDYiA9A 

Focus on one of these passages or the meditation slowly a couple of times.

What word of phrase jumps out to speak to you?

Why? Try to put yourself into those words. Maybe imagine Jesus speaking, and reply.

Then spend 5, or 10, or 20 minutes with those words, or the word ONE or the word GOD. 
You need a clear intention to empty your mind of random thoughts (you won't be entirely successful but you need the intention). 
You might want to begin the meditation using the breathing exercise I suggest in We have two minds. 
After a minute or two focused on your breathing, move your focus to the word/s you have chosen. 

Each time your attention moves away from the word/s, push the distraction gently aside and return to the word ("without the intervention of analytical thought" as The Cloud of Unknowing puts it).

You may need a countdown clock.

At the end thank God, and return to your day.

Meditation: The ripples

Everything is connected. The often imperceptible ripples from each thing we do, each thought, every word we say - these ripples spread and touch, in some small way, each other person. 

We see some of our ripples obvious before us as small waves, splashes and deflections - but most are unnoticed, too small or distant. Too insignificant to care about.

Or they are behind us, beyond our peripheral vision. 

All ripples begin as rings
spreading in a circle always
from a point of contact, all changed 
or deflected by winds and barriers.

God has no substance, and lives 
here with us only in love, 
only in human contact and 
in whatever love and forgiveness we offer.

We work together in each human act:
we create the waves -  
our role as God's co-creators.
The shape and height of the wave, 

its longevity and effect are not
in our control, spreading
in front of us, or a wave surging behind
rolling directly across clear space or 

deflected God only knows where, 
to touch, to baptise, to remind, 
to heal another person I have never met, 
will never meet. My brother, my sister.

My role is the contact: the word of love
the touch of hope, the gift of charity,
the smile. These contacts are mine. The ripple 
is our Creator's continuing act of creation.

Sometimes a ripple touches me 
and I am a hard flat surface
deflecting or directing the energy 
and doing God's work.

Sometimes I am broken coastlines, 
absorbing all of the energy and love 
rolling in the wave and doing God's will. 
Accepting God's flood of love.

Ripples go out from every human contact
every prayer, every touch, every feeling;
every act of love, of faith, of trust, of forgiveness, of joy, 
to we know not where - God's hand upon the world.

My acts send little ripples
not giant tsunami - that is not my calling.
But tiny ripples amplify other ripples
and become breakers on the shore.

Suggestions for meditation

Always begin by offering your time to God: something like "My loving God, I love you with my whole heart and above all things. I give you this time when I am reaching out to you" and then a few moments reminding yourself of some of the blessings God has given you - the clear signs of God's love for you.

Read the mediation over slowly a couple of times.

Listen for Jesus' personal message for you.

If you would prefer a more authoritative reading to focus your meditation try Isaiah 55:8-9

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.

"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

or these famous words of Teresa of Avila

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion
is to look out to the earth,
yours are the feet by which He is to go about doing good
and yours are the hands by which He is to bless us now.

Read one of these passages or the meditation slowly a couple of times.

What word of phrase jumps out to speak to you?

Why? Try to put yourself into those words. Maybe imagine Jesus speaking, and reply.

Then spend 5, or 10, or 20 minutes with those words, or the word ACT or the word GOD. You might want to begin the meditation using the breathing exercise I suggest in We have two minds. After a minute or two focused on your breathing, move your focus to the word/s you have chosen. 

Each time your attention moves away from the word/s, push the distraction gently aside and return to the word ("without the intervention of analytical thought" as The Cloud of Unknowing puts it).

You may need a countdown clock.

At the end thank God, and return to your day. 

Meditation: Be still and know (Psalm 46)

Despite all the terrible things you read in your news,
despite the wars and shameful things you do to each other,
despite the earthquakes and storms, droughts and famines
despite even your abuse of each other and my earth ...

   all will be well, because

   I am with you

   I will be with you always.
   Be still: step into my light.
   I made you. I love you. I am your home.
   Let me take you in my arms and give you peace.

When things fail in your home, when stress and anger
dominate love and gentleness,
have faith. Be strong: even in your pain
I hold you, cherish you, prune and nurture you, and

   all will be well, because

   I am with you

   I will be with you always.
   Be still: step into my light.
   I made you. I love you. I am your home.
   Let me take you in my arms and give you peace.

When you become ill - or someone you need becomes ill

empty yourself, come to me, I wait to fill your emptiness,
to heal and console, to comfort and calm, and guide you
from the blind uncaring city to the quiet pool of Siloam in the ruins of David's old city.

   All will be well, because

   I am with you

   I will be with you always.
   Be still: step into my light.
   I made you. I love you. I am your home.
   Let me take you in my arms and give you peace.

When you see people doing unspeakable things to each other, 

feel moments of terror and unthinking anger,
days, months, years of starvation and illness,
when death and disease is all around, even then

   all will be well, because

   I am with you

   I will be with you always.
   Be still: step into my light.
   I made you. I love you. I am your home.
   Let me take you in my arms and give you peace.

When you see darkness in the actions of angry people

darkness in the eye of the storm, when you see
darkness buried in the earthquake
and fleeing children dead upon the shore, even then

   all will be well, because

   I am with you

   I will be with you always.
   Be still: step into my light.
   I made you. I love you. I am your home.
   Let me take you in my arms and give you peace.

When people put their own power before the people I created

I will melt their guns and disperse their gases. 

I will breach their fantasy of unscalable ramparts 

and destroy all their dreams of security and safety.

   All will be well, because

   I am with you

   I will be with you always.
   Be still: step into my light.
   I made you. I love you. I am your home.
   Let me take you in my arms and give you peace.

When you damage my earth and trees and birds and fish,

when storms destroy your cities and drought lays waste your crops,
when the air turns brown and the horizon disappears,
when the waters rise and your security is shattered, come to me, then

   all will be well, because

   I am with you

   I will be with you always.
   Be still: step into my light.
   I made you. I love you. I am your home.
   Let me take you in my arms and give you peace.

Suggestions for meditation

Always begin by offering your time to God: something like "My loving God, I love you with my whole heart and above all things. I give you this time when I am reaching out to you" and then a few moments reminding yourself of some of the blessings God has given you - the clear signs of God's love for you.

Read the mediation over slowly a couple of times.

Listen for Jesus' personal message for you.

If you would prefer a Bible reading I suggest Psalm 46

God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Come and see what the Lord has done,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
He makes wars cease
to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”

The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Read this passage or the meditation slowly a couple of times.

What word of phrase jumps out to speak to you?

Why? Try to put yourself into those words. Maybe imagine Jesus speaking, and reply.

Then spend 5, or 10, or 20 minutes with those words, or the word GOD. You might want to begin the meditation using the breathing exercise I suggest in We have two minds. After a minute or two focused on your breathing, move your focus to the word/s you have chosen. 

In my insights blog last week I suggested another way my wife used this psalm for meditation when she ran retreats.

Each time your attention moves away from the word/s, push the distraction gently aside and return to the word ("without the intervention of analytical thought" as The Cloud of Unknowing puts it).

You may need a countdown clock.

At the end thank God, and return to your day.

Meditation: Another dead child

When I look at a new child
   full of life 
   and trust 
   and hope
   and potential,
I wonder about the children in the world
now damaged or lost forever
who were given to us - sent, maybe to save the world.

No child is ever mine. 
I am trusted to be a steward, 
to care for, love, cherish, nurture - but never own.
How can we own a child? How can we own land?
What God created is not ours. 
We are the trusted stewards, appointed by God. 

We own only the immortal things we create - things 
we can take with us when we cross the bridge home.
Our Creator has been gone so long from our lives 
that we have come to assume our God has died, 
and so we have inherited the land and people, 
the trees and wildlife, to use as we wish.

Think again! 
Our Creator never left: always home in the kingdom within, 
but too often ignored because we are deaf to the words, 
too busy to see the beauty, 
unable to confirm the fleeting intuitions 
and hints, and moments of awe we feel, 
but cannot measure or record. 

A child, a tree, your life's path, your very self -
all gifts to point the way to the truth of our responsibilities
as guardians for our Creator:
   to love, 
   to cherish,
   to protect,
   to nurture,
each being that belongs to God.

... for Ihaka Stokes, died Christchurch Friday 3 July 2015 aged 14 months. 

Suggestions for meditation
Always begin by offering your time to God: something like "My loving God, I love you with my whole heart and above all things. I give you this time when I am reaching out to you" and then a few moments reminding yourself of some of the blessings God has given you - the clear signs of God's love for you.

Read the mediation over slowly a couple of times.

Listen for Jesus' personal message for you.

If you would prefer a Bible reading I suggest Genesis 1,26-31

Then God said, “And now we will make human beings; they will be like us and resemble us. They will have power over the fish, the birds, and all animals, domestic and wild, large and small.” So God created human beings, making them to be like himself. He created them male and female, blessed them, and said, “Have many children, so that your descendants will live all over the earth and bring it under their control. I am putting you in charge of the fish, the birds, and all the wild animals. I have provided all kinds of grain and all kinds of fruit for you to eat; but for all the wild animals and for all the birds I have provided grass and leafy plants for food”—and it was done. God looked at everything he had made, and he was very pleased. Evening passed and morning came—that was the sixth day.

Read this passage or the meditation slowly a couple of times.

What word of phrase jumps out to speak to you?

Why? Try to put yourself into those words. Maybe imagine Jesus speaking, and reply.

Then spend 5, or 10, or 20 minutes with those words, or the word LOVE. You might want to begin the meditation using the breathing exercise I suggest in We have two minds. After a minute or two focused on your breathing, move your focus to the word/s you have chosen. 

Each time your attention moves away from the word/s, push the distraction gently aside and return to the word ("without the intervention of analytical thought" as The Cloud of Unknowing puts it).

You may need a countdown clock.

At the end thank God, and return to your day.

Meditation: First day of holidays

One of the incidental characteristics of teachers around the world is quarterly exhaustion. Four times a years we see teachers work themselves to the point that they are mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted. And then, they develop ways to recover all that and return to school re-created and re-energised for the new term. Amazing!

For now I am fully involved in life wearing a body,
and right now my body is sagging, 
my emotions are drained, and
my brain is thinking trivial fleeting thoughts.

But I visit my granddaughter and my heart fills.
First there is the shy re-introduction, the coy half-smile, and hiding behind her mother.
Curiosity and courage grow, 
and soon there is the hug, and maybe a kiss. 
Within hours I find myself going for walks, feeding ducks, singing silly songs, and even tolerating messy eating.

This is the cycle of adult life: 
synapses slow, endorphins lose their potency, muscle tires, 
but love takes us past our physical limits.
Love brings hope, and takes us beyond our margins
to glimpse the amazing beings we are at heart.

This is Creation's lesson.

We see the same rebirth in gnarled ancient trees - 
too old and tired to thrive,
standing solitary above the competition for light, 
merely surviving - for the last hundred summers.
But a new seedling re-ignites flowering: 
after a century of standing alone, suddenly the old tree is re-born, 
thinking again of new generations. 
Re-created. 
Alive.

Suggestions for meditation

Always begin by offering your time to God: something like "My loving God, I love you with my whole heart and above all things. I give you this time when I am reaching out to you" and then a few moments reminding yourself of some of the blessings God has given you - the clear signs of God's love for you.

Read the mediation over slowly a couple of times.

Listen for Jesus' personal message for you.

If you would prefer a Bible reading I suggest one of the stories where Jesus gives life, maybe one of the stories in Matthew 8, maybe the first three verses.

When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

Read this passage or the meditation slowly a couple of times.

What word of phrase jumps out to speak to you?

Why? Try to put yourself into those words. Maybe imagine Jesus speaking, and reply.

Then spend 5, or 10, or 20 minutes with those words, or the word LOVE. You might want to begin the meditation using the breathing exercise I suggest in We have two minds. After a minute or two focused on your breathing, move your focus to the word/s you have chosen. 

Each time your attention moves away from the word/s, push the distraction gently aside and return to the word ("without the intervention of analytical thought" as The Cloud of Unknowing puts it).

You may need a countdown clock.

At the end thank God, and return to your day.

Meditation: Standing alone

Our destiny is unity;
together in God.
This longing now, a pebble in our shoes,
is a nagging reminder of what we were made to be.

We are born for community,
longing to be together, but inevitably 
we live on our own.
In our heads. 
Busy. 
Doing things.

When we think, we are walled in a prison of cranial bone
and even though we try to share our thoughts, inevitably 
we are misunderstood, misinterpreted through the events of our listener's life.
Thinking is a solitary experience.

We hide our aloneness in lively tea parties, 
enthusiastic social contacts, 
passionate Church liturgies, helping sisters and brothers.
But we trick ourselves, sustained by hints of unity, glimpses of common purpose.

Only in our loves can we have a true taste of unity;
in our thoughts we each live alone.
Our thoughts can be original and are always unique,
seeming to define us, nurturing our perception of individual singularity.

But we long to share our insights, to unite with others.
Some of our best thoughts are so infused with passion
that others do indeed follow, but the tyranny of thought
cannot sustain unity: new thoughts intrude and distract.

Love is the difference.
We mostly live alone with our individual thoughts,
savouring our individual rights and entitlements.
Only in our loves may we truly come together. 

Only that love can satisfy.

Only through love:
love of God, love of others, love of creation, love of ourselves,
can we glimpse the unity of eternity: our destiny 
when the sons and daughters of our Creator will be reunited 
in Love as the single body of Christ.

Our destiny is unity;
together in God.
This longing now, a pebble in our shoes,
is a nagging reminder of what we were made to be.

Suggestions for meditation
Always begin by offering your time to God: something like "My loving God, I love you with my whole heart and above all things. I give you this time when I am reaching out to you" and then a few moments reminding yourself of some of the blessings God has given you - the clear signs of God's love for you.

Read the mediation over slowly a couple of times.

Listen for Jesus' personal message for you.

If you would prefer a Bible reading I suggest 1 John 4:7-8,16-21

Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 

God is love, and those who live in love live in union with God and God lives in union with them. Love is made perfect in us in order that we may have courage on the Judgement Day; and we will have it because our life in this world is the same as Christ's. There is no fear in love; perfect love drives out all fear. So then, love has not been made perfect in anyone who is afraid, because fear has to do with punishment.

We love because God first loved us. If we say we love God, but hate others, we are liars. For we cannot love God, whom we have not seen, if we do not love others, whom we have seen. The command that Christ has given us is this: whoever loves God must love others also.

Read this passage or the meditation slowly a couple of times.

What word of phrase jumps out to speak to you?

Why? Try to put yourself into those words. Maybe imagine Jesus speaking, and reply.

Then spend 5, or 10, or 20 minutes with those words, or the word LOVE. You might want to begin the meditation using the breathing exercise I suggest in We have two minds. After a minute or two focused on your breathing, move your focus to the word/s you have chosen. 

Each time your attention moves away from the word/s, push the distraction gently aside and return to the word ("without the intervention of analytical thought" as The Cloud of Unknowing puts it).

You may need a countdown clock.

At the end thank God, and return to your day.

Meditation: Gift of time

What is more precious than anything in the world?
Time!
And what do we waste uselessly and without being sorry?

Time!
What do we not value and what do we disregard more than anything?
Time!

When we waste time, we lose ourselves … Time is given by God to use correctly for the salvation of the soul and the acquisition of the life to come … The Lord will call us to account for having stolen time for our own whims, and for not using it for God and our souls.

Sebastian of Optina Monastery

O God, you are my God,

but I live separate from you.

When I was young

I saw our separation as an issue of place,

but now I know that it is an issue of time.

You have gifted me a seemingly unlimited

number of moments to know you in myself.

You are there with me each moment,

but because I live in time and not in your eternal moment

I fail to notice you as I look to my next moment.

Created in your image and with your kingdom in me,

I taste hints of your presence in

moments of prayer,

moments of beauty,

moments of insight.

But when I reach to prolong the moment

I have moved away and you have not. 

I lose time when I distract myself with foolish entertainment,

when I stop being alive because I am "waiting until",

or when my best plan fails and I frustrate myself,

ignoring the new opportunity not of my making.

My Creator, you have given me 
time - to discover,

time - to grow in your image.

Moment by moment you guide me; but

moment by moment I surrender to distraction and frustration.

Your kingdom is within me, and I just don't notice when

I entertain my whims, or to resent the thwarting of my plans.

O God, you are my God. You live within me,

but I live separate from you.

Suggestions for meditation

Always begin by offering your time to God: something like "My loving God, I love you with my whole heart and above all things. I give you this time when I am reaching out to you" and then a few moments reminding yourself of some of the blessings God has given you - the clear signs of God's love for you.

Read the mediation over slowly a couple of times.

Listen for Jesus' personal message for you.

If you would prefer a Bible reading I suggest John 17,20-23 - Jesus' prayer ...

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

1. Read this passage or the meditation slowly a couple of times.
2. What word of phrase jumps out to speak to you?
3. Why? Try to put yourself into those words. Maybe imagine Jesus speaking, and reply.
4. Then spend 5, or 10, or 20 minutes with those words, or the word ONE or UNITY. You might want to begin the meditation using the breathing exercise I suggest in We have two minds. After a minute or two focused on your breathing, move your focus to the word/s you have chosen. 

Each time your attention moves away from the word/s, push the distraction gently aside and return to the word ("without the intervention of analytical thought" as The Cloud of Unknowing puts it).

You may need a countdown clock. 

At the end thank God, and return to your day