The Contemplative Life

Lamont and I have been hosting a monthly spiritual formation group at Experiment House. Last Saturday night was the second session. We talked about the prayer-filled life and discussed many different traditions in the life of Christ and church history. At the end of the evening we all picked a different exercise to practice over the next month. I chose the hesychastic tradition, which means I'm going to pray the same prayer for fifteen minutes every day. I'm using Psalm 51:10: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." The purpose isn't to create a chant or anything -- it's to really allow oneself to live within the prayer, to experience Christ in the words. I'll let you know how it goes.