On the glorious splendor of your majesty,

and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.

(Ps 145:7)

The word for which I’m looking is Contemplation. Yesterday evening, on the way to Cutter’s, a local lounge, to listen to a jazz ensemble, I struggled with a word that is more acceptable than meditate and yet more adequately describes what I’ve come to refer to as my Garden Times. Earlier in the day I’d sat on the deck staring at the trees in the woods. I thought that if I were to awaken with no knowledge of G-D, I’d look at the trees and they would point to Him. Apostle Paul said as much.

This “thinking” on the deck is more than mere thought, however. But meditating is a word with connotations of emptying oneself and opening oneself up to some Universe Power. Meditating is occasionally referred to as letting go of one’s “monkey mind” and of “becoming one with the Universe.” Neither is my intent, nor is simply thinking.

Perhaps this deep thought might be called prayer in a Christian Church. Yet prayer is so ambiguous. It can mean so many different things. Reading a Psalm is considered prayer to a Jewish man praying Psalm 145 in the morning. Then there are the “Prayers of the People” in an Episcopal and a Roman Catholic Church service in which the priest reads a list of items and the congregation speaks a liturgical response after each item on the list. Prayer is often just humans speaking to G-D as children recite the Pledge of Allegiance at school.

Neither meditation nor prayer do justice to experiencing G-D’s presence in contemplation. That’s the best word for my Garden Times. “On the glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wondrous works, I will contemplate.” I will contemplate the glorious splendor of G-D’s majesty. I will contemplate G-D’s wondrous works. I will hear G-D’s response and prompting and perhaps catch a glimpse of Him. I shall be as the women who sought to but touch the hem of Yeshua’s garment. I will, like Job, hear G-d say He will ask a question and require my response. I might hear G-D say something to which I might, like Abraham, respond boldly with “don’t be angry, but might Your servant ask just one thing more?” I want to cry aloud, as King David:

We have thought on your steadfast love, O G-d,

in the midst of your temple.

As your name, O G-d,

so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth.

Your right hand is filled with righteousness.

Let Mount Zion be glad!

Let the daughters of Judah rejoice

because of your judgments!

(Psalm 48:9, 10, 11)