50 shades of mindfulness
Article on Evangelical Alliance website – culture section – Friday Night Theology
Rediscovering Christian contemplative practice part 2
Rediscovering Christian contemplative practice part 2
second article in Baptist Times serialising A Book of Sparks – A Study in Christian MindFullness, how we are shaped in the pattern of this world, the empty self as a construct of our consumer world
Engaging with culture
Evangelical Alliance Culture Footprint article
christian contemplative practice
christian contemplative practice
article in Baptist Times Online with serialisation of first chapter of A Book Of Sparks – A Study in Christian MindFullness
Being still in a busy world
a recent article on the Evangelical Alliance website
contemplative evangelism
http://www.baptisttimes.co.uk/index.php/opinion/278-contemplative-evangelism
recent reflections on contemplative evangelism in Baptist Times
The verandah of your mind
‘The words English owes to India’ is a title of an article in the BBC News Magazine, reflecting on a programme due to be broadcast today on Radio 4 about a lexicon of words of Asian origin used by the British in India called ‘Hobson’Jobson: A Very English Enterprise’.
One of those words is verandah which is defined as an ‘open pillared gallery around a house.’ Some of my happiest moments have been sitting on verandahs in Africa as a child. I think we are also meant to have a verandah of the mind, although we often don’t.
A verandah opens up a house to what is going on in the environment in a 360 degree way. Many houses are designed in a closed way, there is no gallery around them, no openness to the world around. In the same way our minds should be open and aware of all that is going around in the environment, there is architecture there to enable this – but this architecture has often been buried away behind defences and walls and double-glazed windows.
Another word psychologists use to describe this lack of awareness and openness is automaticity or being on auto-pilot; as if we are sleep walking through life. A shuttered existence. A house, of course, only comes to life, when the shutters are thrown open.
Neuroscience says that contemplative/mindful practices create beneficial shifts in the architecture of the mind, the mind which is neuroplastic in design. You become more empathic and relational with others and less defended and fearful. A verandah of the mind is created where you can meet people, the world, and even God in a new way.
The pillars of silence, stillness, meditating on Scripture, memorising the living Word create a living memory within us of how to live life in all its fullness – as Christ did, creating an open gallery of goodness around us. A verandah of the mind.
Mindfulness and Federer
Federer has won seven Wimbledon titles and seventeen Grand Slam titles. What you saw today was the legacy of living memory within his mind, heart and body of all that he had done previously, helping him to win again. This living memory is a distinctive of Christian mindfulness but can be seen in other areas, like sport. The Greek word in the New Testament for this living memory/remembering/mindfulness is mneme, from which we get our word mnemonic.
The good news is that Andy Murray is building that living memory within his mind, heart and body. In his own words he is getting ‘closer’. He has made a Wimbledon final, and he has won a set in a Grand Slam final for the first time – but he had other chances. He was playing someone, however, who had moved from thinking in playing to playing out of pure awareness without thinking – what the commentators have called the genius of Roger Federer.
I have never seen such support for a British player at a Wimbledon match, and many are saying that Andy has won an army of friends for his emotional response after the final. At a human level it was inspirational for all of us, because we all have fights we are involved in and we can be inspired in those fights, whether with health or other issues, to never give up.
This will be a living memory for many, that will transcend the dulling that time brings. Federer had to play his best tennis to beat Murray, who never gave up. Andy mysteriously when he won his matches looked to the skies and raised his fingers in the air. No one knows except him what it means. But the One we lift our eyes too can lift us to our utmost for his highest – He is the living memory we need above all things in order to see what has been called the Glory of God – a human being fully alive.
the mystery of mindfulness part 3
Sometimes we need to focus on the riddles and mysterious statements Jesus makes, staying with just the one or two verses of that riddling.
For example what does Jesus mean when he says this in Mark 4:21-24?
‘He said to them, ‘Do you bring a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don’t you put it on its stand? For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”
‘Consider carefully [see] what you hear,’ he continued. ‘With the measure you use, it will be measured to you – and even more. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.’
A clue is that this has to be considered in the context of the rest of Mark 4. Two key questions are: what is the lamp, and what is being measured?
Jesus was a riddler. And wrestling with riddles sparks new neural pathways in our neuroplastic brains.
So what does Jesus mean when he says this in Mark 4:21-24?
‘He said to them, ‘Do you bring a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don’t you put it on its stand? For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”
‘Consider carefully [see] what you hear,’ he continued. ‘With the measure you use, it will be measured to you – and even more. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.’
In the context of Mark 4 which is about the seed and the sower, with the seed being the Word of God, the lamp is also the Word of God. The echo is of Psalm 119:105, ‘Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.’ But what is being measured? And what will be received? The clue is in what the good soil represents in the parable of the seed and the sower. And the answer is worth waiting for. The answer makes Jesus a major contemporary player in a key cultural phenomenon.
The good soil is the attentive listener the one who attentively hears the Word of God. Another aspect of Mark chapter 4 is the hidden nature of God’s revelation, which also requires us to be attentive. Jesus begins the parable of the sower, with the imperative, ‘Listen!’ He ends it with ‘He who has ears to hear let him hear.’
He repeats this with a variation in verse 23, ‘If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.’ This is followed up so that we get the point about being attentive hearers with ‘Consider carefully what you hear, in verse 24. Literally he says ‘see what you hear.’ Akouein in verse 23 is apparently a present imperative which means a continuous turning to God’s Word in attentive hearing.
What are we listening for? We are listening for God’s revelation. What Jesus is saying is that the more attentive we are the more revelation we will receive. With the measure you use (of attentiveness) it (revelation) will be measured to you (v.24).
The sad thing is that we don’t value this attentive listening (a Christian version of mindfulness) to the Word of God in a continuous way. Of course we have to ask, ‘how do we do it?’, and that is another matter. Jesus is the master and commander of attention and we should listen attentively to him.
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