‘Sitting with God’

Sometimes, people don’t pray because they feel they’re not worthy of it. They think it’s not for them. Mention the word ‘contemplation’, and they just run a mile. They think it’s for monks and people who have all sorts of qualifications. Prayer and contemplation are nothing more than simply ‘sitting with God’.
The world we live in can be very distracting. Everything gets broken down or torn apart, important concepts are shredded into little bits and pieces. Prayer, and particularly contemplation, allows you to enter into the heart of God, knowing that this world beats as one and that there’s harmony in the world. You are more than broken bits and pieces and individual parts. To be at peace, you have to see the whole, get the picture of the whole, and get a sense of the whole. It is prayer and contemplation that help you achieve this.
I find that when I pray in the morning, I go out into my day with a greater sense of purpose. I’m not just fiddling with little bits and pieces and trying to fit them together chaotically.

Alan Hilliard, Dipping into Life: 40 Reflections for a Fragile Earth