Inner Journey Blog

Creativity and Imagination in Prayer

Sad to say that many times we see prayer and meditation as separate from creativity and imagination. Sometimes contemplation takes us to a place beyond imagination, but it is very valuable to allow God to stir our images and to breathe life into our creativity as part of our worship and prayer.

Brother Lawrence, Practicing God's Presence, is the inspiration for this quote on imagination:

In God's holy presence Brother Lawrence suggested that we converse "with an act of praise, of adoration, or of desire or with an act of resignation, or thanksgiving, and in all the ways our spirits can invent".

The gift of imagination, which we sometimes call creativity or inventiveness, is a precious gift from Our Father. Like all of our God-given gifts, they are only of value when we return them to Him. Only the gift that is dedicated to its source and creator will grow and thrive.

Imagination, without God at its center, is fantasy. Imagination directed to God becomes inspiration, in-spirited. We look for and enjoy doing little things to please God. As we grow in the practice of the presence of God, our ability to vividly imagine His nearness becomes stronger and involves all our senses until we actually feel His indwelling spirit. This spirit, then, naturally expresses itself in little creative and inventive ways of appreciating His presence.

The initial sense of unnaturalness and unreality gradually diminishes until we arrive at that point where we, like Brother Lawrence, say, "those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it."

It is truly magnificent to allow our spirits to become creative and inventive in the presence of God. How much more alive can our daily life with Him be as we allow our imaginations, fueled by faith, to enjoy the manifold splendor of who He is.

Prayer of the Heart

More Thomas Merton on Contemplative Prayer:

In the "prayer of the heart" we seek first of all the deepest ground of our identity in God. We do not reason about dogmas of faith, or "the mysteries." We seek rather to gain a direct existential grasp, a personal experience of the deepest truths of life and faith, finding ourselves in God's truth. Inner certainty depends on purification. The dark night rectifies our deepest intentions. In the silence of this "night of faith" we return to simplicity and sincerity of heart. We learn recollection which consists in listening for God's will, in direct and simple attention to reality. Recollection is awareness of the unconditional. Prayer then means yearning for the simple presence of God, for a personal understanding of his word, for knowledge of his will and for capacity to hear and obey him. It is thus something much more than uttering petitions for good things external to our own deepest concerns...

We wish to lose ourselves in his love and rest in him.

Guided and Shaped by Another

From today's Sacred Space:

I ask for the grace to believe in what I could be and do if I only allowed God, my loving Creator, to continue to create me, guide me and shape me.

Can I think of my life in this way? As a life being created, guided, and shaped by Another?

I find that so much of the time I live in the western mindset that I am building my life through my own plans, goals, and strategies. This is the way our culture operates: organize, plan, execute.

Can I live in this world without embracing it, so that I can live in the organic flow of God's Spirit everyday? Really letting the loving Creator guide and shape my moments and day? Challenging, isn't it?

Deep Roots

What's pulling at us today? Concerns about finances? Worrying about what others think? Wondering about the future? It's amazing how caught up we are with things that, in the end, are really quite superficial.

Henri Nouwen reminds us that people with deep roots are those who are rooted in the love of God-- for reals-- our deep sense of who we are completely inundated with the reality of being loved by God. If we are looking to others for our sense of self, we are missing those deep roots:

Without deep roots we easily let others determine who we are. But as we cling to our popularity, we may lose our true sense of self. Our clinging to the opinion of others reveals how superficial we are. We have little to stand on. We have to be kept alive by adulation and praise. Those who are deeply rooted in the love of God can enjoy human praise without being attached to it.

Paul (Ephesians) prayed that our roots would go down deep into the love of God-- because that is where we experience the fullness of life and are most fully alive to who we are.

(Feel free to post comments on this devotional blog, on your own daily devotion, on anything relating to contemplation, lectio divina, loving God.)

Internalizing My Faith

"What comforts me in this life is that I now see God by faith. I feel what faith teaches us, and, in that assurance and that practice of faith, I live and die with Him." ... Brother Lawrence

To see God (by faith) and to feel the reality of what I, by faith, know... that is the greatest comfort I can imagine. I have a glimpse of this, but I know there is so much more as God-realities move from head knowledge to heart trust to heart experience (by faith). Faith transfers knowledge from the head to the heart where it is felt and known deeply. Faith takes what I know about God's Presence in and around me and causes me to live within that realm as my reality.

As Dallas Willard says, "we live in a God-bathed world." This is reality. This is truth. But to live my life within this context as an experience and as my internalized reality... that's what faith brings me into.

Brother Lawrence claims that His pursuit of God's Presence is a pursuit that ultimately increases faith causing more and more God-realities to be internalized.

I'm all for that!

Is Contemplation Selfish?

Some people struggle with the deep, inward feeling that taking time alone with God, if it's something that he or she enjoys doing, is somehow an act of selfishness. As soon as this person tries to take time for solitude or any other enjoyment of God, the thoughts begin to rise up: "I should be doing this or that," "There's so much to get done," and "I must serve others."

I just want to express how important it is for people to find the joy of God's Presence. Far from being selfish, it is what we are made for. A person who is filled up with God has an overflow for others-- not because this person is trying hard to "serve well," rather it just flows out of him or her.

Thomas Keating says it well:

The great gift that contemplative persons offer is the experience of the divine presence. Who is going to bring this realization into society if not those who are experiencing it?

Those who learn to enjoy God's Presence are not only finding great fulfillment for himself or herself but are also sharing that reality with others-- just by being who they are!

When we give ourselves to the enjoyment of God's love, we are most equipped to give the same to others!