Meditation as Sacred Interruption

Meditation as Sacred Interruption

by Jennifer Revill

Meditation is more than just a technique for self-improvement. It can also be a sacred practice of healing. In the Eastern yogic traditions where meditation is rooted, this was always true. In those traditions, meditation practice was (and is) centered in the desire for spiritual awakening and divine union, and a healing of the artificial divide between individual and Spirit.

This is quite different than the benefits of meditation that our contemporary culture tends to highlight, such as the achievement of calmness and “a quiet mind.” Meditation is often seen merely as a way to hit the “pause” button and be rewarded with a temporary reprieve from the distractions and noise of everyday life.

But meditation truly beckons us to go deeper. As spiritual directors, we hold space for the holy within the human experience. We accompany people as they listen for the deeper voice of truth. Meditation is a tool we can encourage as a way to prop open the door to the possibility of something more enduring and transformative. Meditation can help our directees learn to listen more deeply—to their own heart, to God, and to the stirrings of the Spirit.

We live in a culture that rewards productivity and perpetual motion. It asks us, daily, to prove, perform, and overfunction. Meditation interrupts this pattern. When we sit in stillness and silence, we can create a spiritual windbreak. It lets us step outside the machinery of doing and aligns us with something older, quieter, more eternal. That moment of interruption—of non-doing—becomes an act of resistance. It makes a clearing, and beckons grace to step in.

Spiritual directors should encourage our companions to try out the many forms of meditative practice that are available (including contemplative and centering prayer, and Lectio Divina.) But don't forget that we ourselves can use the practice for our own restoration and insight. A spiritual director who has a personal meditation practice may develop a calm, non-anxious presence which contributes to the creation of a peaceful session for the directee. I invite you to use this living, breathing practice of healing for ourselves, too. Because we all yearn for a quiet space where the Spirit can speak and our own soul can be free to dance.

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