Ida Mara’s journey with Christian Meditation began nearly twenty years ago and quickly became the axis of her life. Learning from videos of John Main, she immediately recognized in the practice something essential—like water to someone in the desert. Meditating thirty minutes a day was never a burden; it was a necessity for her body, mind, and spirit. What she received as a gift, she felt called to share. This impulse led her into deeper involvement with the meditation community, retreats, and eventually the path of becoming an oblate. The ecumenical openness of the community affirmed that contemplative practice transcends denominational boundaries.
Reflecting on the “Future of Religion,” Ida connects the idea of future with time and embodiment. Drawing from phenomenology, she describes the body as inherently temporal: it carries the past while opening toward the future. For her, Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman—“the time is now”—point to an immediate, lived spirituality rooted in the present moment. True worship happens “in spirit and in truth,” and truth, she suggests, is deeply linked to the body, which rarely lies..
Ida argues that human beings are created to worship. When God is displaced, substitutes inevitably take that place—career, relationships, possessions—but these idols exhaust rather than fulfill. Contemplative practice offers a healthier path, grounding faith in lived experience rather than ideology. Silence, especially in community, becomes a space of inclusion and peace where dialogue can flourish across religious differences.
Her work with dance and art further embodies this vision. In South Africa, she encountered performances integrating song, movement, storytelling, and prayer—art as spiritual healing. For Ida, meditation, creativity, and daily life are inseparable. The future of religion, she suggests, lies not in institutional power, but in embodied, contemplative experience that reconciles individuals with themselves, others, and God.
