contemplativeI came down here also to take my daily hot shower. Carol will be leaving soon for Covenant PCA. I am tired so I am sure I will go to bed early tonight.
Well I will close with this quote from the book "The Art of Prayer".
"Further distinctions
Prayer has various degrees. At first it is only the prayer of the spoken word, but with this must go prayer of the mind and heart, warming it and maintaining it. Later, the mind-in-heart prayer gains its independence: becoming sometimes active, stimulated by one's own efforts, and sometimes self-moving, bestowed as a gift. Prayer as a gift is the same as inward attraction towards God, and develops from it. Later on, when the state of the soul under the influence of this attraction becomes constant, mind-in-heart prayer will be active unceasingly. All earlier temporary attractions now become transformed into states of contemplation; and it is at this point that contemplative prayer begins. The state of contemplation is a captivity of the mind and of the entire vision by a spiritual object so overpowering that all outward things are forgotten, and wholly absent from the consciousness. The mind and consciousness become so completely immersed in the object contemplated that it is as though we no longer possess them" pg. 64 Theophan the Recluse
