Four Types of Meditation – (The Medialle House Journals – 9)

This is part of a series of posts based on writing I did on personal retreat in October 2009. Read earlier posts in the series here:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |Part 5|Part 6|Part 7|Part 8

Richard Foster, in Celebration of Discipline, points out the difference between Eastern and Christian meditation: one seeks to empty the mind, the other is an attempts to fill it. Meditation for the purpose of detachment is good, he says, since indeed there are things to which we are attached, or which have attached themselves to us, from which we need to be separated. But this is not enough – we must go on to attachment, and attachment to the right things.

Four Types of Meditation

1. Meditation on Scripture (meditatio Scripturarum)

“The meditation of scripture is the central reference point by which all other forms of meditation are kept in perspective.”

2. Recollection or “Centering Down”

Something helpful I learned from reading Madeleine L’engle is that if you take words apart they often reveal their meaning to you. Recollection is one of those words. “Re-“ indicates that that something was done, then undone, and needs to be done again. For example, to “re-pair” indicates that a “pair”, once together, has been separated, and now needs to be reunited. To “re-collect” then means to collect, to gather, to take things that were once together but are now scattered about and bring them back to a central place.

Applying this to the sphere of the human mind and spirit, I ask you this: has anyone ever described you as “scatter-brained”? As you may suspect, God did not actually create us to be so pulled in many directions – to be dis-tracted, that is, “pulled apart”. This type of meditation allows the many fragments of our minds to be re-ordered, put back in place as a working, unified entity.

3. Meditation Upon Creation

Since Paul says in Romans 1:19-20 that God can be seen clearly in the works of his creation, there should be no objection to meditating upon this revelation on the grounds that it is pantheism or the deification of “Mother Earth.” Like any good thing, it can be perverted and become sinful, but that is no reason to avoid it. This type of meditation causes us to look at things we take for granted and marvel at God’s creative abilities and the vastness of his imagination.

4. Meditation On Events In Order to Perceive Their Significance

“True godliness,” Foster quotes William Penn as saying, “does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it.” We need to meditate upon the events of our time in order to seek to perceive their significance. In this way we seek to be like the men of Issachar who “had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do.” (1 Chronicles 12:32)

Let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room and say that some of you reading this are very uncomfortable with these ideas. Just the word “meditation” itself has raised the ire of a few of you. This should not be so. Some 58 times, the Bible uses one of the two Hebrew words that convey the idea of meditation.

In Donald Whitney’s book on spiritual disciplines (Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life) the word “meditation” is avoided as a chapter title, although there are 17 pages devoted to the subject. Whitney explains that, “because meditation is so prominent in many spiritually counterfeit groups and movements, some Christians are uncomfortable with the whole subject and suspicious of those who engage in it.” But we must remember, he says, “meditation is both commanded by God and modeled by the godly in scripture.”

Whitney’s guidelines for Christian meditation are as follows:

1. Select an appropriate passage
2. Repeat it in different ways
3. Rewrite it in your own words
4. Look for applications of the text
5. Pray through the text
6. Don’t rush – take time!

Now go and meditate. It’s good for you.

Related posts:

1. Why Am I Here? (The Medaille House Journals – 2) ***This is a series of posts based on writing I did on personal retreat in October 2009. Read earlier posts in the series here: Part...
2. The Christian Skeptic In the comments of the post “Dealing with Difficult Scripture” John said: “We’ve been talking a lot about the atheist vs christian views but what...
3. Prayer (The Medialle House Journals – 11) This is part of a series of posts based on writing I did on personal retreat in October 2009. Read earlier posts in the series...
4. The Sense of Presence – (The Medialle House Journals – 10) This is part of a series of posts based on writing I did on personal retreat in October 2009. Read earlier posts in the series...
5. The Absence of Solitude – (The Medialle House Journals – 8) ***This is a series of posts based on writing I did on personal retreat in October 2009. Read earlier posts in the series here: Part...