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Spiritual practices, being/doing, and prayer

Lynne Baab • Tuesday September 5 2023

“I am trying to learn from a Congolese pastor at my church who reminds us, ‘We are human beings, not human doings.’ Yes, there is a rhythm between being and doing. Thank you for the reminder that the being comes first. Inhale, then exhale.”

My friend John wrote that comment on Facebook in response to my post a few weeks ago about the purpose of Christian meditation. Oddly, the same day that I saw his words, I had a conversation with my friend Lisa who said similar words about that particular blog post. Lisa said we have to be careful in approaching...

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Spiritual practices and “life-giving, non-cerebral prayer”

Lynne Baab • Tuesday August 29 2023

After my first post on Christian meditation, where I discussed the purpose of meditation for Christians, I got an interesting email from my friend Viv. She describes herself as “an ‘active senior’ Presbyterian minister who has also served in the Baptist movement." In Viv’s email, she said she “lives in the cognitive” and is a “studious introvert whose main pathway to the sacred is thinking and sorting.” Viv wrote that she has learned that many spiritual disciplines can “lift me into God's presence in life-giving, non-cerebral prayer.” She believes that too often we look to spiritual practices to help us live in a...

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Journaling and prayer

Lynne Baab • Tuesday August 22 2023

When I was in elementary school and middle school, I had a diary — one diary for all those years. I wrote in it only a few times a year, and mostly I noted details about events that had happened. In 11th grade, my English literature teacher wanted us to keep a journal, and I still have it. The pages are filled with very bad poetry I wrote, thoughts about books we had to read for class, and a few entries about emotions I was feeling.

In journaling, Calhoun writes, I desire “to be alert to my life through writing and reflecting on God’s...

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Christian meditation and prayer

Lynne Baab • Tuesday August 15 2023

I’m in my late 30s, and I’m talking with a Christian man I know slightly. He’s telling me about his pattern of meditation. He says he begins by emptying his mind of all his concerns so he can focus on a sacred word or verse from the Bible. I argue with him a little. I tell him I can’t empty my mind just like that. Instead, when I try to engage in Christian meditation, I try to identify the things on my mind and give them over to God, perhaps by using some imagery like putting them in Jesus’s hands or...

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