I tend to like the approach suggested by these words of Thomas Merton, from his "New Seeds of Contemplation":-
The purpose of a book of meditations is not to teach you how to think and not to do your thinking for you. Consequently if you pick up such a book and simply read it through, you are wasting your time. As soon as any thought stimulates your mind or your heart you can put the book down because your meditation has begun. To think that you are somehow obliged to follow the author of the book to his own particular conclusion would be a great mistake. It may happen that his conclusion does not apply to you. God may want you to end up somewhere else. He may have planned to give you quite a different grace than the one the author suggests you might be needing.
Maybe I can hear some say "well the Bible is different, it is not a book of meditations, it is the word of God." But to me all reality is "revelation". Maybe give some sort of pre-eminence to some things, or books, but don't turn them into a formula, a formula determined by others. The Living Word is ever new. It is unique. Personal. Life-giving. As Merton says again:-
If you want to find satisfactory formulas you had better deal with things that can be fitted into a formula. The vocation to seek God is not one of them. Nor is existence. Nor is the spirit of man (or woman I would presume.....
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Me, I go to Amida and fortunately he (or she, or "it") is not a "Jealous God". We tend to turn into the Gods we envisage. Which for some is not a pleasant prospect.
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