Make time for Meditation: Shambhala, The Sacred Path of the Warrior

This morning, I made time for meditation. The last month has been a whirlwind of new – juggling new responsibilities, new relationships, and new ways life has chosen to challenge me. My prayer and meditation life was challenged in a way that it hasn’t been in a long time.

Last night, when talking to one of my best friends, I confessed how stressed I have been. She told me that she had come to the conclusion that she needed to meditate because she too had a heavy load. I confessed to her that my prayer and meditation life had been turned upside down because of my lack of time. As any good friend does, she challenged me. “Make time.”

“But there is no time!” I wailed.

“Make time.” She said.

And then we laughed because wasn’t I the one whose life has been focused on seeking God’s face and telling others to do the same?

In my book, My 52 Weeks of Worship, I share how my father also told me, and told me often:  

Don’t forget to pray. Make time to meditate…. (My father) had been the first person to expose me to the practice of meditation. He meditated himself, and knowing that we both had the same kind of mind—always contemplating something, always analyzing, and thinking, and ruminating—he encouraged me to take up meditation in a serious and committed fashion.

So, this morning, I made time for my morning ritual – read from the current My 52 Weeks of Worship Book Club pick. Meditate. Pray. Write.

Then I will start the day.

The current book club pick is an homage to Week 29 of the first 52 weeks of My 52 Weeks of Worship – another day when I took time out on a Tuesday to seek the peace that comes to me through meditation.

On that week in 2010, I visited the Shambhala Meditation Center in the Rogers Park neighborhood in Chicago, and had a transformative experience, part of which included reading from the book: Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior.

This book is not only gorgeous and inviting on the outside. It is delicious and inspiring. The words on the inside challenge one to be a peaceful warrior – to contemplate personal power, and courage, and the gentleness and knowledge of self necessary to master the challenges of life.

Even I need to be reminded of such things.  I am being blessed by the contents of this book. Blessed by the prayer and meditation that sets the stage for my day. Today I made time. I hope you will too.