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Today's reading begins with the heading "Biblical Witness," so I had better explain something before going on.
I was raised in one old Protestant denomination, before Left Behind and its ilk brought obscure American notions into mainstream media and therefore into conventional wisdom. As an adult I became a member of another, which has so far successfully resisted ditto. In both, when we say "Biblical," we mean "there is a passage in Scripture about this" or "the places and events described in the Bible took place in this context." Deacons are Biblical; the Internet is not. "Biblical" is not a value judgment, just an adjective. It can also be used as an adverb: Biblically, deacons walked around in the neighborhoods where they lived; modernly, they can use the Internet to talk to people in need and send them help.
However, the usage is not the same in every denomination. The word "Biblical" is used in other denominations, which are often perceived by Americans to be the Christian majority, to mean "good." In other words, if it is not mentioned in the Bible in an approving way, it's bad. This can lead to preposterous verbal contortions in an attempt to prove that things we like are "Biblical." Or it can be used as a thought-stopper: if something is "un-Biblical," it must be dropped from the conversation. Or the charge of being "un-Biblical" can be used as a reason to harass and torment other people. I think this is another reason why young Americans are driven away from Christianity. They can see that these attempts to make the Bible into a universal encyclopedia are absurd. That is not what it is for. The questions you are supposed to be asking are, "Does this interfere with love of God or love of neighbor? Does this interfere with justice or mercy? Does this encourage me to be up my own ass?" The answer may be no for you, or it may be yes. Discernment is what is needed--not a checklist.
Anyway. When Foster talks about Biblical witness to the discipline of meditation, he means that he is surveying what we can read about it in Scripture. He does not feel the need to use Scripture to prove that it is OK.
Like other disciplines described in this book, meditation is older than Christianity. In the Hebrew Bible, he says, the theme of meditation is "changed behavior as a result of our encounter with the living God." He cites more instances than I have room to summarize here, and that is only a sample of the mentions of meditation in Scripture. How did people meditate? By "listening to God's word, reflecting on God's works, rehearsing God's deeds, ruminating on God's law, and more." You don't need to be a yogi to do it. "God spoke to them not because they had special abilities, but because they were willing to listen." And, Foster points out, Jesus frequently went off alone to listen to His Father.
Foster continually emphasizes that spiritual disciplines, existing as they do in the context of daily life, are simpler than one might think. And so with meditation. "I wish I could make it more complicated for those who like things difficult," he says. "It involves no hidden mysteries, no secret mantras, no mental gymnastics, no esoteric flights into the cosmic consciousness. The truth of the matter is that the great God of the universe, the Creator of all things, desires our fellowship."
But simple does not necessarily mean easy. In the beginning, it was as ordinary to converse with God as meeting a friend for an evening stroll in a lovely garden. The Fall tore away that easy closeness. Although people have attained to it--Moses for one--there are still moments of sheer terror. Why fear?
Here again modern mass-media American Christianity obscures the topic. It tends to talk about punishment--about rightful retribution from an angry God who sees what we did. Granted, that is an old theological concept about our relationship with God and the need for Jesus' sacrifice. But it is not the oldest nor the only.
I used to own a print of a painting by noted paleoartist Gregory S. Paul. It depicts two tyrannosaurs, boldly marked in yellow and black, on a summer day in South Dakota 70 million years ago. They are running across a mudflat toward a distant green shoreline, with massive white clouds building up in the shining blue sky overhead. The viewpoint in the painting is very low, as if crouching to avoid notice. Nevertheless, one tyrannosaur has glanced back, directly at the viewer, and opened its massive jaws to call out to the other... And the One who made that--and the layers of stone that lie over its bones, and the Black Hills brought to life from that stone, and the wild Missouri that runs through it all--wants to pay close personal attention to me? "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?" (Psalm 8)
But we are not plunging into the unknown. "How sad," says Foster, "that contemporary Christians are so ignorant of the vast sea of literature on Christian meditation by faithful believers throughout the centuries!" In a single paragraph he quotes four: Theophan the Recluse, Jeremy Taylor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Madame Guyon. Further down the page he mentions Thomas à Kempis. All of them refer to meditation as a source of deep peace, strength, guidance, and joy.
More on that in the next post.
I was raised in one old Protestant denomination, before Left Behind and its ilk brought obscure American notions into mainstream media and therefore into conventional wisdom. As an adult I became a member of another, which has so far successfully resisted ditto. In both, when we say "Biblical," we mean "there is a passage in Scripture about this" or "the places and events described in the Bible took place in this context." Deacons are Biblical; the Internet is not. "Biblical" is not a value judgment, just an adjective. It can also be used as an adverb: Biblically, deacons walked around in the neighborhoods where they lived; modernly, they can use the Internet to talk to people in need and send them help.
However, the usage is not the same in every denomination. The word "Biblical" is used in other denominations, which are often perceived by Americans to be the Christian majority, to mean "good." In other words, if it is not mentioned in the Bible in an approving way, it's bad. This can lead to preposterous verbal contortions in an attempt to prove that things we like are "Biblical." Or it can be used as a thought-stopper: if something is "un-Biblical," it must be dropped from the conversation. Or the charge of being "un-Biblical" can be used as a reason to harass and torment other people. I think this is another reason why young Americans are driven away from Christianity. They can see that these attempts to make the Bible into a universal encyclopedia are absurd. That is not what it is for. The questions you are supposed to be asking are, "Does this interfere with love of God or love of neighbor? Does this interfere with justice or mercy? Does this encourage me to be up my own ass?" The answer may be no for you, or it may be yes. Discernment is what is needed--not a checklist.
Anyway. When Foster talks about Biblical witness to the discipline of meditation, he means that he is surveying what we can read about it in Scripture. He does not feel the need to use Scripture to prove that it is OK.
Like other disciplines described in this book, meditation is older than Christianity. In the Hebrew Bible, he says, the theme of meditation is "changed behavior as a result of our encounter with the living God." He cites more instances than I have room to summarize here, and that is only a sample of the mentions of meditation in Scripture. How did people meditate? By "listening to God's word, reflecting on God's works, rehearsing God's deeds, ruminating on God's law, and more." You don't need to be a yogi to do it. "God spoke to them not because they had special abilities, but because they were willing to listen." And, Foster points out, Jesus frequently went off alone to listen to His Father.
Foster continually emphasizes that spiritual disciplines, existing as they do in the context of daily life, are simpler than one might think. And so with meditation. "I wish I could make it more complicated for those who like things difficult," he says. "It involves no hidden mysteries, no secret mantras, no mental gymnastics, no esoteric flights into the cosmic consciousness. The truth of the matter is that the great God of the universe, the Creator of all things, desires our fellowship."
But simple does not necessarily mean easy. In the beginning, it was as ordinary to converse with God as meeting a friend for an evening stroll in a lovely garden. The Fall tore away that easy closeness. Although people have attained to it--Moses for one--there are still moments of sheer terror. Why fear?
Here again modern mass-media American Christianity obscures the topic. It tends to talk about punishment--about rightful retribution from an angry God who sees what we did. Granted, that is an old theological concept about our relationship with God and the need for Jesus' sacrifice. But it is not the oldest nor the only.
I used to own a print of a painting by noted paleoartist Gregory S. Paul. It depicts two tyrannosaurs, boldly marked in yellow and black, on a summer day in South Dakota 70 million years ago. They are running across a mudflat toward a distant green shoreline, with massive white clouds building up in the shining blue sky overhead. The viewpoint in the painting is very low, as if crouching to avoid notice. Nevertheless, one tyrannosaur has glanced back, directly at the viewer, and opened its massive jaws to call out to the other... And the One who made that--and the layers of stone that lie over its bones, and the Black Hills brought to life from that stone, and the wild Missouri that runs through it all--wants to pay close personal attention to me? "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?" (Psalm 8)
But we are not plunging into the unknown. "How sad," says Foster, "that contemporary Christians are so ignorant of the vast sea of literature on Christian meditation by faithful believers throughout the centuries!" In a single paragraph he quotes four: Theophan the Recluse, Jeremy Taylor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Madame Guyon. Further down the page he mentions Thomas à Kempis. All of them refer to meditation as a source of deep peace, strength, guidance, and joy.
More on that in the next post.
