Skip to main content

Contemplative Writing Prompts for Lent: 28

For Contemplative Writing Prompts for Lent: 28, go outside and sit by a running water source. Or put a water video on your computer and sit by an open window. Listen. Listen. Listen. Five minutes before your 20 minutes is up, complete this sentence: When I listen to water, the divine comes to me as….. Gold foil mini-statue with key to...

Continue reading

A Failed Contemplative

I come to contemplative writing as a failed contemplative. Hell, according to my beloved friend Suzanne, I don’t even pronounce it correctly (she wanted “con-TEMP-la-tive,’ while, unless I’m referring to a person, I generally use “con-tem-PLAY-tive.”)  My failure at contemplation isn’t for want of trying. I’ve done meditation going all...

Continue reading

Contemplative Writing Prompts for Lent: 27

Contemplative Writing Prompts for Lent: 27! Twenty-seven! How is that even possible? It startles me, that number—could I really have been going this long? Seems like we started last week. And it gives us our prompt for the day. When was a time you were truly startled? It might have been when you were physically, unexpectedly awoken. Or, as I...

Continue reading

Contemplative Writing Prompts for Lent: 26

For today’s Contemplative Writing Prompts for Lent: 26 write for twenty minutes on this prompt: What strands have you woven in your life to create a shimmering, fluid, vibrating, shifting web? Relationships. Skills. Rituals. Moments of pause. Creative bursts. Wonders. Where do you find it today? f An image from past Lents to accompany...

Continue reading

Contemplative Writing Prompts for Lent: 25

Today’s Contemplative Writing Prompts for Lent: 25 is a two-parter. Take ten minutes on each question. If at all humanely possible, do not read the 2nd question until you have completed your ten minutes with the first. 1st 10 minutes: If I thought God would tell the truth, I would ask… 2nd 10 minutes: If I thought [your name]...

Continue reading

Contemplative Writing Prompts for Lent: 24

I am offering y’all these Contemplative Writing Prompts for Lent: 24 during the Lenten season. But my Lenten practice is doing one meditative thing a day. Sometimes it’s contemplative writing. Other times not. When I swim, meditation takes care of itself. Close against the wall, I hold my breath and sink. My body is enveloped in water....

Continue reading

Contemplative Writing Prompts for Lent: 23

Contemplation amid chaos. Or, contemplation when hosting Grandparent Camp for an endearing four-year-old. What does Contemplative Writing Prompts for Lent: 23 have to say about that? Set yourself up where a whole lot is going on. Buses pooting black smoke. Children chattering down the sidewalk. Bicycle bells ringing. Make a list of what is happening...

Continue reading

Contemplative Writing Prompts for Lent: 22

Contemplative Writing Prompts for Lent: 22 From Father Richard Rohr: One of the keys to wisdom is that we must recognize our own biases, our own addictive preoccupations, and those things to which, for some reason, we refuse to pay attention. Until we see these patterns (which is early-stage contemplation), we will never be able to see...

Continue reading

My Contemplative Writing Journey: A Failed Christian

I come to Contemplative Writing as a failed contemplative and a failed writer and a failed Christian.  Let’s take the last first. I am currently immersed in a Lenten Discipline where I’m offering a Contemplative Writing Prompt each day of the liturgical season. Lent is a religious season. The season runs for the forty days that lead up to...

Continue reading

Contemplative Writing Prompts for Lent: 21

Can I suggest that, during this offering of contemplative writing prompts for Lent, if a prompt really doesn’t appeal to you, that might be the one to try? Our writing today at the Writing Room at 100 Men Hall reminded me of this. That which we dread—practicing sentences, switching points of view, examining our verbs—can offer the most enlightenment....

Continue reading