On the bottom of my meditation bench I have taped a Buddhist saying:

“WHAT IS THE MOST MIRACULOUS OF ALL MIRACLES?
THAT I SIT QUIETLY BY MYSELF.”

I think most of  us have had the experience that when it comes time to meditate we are so unsettled in our spirit and distracted in our minds that we say to ourselves: “There’s no point meditating now. I’m a mess. I’ll wait until I feel more at peace.”

The problem is that this peace we are seeking eludes us until we find ourselves in bed at night and realize that we never made it to the meditation bench. I’ve done this a million times myself. It’s almost as if I feel I’m not worthy to meditate.  I should be in a better state of mind before I start.

This is why having a definite time and place to meditate is so important. And in this one point I need to be really disciplined and strict with myself: no matter how I feel when it is time to meditate, I need to stop and meditate.  God loves me exactly  as I am in this moment.  I don’t have to “get there” in the sense of being ready to meditate.

I begin exactly as I am with all my messiness, distractedness and unsettledness.  My only responsibility is to show up, be still and be open and receptive. And it may be that during the meditation time I do continue to feel distracted. This is where we begin to understand that this time is God’s time. Faith and patience and humility are what I’m learning when God doesn’t seem to be there. But God is. God IS.

Let me add that I do not always adhere to my own advice. In unusually busy times I’ve gone days without meditating but I do notice something missing. That is a good sign. It means that meditation has taken root and no matter how inadequately tended to it is still a part of my deep psyche.

We don’t need to beat ourselves up for these periods of neglect. All we need to do is start again. And again.
And again.  God is not going anywhere and God is patiently waiting for our return.

It’s best if we do not think that we initiate prayer. In meditation we enter into the eternal and eternally present prayer of Jesus.  This is energy that flows between the Father and the Son—the love that we call the Holy Spirit. God initiated this prayer and it is always there—like a stream—and all we do is enter it.  The discipline of meditation is letting go—allowing the stream to flow in us and through us unimpeded—and the repetition of a single word or phrase from Scripture helps us do this:

“Be still, and know that I am God.”