Meditation. A Benedictine oblate blog

Someone asked what I know about how to meditate. My wife knows much more than I do about techniques/practices and I do not know very much by comparison, but I passed along the following:

My “coming home” to meditation was when I walked onto the grounds of a 120-year-old Benedictine monastery (yes, one of the new ones!). The ancient spirituality of monasticism — dating back to the earliest desert fathers in Egypt — changed my life. What is surprising is the number of other oblates who mention experiencing the same spiritual awareness when they first visited the monastery.

Eventually, I found that my long-standing practice of slow contemplative reading was called lectio divina.

My favorite form of doing meditation is silence — not in the sense of a soundproof booth, but what I call God’s silence — hard to find. The dimly lit abbey church in the evening, a mountain, and a small island were the last three places I entered such silence. None were soundless, but all were completely still. Fortunately, the quiet, soft lights of the abbey are only about 45 minutes away. Weekends are a good time for a visit.

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The picture is "Heaven" by truebador. The photo is: "sun behind the clouds, and the cross of the "N.D. des eclaireurs" church, near "Baskinta" village-Lebanon"