Christian Mindfulness at Lent

Considering that I just discovered that I booked my annual Florida Keys vacation with the hotel on one week and the air travel on the next, I'm not sure I should be writing about Christian mindfulness today.  But all is fixed ... at a price ... and I promise to pay more attention the next time. Paying attention is just about everything there is to say about mindfulness. As I move forward, I want to enjoy this Lent as a time to grow intentionally closer to God and to ask for the grace of contentment.

One way I do so is to replace my regular reading material with spiritual books.  This time they are:

"The Practice of the Presence of God" by Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection: My copy was given to me in the 1977 by a fellow journalist in Tupelo, MS. I've read and re-read it. In my 20s, I was disappointed with the content. Today, nearly 40 years later, I ponder its words in wonder and hope.  It is the central text for Christian mindfulness.

"Motherhood and God" by Margaret Hebblethwaite:  My yellowed paperback copy is from 1984.  The first line:  "This book is about finding God in motherhood, and finding motherhood in God."  I found it profound while dealing with my two-year-old daughter.  Today, I know more than ever that I found God in motherhood, and I am eager to see if it holds up.  After all, I've shuffled this book across the country from house to house.  Yet this is the first time I am revisiting it in 31 years.

"Both-And: Living the Christ-Centered Life in an Either-Or World" by Rich Nathan with Insoo Kim:  Both Rich and Insoo are pastors at my church.  This book describes what that church is all about.  Better read it.

That's my first step in a mindful Lent. May yours be peaceful and inspiring. 

Living in the Presence While Living in the Present

Christian mindfulness is the intersection of living in the presence of God and living in the present.  If that sounds simple, it's not.  It's a lifetime of spiritual practice.

While I've been striving for a while to practice Christian mindfulness, I'm sure I'm still walking the first steps of a journey that will take the rest of my life.  And I may not be that far alone when I hit the end.  But travel on, I must.  It is, in many ways, like the pearl of great price.  Once you've seen it, you are willing to sell everything to obtain it. 

It begins every moment in the now.  That may be the only what humans can find the living God.  The past is memory, and memory is often flawed.  The future is an imagining.  We can't find God there because it's not real.  So we look in the present moment.

Is God present with us there?  Yes.  Whether we know it or not.  And most of the time we don't.  So how can we sense God?  That's the question that takes a lifetime to answer.  Spiritual masters say we cultivate the presence of God (or more truthfully ... come to see the presence of God) by focusing on mind on him through continual prayer and aligning our will with His.  Also doing that will. 

I have a tendency to read a lot about this because it's easier to read it than to do it.  But I am moving forward slowly, very slowly.  

The spiritual masters also report that this type of grace isn't cheap.  If we want to experience daily, deep intimacy with God, sensing his practice and doing his work, we must wake every morning and carry our crosses.  The appropriate response to suffering is the fast track on long and difficult road to Christian mindfulness. And those who find it are few.  Let's try anyway.