Webster’s dictionary defines a contemplative as one who practices contemplation: To contemplate means to ponder, to meditate upon. So what’s wrong with that?

Well, nothing is wrong with pondering or meditating on things—as long as they are the right things, and as long as the pondering and meditating doesn’t become obsessive.

The only thing we can appropriately meditate upon obsessively is the Written Word of God. Psalm one gives us permission to do that.

So how do we apply Webster’s definition of contemplate to what is known as contemplative prayer? Or can we apply it at all?

The answer to that is, it is not at all applicable. The term “contemplative prayer,” is an oxymoron. The two words (contemplate & prayer) are contradictory, and mutually exclusive from the other. That means each excludes the other.

How does one ponder and meditate upon something while at the same time pray about it? It can’t be done.

Add to that, the contemplative’s pratice of eastern meditation (trancendental meditation [TM]), which is “clear your mind completely,” and we have yet another contradiction. How does one meditate on something with a blank mind?

That is also opposed to scripture, which commands us to meditate upon something—the Written Word of God.

Without going any deeper than this into the subject of contemplative prayer, we see already that it is oxymoronic and diabolically opposed to the scriptural form of meditation prescribed in Psalms chapter one verse two.