Devotions based on Juliet Benner’s book, Contemplative Vision

Increased awareness of God can become a way of life for us. It can even bring us to the place of ceaseless prayer, that we are encouraged by Paul in I Thess. 5:17- 18. This unceasing prayer is unceasing openness to God as we live with an awareness of His presence in the midst of our daily lives. We are called to live in the world yet not be of it. So we need to be grounded in God and live in awareness of our relationship to Him. Jesus was grounded in relationship with the Father and He lived out of this quiet center. Juliet chooses a picture by Jean-Francois Millet ( 1814-1875) of a peasant couple in the field giving thanks and reciting the Angelus. This is based on Mary’s response to the angel who announced she would bear the Son of God. There is a church in the background and the ringing of the church bells was a call to pray and thank God for salvation.  Millet’s father always responded by praying when the bells rang.  We too need to cultivate giving our attention to God and can use other reminders as most of us don’t hear church bells several times a day. Some people lift their hearts to God each time they go through a door, or turn on a light, or when they are waiting in traffic. I love to do this when I am driving to church and often sing a prayer. Choose what works for you and let us make it a rhythm in our life to turn our attention to God throughout the day. Even though we may have trouble discerning His presence in our circumstances we can ask for help and listen and look for Him.

Devotions based on Juliet Benner’s book, Contemplative Vision
Many times in the Bible we are invited to see…”O taste and see” ( Ps. 34:8), “Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord.”(Ex. 14:13), “Behold the beauty of the Lord” (Ps. 27:4) Jesus so often invited people to have the eyes of their hearts and minds open and receptive. And He had strong words for those who thought they could see but were blind. Christian art is a way of opening our depths to the lord that can’t be reached by just words. In our dining area we have Rembrandt’s picture of the Prodigal and Henri Nouwen spend days in front of it in St. Petersburg. He prayerfully sat there and took it in and later wrote a book on all that he saw.   If we just take a casual look  we miss so much. It is good to prayerfully look at a painting and allow the Spirit to use it to open our eyes to new ways of seeing.  We need to be like children that have minds and hearts open and free and enliven imaginations. As we do this we my respond to God with praise, wonder and worship.

Devotions based on Juliet Benner’s book, Contemplative vision

After reading Juliet’s book, I am beginning to think we are all visually challenged as we miss so much of what is around us and in front of us. Our spiritual seeing is also conditioned by our physical seeing. When we are oblivious to the things our physical eyes invite us to notice, it is hard to be attentive to the spiritual things. She teaches people how to read ( or see)  works of religious art as they meditate on a scripture. In the Middle Ages Biblical art began as expressions of the artists’ own meditation on Scripture and was used to help others get a deeper understanding of faith.  Art was viewed as the poor man’s Bible. Gregory the Great said that “the purpose of painting is for the illiterate what writing is for those who read.”  The churches proclaimed the Word as the walls and windows had visual depictions from the Bible in paintings, mosaics, stained glass etc. Cathedrals were designed in shapes of the cross and even the spires on the landscape were a visual reminder to the people to pray. When the reformation came which brought with it the emphasis of Word alone, many visual images were removed. But God wants to meet us in heart, mind, body, soul, senses, and imagination. We miss so much if we are limited with only our minds.

Devotions based on Juliet Benner’s book, Contemplative Vision

“Contemplative prayer is simply a receptive form of prayer in which we open ourselves to God in stillness and silence.”  It is a time of being with God and just allowing the Holy Spirit freedom to move in our lives. This means we need to make space for God and practice being attentive to Him. It can be said that it is sharing time alone with a good friend. As we quietly listen to the Lord we will find that our lives get touched and transformed and we begin to see as God sees and respond as God would respond…. We acquire the mind, the eyes, and the heart of Christ. So often we are blind to God’s presence in the midst of our lives and are unable to see where and how God is working. The more we awaken to His love and presence, the more our clouded vision becomes clearer and pure.  In one of my Renewal classes we had a  special time as we all shared  how we saw God in the events surrounding us and in our lives. He comes to us in so many ways and let us not miss Him.

Devotions based on David Benner’s book, Opening to God

As we truly open ourselves to God it has a great potential for transforming our inner life and bringing new freedom to us.  When we are still before God we often find that He reorganizes our inner landscape in ways that we can not imagine. Sometimes it releases in us lots of emotion and we may have tears intermixed with joy and sadness as repressed memories may come into our consciousness. This isn’t the time to try to understand the things that float to the surface but simply a time to release them to God. It’s like we get a peek at the hidden work of healing He is doing in our lives. Healing though is a byproduct not the goal. The goal is to be totally open to God and to consent to God’s presence and action in us.  With the work of inner transformation through prayer we come to a deeper peace, joy and vitality. Prayer is not designed to change God. It is to change us! Sometime we block this transformation by being preoccupied with past psychological logjams, wounds that need to be offered up to healing, hanging onto spiritual practices that no longer bring life to us, etc. Let us turn to Him and let His life flow into ours, and release any obstacles so we may be transformed by His grace.

Devotions based on David Benner’s book, Opening to God

Haven’t we all longed for a relationship with God that would be a part of our experience throughout the day regardless of what we are doing? Regardless of whether or not we happened to be thinking of Him  praying,or doing something else.  Jesus calls us friends ( John 15:15) and  He wants us to live in communion with Him throughout the day. Prayer expresses our relationship with Him and is a deep knowing of being in that relationship. God is present in all of life, even in the darkness. Etty Hillesum found God in the midst of the horrors of the Nazi roundup of Jews. When we are in hard circumstances we can ask Him, “Where are you now in my experience?  Unwelcome circumstances of suffering such as heart attacks, are not gifts.  But they may contain a gift, and the core of that gift is God’s presence.  As we live in openness to God it transforms our lives.  Let us be intentional about bringing more of ourselves into the circle of His love that is prayer and communion with Him. As we do this more of His love can flow through us to others as well.

Devotions based on David Benner’s book, Opening to God

There is a prayer beyond doing and it is prayer of BEING. This is a prayer of simply being with God. It is an experiential knowing and resting in His presence. Usually this is called contemplative prayer and it is a way of opening our selves to something beyond ourselves. It is like looking through the eyes of wonder as we open our eyes to God. Contemplative prayer is wordless and a trusting openness to Him, who cannot be captured in words but who lives in us. It is a knowing that we are in God and God is in and with us in love. Being with God does not depend on words and words are even distracting. The goal is not elimination of words or thoughts but openness to God. “Contemplateve prayer is not the suspension of action or the elimination of thoughts and words, but turning toward God in faith and openness. The rest is up to God.”   The author suggests  praying the Jesus Prayer or  practicing Centering prayer but the key is simply spending time with God in inner stillness.  May each of  us make space for Him!

Devotions based on David Benner’s book, Opening to God

Prayer is always personal and it is an expression of our heart and mind that is open to God in trust.  Most of us pray worded prayers and that is a good beginning point. The words we use will usually fit somewhere in the categories of expressions of our faith, praise, hopes, and petitions. But we must remember that prayer is not just what we do as what God does in us. It doesn’t matter if our prayers sound perfect and follow a formula, but it is important that we open our selves to God. Sometimes we use conversational prayers and sometimes liturgical prayers written by others. These can be equally personal if we offer them up as our own.  But if prayer doesn’t move beyond words, it will gradually dry up and become frustrating for us. We can pray with music that engages our emotions and body, as well as, other deep parts of ourselves. For some people the most meaningful prayer response is singing, playing, or listening to music that expresses words that they make their own.  Music can be used by the Spirit to touch us in the deep places and it can become a vehicle of communion with God.  Another prayer response might be to write a poem, paint a picture, create a dance etc. We are all called to be our unique selves and doing so is praying with creativity.  We might pray with our hands and make the sign of the cross, or using prayer beads. We might pray with our feet by taking prayer walks or pilgrimages, or walking a labyrinth.  Acts of service can be prayer, for when we give love to others in need, love is given back to God. Our role with prayer, as with love, is to allow it to flow through us rather than to block the flow. Let us embrace the ways God meets us in our uniqueness and create space for these encounters!

Devotions based on David Benner’s book, Opening to God

In prayer we bring the mind and the heart to God in openness.  Mary, the mother of Jesus did this when she was told by the angel she was going to bear the Christ child. She received the news with her heart at first and then with her head she began to think through the implications for the message. Both her troubled mind and heart were prayer because they were shared in openness and trust to God. We also can share everything with God, who wants us to share our experience with Him and enjoy the communion that is prayer. Our imagination also has an important part to play in pondering prayer. When we ignore our imagination it is at the expense of a rich prayer life. One way we can bring our imagination into prayer is to enter a scene in a passage from the gospels with our imagination.  We can be there with the participants and hear the sounds and smells that are present, and be present to Jesus. Some have found it beneficial to meditate on Christian Art as Henry Nouwen did before the picture of The Prodigal.  In pondering prayer we can bring all that we have on our minds and hearts to Him and just share for He is already present