Feeling God, Part 3

While there are many books on meditation and contemplative prayer that outline various methods, I believe the essence of this prayer is not a method but simply resting in God’s presence: loving Him, and letting Him love you.

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Feeling God, Part 2

We cannot speak of contemplative prayer without addressing the notorious problem of controlling or silencing one’s thoughts. You may ask: In order to practice this prayer of quiet, of focussing on deep feeling, how can I completely still my mind? When I try to become quiet, my thoughts race more than ever. Well, the brain was made for thinking, and you can’t stop your thoughts any more than you can stop grass from growing. Besides, you want to remain open to thoughts that may come to you from the Lord. So don’t even try to suppress your thoughts.Continue reading

Feeling God, Part 1

This week I begin a four-part series on contemplative prayer. I call it “Feeling God” because it strikes me as odd when Christians talk of hearing God’s voice when what we really mean is feeling God’s voice or presence.

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Yabbakadoodles!

What, you may wonder, is the meaning of this outlandish title? Thirteen years ago my friend Chris Walton (pictured with antlers) spoke this word to me in the parking lot of Ricky’s All Day Grill, and we burst into gales of laughter. Find out why in this story, a selection from my new book published this week, Twenty-One Candles: Stories for Christmas.

(Incidentally, most of the stories in this book are fiction, but this one is true.)

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Angel at the Door

Jacob wrestled with an angel. These days we wrestle with computers.

On Saturday morning I was locked in a mighty struggle with my iMac. Or rather, it was the iMac that was locked, and I was striving to unlock it. I had to repair my hard disk, but every time I tried to run the repair program, a big gray padlock appeared on the screen, demanding something called a “firmware password.”

For the life of me I could not recall the password, nor could I find it recorded anywhere. It was like being locked out of my own house. Just then a knock came at the door.

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Death of a Luddite

Those of you who have visited my website a few times will know that while I have a blog page, I’ve posted to it only occasionally. That is about to change. From now on I plan to post a new blog once a week. To explain why, I begin with a piece called “Death of a Luddite.”
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Mike Mason's Facebook Page

Now on Facebook!

I’ve finally joined the rest of the world and launched a Facebook page. Should you feel so inclined (and you should!) please like my page and invite your friends to like me. When I reach 1000 likes, my publisher has promised to buy each one of you a virtual ice cream cone.
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New Christmas Book

New Christmas Book: Twenty-One Candles

I’m leafing through a file of old Christmas stories with a view to gathering them into a collection. For three decades I’ve written a new Christmas story every year to give out to friends as a greeting card. A tradition that pre-dates the internet, it’s been one way to get instantly published. We also host an annual party on Christmas Adam (if you’re not familiar with that term, read “Yabba-ka-doodles!”) at which I read my latest story aloud. So I’ve not only had my own publishing house but a radio station as well.

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