audio contemplative prayer

A meditation on John 6:15, using Lectio Divina and Imaginative Contemplation.

Today we meditate on one verse: "When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself."

I very nearly skipped this in my travels through John's gospel, but was drawn in when I realised that this crowd wasn't taking him by force in order to arrest him, but in order to make him king. A study in his response to the buzz of the ego.

Blessings as you pray with this one today.

(Apologies for the slightly tricky music/speaking mix at the beginning... tried to fix a few times but ran out of time to sort properly... it doesn't last too long)

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy's newsletter "The Contemplative Window" or join our Facebook group here

Support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, or by becoming a member for just a few $ or £ per month. Thank you so much!

All music by Pete Hatch. 

A ten minute meditation (including 3 minutes of silence) with Ephesians 5:1-2.

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy's newsletter "The Contemplative Window" or join our Facebook group here

Support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, or by becoming a member for just a few $ or £ per month. Thank you so much!

All music by Pete Hatch. 

A meditation with John 1 verses 43-51 using breath work, body awareness, and imaginative contemplation.

This is our seventh and final meditation in the remarkable chapter one in the book of John. The story opens with the wide, sweeping lens on the dawn of time as the word, the light births all of creation into being. John melts into the poetic "Word became flesh" (v14) and "from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace" (v16) and then we are into John the Baptist's sermons at the Jordan where he points to Jesus as Messiah to swelling crowds and investigative Levites, always testifying "Behold! The Lamb of God" (v35). The focus of the lens become much more granular then, as we now see Jesus in his very ordinary human life, being asked "where are you staying?" (v38). And now, with all the power and energy of the first 3/4 of the chapter setting the stage, ordinary people are meeting Jesus in their ordinary lives and being invited to "Come and see" (v39, 46) and responding in a number of ways to this person who sees and ignites their deepest souls.

In today's meditation, Jesus leaves the Jordan to travel back up to the Galilee, and finds Philip (from the same city of fishermen and farmers as Andrew and Simon Peter). Philip is immediately compelled to follow Jesus and invite his friends, too, to come and see. Nathaniel is a little hesitant until Jesus accurately sees and names his heart, his spirit.

Jesus' words close the chapter with a camera pan back out to the bigger, wider narrative “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” ⁵¹ And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you,^[o] you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

I invite you to engage with these verses as an imaginative contemplation, becoming present to the text and the story in your imagination and putting yourself in the scene.

Blessings, always, as you pray.

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy's newsletter "The Contemplative Window" or join our Facebook group here

Support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, or by becoming a member for just a few $ or £ per month. Thank you so much!

All music by Pete Hatch.

An audio meditation in John's Gospel using Lectio Divina and Imaginative Contemplation, John 1:39-42.

In these verses in John 1, we get a short glimpse of a brief, rather ordinary, and entirely transformative meeting.

I picture this story happening near the Jordan river where John is baptising, announcing that the Kingdom of Heaven has come near, inviting people to go down into the water as a symbol of readiness to step into a new, fresh movement of the spirit. Thousands of people come from all over to hear what John is preaching, to go down into the water and physically express their availability for this new thing.

Simon and Andrew, brothers and fishermen, have travelled across from the Galilee, Jesus has come from Nazareth. Perhaps there are hundreds of tents, or campsites, circled by various gatherings. A bit of a festival feeling.

And here we learn that Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter who would be among Jesus' 12 disciples, was first a disciple of John the Baptist. Andrew is right at the centre of this movement, staying close to John, following him closely, entirely ready to encounter the coming One John speaks of.

Andrew was one of the two who heard John say "Look, here is the Lamb of God", and it was Andrew who followed Jesus that day, asking where he was staying, and going to spend the day with him.

As the afternoon draws towards evening, Andrew is convinced that this Jesus is the Messiah (though his understanding of Messiah would continue to grow for decades to come), and he goes to his find his brother Simon in the crowd, and brings him back to Jesus.

Jesus sees Simon, identifies him, and there in that moment, gives him a new name: Cephas, which translates to Peter and means rock.

A few side facts and legends about Andrew:

Andrew, whose name is not Hebrew but Greek, as Pope Benedict pointed out, suggests that his parents were fairly broad-minded. Andrew was one of Jesus' closer disciples, and would eventually be subject to death by crucifixion. Legend has it that Andrew refused to be martyred in the same manner as Jesus, so his cross was turned a few degrees to be an X. This is reflected in the white X on the Scottish flag, as St Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland. Now you know!

Blessings, always, as you pray.

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy's newsletter "The Contemplative Window" or join our Facebook group here

Support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, or by becoming a member for just a few $ or £ per month. Thank you so much!

All music by Pete Hatch. 

An audio meditation on your own belovedness and your existence as an expression of love.

"I belong to my Beloved, and my Beloved belongs to me. He brought me to the banqueting house, his banner over me is love."

Song of Songs 2:4, 6:3

This meditation invites you to take a little pause from all that is on your plate just now, to step aside and to remember that you are the beloved of Love Itself.

As I sat with these words today I imagined a big banner flying over my kitchen with the word LOVE emblazoned on it. Although this may sound trite, it is actually the most serious truth we can hold as we engage with ourselves, the other people in our kitchens, and the world at large.

You are the beloved, and your Divine Beloved delights in you.

That is the whole story.

BLESSINGS, DEAR ONE 💙💙💙

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy's newsletter "The Contemplative Window" or join our Facebook group here

Support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, or by becoming a member for just a few $ or £ per month. Thank you so much!

All music by Pete Hatch. 

A meditation in John’s Gospel, chapter 1, verses 35-39, using Imaginative Contemplation.

In this meditation we meet Andrew (the brother of Simon Peter) who is not yet a disciple of Jesus, but at this stage in the story, is a disciple of John the Baptist.

Andrew is standing with John (likely at the Jordan River, where he has been baptising, and preaching his message about the one who comes after him), when Jesus walks by.

And so the first encounter, the first dialogue with Jesus in John's Gospel unfolds.

"What are you looking for?"

"Rabbi, where are you staying?"

"Come and see"

For me this exchange holds both the soul-searchingly deep and the very ordinary, physical stuff of our everyday lives, a pairing that holds the essence of incarnation.

I hope this encounter will reveal something new to you as you pray with it. I'd love to know what you hear in it for you today.

Blessings, always, dear ones.

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy's newsletter "The Contemplative Window" or join our Facebook group here

Support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, or by becoming a member for just a few $ or £ per month. Thank you so much!

All music by Pete Hatch. 

An audio meditation in John’s Gospel, chapter 1, verses 19-28.

As an undergrad at Whitworth College, I took a class in John’s Gospel with F. Dale Bruner. I vividly recall Dale opening each session by translating the text into animated English out of the original Greek, which he held entirely memorised in his brain. I particularly remember his arm gestures as he put across the point: “he who comes behind me, ranks ahead of me, because he was before me.” (John 1:15, 1:30)

A final assignment for the class was to make some kind of representation of each chapter of John’s Gospel. I made a small book of water colour paintings. One of the very few University assignments that is still with me, today it sits on my desk to guide me as I travel through John’s Gospel with Contemplative at Home,

For the text in this meditation (which could be called John the Baptist's sermon on the identity of Jesus) I have used Dale’s own translation as recorded his Commentary on the Gospel of John (Eerdmans). I find the language to be full of life and I hope it will open a new door for you as you listen, with the ears of your heart open.

Every blessing as you pray.

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy's newsletter "The Contemplative Window" or join our Facebook group here

Support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, or by becoming a member for just a few $ or £ per month. Thank you so much!

All music by Pete Hatch. 

An audio meditation in John’s Gospel, chapter 1, verses 19-28.

The text for today's meditation records a conversation between priests and John the Baptist. John has been baptising at Bethany at the Jordan, and huge numbers of people are coming to respond to his message that "the Kingdom of God is at hand" (Matthew 4). The chief priests send representatives from Jerusalem to ask some questions, to find out what the buzz is all about.

They want to know if John is someone they are expecting, based on their reading and interpretation of the scriptures. Is John the Messiah, is he Elijah who ascended to heaven in a whirlwind and will return before the Messiah returns, or is this the prophet who Moses said would come before the Messiah?

John says he is none of these, and instead seems to be inhabiting his own unique voice, his own unique vocation. I’m neither Elijah, nor anyone else you are expecting, in the way you are expecting them. I am myself, and I'm here to point towards something that is at hand, someone who is among you on whom the Spirit rests. (Jesus later says in Mt 11:14 “And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who is to come. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”)

I sense John inviting the interrogators to get out of their heads, to stop trying to puzzle out answers to match their expectations, and to open their hearts with curiosity to how the Spirit of God is at hand.

I invite you to open yourself to this sense of the Holy, to let go of trying to puzzle it all out in your brain, and even as you listen and pray, when you sense the Spirit hovering, to allow yourself to receive it. Let it wash over you, let your self be immersed, even baptised, in Presence of the Holy, even if it comes in an unexpected guise.

Every Blessing

Lissy

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy's newsletter "The Contemplative Window" or join our Facebook group here

Support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, or by becoming a member for just a few $ or £ per month. Thank you so much!

All music by Pete Hatch.

A meditation in John’s Gospel, chapter 1, verses 14-17

These words in my old paper Bible have so many little side notes, one word circled in the text with an accordion file of notes on the greek root and its myriad translations spilling into the margins. The unfolding possibilities in the meaning of these words is so rich, so beautiful and compelling that I have taken the liberty of adding them into my reading of the text for you today.

My added words, are all based on the notes of (a) a scholar in Seattle whose name I did not record, teaching circa 1998 (b) the footnotes in my Oxford Annotated NRSV and (c) Strong's notes on the greek in the MOUNCE translation on Bible Gateway.

May the unfurling of these words, as they try in their own limited way to speak of the Word, the original breath of all that is, nestle into your heart and ignite some small fire of insight, of hope, of love.

With every blessing,

Lissy

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy's newsletter "The Contemplative Window" or join our Facebook group here

Support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, or by becoming a member for just a few $ or £ per month. Thank you so much!

All music by Pete Hatch. 

A meditation in John’s Gospel, chapter 1, verses 6-9.

In this meditation on John’s Gospel, I invite you, as Jesus does in Mark 6, to "come away with me to a quiet place". I invite you to a quiet place within yourself, a place where your wonder and curiosity are allowed to take the lead. I invite you to behold these words of text, not from your critical, analytic, outward-functioning self, but from your soft, non-judgemental inner heart. I invite you to allow layers of possibility to unfurl from these simple phrases.

In short, I invite you to pray these words.

 John 1:6-9 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.  He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.  The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

May the light

and radiance

of Christ

shine on you

and in you,

through you

and from you.

May the light

of Christ

warm you,

be your companion this day,

and give you peace.

Blessings, always, dear ones.

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy's newsletter "The Contemplative Window" or join our Facebook group here

Support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, or by becoming a member for just a few $ or £ per month. Thank you so much!

All music by Pete Hatch. 

May grace and peace be yours in abundance! (1 Peter 1:2)

Peter's letters are addressed to communities throughout Asia Minor, and the notes in my study Bible say that we can assume the members are "Gentiles, resident aliens and household slaves." They face persecution and social ostracism for identifying as Christian.

This meditation looks at verses 2-4 and 8-9. There is talk of heaven in this chapter and I find the dynamic between future and present hopes interesting. While it is easy to pitch our hopes on the future in very difficult circumstances, Peter also talks about the joy in the present moment. And this he says to an audience enduring difficulties which I personally cannot begin to imagine. You are receiving the outcome of your faith (v9). Whilst circumstances remain difficult, the hope that we long for is not confined solely to the future. It is also right here, around and among us, even in the midst of the mess.

Do you know anyone who embodies an earthy, joy-right-here-in-the-mess kind of faith and hope? Not by-passing pain, not ignoring injustice, but hope and love in the midst of it?

May this kind of resurrection hope be yours.

Blessings as you pray.

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy's newsletter "The Contemplative Window" or join our Facebook group here

Support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, or by becoming a member for just a few $ or £ per month. Thank you so much!

All music by Pete Hatch.

In Matthew 26:36-46 we are with Jesus, late in the evening after they have celebrated the Passover, Jesus has washed their feet, and broken the bread with his friends. Now they have gone to Gethsemane, a garden they may have stopped in regularly together on their way into Jerusalem.

The irony is not lost on me that I found myself heavy with sleep as I was trying to record this podcast. I have struggled with heavy sleepiness on a number of occasions  this week, but still, it is very unusual during recording, so I know where I find myself in the story this time… losing the battle to heavy lids with Peter, James and John.

 

“The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” Matthew 26:41

 

I’ve heard said that this was the first betrayal. When Jesus was in extreme emotional and spiritual agony, asking his friends to stay with him in mind and heart, they were unable to do so. They left him to face his inner battles entirely by himself.

 

As we enter holy week with Jesus, I invite you to find whatever space you can to be attentive to his story, and to find yourself in his story, in some way.

 

You can find more holy week meditations here.

 

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

 

Sign up for Lissy's newsletter "The Contemplative Window" or join our Facebook group here

 

Support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, or by becoming a member for just a few $ or £ per month. Thank you so much!

 

All music by Pete Hatch.

We continue our Lenten exploration of the mess and the trouble, this week looking at Romans 5:1-11: sin, grace, love, suffering, reconciliation, death and life. 

The text is read from the NRSV with verse 11 from the Message.

As always, blessings as you pray.

L

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy's newsletter "The Contemplative Window" or join our Facebook group here

Support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, or by becoming a member for just a few $ or £ per month. Thank you so much!

All music by Pete Hatch.

Friends,

As we continue our Lenten look at the mess we are always moving through, we come to the story Jesus told of a rich man and a poor man. (Luke 16:19-31)

I found myself wondering about the ways in which I construct 'chasms' or false distinctions between me and others whom I deem unworthy or unappealing. I also wondered about the ways in which I try to cut off parts of myself which I find unattractive. How am I invited to befriend, love, receive or care for these parts of myself?

May you be ushered into love as you pray. 

Every blessing 🙏🏽

Lissy

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, or by becoming a member for just a few $ or £ per month. Thank you so much!

All music by Pete Hatch.

 

Dear Friends,

Lenten greetings.

When choosing which passages to work with in these meditations, I tend to lean towards the most positive, hopeful and encouraging bits of the Bible that I can find.

In the midst of all that we struggle with, I feel that we primarily need hope and love and peace spoken over us. I also have a wild faith in the power of Love to transform us, and in Christ's beautiful invitation to intimacy and union. Bringing you into this invitation is my primary desire in making these meditations.

Lent, however, is a good time to gaze at what is broken and difficult. Jesus did that himself, and, in my experience, offers a presence and a friendship to stand beside us, and gaze with us, at the sticky, painful bits of our inner and outer worlds. 

With that in mind, we will be looking at brokenness - all that is difficult and wearying - in our meditations over the next few weeks, noticing how it is handled throughout Biblical texts. 

May these stories continue to help you make sense of your own story, and may this practice of ‘beholding the pain’ in a safe context bear gifts of life for you. Do take care of yourself, don't address more than you are ready to, and turn to safe people for support when you need it.

Blessings, always, as you pray.

Lissy

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy's monthly newsletter "The Contemplative Window" or join our Facebook group here

Support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, or by becoming a member for just a few $ or £ per month. Thank you so much!

All music by Pete Hatch.

A gentle practice to rest in God's love, using a combination of lectio divina and centering prayer. 

Blessings as you pray.

Lissy

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy's monthly newsletter "The Contemplative Window" or join our Facebook group here

Support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, or by becoming a member for just a few $ or £ per month. Thank you so much!

All music by Pete Hatch.

It is no wonder the the community founded by John, "the one whom Jesus loved" (John 13:23), would go on teach at length about the profound love of God.

John is often referred to as the beloved disciple.

I can't help but wonder how much of this belovedness, this identity as the beloved, is a function of John's capacity and willingness to recieve the Love that was offered to him.

How might you be invited to increase your capacity to recieve love?

The writer of 1 John suggests that God is Love, that to love another is to know God and that when we love, God dwells within us. (v 7, v16)

What do you love? Who do you love? How do you love? Can you sense the presence of God humming within that love?

Blessings as you pray.

I John 4 verses 12, 18-21

¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. ¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. ²⁰ Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.²¹ And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

 

 

A meditation with John 10

I have come that you might have life to the full.

Blessings as you pray 🙏🏽💙☺️

Lissy

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

 

Sign up for Lissy's weekly newsletter "The Contemplative Window" or join our Facebook group here

 

Support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, or by becoming a member for just a few $ or £ per month. Thank you so much!

 

All music by Pete Hatch.

 

In the spirit of the imaginative contemplation, I invite you into this guided meditation based on Matthew 4:18-20.

In imaginative contemplation you are invited to offer your imagination and your perception as tools through which God might speak to you in a new way.

May you see Jesus in a slightly new way here.

Blessings as you pray.

Lissy

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy's weekly newsletter "The Contemplative Window" or join our Facebook group here

Support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, or by becoming a member for just a few $ or £ per month. Thank you so much!

All music by Pete Hatch.

Dear Friends, Today a meditation with the gifts of winter. In this guided meditation, you will imagine yourself in a winter scene, listening to the wintry landscape as it teaches you about how to live in the cold and fallow seasons. Job knew that the natural world understood the fundamental truth of things, understood who God is and how God works Job: 12:7 But ask the animals, and they will teach you,     or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; 8 or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,     or let the fish in the sea inform you. 9 Which of all these does not know     that the hand of the Lord has done this? And John Scotus Eriugena, the medieval theologian and celitc Christian saw all of creation as sacred text. So today we ask, together with contemplatives down the ages, what might the winter of January have to teach me? As always, if you don't feel safe in a meditation, do bring your attention out of that space and return to the breath, or something else that feels calm and loving. Blessings, dear ones. L Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God's love for you today - drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina. Sign up for Lissy's weekly newsletter "The Contemplative Window" http://eepurl.com/hkbDFP or join our Facebook group here https://www.facebook.com/groups/1905953786386080/ For more information please visit www.contemplativeathome.com. All music by Pete Hatch. instagram.com/brother.boost