chris erdman

GOD hasn’t stop speaking, it’s just that most of us don’t know how to listen. Sometimes we don’t trust what we’re hearing to be the voice of GOD. That’s understandable–you don’t want to listen to your own thoughts and ideas and tell yourself it’s GOD speaking. Wackos who’ve deluded themselves into believing what they hear in their own troubled or demented minds have done some pretty rotten things.

Just because some have made grave mistakes assuming they’ve heard GOD doesn’t mean you ought to dismiss the art of learning to listen to GOD interiorly.

Throughout history, one of the most time-testing ways to check your own thoughts and listen instead for the still, small voice of GOD (1 Kings 19.12) is to sit still with Holy Scripture, yield yourself to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and listen for what may come to you. The historic practice of Lectio Divina, long neglected, is now making a come back. You can read more about the practice here (Tony Jones, a Protestant) and here (Thelma Hall, a Catholic).

Below I briefly outline 25 things to keep in mind when you do this. I know, 25 is a lot to keep in mind. But you’ll see from the list that they’re quite simple, and repetitive. You may even find them predictable. I do that on purpose, to reinforce these simple ways.

Read a short passage of Scripture, slowly, letting a word, phrase, or image in the text gather your attention, then . . .

1. Sit still and straight. Feet on the floor. Your body relaxed.

2. Invoke the Trinity with a simple prayer.

3. Relax your mind, let it drift a bit, like a boat without an anchor.

4. Don’t hurry.

5. Sit with the word, phrase, or image that’s invited your attention.

6. Give yourself some inner space, that is, open up.

7. Relax your mind. Baptize your thoughts by drawing them down into your heart where Christ dwells (Eph. 3.17).

8. When you mind wanders, come back to the word, phrase, or image.

9. Trust the Holy Spirit as guide.

10. Listen.

11. Let the mind graze freely within the pasture of this text; keep it inside the borders of the passage.

12. Embrace what comes to you; relinquish judgment.

13. Abandon any attempt at Bible study.

14. Arouse your senses, allow different parts of your self to interact with the text.

15. Pray for wisdom.

16. Don’t judge what’s happening.

17. Don’t try to create a spiritual experience.

18. Did I say, listen?

19. Avoid working at this: rest in GOD.

20. Smile gentle to yourself.

21. Straighten your back again; it keeps you alert.

22. Freely associate mentally until something seems to hook you.

23. Inquire of GOD: “GOD, I’m listening. What are you communicating to me?”

24. Rest with whatever comes to you, as subtle or astonishing it might be.

25. Give thanks to GOD.

If you practice contemplative prayer, you may know how challenging it can be to know when to stop praying.  What I mean is, if you get lost or absorbed in prayer, it’s really annoying to have your cell phone alarm ring or beep or whatever and summon you out of such deep intimacy with God.

So, here’s a great little app for your phone or tablet.  I don’t have many apps and frankly find many of them a waste of precious time.   This one, though, is enormously helpful to help you time your periods of contemplation.

Check it out . . . here.

Satire’s a powerful way to open our eyes. Here’s an eye-opener to our misunderstandings and abuses of prayer

“When you pray,” it has been wisely said by an Orthodox writer in Finland, “you yourself must be silent. . . . You must be silent; let the prayer speak.”  To achieve silence: this is of all things the hardest and the most decisive in the art of prayer.

So begins Bishop Kallistos Ware’s little booklet on the Jesus Prayer.  A theologian at Oxford University, Ware insightful draws the ancient Christian practice into the modern world.  I’ve written often about the Jesus Prayer or Prayer of the Heart, and commend the little book to you.

Continued from a previous series of posts on the stages of spiritual growth . . .

Abiding in love is the fruit of years of spiritual practice. There’s no shortcut to this experience of full union with God in Christ through the Spirit, nor is there any way for you to bring yourself here. It comes to you. You become “a partaker of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1.4) only because you’ve participated all along the way along with the mischief of God at work in you—through all your joys and sorrows. You’ve finally become fully human, alive to love, and therefore a person in whom all the fullness of God abides (Ephesians 3.19).

This doesn’t mean that you will live without suffering or frustration, temptation or even anger. Rather, when you abide in love, you know how to sublimate your reactivity to such things. You can redirect your spirit quickly and re-establish yourself in the current of God’s love.

Gratitude, warmth, and wisdom are the chief characteristics of those whom God has brought to this final stage, a stage, which is a taste of the eternal life that awaits us beyond death. These “saints” are a healing presence to us all.

The end of the series.

Continued from a previous series of posts on the stages of spiritual growth . . .

You’ve not reached some pinnacle of perfection; instead, you’ve become more fully the self God made you to be. You own who you are. You have nothing to prove to anyone else. You need nothing to make yourself feel successful or worthy or lovable. You don’t need a new car, a better house, another spouse. You accept what you look like. You embrace your idiosyncrasies. You receive life as it is and have learned to let go of the woulda, shoulda, coulda’s. Judging yourself and judging others is no longer a need. And you’re no longer bothered by the challenges that come your way or lured by opportunities you must take advantage of or lose out. You’re not attached to things, not even your life. There’s an equanimity and a magnanimity that possess you. You’re free from everything that once held you captive.

This doesn’t mean that you’re passive and don’t care about things like injustice, or for your family or work. It means that your life is lived from an entirely different source. You’re abiding in the love of God. And this means that you will more effectively right the world’s wrongs and battle injustice and care for others than you did when there was still a lot of you, too much of your unhealed ego involved, to mess up even your best intentions.

To be continued . . .

To create beauty is to testify to God’s restoration; living beautifully facilitates justice. Check out this testimony from an artist exploring the role of spirituality, art, and justice:

A video from workofthepeople.com

Continued from a previous series of posts on the stages of spiritual growth . . .

These stages certainly can be thought of and experienced as an upward path. But there are dangers in viewing the spiritual life as an ascent. In our world, people tend to scratch and claw over each other to get the top of the corporate ladder, or look down with a sense of superiority over those below them. Spiritual growth does require disciple and courage, but exertion and effort and self-will nearly always end in spiritual disaster. Remember, the effort to reach the heavens with the Tower of Babel was a colossal mistake of human hubris (Genesis 11).

If Christ teaches us anything, it’s that the way up is down, the way to greatness is through humility, the way to possess All is to let go of everything.

Stage six, what I call, “abiding in love,” is the end point in the journey, the goal of the spiritual quest. When you arrive here, you realize that you’ve not been traveling up but in, to the depths of your being; you’ve been traveling down, into the fullness of your humanity. You’ve become a fully integrated person.

To be continued . . .

“Moment by Moment: Contemplation for Active People”

PRE-REGISTER NOW! Call 559.439.8807

Living an alert spiritual life is demanding, and we need helpful models to show us how to live it well. Contemplation is sometimes dismissed as escapist or elitist. But in fact, the opposite is true. Contemplation is about learning to live your life more fully aware of life around you: more productive, more focused, more spiritually alive, more happy. Our teaching this year will focus on four ordinary people from various walks of life who lived remarkably active and meaningful lives because of their contemplative practice: Elizabeth of Hungary, Dorothy Day, Teilhard de Cardin, and Howard Thurman. In addition to the taught sessions, the retreat will provide you with several intentional contemplative periods for prayer. Spiritual guides will be available during those times for those who may wish to speak with a spiritual guide for companioning and perspective.

Speakers: Dr. Karen Crozier, Fr. Robert Hale, Cindy Correia, Dr. Chris Neufeld-Erdman

Begins Friday evening February 10th, 7pm

Saturday morning through mid-afternoon the 11th

$35 includes lunch; please pre-register to help us plan for lunch ($45 fee at the door). Mail your check by February 1st to University Presbyterian Church, 1776 E. Roberts Ave. Fresno, CA 93710.

Contact the church office at 559.439.8807 for more information and to register.

PDF brochure available, click here.  Please forward to friends!

Monastery Bookstore with books, candles, icons, and other handcrafts from around the world.

This conference is open to the community, so please invite a friend and spread the word.

University Presbyterian Church of Fresno
1776 E. Roberts Ave, Fresno, CA 93710

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