Meditation and the Mystic

I recently read an article (click for article) on a study showing that people who had meditated regularly for years had healthier brains than people who didn’t. I was interested because I had a head injury more than10 years ago and had enormous trouble with my memory and processing afterwards, so I could do with something to help my poor little brain.

While the study sounds dubious as it was based on a limited sample size, there was also reference to another study that suggested meditators had increased “brain folding” which seems to be a good thing.

It got me thinking that maybe I should start meditating. I have seen studies that followed a group of people that started meditating every morning and every evening for a month. They all reported lower levels of stress, higher contentedness with life and an increase in a general sense of wellbeing.

All of which I could certainly do with.

The word meditation can scare some people. But I think it’s important to remember that meditation has been part of the Christian tradition for centuries (think nuns and monks and the like). I believe it is even referenced in scripture, the Psalms especially talk about meditating on the word of God frequently, storing it always in your heart and so on.

As with everything I think the issue is focus. Whatever we do in our lives, if our focus is on God it keeps things in the right order.

I think meditation and the “mystic” side of Christianity has been lost a little in some modern church traditions. So often we focus on the “reality of God” and relevance for today, that we forget a little about the magical, mystical, unknowable side of our spirituality.

As human beings we long for an expression of the mystic, of the supernatural. Why else would we be fascinated with TV shows where people “talk to those who have passed over”? Why else would we be so interested in stories of people who have officially died and then been resuscitated? Or even (in my case) enjoy the ideas and concepts of science fiction so much? We long for the “other” that we sense is out there.

This fascination seems to be part of the longing of the human psyche for a connection with the unknown, with the mystic. If (as Christians believe) we are all created to be in a relationship with God then part of us must feel the void when we are not in relationship.

I think we all know in ourselves that there is more to life than what we can see with our eyes. My belief is that this is a longing to see miracles, and to communicate with the unseen realm of heaven, to connect with the supernatural being that I call God.

For me that is all part of my walk with Jesus. I long to see miracles. I long to communicate with God. I ache to truly see God do crazy things in our world, the way the bible describes it.

I wonder if meditation might help me with that connection to the unseen, the stuff we just sense and feel but can’t quite explain. I need to make a quiet space in my life in which I think deeply on some scripture and give God space to connect with me again.

KG

#meditation