In contemporary society our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry, and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in ‘muchness’ and ‘manyness,’ he will rest satisfied.

C. G. Jung remarked: “Hurry is not of the Devil; it is the Devil.” All the masters of meditation strive to awaken us to the fact that the universe is much larger than we know, that there are vast unexplored inner regions that are just as real as the physical world we know so well.

They tell us of exciting possibilities for new life and freedom. They call us to the adventure, to be pioneers in this  frontier of the Spirit.

It is a sad commentary on the spiritual state of modern Christianity that meditation is a word so foreign to its ears.

Genesis 24:63 (NIV) He went out to the field one evening to meditate, and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching.

God spoke to them (fathers and prophets of old) not because they had special abilities, but because they were willing to listen.

R. D. Laing: “We live in a secular world…There is a prophecy in Amos that a time will come when there will be a famine in the land, ‘not a famine for bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.’ That time has now come to pass. It is the present age.

Psalm 63:6 (NIV) On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.

Psalm 119:148 (NIV) My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises.

Psalm 1:2 (NIV) But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

The detachment from the confusion all around us is in order to have a richer attachment to God and to other human beings. Christian meditation leads us to the inner wholeness necessary to give ourselves to God freely, and to the spiritual perception necessary to attack social evils.

“The contemplation of the saints is fired by the love of the one contemplated: that is, God.” (appreciation to Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline).