In Yoke

Hugh Prather, in his book, "Spiritual Notes to Myself" comes to a rather interesting conclusion about our own desire to engage in the development of our own contemplative practice, or in his simple way of cancelling religious sounding words--our own "capacity for stillness"... Prather quips, "If you love your inner peace, you must learn to "break with the situation". If you need to pray, then PRAY NOW. "Oh, but that might be awkward", or "that is too much trouble", we say to ourselves. However, just think about it--if you have diarrhea, don't you do everything possible to "break with the situation"? We will get up from the meeting. We will get out of line. We will pull the car over to the side of the road. We will excuse ourselves from the dinner table. We will put down the phone." As my former Pastor Julie PR would say when she began to sense herself becoming overwhelmed by a situation-- "I need to set this...

"That prayer has great power which a person makes with all his might. It makes a sour heart sweet, a sad heart merry, a poor heart rich, a foolish heart wise, a timid heart brave, a sick heart well, a blind heart full of sight, a cold heart ardent. It draws down the great God into the little heart; it drives the hungry soul up into the fullness of God; it brings together two lovers, God and the soul, in a wondrous place where they speak much of love." -Mechthild of Magdeburg There is nothing on earth like meditation, or the cultivation of stillness, as Prather puts it. Each day it has the potential to be new and fresh. Why doesn't everyone "take to it"? Millions dedicate their lives to art, music, literature, or science, which reveal just one facet of the priceless jewel hidden in the world. A life based on meditation penetrates far beyond the multiplicity of existence into the indivisible realm of reality, where dwells infinite truth, joy, and beauty. In the cu...