I thought I would share an excerpt from a missive from a reverend friend of mine:
"Now, the way into contemplative prayer, so I was told, requires sitting quietly, which I find tricky, breathing, which I mostly manage, and allowing one's mind to still. This didn't sound particularly difficult, so I sat in the chapel, and prepared to rummage about and find what folk call the ground of my soul. When I shut my eyes, though, the entire inside of my head lit up like a mental airport. There were thoughts dashing for flights, thoughts collecting baggage, thoughts fighting over lost children, thoughts struggling up escalators, frantic thoughts, weird thoughts, pushy thoughts, thoughts without tickets, and thoughts arrested for terrorism. I sat there thinking 'where am I going to stuff this lot?' And so it went on, the more i breathed steadily, corrected my posture, and tried to focus on infinite mystery, the more my mind sent out invitations and did what I'm told is called 'having a good time'. Before long i had departing spaceships, explosions, bunnies everywhere, an uncountable number parrots, zombies thumping each other with teddy bears, a coach full of singing accountants and, beyond horrible, stray scenes from 'The Sound of Music'. None of this made any sense. so I sat there steaming until, very slowly, the parrots flew off, the zombies exploded Julie Andrews decomposed, and the landscape cleared a bit, leaving only a few ducks and an 18th century philosopher, all of whom I could ignore. "
What chance do us mere mortals have?
Merry Christmas all forumites and Howard
