Core Contemplative Practices

Beginning the practice:

For many of us we need a little help to get us going. Reading a Bible story that includes God or Jesus is a good place to start. Pick a story and then, through the steps offered below, allow yourself to be guided into the story.

First steps:

• Get comfortable and quiet. Attentively ask God to open your heart to this prayer time.
• Read the story you have chosen, just to bring to mind the general unfolding of events.
• Ask God to help you remove any barriers and to open your heart to the free and expansive space of imagination.

Use your imagination and your senses to immerse yourself in the story:

• Begin to imagine the setting. Where are you? Enter the scene, turn around, walk around, look all around and examine it all. Fill in the details of the scene as they come into your awareness.
• Listen to the sounds. What do you hear? Draw your attention to them, wondering what they are and where they are coming from.
• Breathe in the air. What do you smell? Are there aromas and/or odors you recognize? As you breathe them become aware of how they make you feel.
• Become aware of your body. Are you hot or cold? Refreshed or tired? Tense or relaxed? What else do you sense in your body?
• Become aware of the sensations of your skin. Feel the clothes you are wearing and the stillness or movement of the air. Pay attention to subtle sensations. Maybe you feel the heat of the sun, the cold air, or the warmth of a fire? Notice the pressure points and become aware of what you are touching or what is touching you.
• Become fully present and alive to the experience of being a person in the story. Maybe you are already in character. Maybe you morph into one of the primary characters. Maybe you become a new character in the story. If you don’t feel inclined to be a central figure maybe you become a witness in the background or a person in the crowd. Once you have found yourself as a person in the story reconnect with all the senses you feel in this person’s body.

Encountering God in the story:

• Once you are fully in the scene and in character, draw you attention toward Jesus, God, or the central character you want to encounter. What do they look like? What does their presence feel like? What are they doing and/or saying? Do they notice you? Are they engaging you? What is beginning to happen? How are you responding? And what is happening to you?
• Allow yourself to be drawn into the experience, into dialogue, and into the unfolding of events. Wherever the story goes, wherever your desire to engage and your imagination takes you, let it be what it is no matter how strange it might develop. It is just like accepting a weird dream as it is and wondering what it means or intends for you.
• Pay attention to how you feel as it develops and stay with it until it comes to a natural end.
• When you feel like you have reached the end, take a moment to express gratitude for your experience.

Reflect on the prayer experience:

• Reflect on your experience over the days and weeks ahead and wonder what it has for you.
• Pay attention to the symbolic connections to elements of the story. For example: What is the storm in my life? How am I lame or blind? What am I drowning in? How do I find the courage to throw my nets on the other side? What religious or political power am I hanging onto? What are the beliefs or fears that keep me in the boat? What are the attachments I can’t seem to let go of? In what way is God there with me in my experience?
• Invite God into your reflections and let the dialogue continue.