Let's Get Quiet

Who am I?

Who am I? This isn’t a question that we usually ask unless we are going through times of great stress or struggle. Asking about who you are, typically means something big has called your identity into question. This could be any number of things.

How can you define who and what you are? Are you your activities, relationships, preferences, or circumstances? Are any of these, either by themselves or combined, enough to constitute a person, a self? So when you ask this “Who am I?” what comes out of it? Is it a definite answer, a vague notion, or an open exploration?

Psalm 139 – Where is God?

“There is nowhere God is not.” That sounds like an awkward phrase. I think it works better than the more straightforward “God is everywhere.” There is a lack of intimacy to say it like that. A loss of intimacy would be a big loss for this psalm, too. The way the writer of the psalm describes their experience it sounds more like wherever you are, God is there. The writer asks rhetorically where they could go where God would not be present. The implied answer is nowhere.

Is meditation in the bible?

If you are a Christian starting a meditation practice, you might ask yourself this question about meditation in the bible. And there are a number of reasons you might ask. Finding meditation in the bible can be really helpful. As a christian, you probably take the bible to be normative for your faith and life in one way or another. So, you may even feel like you need to find meditation in the biblical text before you can really get into a meditation practice. Even if you don’t feel the need to find meditation in scripture to be invested in a meditation practice, the way the bible portrays meditation is helpful.

Psalm 23 – a walk through the valley

To a wide range of people these are familiar words. Whether you are the church-going kind or not, there are likely a few phrases that ring a bell. If you’ve ever heard the 1995 Coolio song, Gangsta’s Paradise, you’ve heard a line from Psalm 23. The song opens with “As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” which echoes the King James Version’s “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”. In the New Revised Standard Version, the same verse gets translated as, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley…”, which doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, but still. Suffice it to say, Psalm 23 is a part of the common consciousness of (at least Western) culture.

Setting up a meditation room

At first, starting a meditation practice is uncomfortable. Like starting anything new, a lot of questions come up. You need to figure out a lot of things in the beginning. You’ll need to learn how to meditate. You’re going to have to find out when you can meditate and for how long. You’ll also probably need to decide where you are going to meditate. Depending on your situation, this process of finding a good meditation room can be tricky.

Psalm 119 – A light on your way

Psalm 119 describes life as traveling a path. It is a pretty common metaphor. If you travel for any amount of time, you know the importance of having a good route in mind, so that you know where you are going. Whether that route takes the form of an itinerary, map, an experienced guide, or an actual road, it is helpful to have something or someone to help you navigate as you go. This psalm has a particular route prepared. Over and over in this psalm, the writer talks about walking in God’s teaching, law, or instruction. For them, this teaching is the guide on the journey of life and a help for the turns life takes along the way.

To a wide range of people these are familiar words. Whether you are the church-going kind or not, there are likely a few phrases that ring a bell. If you've ever heard the 1995 Coolio song, Gangsta's Paradise, you've heard a line from Psalm 23. The song opens with "As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." which echoes the King James Version's "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...". In the New Revised Standard Version, the same verse gets translated as, "Even though I walk through the darkest valley...", which doesn't quite have the same ring to it, but still. Suffice it to say, Psalm 23 is a part of the common consciousness of (at least Western) culture.

Psalm 119 describes life as traveling a path. It is a pretty common metaphor. If you travel for any amount of time, you know the importance of having a good route in mind, so that you know where you are going. Whether that route takes the form of an itinerary, map, an experienced guide, or an actual road, it is helpful to have something or someone to help you navigate as you go. This psalm has a particular route prepared. Over and over in this psalm, the writer talks about walking in God's teaching, law, or instruction. For them, this teaching is the guide on the journey of life and a help for the turns life takes along the way.

Several years ago, I watched the sunrise over the hills of Kentucky. Cows lowed repeatedly and loudly in the minutes just before the sun's light peeked over the horizon. I was visiting the Abbey of Gethsemani where Thomas Merton lived and worked. It was at the end of a five-day silent retreat. My bags sat in the trunk of the car I had rented for the short drive between the airport and the abbey. Spending that much time in silence, then watching the sun come up was a funny experience.

One way of reading this psalm is pretty judgmental. Anything that mentions "sinners" and "righteousness" flirts with a judgmental mentality. Given how quickly we tend to judge others, reading this text as permission to think in "black and white" terms about people's lives would be easy. I'll admit that my mind went there right away. Some people are pretty happy to read the psalm that way. It had me pretty turned off by the text to begin with. Parts of it sound like the worst kind of religious sentiment. It feels both unhealthy and unhelpful to harbor and cultivate such judgmental thought.

"Be still and know that I am God." Without a doubt, this is the verse that most people remember from Psalm 46. Most likely, more people can quote this verse than know it is from Psalm 46. The verse is beautiful. It deserves fame. Continuing to wrestle with it and live with the verse is still more beautiful. The words, though simple, don’t give up meaning easily. What does it mean to “Be still and know that [God is] God?”

At first, starting a meditation practice is uncomfortable. Like starting anything new, a lot of questions come up. You need to figure out a lot of things in the beginning. You'll need to learn how to meditate. You're going to have to find out when you can meditate and for how long. You'll also probably need to decide where you are going to meditate. Depending on your situation, this process of finding a good meditation room can be tricky.

Learning how to meditate has its barriers. Meditation probably sounds deep and mysterious if you are just starting out. Pop culture is no help. Meditation tends to look otherworldly, and so do the people who practice it. It would be better if that reputation would go away, but it is hard to fight such a prevalent picture. Despite the image of a robed man with a long beard sitting on top of a mountain, meditation isn't that far from daily life. Meditation is really quite simple. That doesn't mean it is easy, but learning how to meditate can be.

This is a popular question. Maybe more popular even than whether a person should meditate at all. However, I am not going to go into that here. That is covered elsewhere. Instead, talking about how long to meditate, I want to encourage you to meditate in a way that works for you. Meditation is surprisingly difficult to begin with, so being too strict about how long you spend meditating in any given period could be overwhelming. Better to err on the side ease and sustainability.

A lot of speculation exists about the sinfulness of meditation. Some say it is an invitation to evil spirits. Some say it is idolatry. So, is meditation a sin? This might be a question that someone asks only when they feel they already know the answer. If some of the most popular responses I’ve found to the question are any indication, most people ask if meditation is a sin so that they can at least imply that it is. I won’t hide my opinion. I don’t think meditation is a sin, nor do I think it is dangerous.