pause ... and continue
a while ago, I saw someone on tv bemoaning the fact that nobody smoked anymore. He wasn't advocating a return to smoking for health benefits but felt that the cessation of smoking had led to an increase in stupidity and anger in the country,
His point wasn't that smoking made us all better people but that when asked a difficult question or challenged about something, people would light a cigarette (if not already lit), then take a long 'drag;, pause and then slowly blow the smoke out again before answering. That action would have taken 20 seconds or so; not long, but long enough to compose our thoughts or let us calm down a little.
The problem, he argued, was that now, people just blurted out their response instantly with little or no thought. If you use social media, you will have seen this in replies to comments and probably helps to explain why everyone seems angrier than they used to do.
So how does this relate to Christian contemplation? Should we all start smoking again perhaps? Obviously, the answer to that is no. The health reasons alone make not smoking the sensible thing to do.
What we need to do instead perhaps, is to train ourselves to use the prayer word or phrase that we use during our silent practice/meditation. So next time you find yourself about to fire off a quick response, take a slow breath and repeat your prayer word or phrase for a few seconds, breath out and reply. I suspect you will find that those few seconds make a big and positive difference to the way that you respond.
