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Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God |  | Author: James Finley
Publisher: HarperOne
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Seller: Glacier Gal
Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 253496
Media: Paperback
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 0060750642
Dewey Decimal Number: 248.34
EAN: 9780060750640
ASIN: 0060750642
Publication Date: June 28, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Enter a Monastery Without Walls Christian Meditation introduces an ancient practice to a contemporary audience. James Finley, a former monk and student of Thomas Merton, presents the fundamentals of both understanding and practicing Christian meditation. He provides simple, helpful instructions, as well as explaining the deeper connection with the divine that meditation can bring. Above all, he makes clear that the aim of meditation is to allow us to experience divine contemplation -- the presence of God.
Book Description
Discover the practices and insights at the heart of Christianity's own meditation tradition with this enriching "retreat" on audio. Looking back to his monastic life at the Abbey of Gethsemani, where he studied with Thomas Merton, author James Finley shares uniquely Christian teachings for cultivating awareness of the interconnection of all life. Mining Christianity's own lineage of mystics, "Christian Meditation" guides listeners through an unmatched eight-hour course of original meditations and other practices.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 19
 For the ongoing spiritual journey.... November 22, 2005
Peter Menkin (Mill Valley, CA United States)
24 out of 25 found this review helpful
There is so much in this hardback with the attractive dustcover that it is difficult to know where to start. The author, James Finley, says what his book is about from his perspective as the writer, and what could be better: "...I am sharing with you what I have learned thus far in my ongoing spiritual journey." For people who see their life as a spiritual journey, even a pilgrimage or travel through the desert, James Finley has written an articulate if somewhat detailed text on being with and learning to seek God in ones life.
I had read somewhere in a book about the poor by the Jesuit Gary Smith that Christ is seeking us, and that we are "followed" by Christ. This book purports that one lives and prays a realized oneness with God, preparing oneself through contemplation as one discipline. "When engaged in contemplation, we rest in God resting in us. We are at home in God at home in us." The role is basically receptive.
The person who seeks God in this way, so the book instructs, and the book is a kind of instruction by one who has knowledge to share, and a heart with love to teach, will have a "life-transforming realization of oneness with God." In some way, by manner of practice, and the nature of contemplation. Some of his phrases are moving, and give reason to think about with a reverent consideration that looks towards divine destinations. He does this in the Christian way. One can "...quietly begin to illumine the most intimate of moments."
In this conversion of life and the heart, which I have practiced and in practicing found this book useful as a contemplative seeking and traveling the way, even when not knowing the path but being there anyway, I found the practice of meditation is a starting point in the interior journey. This isn't a gibberish of the supernatural; the practice can extend to quiet moments of the sunset, or taking coffee in the morning. He suggests the day by day time of "Here I am, Lord."
There is a lot of ground and stuff and thoughts and ways discussed in this 286 page book by the former Trappist Monk who studied with Thomas Merton. Ones heart can be combined or moved in a way that connects it with similar experiences of past and passing centuries. Here is one lesson that is gained through Christian meditation:
"...meditation embodies a desire for God that brings us back full circle to a more clear-minded, Christlike compassion for others and our selves." I am going to tell you something that took the author a while to say in the section on "A Ladder to Heaven." When the Lord or we self disclose our love to another we seek to have our heart met and hearing that love come back to us. God does this with us in contemplation and meditation. There is this God of love which is the Christian love, and it is a powerful, drawing, and fulfilling force.
There are risks to the contemplative practice in the Christian tradition, outlined, explained, and taught in this book by HarperSan Francisco. "Dealing with the dying away of who we used to be." "Ego-based ways of experiencing ourselves are yeilding..." Sometimes the transformative experience is extremely difficult.
James Finley likes to explain the journey, and he tells us that the journey can be hidden, that He is hidden and that He does abide within us. So he quotes Saint John of the Cross. In my own life I have sought this method of prayer and practiced it, relying on the centering qualities and the quietude. Sometimes I have entered into the desert of aloness of my own life, and faced myself and memories. A hard thing to do, and one that can necessarily be something one endures. All in all, on what is called in this good book of contemplative life and doing, one is learning and practicing the general loving awarenesss to rest in the passageways. It is the claim of the author that this method of prayer, more a practice and part of living life, is an experience of spiritual fulfillment. The contemplative would say so, too. By that I mean others than James Finley, who has been steeped in this knowledge and carefully writes about it as a teacher in the book.
Before I close, here is the nondual oneness with God that is a ground of the experience, outlined as entering the mind of Christ. "...rest silently in God's presence..." This way allows "...access into the depths of realized oneness with God that is at once Christ's life and your own." As a reviewer, my suggestion is to read with care and with some patience this detailed book about Christian meditation, and to pause from time to time to think on some of the concepts and things written. Plainly, the practice is a simple resting in attentive openness to God.
There is some how-to in the book, where to set your eye glance, breathing, and the like. For this reader, who recommends this book to the seeker, the better parts are the explanations of experience and the preparation for the silent reception of God. Certainly a good book for seekers. This is a book of the ongoing spiritual journey.
--Peter Menkin, Obl Cam OSB
Experiencing God in Silence July 31, 2004
James A Graven (Colorado Springs CO)
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
The silent path is difficult to describe with words. Finley does it well.
If you have been walking the silent path of the Buddha in part because there seems to be more assistance available you may want to read this book. It was written by one who has rediscovered "Lost Christianity", and is not only living it but can describe it well.
If you are of a Christian tradition and have considered meditation as a pracitce to deepen your faith you are not likely to find a better book to begin with than this one.
Finley's book reads like meditation, if a proper meditation had words. January 29, 2006
Yana E. Murphy (Berkeley, CA USA)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
"Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God: a guide to contemplation" by James Finley
HarperCollins, San Francisco, 2005
Finley is a former Trappist monk who studied with Thomas Merton. He is now married and is a practicing psychotherapist. His description of the meditative process is a meditation in itself:
"We glimpse, however obscurely, that God is the infinity of the perpetually unfolding newness of the present moment in which our lives unfold." (p. 59)
"We sit, quietly attentive and receptive to our breathing, until, by God's grace, our awareness of this breath awakens to the presence of God that wholly transcends this breath." (p. 46)
It's one of the few of the many books I've read on meditation that speaks to me, the reader, as though Finley knows that although "we are powerless to produce by our efforts that union with God that alone fulfills our hearts... we can ... freely will to make ourselves as vulnerable and receptive as possible to the influx of grace." (p. 57)
Descriptive beyond Christian Experience March 31, 2007
M. Bradley (Los Angeles, CA)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Finley does a wonderous job of explaining the silence and its relationship to God or a God. His take on the comtemplative path is thoroughly explained in surprising detail. My leanings are Buddhist, but this is the best and most detailed explaination of the meditative process that I have ever heard. For those new to meditation as well as very experienced ones of all faiths.
"Be Still and Know..." June 12, 2003
Linda Conroy (North Yorkshire, Enlgand)
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
James Finley's calm voice, clear and accessible teachings and his way of talking one through the various meditations are all very life-giving! I have energitically recommened this to others who are interest in exploring ways of praying that give them a sense of becoming quite and more focused in prayer. I am a spiritual director and involved in ecumenical retreat work and plan to use these tapes with others on retreat.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 19
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