Ministry Musings: Meditative Prayer (2)

At the Canterbury retreat on Meditative Prayer, we established our working definition of it, based upon Richard Foster’s book, Sanctuary of the Soul—“meditative prayer is inclining our heart unto the Lord, with the intention of enacting what we hear, so that we may increase our friendship with Jesus.”

Today, I return to the idea of “inclining our heart unto the Lord.”  In the liturgy we speak of it often when the priest says, “Life up your hearts” and the  people respond, “We lift them up to the Lord.”

But what does this mean?  What are we doing?

Essentially, we are declaring our intention to engage in deliberate acts of solitude.  What we say in worship is representative of how we live the rest of the week.  We can do this both privately and collectively.  That’s why we can say these words in worship, for we are gathering to pay attention to God and to receive God’s revelation.

But more than the stated times of worship, we practice additional solitude as a way of “inclining our hearts to the Lord.”

A month or so ago, I was thinking about this, and these words came to my mind:  “Silence is the voice through which God speaks to us; solitude is the ear through which we hear what God is saying.”  Without trying to take any credit for this, let me simply say that I am not quoting someone else here, but rather sharing with you the phrase that arose in my mind.

So, when we “incline our hearts to the Lord,” we are simply declaring our intention to step away from the rat race, noise, and clamor of life and enter into willful times of reflection.  That’s why liturgical prayer calls us to prayer (at least) Morning, Noon, Evening, and at Bedtime (Compline).  It’s why other traditions commend a daily “quiet time.”

Whatever we call it, meditative prayer is based upon the conviction that there is One who desires to speak to us.  As we “incline our heart to the Lord,” we are simply putting ourselves into a position to hear the Voice.