This silly little trio of words came to me in a class I was
teaching about meditation. But sometimes
these little teaching tools come in handy when trying to explain things and
help people move from ideas to action.
Let’s look at the function of each of these three ideas.
Meditation certainly gets much more attention than it did
when I was a kid. Maybe I was out of it
when I was younger, but I don’t recall anyone in my church tradition talking
about meditation. Granted I did not grow
up Catholic, but I am not sure young Catholic kids heard much about meditation
either. Perhaps meditation is only a
grown-up thing.
I know there is a long and storied history of meditation in
Christianity. After studying Christian
history and spirituality, I know Christians have always practiced some form of
meditation. I know meditation was
important in the monastic tradition.
Monks have been meditating for centuries. Perhaps the common layperson also was exposed
to that, but I am less aware that they were.
In my lifetime I think meditation became more mainstream in
the 60s, when there was an influx of religious traditions from the East. It was only in the 60s that people began to
be aware of Buddhism and Hinduism. In
fact, when I was in graduate school, I met a number of folks from Asia who were
practicing Buddhists or Hindus. The
Buddhists regularly meditated. In fact,
their meditation equaled or exceeded the time devout Christians spent in
prayer. Through this process of
developing my awareness, I was driven back to Christian roots, about which I
was ignorant.
I know people use the word, meditate, in the secular world
in a way that suggests, “thinking something over.” But I would like to keep it in the religious
realm. In this sense meditate means a
focused pondering of something God-given.
I might meditate on a short piece of scripture, some aspect of nature,
some spiritual reading. In meditation I
let the material simmer and soak in my mind and in my heart. I open myself to be taught and to be formed
in a spiritual way. One way I like to
explain meditation is to say it is designed to bring me into the presence and
power of the Holy One.
That could be sufficient in itself. However, I like to move further. I meditate and then, cogitate. This simply means I move from meditation to
thinking about the fruit of meditation.
I try to think about what this means in my daily life. For example, in my meditation I might have
come to sense that I am a beloved child of God.
As I cogitate on this realization, I think about what this can mean for
me in my normal, daily living.
If I am a beloved child of God, that means I should not have
to worry about other people’s approval.
In my past I know there have been too many times my actions were
dictated by my desire to have other folks like me. Many of us have been people-pleasers. That is not wrong, but it can be
limiting. If I am worried about what
others will think, then I am not free to be who God wants me to be. And I am shackled in my efforts to grow up in
the Spirit of the Divinity.
I am not content to meditate and cogitate. I want to move to the third phase, namely, to
activate. Clearly, this is the action
phase. Spiritually I don’t want to
settle for simply a mental kind of spirituality. I do not think God created us simply to think
about holy things. I am confident that
we are beloved children of God and we are to be present in this world “acting
out.”
We live in a world where clearly the kingdom has not
come. There is injustice and hate. There is too much poverty and
degradation. There is still a huge need
for helping and healing in many corners of our communities. This is the kind of stuff that Jesus
meditated on and cogitated on. But in
the final analysis Jesus went into action.
He became a helper. He called
people into new places with new lives.
He helped and he healed. Nothing
less is expected of us.
One of my personal risks in teaching is to see spirituality
as solely an academic exercise. I can
teach students about meditation and we can even spend some time
meditating. But then class is finished
and we all can go about our merry way without affecting the world in any way.
The stage of activation is a key for me to go beyond
“playing around with spirituality.”
Jesus also was a teacher. But he
was so much more. That is precisely what
all of us are called to be: so much more.
That is worth meditating on. I
should even spend some time cogitating where and how I can be “so much more.”
But finally, I have to activate. I have to motivate myself to go do
likewise---just like Jesus and the other spiritual giants have done. I am called to live the gospel in deeds---in
doing.
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