Imaginative Contemplation: The Priest, The Drunk, and the Dangerous Chair

One of the more interesting minor characters of the Old Testament is Eli the Priest. His story can be found in the opening four chapters of the First Book of Samuel (also, confusingly, known as the First Book of Kings). So interesting is he, in fact, that in a rare exception to the normal practice, …

Flourishing Imagination, Sound Theology

This piece is about Imaginative Contemplation, sometimes known as Visualisation Meditation or, if you are a Catholic, Ignatian Prayer (of which more later). Normally I am a hardcore contemplation kind of person. That is, I wait upon God using nothing but the bare word or silence. However, if you are going to commit to devoting …

The Neighbours and Enemies of (Ancient) Israel

There is a curious episode in the life of Jesus about which only St John informs us. It starts brightly enough with "many of the Jews learned to believe in him" (John 8:30) but things quickly go off-track. After a bit of to-and-fro Our Lord says- "I know you are of Abraham’s breed; yet you …

Light & Logos, Mother & Son

At the risk of losing my audience during the course of the first sentence let me say at the outset that this post will be about a prayer practice which could be called ‘sequential meditation’. Long term followers of my work will notice that it is essentially the same method advocated in Hesychasm and the …