NOTE: I’m outlining the next series of blogposts (which I will be using to hammer out my thinking for my next book). While I’m doing that, and since our spiritual community is giving a summertime focus to meditation, I thought I’d repost this blog series from 2012. Have a read! Doug
If you’re familiar with centering prayer, you realize that when we Christians meditate, it doesn’t look much different from those who meditate in the East.
This frightens a lot of good Christians.
I was one of them. In this series of posts, I want to tell you the story of my journey from there to where I am today.
I grew up in a pretty conservative version of the Christian faith. We believed the other brands of Christian might go to heaven, but the heathen hoards would surely not. Our posture toward other faiths was condescending at best; hostile at worst.
I grew up in a little beach community north of San Diego. In the 60’s and 70’s when I was growing up there, it was hippy-town. And where the hippies were, the gurus and swamis were not far behind. The New Age was in full flower in my home town, and we Christians developed a belligerent, combative posture toward it.
At church I took classes about false religions, but at school I liked these kids (I’ve always gravitated to the off-beat). The New Age kids published a weekly newspaper called “The Garbanzo Bean” and over time that became their name.
I enjoyed hanging out with the “Garbanzo Beans,” and meditation was an everyday part of their lives. Our family shopped at the local organic co-op, where there was always a flyer about some meditation group or another. I resonated with most of the things the Garbanzos talked about. Organic foods – good! Caring for the environment – good! Opposing Vietnam – good! Resisting consumerism as a social narrative – good, good, good!
But meditation??? That was the devil’s brew!
Things would have stayed that way were it not for my unusual spiritual hunger and religious zeal.
My Myers-Briggs profile is ENFJ. We’re a small percentage of the population, but a pretty large percentage of the clergy. Religious zeal was just in my blood. If I had been born Jewish, I’d probably have been a rabbi, Muslim, an imam; born in Papua New Guinea, I bet I would have been a witch-doctor.
But I was born Christian, so as a teenager, my instincts took me deep into my own tradition. Along the way I ran into our contemplatives; Meister Eckhart, John of the Cross, Theresa of Avila, and a group of contemporary monastics, the Trappists.
When I read them, I began to hear the same language my Garbanzo friends used. I heard these Christian voices speak of the “Indwelling Divine” and the “Divine Presence,” as they intentionally dismantled our human-like images of God.
John of the Cross
And they talked about meditation!
Not “meditating on the Bible” like I’d been taught. No. They talked about meditation-meditation.
The “silence-your-mind” kind of meditation.
Whoa!
Wow. This was fascinating to read.
Really enjoyed this. I would love to understand more about how the generation before me arrived at meditation stuff means new age which is equivalent to pure evil. I don’t fully get what this new age term even means.
when i was growing up, “the new age” religions were the enemy. my best working definition of them was that they were the syncretistic efforts to pick and choose the best of all religions – with particular emphasis on religions of the east.
it happened at a time when air-travel and television were shrinking the world. more of us were becoming un-insulated from the thinking in the east, more of us were hearing them and trying them out.
what they believed, thought, and practiced was DIFFERENT, AND different felt threatening.
so in my christian community, the new agers (along w/ the mormons and jehovah’s witnesses) were the #1 threat, thus the “enemy.”
and the new agers meditated.
so there was guilt by association. if the enemy meditates… then meditation must be bad.
i suspect i’m the generation before you…
and that’s how i got there.
d.
Having questions about or reading about other religions was going to send me straight to HELL! That is what I was told…
when we lived in “age of reason” or “enlightenment” worldview, we had a fundamental premise on which reality was founded…
if “a” is true, then “not-a” has to be not-true.
consequently, we imagined that if we had jesus and god and spiritual truth, we had “a.” consequently, if somebody baptized differently that we did, they had to be “not-a” and therefore, untrue.
38,000 times we christians divided from one another over this fundamental reality-assumption.
and then the quantum folks tell us that reality in this universe is relative to where you’re standing when you experience it…
they tell us that a quantum particle can be here (“a”) and there (“not-a”) at the same time.
if that’s so, maybe we don’t have to divide ourselves from one another if we disagree on “a”/”not-a.”
and if THAT’s the case…
maybe we don’t have to feel frightened/threatened by the other religions on their quest for truth.
when we were told that reading about other religions would send us to hell… there was a lot of reality-imagining going on under the surface we never considered.
d.
Yeah!! This is why I’ve always been drawn to you and your teaching Doug!! Meditation is so good for us. In the past year, through a therapist’s help, I’ve learned how to use mediation to ‘listen’ to what’s really going on in my soul and mind. Listen to the good, bad, ugly. It’s not only been helpful, but it has helped me find healing and growth. It helps me see things for what they are, not through filters. Now, I’m combining my new found skills in meditation, add Jesus and Yoga for the mind body connection…. WOW. I feel alive and engaged in so many levels. I wish that more evangelical Christians embrace and practice meditation. I highly recommend it. So preach on Doug!! Go Garbanzos!! 🙂
i laughed, monica!
good to see you on the blog. i follow you on FB and am delighted to see your family growing.
you have a naturally infectious personality. i remember it, and i see it oozing out of your FB page. so, use your gift! tell everybody you know about meditation! so many christians are afraid of it because they don’t realize it is part of our heritage. if we had to choose only one thing to help awaken people to the inner life and light of the divine, this might be the one.
tell everybody you know!
Thank you Doug for your response and support! For some reason I never thought of spreading the idea of meditation on my FB page. Probably because I think some of my C friends will think I’m crazy. Oh well. That’s a dumb reason to not tell the world!! Hmm.. Good idea! Will begin the campaign soon enough. :).
I take it you & I have gone down a similar faith path. I have chosen to practice within one of the most liberal sects of Christianity for many reasons. One being the acknowlegement that those that have gone before us in faith in history had similar struggles. Their journeys point us to the bigger parts of faith. The mystery of God. The divine in meditation. Finite reality focus promotes generosity. God is bigger than our own faith sect.
Thank you for being a voice that challenges the fundamentalist propoganda. Thank you for pointing back to history and the grander theories of faith rather than focusing on sending the congregant away with a “voting guide”. Thanks be to God!!!
welcome to the blog, heather. and thank you for the kind words.