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31 pages

English

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If you have been unkind to your soul or unkind to another person, Morality & Meditation: Praying for a Better Way by Art Toalston can provide gentle, inspirational counsel.

And it can do the same for a loved one or friend.

Misguided attitudes and actions can be offset. The grip of pornography, drug abuse, or greed on the human soul can be loosened. Whether a person's struggle with immorality is monumental or only a bit troublesome, a yearning for morality can be fully worth pondering. Drawing from the words of Jesus, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God," Morality & Meditation: Praying for a Better Way can help hurting souls in our contemporary world envision a winsome morality that is wholesome, redemptive, and celebratory.

Sujets

Santé et bien-être

Développement personnel

développement personnel

Meditation

Mindulness

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Publié par	eBookIt.com
Date de parution	08 janvier 2016
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9781456614409
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0150€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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MEDITATION & MORALITY
Praying for a Better Way

by Art Toalston

Meditation & Morality: Praying for a Better Way
Copyright 2013 by Art Toalston
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-1440-9
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Scripture references in Meditation & Morality, unless otherwise noted, are from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Cover design by Katherine Motta
Cover drawing by Joe McKeever
www.arttoalston.com
Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/toalston4prayer
Twitter, http://twitter.com/arttoalston (@arttoalston)
Email, arttoalston@gmail.com
NOTE: The numbering used in the following Table of Contents reflects the thought-by-thought unfolding of Meditation & Morality . The chapters and their brief subsections can facilitate stop-and-go reading. The chapters also provide a handy way of returning to any of the subsections for further moments of meditation on a morality that is wholesome, winsome, and celebratory.
1. A ray of light
If your inner sense of morality has been tarnished or shattered by immorality, and you wish things were different, ponder this Bible passage: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
Begin memorizing these words, which were spoken by Jesus.
In doing so, you will be engaging in a form of meditation.
Even if it’s just for a few moments, or several times during the day, this simple form of meditation on the words of Jesus will begin to nurture a winsome, intriguing morality in your soul. These words will have an effect, perhaps dramatically, perhaps subtly, perhaps both, even as your struggle or your affliction with immorality may continue to fester or rage.
These eleven words can become a small ray of light at the beginning of your journey out of immorality, yet there is nothing “magical” about them. For now, let’s just say there’s a unique dynamic to them because they were spoken by Jesus.
1.1
Almost any passage from the Bible can be a resource for meditation.
These words, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God,” are among an array of passages from Scripture that could be suggested as a beginning point for meditation.
These words of Jesus are from what is called the Sermon on the Mount in the Bible’s New Testament book of Matthew, chapters 5-7.
If you’ve had a chance to repeat this sentence a few times, you have seen the phrase “pure in heart” and noticed that those who possess this heart “will see God.”
Yes, it’s early in your exit from immorality, but isn’t it wondrous to breathe fresh air for a few seconds when, otherwise, you are living in polluted air? Aren’t a few moments of godliness an appealing alternative to the grip of anything that is destructive and habitual? Even if you may be burdened by something that is “no big deal” to everyone else, you may sense a stirring in your soul over a flicker of hope for relief from moral uncertainty.
1.2
If you are afflicted by immorality, you need help and grace. The sooner you begin treatment and begin to see “a light at the end of the tunnel,” the better.
If you sustained a broken arm or other injury, or if you had severe chest pains, you likely would go to an emergency room as soon as possible.
If you started to display cancer-like symptoms and a doctor ordered some laboratory work that led to a diagnosis of the disease, you would be advised to begin treatment.
Otherwise, your health suffers and worsens.
In the same way, immorality typically worsens. It leads to more suffering and to hopelessness and inner loneliness.
Meditation, though, can be an antidote, a beginning point for healing.
1.3
Deep in your heart, I believe, is a yearning to live honorably.
This yearning may be in competition with other yearnings – for riches, pleasure, popularity, or another manifestation of self-absorption.
You may think it is too difficult to live honorably. You may think it is normal to live in whatever form of immorality occupies your life. You may think you don’t have a choice.
But you indeed can choose. For now, you may not feel any ability to make an overarching choice between morality and immorality.
But you can choose to let a tiny measure of godliness into your life.
What harm will it do?
2. Pondering the difference
So, you ask, what is morality and what is immorality?
Let’s start with the latter, the affliction, and consider these descriptions:
Immorality is any attitude or action that de-optimizes one’s own life and/or the life of another person or multiple individuals.
Immorality is any self-concocted rationalization for living dishonorably and disrespecting other people.
Immorality is anything that lessens your hope “to see God,” as Jesus put it in the Sermon on the Mount.
Immorality flows from “sinful desires that war against your soul,” as one of Jesus’ disciples, Peter, described it in the New Testament’s book of Peter, chapter 2, verse 11.
Immorality is any disdain toward ancient or contemporary writings that set forth guidance for honorable, wholesome living.
2.1
Turning to morality, consider these descriptions:
Morality is an openness to turn toward a higher good for ourselves and for other people, even for a few moments. It is a concern that no one gets hurt.
Morality is an attitude or action that is unburdened by guilt or shame.
Morality is rooted in such historic junctures as the Ten Commandments as set forth in the Bible’s Old Testament in chapter 20, verses 1-17 of the book of Exodus.
Morality does not obstruct your view heavenward.
Morality helps you look at your soul and attempt to be real about its condition. Morality then helps you take the first steps into a journey toward an optimal heart.
2.2
I have suffered from immorality.
I remember it vividly.
I remember times when my immorality, in any of its manifestations, small or large, de-optimized my personhood and when it hurt other people.
Daily, I am alarmed at immorality’s remnants. I work to eradicate them. The most effective antidote to immorality’s remnants seems to be a wholesome dose of morality, of godliness. Whenever the high value of living honorably comes to mind, Jesus’ statement, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God,” often nudges me toward additional antidotes in Scripture that the Holy Spirit has used to help derail my soul from immorality.
2.3
Morality and immorality may seem like nebulous concepts. Granted, they have dictionary definitions, but they seem most clearly defined in other ways:
-- through the attitudes and actions of each person on earth.
-- through mankind’s noble aspirations.
-- through divine revelation.
Difficulties arise with each of these:
-- While the morality of some individuals can have positive effects for a person, a community, and a nation, the immorality of other individuals can have sorrowful or tragic effects. Think, for instance, of Adolph Hitler’s immorality and the unthinkable toll it exacted on humanity during the 1930s and 1940s. Think of a pornographer’s immorality and the unthinkable toll it extracts on women and children who are raped and molested by men fueled by the pornography industry.
-- Mankind’s noble aspirations, often manifested in great works of philosophy, literature, music, and art, likewise can be broadly influential. Oftentimes, however, its appeal is fleeting, akin to the phrase “in one ear and out the other.” Or a person may forget the noble message amid the pressures of daily living or a nation may stray from it amid the inevitable cultural battle between morality and immorality.
-- Divine revelation, meanwhile, can yield a consistency of honorable intentions and actions because it is rooted in the concept of a supreme being or an otherworldly milieu beckoning a commitment of one’s soul to its core beliefs. Sadly, divine revelation also can be ignored, debated, misunderstood, or misapplied, sometimes with tragic consequences.
If you’re wary of a supreme being or an otherworldly milieu, you’re far from alone. If, however, you are drawn beyond the inner workings of the human brain, you are among those who, throughout recorded history, have found the pursuit of morality to be compelling and even glorious.
3. Multitude of meditations
Opportunities for meditation abound, no matter how severe a person’s affliction with immorality.
A person’s meditative experience may be fleeting, such as a few thoughts about a troublesome facet of his or her life, or it may be intense, spanning ten to fifteen minutes of inner assessment or turmoil to an hour or several hours, perhaps day after day.
A person who succumbs to pornography, for example, may meditate on past encounters with nameless faces, the yearning for more encounters, and, yet, an abiding sorrow that the pornography industry fuels the horrors of sex trafficking, of women and children enslaved, raped, and rendered hopeless, if not murdered, by evildoers in our country and throughout the world.
The use of pornography, however, does not prevent a person from also meditating on Jesus’ words, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
3.1
A person who is inclined to use marijuana or other drugs as part of his or her “recreational” activities may meditate on past, present, or future escapades into this self-focused form of euphoria. Sadly, their meditation may not stretch toward ruthless drug cartels and gangs who murder and maim in order to amass illicit fortunes through the delivery and sale of drugs to distant users oblivious to the mayhem.
Sad, too, is the stunted meditation that drug use is relative