Listen

Mindfulness, at the heart of it, is about listening -- listening to our present-moment experience in a way that allows us to be fully awake to life.  Because God infuses each moment with Himself, we have the opportunity to encounter God in this type of life-listening.  When we are listening in the moment, we can hear God.

God's voice fills the universe, and when we listen to any agent we are potentially listening to God. - The Listening Life (p 62)

Speaking of listening, Adam McHugh's book, The Listening Life: Embracing Attentiveness in a World of Distraction, is the closest thing I've read to a Christian book with direct applicability to mindfulness principles.  There is nothing in it specific to mindfulness meditation, and the word mindfulness is never mentioned.  But the truths contained in the book are deeply congruent with mindfulness practice. McHugh skillfully illuminates the power of listening to God, to Scripture, to creation, to one another (including those in pain), and to our own lives. Along the way, he explores themes that can be easily translated into mindfulness jargon: acceptance, non-judgment, self-compassion, silence, and meditation.  With solid grounding in Biblical principles, he encourages us to lay aside our attachment to self and open ourselves up to God's ever-present Kingdom work through the spiritual sensitivity and awareness that come through good listening.  He emboldens us to step away from our attempts to control, and to instead embrace life as it is given to us by God in each moment. 

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True freedom comes not from trying to control life's rhythms but from moving in harmony with them.
- The Listening Life (p 120)

McHugh reminds us of God's listening nature toward us.  And he casts a vision of a listening church, "a place where leaders listen to followers, adults listen to children, men listen to women, the majority listens to the minority, the rich listen to the poor, and insiders listen to outsiders" (p 203).  He urges us toward a stance of listening towards those we love and those who have hurt us, those we think we know and those we don't know at all. He highlights the role of attending carefully to our thoughts, emotions, and bodies if we are to grow personally and to love others well.  He encourages an open and gracious stance toward all of life's moments, toward the pain as well as the joy, noting that "loving your enemies will also mean learning to love the enemy voices in your head" (p 181).  McHugh manages to be gentle, kind, and funny, while also motivating his reader toward growth and transformation.

We learn how to listen because we want to learn how to love.
- The Listening Life (p 12)

The Listening Life is a beautiful book, inspiring in its simplicity and depth.  Read it!  You will not be disappointed.  Or if you are, simply observe that emotion with curiosity and openness to your experience, just as it is in the moment.  Perhaps God will be speaking to you :).