Life can be one long meditation
20th February 2012 · 0 Comments
By Fr. Jerome LeDoux
The Louisiana Weekly Contributing Columnist
Everyone talks about meditation, be it traditional religious meditation or something offbeat like transcendental meditation. When hearing most people speak about it, one has to conclude that, for most folks, it is difficult to keep one’s attention on meditation. So, is meaningful meditation a prayer that only the spiritually elite can practice with success?
Recently, someone broached a conversation about peace. Shortly after the conversation, “Sleep in heavenly peace” started playing in my head. Then my mind was off and running for the next hour or so. “Silent Night, Holy Night… Sleep in heavenly peace.” No, it wasn’t Christmas. But yes, it was indeed Christmas all over again.
What happened to me with that Christmas carol can happen to virtually anyone who is open to it. Although I have had many good things “happen” to me in my life, I do not consider myself among the elite, as befits my office as minister, or chief servant. Rather, any person in any state of life is very capable of vibrant prayer and meditation.
It does not take much to set our mind in motion for better or for worse, and it is quite easy to make it for better rather than for worse. Admit it or not, by nature we are contemplative creatures who revel quietly in frequent meditation of our own brand. All we have to do is put before our mind good people and good things for meditation.
While my car silently eats up untold miles of highway, a flick of the wrist turns on something like the Christmas album of Johnny Adams. Yes, folks, that can be any time of the year! This segue from whatever I was thinking glides into a smooth, all-preoccupying meditation for three hours or more. Even some secular CDs trigger a similar meditation.
After a break for gas, just as likely as not, the same meditation may resume as I pull back onto the highway. Even before the CD begins to play again, the familiar lyrics and melodies are still coursing through my head, holding my attention like a vise. Mile after mile, minute by minute, the whole experience feels like a benign trance.
And what is doing among other folks who speak of similar experiences? There is one sprightly parishioner of Our Mother of Mercy Church who told a Bible study group how she meditates while she does her aerobic walks. “The trees, shrubs and flowers all seem to speak of the glories of God and the sheer wonder of life itself. Meditation comes naturally as I walk and behold the familiar sights of my neighborhood.”
Her narrative parallels the spectacular meditation of Psalm 8, “Oh Lord, our Lord, how awesome is your name through all the earth!… When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you set in place —what are humans that you are mindful of them?.. Yet, you have made them little less than a god.”
Rebuking the impious and wicked who suppress the truth, Romans 1:18 tells a similar narrative, “for what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood… in what he has made.”
Spending hours at a time contemplating their little one, parents frequently mirror Psalm 8 described in the being of their infant, “The birth of our child was God’s miracle of life. When we look into our baby’s eyes, study the tiny hands, feet and body, and hear the wee but wonderful voice, we have a vision of God’s love and power.”
That is true continual meditation and prayer. So can be the love spell between a man and a woman who even attribute the terms of divine, eternal and surpassingly beautiful to the love that has been enkindled and continues to intensify between them.
Paul’s 1 Corinthians 10:31 inspires a like meditation, “Whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all for the glory of God.” Hence the motto of St. Ignatius of Loyola, “Ad majorem Dei gloriam,” or “For the greater glory of God,”—abbreviated AMDG.
What is your personal platform or favorite venue for doing daily, serious thinking, praying and meditating? If you don’t have one, you truly need to find one immediately.
The best venues and subjects for meditation and prayer should be your own family, your parents, children, siblings, relatives, friends and the many splendors of Mother Nature. But we all need to improve ourselves to reflect God’s goodness to each other.
This article originally published in the February 20, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
