Listening for GOD

Every morning the Rev. Carl Palmer gets up in the darkness before dawn to read Scripture and meditate. It’s a practice deeply rooted in his Christian faith.

With five children, carving out time for meditation and prayer means waking up at 4:30 a.m.

“A lot of times I’ll just sit and read Scripture,” he said. “Sometimes the first line is the one that strikes me between the eyes and I’ll sit there and meditate and reflect and ask questions - what is this saying - and sometimes it’s a good 20 or 30 minutes of interacting with the text and letting it really mold and shape me.”

While meditation is most often associated with Buddhism or Hinduism, the practice of meditation is found in many of the world’s religions,

including Christianity. Meditation is mentioned

in the Bible several times, including in Psalm 1 (NIV): “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.” Palmer says meditation is about listening for God.

“We emphasize prayer, which is us talking to God, but we don’t emphasize the meditative part, which is the listening,” he said. “If we listen to God more than we talk, we’d probably be better off.” Palmer leads a new service at Central United Methodist Church in Fayetteville, where he serves as an associate pastor, that includes a time of guided meditation. The 30-minute mid-day Wednesday service features a brief time of worship and intercessory prayer in which worshippers can share the name of someone they want to pray for, followed by a meditation on Scripture.

“We’ll read the Scripture one time, entering into the story. We’ll just be familiarizing ourselves with what the Scripture is saying and writing down a word or phrase that jumps out of that story,” Palmer said.

During the second reading, worshippers are instructed to interact with God about what the verses are saying.

“What might God be saying to you through this text and what might you want to say to God through this text,” he said. “The third time we focus on how can this passage of Scripture instruct us on how to live.”

The service closes with Holy Communion and worshippers depart in silence.

“It’s different from a typical Sunday morning where you get a chance to hear from the senior pastor or one of the associates on what we feel God is telling us about this text, but we rarely get the opportunity to say [to the congregation], ‘What do you feel God is telling you’ and to really interact with the narrative of the Scripture,” Palmer said.

Palmer said his views on meditation were influenced by Richard Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth.

“He speaks very plainly about the function of meditation in the life of the Christian,” Palmer said. “It’s not sitting cross-legged in a circle saying ‘om.’ It is the way we listen to what God has to say for us.”

Meditation has had a profound effect on Palmer’s own spiritual life. He said it helps center his life.

“If you are trying to operate from off center you are living an out-of-balance life,” he said. “I’m 43 years old but I’ve been doing ministry almost 20 years. I realize I do ministry really well when I’m on center and do really poorly when I’m off center … Trying to be on center is more beneficial for me personally, for my family and not to mention for those I’m trying to serve.”EAST AND WEST

John Michael Talbot, author of Come to the Quiet, a book about Christian meditation, said Christians, especially evangelicals or “born again” Christians, often look askance at meditation.

“They are afraid of it and the job for guys like me is helping Christians realize how big our faith really is and meditation and contemplation are a huge part of our tradition,” he said.

Talbot, who serves as the spiritual leader of the Catholic lay community, the Brothers and Sisters of Charity at Little Portion Hermitage in Carroll County, said the practice of Christian meditation comes from two traditions - the Eastern and Western churches. Eastern traditions include the Orthodox Church, while Western tradition includes Catholic and Protestant influences.

He teaches the Jesus Prayer tradition, which comes from the Christian East. The goal is to unite the name of Jesus with every breath.

“You breathe in everything positive about God - the Incarnation, the paschal mystery, his dying and rising, the church, the sacraments, the Communion of Saints - everything good and positive as an intuition, as a breath and breathe out anything standing between you and full communion with Lord through Jesus Christ and the church. You let it go,” Talbot said.

That includes letting go of all daily frustrations, including such things as the neighbor’s incessantly barking dog and the impatient shopper cutting in line at the checkout counter.

“Meditation is not just about floating in the clouds,” Talbot said. “It’s about how to get through life and the normal aggravations that throw us off our game and how to navigate those things retaining joy and love and peace in your heart. It can be done and it’s never more than one breath away.”

Talbot suggests trying meditation twice a day for 20 minutes. He said it takes time to still the mind, emotions and body.

“Out of that 20 minutes, about two minutes will be pure union with God and that’s all you need to get through all the rest of that nonsense that happens in life,” he said. “It really works.”

Talbot said most people have a breakthrough in the first few weeks and another jump in awareness in six months or a year.

“Ten years into the practice it tends to stay with you subliminally with every breath you are taking,” he said.

As for the Western tradition, meditation sometimes incorporates lectio divina, also known as prayerful reading of the Scriptures, and progresses to prayer, meditation and finally to contemplation.

“Contemplation is when you break through to union with God. It’s bigger than ideas and emotions. It’s bigger than the senses because it takes you to a spiritual union with God,” Talbot said. “St. Paul says we are spirit, soul and body. The problem is we tend to function based on the body first and spirit is locked out of the process. We end up unhappy and frustrated and we are not becoming the person God created us to be.”FINDING STILLNESS

As director of Christian formation at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Tracy Balzer helps students at the evangelical school learn about spiritual disciplines, including meditation. Students in their junior or senior years take classes in Christian formation and learn about spiritual practices of various Christian traditions.

Balzer said Christian meditation isn’t about detachment from the world or emptying the mind as in other traditions. The goal is even more attachment - to God, His word and His will.

“From my own perspective, meditation is at its purest Christian form when it is attached to Scripture. That has to be the foundational place - to listen to God’s word and to respond to that, to obey and to faithfully follow,” she said.

For busy students, Balzer said Christian meditation can be beneficial from a practical standpoint, as well as spiritually.

“We tell them to take seriously the example of Jesus. Being productive and active is good but at the end of the day you need to get reoriented and hear the voice that is truest - God’s voice,” she said. “I think in some way all of us need to seek out a stillness and a quietness so we can silence the other voices that are telling us so many things that are not true and get to a place where we can be reminded of the truth.”

Balzer said spiritual disciplines like meditation are meant bring individuals closer to God and aren’t meant to be another item on the “how to be a good Christian” list.

“The disciplines put us in a place to be more open to God. They are not a way of gaining His approval or bulking up our spiritual muscle,” she said. “It’s a way to make us more available so God can speak to us. The point is we know we need God in our life, so just like we all have goals and objectives, if we want to be more Christ-like we should probably enter into practices Jesus did himself - fasting, silence, solitude and service. He did it to be an example for us.”

Whether it’s the Eastern or Western method of meditation, Talbot said it’s a tradition he hopes Christians will reclaim.

“It’s a huge part of our tradition and we’ve overlooked it,” he said. “We need to resurrect it - it’s for the East, the West, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestants - it’s part of our heritage.”

The midweek meditation service at Central United Methodist Church begins at 12:05 p.m. Wednesdays and is held in Wesley Chapel. The church is at 6 W. Dickson St. Information is available online at centraltolife.org or by calling (479) 442-4237.