Copyright: © 2000 Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. This document may be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes with credit and mention of the Lift Up Your Hearts web site http://www.worship.ca/ as the source.

Pneuma is a journal on spiritual direction and formation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. The Rev. David Maginley is pastor at Peace Lutheran Church, Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia. He is also the hospital chaplain in Halifax for the Atlantic Conference, Eastern Synod, ELCIC.

"The Presence was so real," she said. "The water splashing around me, Jesus reaching down, and lifting me up. I could feel it. I could see it. It was amazing."

We were exploring Christian meditation, and this young woman was expressing what I had heard from so many -- an encounter with God so vivid it surprised her, yet so peaceful she looked forward all week to coming to church. She was in good company. In this dimly-lit room gathered others who normally would never think of coming to a house of God. The language of worship seemed foreign to them, the God of Christianity a Sunday School memory.

But meditation offered something different -- an encounter with God within, done without doctrine or even language -- that was fresh and real. They discovered that they were the house of God.

We were using the practices of Dom John Main OSB (1926-1982), who opened the first Christian Meditation Centre in London, England. He had recovered a simple tradition of silent, contemplative prayer in the teaching of the early Christian monks, the Desert Fathers. It became clear to John Main that this tradition had relevance today not only for monks but for all people. Using breathing techniques, guided imagery, and a repeated word called a mantra ("a bone you throw your mind to make it sit and stay"), this form of prayer has helped many connect more deeply with the experience of God's presence.

We found established members opening up to a more mystical experience of faith, and newcomers eager to know more about the mysteries within. Meditation became a newfound treasure for a suburban church.

As a pastor, I had no training in prayer or meditation during my formal education. Neither had I encountered it in my life in the church. I knew something was missing -- I wanted not only to know the teachings of the Gospel, but know myself as a spiritual being. I wanted to be in Christ. Through meditation I discovered a gift of Self that our heads keep us from, but our hearts know instinctively -- we are energy, expressions of the creative Love from which all creation flows.

We are hot wired for God, who breathes through us, through whom "we live and move and have our being." And we can experience that energy which intuitively heals, restores, and reconnects our relationships, our bodies, even creation itself. This is what Christ came to restore within us -- to make us whole, which is the meaning of the word salvation. In this way, he is our prototype as well as our Saviour. This is not new, but the most ancient of practices, which leads one into deep silence -- a very holy, lonely, lovely place we spend much energy avoiding.

How could meditation and this mystical energy benefit the church beyond the prayer circle? We had a treasure and wanted to share it. This was done through more silence in the prayers of the people and applying the practice of laying-on-of-hands applied through therapeutic touch.

This clinical application of ancient healing practices has provided many with more first-hand experiences of God's presence, a practice that is enabled through meditation or centering. After receiving communion, people are invited to remain at the altar to receive the laying-on-of-hands. Some speak of experiencing tingling, heat, seeing light; all speak of being touched in a profound and gentle way. Appointments are made for individual treatments, and a growing number are discovering through the prayer circle the gift within each of us to heal, to help, and to be so much more than flesh and blood.