With all the hype about Eat, Love, Pray a person who is not Buddhist, or does not have time to take a year off of work or does not have money to travel around the world might be discouraged. One might be tempted to think that Elizabeth Gilbert's method of finding herself or finding God requires a bit too much.
Fortunately, Christians have been using Contemplative practices for centuries. It is clear that one does not have to become a Buddhist to be still or to take a year off of work or travel the world to find God. God is not lost. Stillness is as close as your next breath.
The last Blog provided just one example of Christian contemplative practices. There are many others. However if the Lectio Divina sounds a bit strange consider that in the ancient Aramaic cosmology (view of the world and your place in it), feeling separated from God would be a completely foreign and strange concept. God was considered Life, Breath, Light, Vibration, Essence. One could lose awareness of God's presence but you certainly could not ever be separated from it.
Keeping God's presence in your awareness was the admonition from Jesus the Christ when he answered the question. "What is the greatest commandment (Matthew 23:36). His answer was translated as "Love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind."
To love God with "all of your mind" means to use more than your "thinking" mind and certainly the Creator of the Universe would be aware of what cognitive psychologists know today...that there are many ways to learn, there are many types of intelligences and there are many states of consciousness. The mind is a big thing.
For example, we know from split-brain patients that the right and left hemispheres of the brain are responsible for different functions. The experience of Jill Bolte Taylor provides a vivid example of the power of the language-based left brain vs. the more intuitive right brain. A brain researcher, Taylor suffers a stroke in her left hemisphere and is able to remember and recount her experience of being temporarily freed from the dominance of her language-based left brain. Listen to her talk about it here.
Incorporating a contemplative practice is a skill and like any other skill requires practice. The reason a contemplative prayer style is important to changing your health habit is because MOST of the habits don't operate at the conscious level of awareness. By utilizing contemplative prayer you are going to the root of the matter...down to the reason that you eat too much or skip meals or choose not to exercise or fail to drink enough water. When you are engaged in your bad habits there is an unconscious reason for doing so.
Now, as we enter the third week of Sacred and Fit, you have developed your notebook, your eating and exercise plan. You have determined how much water you need. You have started to visualize yourself at your goal weight and imagined how you would feel when you have reached your goal. You have now begun to contemplate the Scripture in a new way and to bring the Power of the Word to your health habits. This contemplation is the most important component of Sacred and Fit. If it feels too strange to you, pray about whether this program is the right one for you at this time. You must be at a place in which you are willing to grow spiritually in order to change physically.
If you are not yet in that space it is OK. There are lots of other health promoting programs out there. However, if you have come to a place of decision in which you are tired of being overweight and are willing to try a new way of doing things for the next six weeks, then Sacred and Fit is for you.
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Watch Jill Bolte Taylor's talk.
Decide to *participate fully* in Sacred and Fit OR to discontinue.
* Create and sign a commitment form and place it in your Notebook.
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