REMEDY: Contemplation Practice for Week Three

Be Still and Know

Preparation

You may wish to prepare yourself for this time of contemplation by:

• Making sure your attention is not required by anything else. For example, not driving a car, crossing a street, talking with someone else
• Consider finding a quiet place where you’re not likely to be interrupted. Awareness and attention are fleeting, jumping from one thing to another and one thought to another. So, a quiet place with few distractions seems to work best.
• Eliminate as many visual stimuli as possible as they tend to distract and draw our attention away.
• Use a timer to help you keep track of time

Practice
"Be still and know that I am God" is Psalm 46:10. This practice is one of repetition (chanting) and presence to the words of the biblical text. Chant — repetitive chant — creates space to let our spirit open deeply as we repeat words that enable us to get out of our heads and into our hearts.

• Start slowly with one tone and say the entire verse: “Be still and know that I am God.”
• Then take one long inhale and exhale
• Then repeat the scripture with the same tone but drop the last word. Say: “Be still and know that I am”
• Then take one long inhale and exhale
• Then repeat the scripture but drop the last phrase. Say: “Be still and know”
• Then take one long inhale and exhale
• Then repeat the scripture but drop the last phrase. Say: “Be still”
• Then take one long inhale and exhale
• Then simply say: “Be”
• Repeat this process at least twice and then simply “be” in the presence of God for 10 minutes.

Share with us what you are experiencing

-adapted from Alice Fryling in The Art of Spiritual Listening