Contemplative Worship at First Church

For 45 minutes each Sunday morning people will gather in room 102 of the Family Life Center. Our intention will be to be, mostly still and quiet….to be, mostly still and quiet in the presence of God and in a community of fellow pilgrims on the journey.

The contemplative life or times of contemplation remind us that God is indeed present everywhere and at all times. There is nowhere that God is not present (Psalm 139). Not only do we ‘live and move and have our being in God,’ (Acts 17:28), but also God resides within each of us, and in all of creation, closer than our breath, closer to us than we are to ourselves. The contemplative life then, may not be a journey in which one actually gets closer to God, but rather a gradual realization of the incomprehensible union that has always existed.

Contemplative living is a great challenge in the practical world of today. It runs counter to the prevailing cultural values and our own habits of self-determination and autonomous control. Attempts to talk about being still and quiet in the presence of God may sound ‘weird’ to some or even irresponsible or passive. There are people in this day and time that are being drawn to silence and stillness. Traditional worship, with liturgy and music and sermon, may still be central but some individuals have heard God calling, inviting them to practice being still and quiet in a community.

Ceaseless mental chatter is always a monologue, most often negative. Unchecked, it exhausts, drains energy, perhaps even causes illness. A negative thought feeds on itself, grows, and gathers inner accomplices, until our entire state of being is dragged far from the state of intentional awareness of the presence of God.

All contemplative practices are aimed at conscious awareness of the abiding presence of God. Our challenge is to be silent enough and present enough to let God manifest God’s love, mercy, peace, and justice through us. On Sunday mornings at 9 a.m. some pilgrims will gather with the intention of being mostly still and quiet, practicing an awareness of the presence of God. The fruit of the practice will be, by the grace of God, love, mercy, peace, and justice lived more fully in God’s world the rest of the week!

(Resources, Contemplative Outreach and Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation)

the season of prayer

When I think of my favorite written prayers, Thomas Merton's "The Road Ahead" comes to mind first. It has been reprinted in many books. It is from Merton's Thoughts in Solitude.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust you always
though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

I have had people tell me that the prayer makes them uncomfortable because of its uncertainty. I choose to notice the certainty, stated in the last line, 'I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.'

I invite you to pray this prayer daiily during Lent and see what God does with it and you!