Loving Kindness
By Sandra Miller, MS, MSW, LCSW
www.christiansmeditate.com
www.christiansmeditate.com
Plant your feet firmly on the floor – connecting to all who have lived throughout time as well as all who live on this Earth now. Sit comfortably straight. Drop your shoulders. Open your fingers and relax your hands. And follow your breath – reach, the spirit of God – as it enters your nostrils and moves to the back of your throat to your diaphragm. Follow your breath as it returns from your diaphragm and out your nostrils. In out, in out. Notice as your breath deepens and slows.
Try to visualize breathing into your heart. Feel the area around your heart grow warmer with each in breath. feel your heart enveloped in the love of the spirit – reach within. Feel the presence of God’s spirit in your being as we pray for loving kindness.
Sometimes the most difficult person to pray to receive loving kindness is ourselves. But without some measure of loving kindness for ourselves, it is difficult to extend loving kindness to others. Given this, we start our prayer with ourselves and from there our prayers move out in ever-widening circles.
Visualize yourself as you are at this very moment – not who you were yesterday or who you want to be tomorrow but who you are here and now. Notice the mix of emotions you are feeling – painful and joyful. Cultivate a soft, loving heart toward your pain and your joy. Extend yourself grace and love. Visualize your heart enveloped in God’s love – resting God’s presence. And repeat over and over in your mind’s eye these blessings.
May I experience God’s mercy
May I experience God’s peace
May I experience God’s love
Now bring to mind someone who you love who loves you now or at some time in the past. If you have difficulty bringing someone to mind, visualize a pet or someone from your imagination. Visualize them – not only their physical appearance and mannerisms but also the emotions they evoke in you.
Cultivate a soft, loving heart toward their pain and joy. Extend them grace and love. Visualize their heart wrapped in God’s love. And repeat over and over in your mind’s eye these blessings.
May you experience God’s mercy
May you experience God’s peace
May you experience God’s love
Now bring to mind an acquaintance – someone you know but not well. Visualize them – not only their physical appearance and mannerisms but also the emotions they evoke in you.
Cultivate a soft, loving heart toward their pain and joy. Extend them grace and love. Visualize their heart wrapped in God’s love. And repeat over and over in your mind’s eye these blessings.
May you experience God’s mercy
May you experience God’s peace
May you experience God’s love
Now bring to mind someone neutral – someone you see on the elevator, a clerk at the grocery store, someone at church. Visualize them – not only their physical appearance and mannerisms but also the emotions they evoke in you.
Cultivate a soft, loving heart toward their pain and joy. Extend them grace and love. Visualize their heart wrapped in God’s love. And repeat over and over in your mind’s eye these blessings.
May you experience God’s mercy
May you experience God’s peace
May you experience God’s love
Now bring to mind someone who mildly irritates you – the person in the next cubicle who talks too loudly on the phone, the friend who never asks how you are doing or the relative who eats with their mouth open. Visualize them – not only their physical appearance and mannerisms but also the emotions they evoke in you.
Cultivate a soft, loving heart toward their pain and joy. Extend them grace and love. Visualize their heart wrapped in God’s love. And repeat over and over in your mind’s eye these blessings.
May you experience God’s mercy
May you experience God’s peace
May you experience God’s love
Now bring to mind someone who hurt you deeply. Perhaps you still feel the emotional pain when you see them or think about them. Perhaps you avoid seeing them and have stuffed the pain deep in your psyche. Visualize them – not only their physical appearance and mannerisms but also the emotions they evoke in you.
What I’m going to ask you to do next is going to be hard. But I want you to try to cultivate a soft, loving heart toward them Transform their bad behavior into a recognition of their painful emotions. Extend them grace and love as you would want them to extend their grace and love to you. Visualize their heart wrapped firmly in God’s love. And repeat over and over in your mind’s eye these blessings.
May you also experience God’s mercy
May you also experience God’s peace
May you also experience God’s love
Now bring to mind all living beings — Animals, insects, birds, reptiles. Edible and inedible plants, trees, shrubs. And people of all ages, colors, nationalities, ethnicities, religions, incomes, genders, sexual orientations, in all states of health – each with a unique generative story that makes them a unique child of God. Visualize them – not only their physical appearance and mannerisms but also the emotions they evoke in you.
Cultivate a soft, loving heart toward their pain and joy. Extend them grace and love. Visualize their hearts wrapped in God’s love. And repeat over and over in your mind’s eye these blessings.
May all living beings experience God’s mercy
May all living beings experience God’s peace
May all living beings experience God’s love
May the peace that surpasses all knowledge, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, wholly human, wholly divine, who shows us the way, the truth and the life through his