meditation Archives - Page 3 of 4

Prayers of the Fathers

Most of my great insights that come after hours of study and meditation, turn out to be new articulations of wisdom I learned from living with my parents. Day after day, week after week, year after year, they patterned their faith. I learned about the riches of the gospel from the mundane atmosphere of every day living with parents who were trying to live out their faith.

In the early 90s, I began studying the Celtic Christians, hoping to mine new wisdom for living today. This study led to a series of Celtic retreats, which were really excuses for me to study and read more about them. While preparing for one retreat, I was overwhelmed by the sense of gratitude that shines out in their poems and prayers. This insight changed my prayer habits, and I found myself praying more slowly and more thankfully.

Prayers over meals shifted from some kind of magic rite to gain God’s blessing to a fresh opportunity to offer thanksgiving for God for His overwhelming goodness. I had discovered the riches of thanksgiving to God.

But then one day as I listened to my dad prayer, I noticed a long litany of thanksgivings. Everything you could imagine: good health, our house, our nation, our family, and the thanksgivings continued to rise. As I listened, I realized that this was the way he always prayed.

My new discovery in prayer emerged while I was studying the Celts, but now I realize this was simply an awakening to a pattern deeply ingrained in my consciousness. Now I realize that the pattern of my father’s continual stream of thanksgiving shaped me long before I was aware of it.

Words to meditate

March 31, 2008 / dougfloyd / 0 Comments

Here’s a shot from the retreat I did last weekend about meditation and the Law. Taking Psalm 119 as our guide, we began listing words related to meditating upon the testimonies (10 Commandments) of God.

Meditation on the Law

March 28, 2008 / dougfloyd / 0 Comments

I preparing for a retreat on the Law (and the Ten Commandments in particular). I am looking at law through a variety of lenses. While many of these overlap, there are nuances worth exploring that makes it helpful to create distinctions. Here are the lenses I am thinking of right now. If anyone has other lenses that might helpful to consider, I’d love to hear them:

Law Expression of Love
Law as Creative Power (Creation of Adam/creation song)
Law as Restorative Power (redemption song)
Law as Covenantal Gift
Law as Glory of the Lord (intimate)
Law as Charge to Enter into Promised Land (Deuteronomy parallel with Hebrews)
Law as the Root of the Fear of God
Law as the Seed (Growing up into Psalms, Wisdom, Kingdom Rule)
Law written in Stone/Law written in Flesh
Law fulfilled in Jesus (entirety of Word enfleshed in Jesus)

Gifts with strings attached

March 26, 2008 / dougfloyd / 0 Comments

Just because a gift comes with “no strings attached” does not mean that it is a better gift than one “with strings attached.” A gift can come as an expression of invitation to a deeper relationship. By deeper relationship, I am indicating some greater level of exchange in shared intimacy. The gift of an engagement ring is an invitation to a deeper relationship with greater levels of intimacy.

If the invitation is a welcome one, the person receiving the gift delights in the “strings attached.” This is a way for me to being thinking through the idea of covenantal gifts.

The ten commandments come not as a weight but as gifts of life (invitations to relation) with expectations of responsibility. This covenantal picture in the commandments is sometimes pictured as a marriage between Israel and YHWH. Thus the imagery in Isaiah and other places of the marraige with God’s people (and in the New Testament as the bride of Christ).

What is Meditation?

March 24, 2008 / dougfloyd / 0 Comments

As I read Psalm 119 in relation Deuteronomy 6 and Psalm 1, I meditation expanding from a reflection or prayerful study upon the Word of God to a life immersed (sitting, walking, lying, rising) in the Word of God (and in particular the 10 commandments). Meditation happens not simply in the mind/emotions but in the hands, the eyes, and the feet.

The Word moves toward incarnation. The pattern is all through Scripture. God speaks and His Word creates a world. “All things were made through Him (Logos/Word), and without Him nothing was made that was made” (John 1:3). Meditation soaks, speaks, walk, acts and even sleeps the Word. The Ten Commandments (or Ten Words) are not ideas but that takes shapes from our thoughts into our bodies. Jesus, the Word made Flesh, reveals the Law, the Commands, the Word sitting, walking, lying and rising.

One of His big complaints against the Pharisees is that they only talk about the Word, they don’t do it. “Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do” (Matthew 23:3).

Meditation seems much deeper than simply reflecting, studying, praying through the Word. It seems to point to enfleshing the Word.

What is Egypt?

March 14, 2008 / dougfloyd / 0 Comments

My wife asked me, “So what does Egypt stand for in the Bible?” As we talked, it evident that the typical response of the “world” is not sufficient because Egypt often shows up as a place of provision for Abraham, Joseph (and the sons of Israel), and even the baby Jesus.

As I’ve thought about it, I’ve been playing with this idea here: “Egypt is a place of provision but not the person of provision. Israel violates this distinction and looks to the gods of Egypt as the person of provision (see Joshua 24:14). By mistaking the place of provision for the person of provision, the Israelites become enslaved by the “lords” of Egypt, and must be delivered by the LORD of creation.

We live in Egypt. Our physical and emotional needs may be met in the world around us, but this place is not the provide. YHWH is our Father who graciously blesses us in the midst of our sinfulness and the sinful world around us. He overwhelms us with blessing. If we look to the “lords” of our nation (commerce, government, education, etc) as our provider, we will (and often do) become enslaved.

Dusty Saints

February 22, 2008 / dougfloyd / 0 Comments

The psalmist cries out to the Lord,

“My soul clings to the dust; Revive me according to Your word.”

During Lent, the cry of the psalmist becomes the cry of God’s people. Like Adam we hear the resounding Word of God announcing, “For you are dust and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:19).

Unlike the birds, we have flown beyond the horizon to the moon, and we may even fly to Mars. Unlike the fish we have learned how to live under the sea and upon the land. Unlike the ants, we’ve built buildings that stand and stand and stand and continue to stand. Unlike the apes, we’ve formed clans and towns and cites and nations.

While inspired by the world around us, humans continually discover new ways to rise above the natural order. Like gods, we create, we rule, we master, we thrive. In rain and drought, we survive. We work in darkness and light. When new obstacles cross our path, we learn ways to surmount the obstacles and even use the energy from our struggle to grow even stronger.

Diseases may threaten us but eventually, we find ways to overcome. Even while facing the dreaded cancer, diabetes, heart disease and AIDs, we don’t give up. In fact, we are discovering more and more solutions to fight and win the battle against these threats.

The accomplishments of humanity boggle the mind. We live in a time of such exploding innovation that no one can even keep up with all the new discoveries that surface day after day after day.

We are lords of creation, and yet, we are still nothing more than dust. In spite of our power, our creations, our glory, we are fading. Soon we will die. And soon we will be forgotten. Like the grass, we wither and fall and fade.

We are but dust and to dust we will return.

When God decided to image Himself, He created a world. From this world, He took the dust and breathed upon it, and “man became a living being.” In spite of our accomplishments, we have no life outside of the breath that sustains us each moment.

Take that breath away, and we falter and fade. Thus the psalmist prays, “My soul clings to dust.” And yet, even as he acknowledges his dustiness, he calls upon the Word of God to revive him. The psalmist knows that the Word of God breathes life into his dust, for the Word is forever settled in heaven (Psalm 119:89).

While we rejoice and celebrate the wonder of human accomplishments, let us not be intimidated by the appearance of human mastery. We are not of the universe after all. Our kingdoms fall. Our innovations fail. Our power fades. We are but dust.

As we journey through the Lenten wilderness, let us cling to the Word of the Lord. His breath sustains, his Word creates and re-creates us. And by His grace alone, we can feed upon the Word that will stand forever.

Lent – The Call

February 14, 2008 / dougfloyd / 1 Comment

When I first heard it, I turned to see who was addressing me, but all eyes were on the singer at the front. The voice seemed too articulate to be a thought passing though my mind. And the words…the words seemed so mundane. God’s call to me didn’t come with trumpets and prophecies of glory and fire. But rather, I heard a still small voice say, “The time is not yet.”

For the past year, I had been considering exchanging my dreams of filmmaking for a life of ministry. Leading a drama team and speaking at various local churches stirred a vision in me to cry out and call a slumbering church to renewal. Our pastor consulted me on seminary plans where I could pursue a life in ministry.

Now those plans began to fade as an understated voice let me know that “the time is not yet.” Somehow I realized that this was a call of renunciation. I was being called to let go of my ideas of ministry, to let go of my passion to a build God’s kingdom, to let go of my plan for the days ahead. The voice was calling me to pilgrimage.

The psalmist writes, “Blessed is the man whose heart is set on pilgrimage” (Psalm 84). As we begin the 40 days of lent, we remember this call to pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is different than an adventure. J.R.R. Tolkien distinguished an adventure from a journey as a “there and back again tale.” We head out on an adventure, we have an exciting time and we might even risk our lives, but at the end of the adventure we return home. But leaving on a journey means never coming home.

While a pilgrimage may seem like a “here and back again tale,” it is really a journey of renunciation with no hope of looking back. Jesus invited his disciples to pilgrimage and suggested “looking back” was not a luxury afforded to disciples.

During lent, we are reminded that the call of faith is a call of renunciation. In one sense, all of us really are “poor wayfaring pilgrims.” The Lord of glory calls us from the future, inviting us to let go and keep letting go and keep letting go. Abraham was called forth to leave behind the world he knew.

The ancient Celts set forth on pilgrimage as peregrini, searching for their “place of resurrection.” The peregrini were not driven by “wanderlust” but rather of sense of obedience. Leaving the homes they loved, they traveled across the British Isles and the European continent, setting up little communities of faith along the way.

In some sense, we still hear that same call of renunciation. We are called to search for our place of resurrection and establish communities of faith as we go. 22 years ago, I heard a quiet, non-dramatic call, “the time is not yet,” and today I still feel the echoes of that call shaking my body and mind.

As we growing older, the act of renunciation often becomes more difficult. We grow comfortable accumulating stuff. From books and clothes and trinkets to ideas and habits and attitudes. Every so often, the voice comes booming forth, “the time is not yet.”

It’s not time to settle yet. It’s not time to sleep yet. It’s not time to die yet. I wrote that last line because at the end of my kidney illness, I assumed the journey was closing and soon I would leave. But the Father gently said, “the time is not yet.”

Our little Spring of Light community started lent with this reminder. The fire in our beloved “Living Room” gave us the opportunity to step forth as pilgrims once again. We won’t return to that building but will step forward into the next world our Father is preparing.

Whether you observe lent or not, I encourage you to listen and follow the gentle prodding of our Father. No matter how young or old, He continues to gently call us forward into the fullness of His kingdom. As we stop to look at all we’ve accomplished or accumulated, he reminds us, “the time is not yet.”

Advent Dreaming

December 3, 2007 / dougfloyd / 0 Comments

Advent is a time for dreaming. A time for recovering ancient, long forgotten dreams. A time to expect, anticipate, we rejoice in the day when the wrongs will be righted, the righteous will be vindicated, the weak will be made strong, the justice of God will prevail and be revealed to all people. As we dream of a world made right by love, we might just begin to walk and live in the reality of that love in the ways we speak, act and live toward our fellow humans.

I wrote a little story about advent dreaming, but I thought it was too long to post here. If you want to read it, it’s at the following link:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/668203/Going-to-the-House-of-the-Lord-Psalm-122

Advent

December 2, 2007 / dougfloyd / 0 Comments

I invite you to join me this year, as I seek to listen, watch and wait during this upcoming season of Advent. Each year, I set aside time to write reflections during Advent and Lent as way of helping me to remember.

In a world of deadlines and schedules and conflict and struggle, we tend to forget anything older than the latest tidbit of information calling to us from the television, the radio, the street signs and the endless chatter. In a swirl of sights and sounds, truth becomes what I can understand, I can articulate, I can control, I can verify.

In pause of Advent, I am reminded that I do not verify the truth, it verifies me. I do not defend the truth, it defends me. I cannot grasp the truth–for long before I even knew the truth, I was grasped and held in the hands of the One who is and always has been truth.

Advent compels me to look backward and forward at the same time. I look back to a story, the story that sounded long before I walked this planet. And it will continue sounding long after the traces of my footprints have long vanished from this land. This ancient story is a story about the end of this age. The culmination, the grand climax, the glory, the wonder, the hope of the coming of the One through whom all things have been made and all things will reach their fulfillment.

Pilgrim Notes

Reflections along the way.

Category: meditation (page 3 of 4)