{"id":49269,"date":"2025-03-19T03:00:49","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T09:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=49269"},"modified":"2025-05-29T05:23:44","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T11:23:44","slug":"devotional-meditations-as-a-genre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/devotional-meditations-as-a-genre\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional Meditations as a Genre"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-49273 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/X3-800x800.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"295\" height=\"295\" srcset=\"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/X3-800x800.png 800w, https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/X3-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/X3.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 295px) 100vw, 295px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I don\u2019t consider myself a terribly spiritual person. This isn\u2019t as self-deprecating as it sounds, in part because although we tend to conflate \u201cspiritual\u201d with \u201crighteous\u201d or \u201cgood\u201d they\u2019re technically distinct concepts. I do the right things for the most part and my heart is in the right place, but I don\u2019t have that kind of intense, interpersonal day-to-day interaction with God that some people have. Some of this is a function of effort, but I\u2019m convinced that some people were simply just born with that particular gift.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So on that note I was going to make my way through <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">reading all of the classic devotional works by the great spiritual writers, not only in Christianity but also in other faith traditions as well. (For our purposes here \u201cdevotional\u201d means works that explicitly guide the reader in intentional spiritual reflection and meditation).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I had drawn up a list of about 20 or so books, but only got through the following three, and even then there was some skimming involved:\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Practice of the Presence of God<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2013 Brother Lawrence<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Cloud of Unknowing<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2013 Anonymous (14th-century English mystic)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dark Night of the Soul<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2013 St. John of the Cross<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I am not unaware of the irony of skimming these books that call one to deep, slow reflection. At this stage in my life with a bajillion small kids and career I have time for daily prayers, spiritual conversations with children, and scriptures, but not the kind of multi-hour, deep-dive walk with God that these mystics and saints have pulled off. Consequently, I\u2019m going to wait on finishing this project until kids are a little older and I have the bandwidth to try to meditate on God and Christ for hours. Still, some thoughts from what I have read:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At a meta-level the main message of this genre is to be intentional about one\u2019s walk with God, to think about what works and what doesn\u2019t and record them. Here the spirit and God\u2019s presence and light become very reified; they are discrete things with actions and characteristics, not vague abstractions, and we suss out the details through our own meditative life. If I did have one take-away from this exercise it is to be similarly intentional, even if as a father with responsibilities I can\u2019t retire to a monastery or the temple for days at a time.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On that note, while I respect the mystics and thinkers in these books, IMHO one of the major differences between us and other Christian faiths is for us it is fairly explicit that you can\u2019t meditate your way into the Divine Presence. You develop yourself into a being that can stand the Divine Presence by eating our bread by the sweat of our brow in the lone and dreary world, all the while relying on the merits of the Savior. I\u2019m sure the Buddhist monk who has meditated for hours a day for decades has a calmness of mind and insights into reality that I can\u2019t even begin to understand\u2026.but as somebody with a family and responsibilities I too have insights into reality that he doesn\u2019t grasp. I thought I was a contemplative type in high school, but for me personal development didn&#8217;t really happen until the crucible of post-high school chronic illness (if you have a mysterious cold that isn&#8217;t going away get allergy tested!) and mission.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our differing version of the afterlife is not irrelevant here, as it is a an active, generative afterlife, in stark contrast to the traditional view of an eternity of rest in God\u2019s presence.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That being said, experienced meditators like Sam Harris have a certain calmness to their demeanor and disposition that I envy, so at some point I do want to give that kind of intentional focus-for-hours-at-a-time some effort.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dark Night of the Soul<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> touches on the theme in the film and book <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Silence<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: what happens when you are doing all the right spiritual things, but God is still silent and you are still drawing a spiritual blank? It is important to be open to this possibility, otherwise there\u2019s sort of a subtle gaslighting that you\u2019re not making an effort when you are. Brigham Young (somewhere in the J of D, can\u2019t chapter and verse it) mentioned this circumstance, and said that it was for God to see if we can stand on our own two feet even without constant warm fuzzies (obviously paraphrasing). Or, as <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dark Night of the Soul<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> puts it &#8220;<\/span>Left in such aridity, not only do they find no satisfaction in their reliable old spiritual practices, but these things actually become tasteless, even bitter. He sees that these souls have grown a little. He weans them from dependency on the breast so that they can become strong.&#8221; While sometimes we put in the coin of focused, prayer, effort, and receive an added measure \u00a0of the spirit in response (\u201cDraw near unto me and I will draw near unto you\u201d), sometimes we don\u2019t or it\u2019s rarer than we would like, and our testimonies need to be deep and rooted enough to handle that contingency when it arises.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019m reading older critical editions, and it makes me pine for the days when academics were deeper and more detailed. When people would spend hours on the nuance of a certain passage, drawing all sorts of connection with Church Fathers and other thinkers, for no other reason than a tome in a library somewhere would have some additional insight into that passage. I think we lost something when everything became about self-promotion, political implications, public outreach, Tweets, and soundbites.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Much of this content (and similar Buddhist texts) talks about calming your mind from random, sometimes unwanted thoughts that drift in and out of our consciousness, and one sign of an experienced meditator is being able to keep one\u2019s focus unnaturally long. That being said, there is perhaps something to be said for the benefits of not focusing. People with ADD often talk about their \u201csuperpowers,\u201d or the benefits they have from their condition such as added creativity, connections, and ideas that they would not have had had they had longer attention spans (even if it drives their family members crazy). So while I can respect the benefits of intense, lengthy focus, I\u2019m going to push back on the idea that it is the ideal for every situation.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brother Lawrence had a Martin Luther-esque crisis of spiritual anxiety over the state of his soul. I wonder how many times such \u201credemption anxieties\u201d have led to spiritual breakthroughs as people learn to rely more on Christ.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When I was not expecting anything more than to end my days in this trouble and anxiety\u2026suddenly I found myself wholly changed. My soul, which until then was always troubled, felt a profound interior peace, as if it were in its center and a place of repose. Since that time, I have been working before God simply, in faith, with humility and love; and I try carefully to do nothing, say nothing, and think nothing that could displease Him. I hope that, when I have done what I can, He will do with me as He pleases.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Cloud of Unknowing<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: \u201cAvoid thinking of anything under God,\u201d is an insightful version of Brigham Young\u2019s \u201cThe Kingdom of God or Nothing.\u201d <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t consider myself a terribly spiritual person. This isn\u2019t as self-deprecating as it sounds, in part because although we tend to conflate \u201cspiritual\u201d with \u201crighteous\u201d or \u201cgood\u201d they\u2019re technically distinct concepts. I do the right things for the most part and my heart is in the right place, but I don\u2019t have that kind of intense, interpersonal day-to-day interaction with God that some people have. Some of this is a function of effort, but I\u2019m convinced that some people were simply just born with that particular gift.\u00a0 So on that note I was going to make my way through reading all of the classic devotional works by the great spiritual writers, not only in Christianity but also in other faith traditions as well. (For our purposes here \u201cdevotional\u201d means works that explicitly guide the reader in intentional spiritual reflection and meditation).\u00a0 I had drawn up a list of about 20 or so books, but only got through the following three, and even then there was some skimming involved:\u00a0\u00a0 The Practice of the Presence of God \u2013 Brother Lawrence The Cloud of Unknowing \u2013 Anonymous (14th-century English mystic) Dark Night of the Soul \u2013 St. John of the Cross I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10403,"featured_media":49272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2885],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-language-and-literature"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/S288-legacy-icons__12009.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49269"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49345,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49269\/revisions\/49345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}