Contemplative Life

Gregg’s Reflection

Embracing contemplative practice will lead to the unfolding of a contemplative life. While it often seems like nothing is happening in a daily contemplative sit, if you look back over time, you see much has changed. And, what has changed is your life.

Richard Rohr named his movement the Center for Action and Contemplation. And the Living School shares the idea of each finding “what is mine to do” in the world and embracing it. Contemplation on this path does not lead to disengagement in the world, but deeper levels of engagement.

We are each unique in our gifts, our passions, and our place in the world. If we don’t find and live what is ours to do, it will never be done. No one else can fill your niche, live out your calling. Contemplation aids the discernment of the path.

Joan Chittister says, “Life cannot be devoured, it can only be savored.” (Gift of Years p. 208) Contemplative Life is a life savored. These long posts, too, cannot be devoured. Come back often to savor the wisdom here. To read about Contemplative Practice, go here.

Scripture

The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. Deuteronomy 6:4

But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. Joshua 24:15

Stand by the roads and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; walk in it and find rest for your souls. Jeremiah 6:16

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Proverbs 4:23

Do not turn your face away from anyone who is poor, and the face of God will not be turned away from you. Tobit 4:7

My child, when you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for testing. Set your heart right and be steadfast, cling to him and do not depart. Accept whatever befalls you, and in times of humiliation be patient. For gold is tested in the fire, the furnace of humiliation. Trust in him, and he will help you; make your ways straight, and hope in him. You who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy. Has anyone trusted in the Lord and been disappointed?Or has anyone persevered in the fear of the Lord and been forsaken? Or has anyone called upon him and been neglected? For the Lord is compassionate and merciful. Sirach 2:1–7, 10,11

The lamp of the body is the eye; if your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light. Matthew 6:22

Who­ev­er has ears, let them hear. Matthew 11:5

Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it. Matt 13:16-17

Let anyone with ears to hear listen! Mark 4:23

Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? Mark 8:18

We boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us because God’s Spirit has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given. Romans 5:36

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2. Renewal of the mind is the manifestation of luminous mind, an ocean of light. Martin Laird, Ocean of Light, p. 140

You became imitators of us and the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 1:6 Imitation is how human beings learn and grow. Everything depends on what or whom choose to imitate. RENOVARE Bible notes on the verse.

We must give God our rapt and undivided attention before we can catch a glimpse of his Kingdom through the veil of earthly time. But if we can learn to sit still in a room-or on a stump-and wrest our attention from the thousand chattering voices without and within, we will find ourselves gradually living more of our lives in that Kingdom. RENOVARE Bible notes on Revelation NT p. 485

Ancient Writings

Be gentle to the weak, firm to the stubborn, steadfast to the proud, humble to the lowly. Be gentle in generosity, untiring in love, just in all things. 

Columbanus, Letter to a Disciple

You only know as much as you do!

Francis of Assisi

Lord make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is darkness, light; Where there is sadness, joy; O Divine , grant that I may not so much Seek to be consoled as to console, To be understood as to understand To be loved as to love For it is in giving that we receive It is in pardoning that we are pardoned It is in dying that we are born to eternal life. 

Francis of Assisi

People are described as raptured who are totally and perfectly given over to desires for the Savior and who ascend in strength to the height of contemplation. They are enlightened by uncreated wisdom. This happens to the devout souls when all their thoughts are ordered to divine love and all the wanderings of their mind become stable, the mind itself no longer wavers or hesitates, but led on and fixed in one thing by a total act of love. This is something she could never attain if God’s grace had not snatched her away from lower attractions and set her up on the height of the spirit in which without doubt she receives the healing gifts of Grace.

Richard Rolle, Bernard McGinn, Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism, p. 344

A man becomes spiritual insofar as he lives a spiritual life. He begins to see God in all things, to see His power and might in every manifestation. Always and everywhere he sees himself abiding in God and dependent on God for all things. But insofar as a man lives a bodily life, so much he does he do bodily things; He doesn't see God in anything, even in the the most wondrous manifestations of His Divine power. In all things he sees body, material, everywhere and always - "God is not before his eyes." (Ps. 35:2)

St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ, I.5

When we are fallen because of frailty or blindness, then our gracious Lord inspires us, stirs us and calls us, and then he wills that we see our wretchedness and humbly let it be acknowledged. But He does not wish us to remain thus. Nor does He will that we busy ourselves greatly about accusing ourselves, nor does He will that we be full of misery about ourselves; for He wills that we quickly attend to Him; for He stands all alone and waits for us constantly, sorrowing and mourning until we come, and hastens to take us to himself, for we are His joy and delight and He is our cure and our life.

Julian of Norwich, Doyle, Complete Julian, p. 357

Contemplative work not only pulls out sins' roots-it grows goodness in its place. All virtues are found in contemplation. Without it, people may have virtues, but they will always be shallow and twisted by self interest. Virtue is nothing more than mature and delivered affection plainly directed at God for him alone. 

The Cloud of Unknowing, Carmen Butcher, p. 36

Do you think that your deep humility, your self-sacrifice, your bountiful charity and commitment to being of service to all beings is meaningless? The fire of your love for God enkindles other souls. You awaken them through the living example of your own virtues. This is no small service! It’s highly pleasing to the Lord. Do what you can do. His Majesty will understand that you yearn to do much more. And he will reward you as if you had guided a thousand unknown souls to him. 

St. Teresa of Ávila, Interior Castle, trans Mirabai Starr, p. 294

It is a wonderful thing for the soul to connect with others who walked the way she is walking, who she knows have already ventured more deeply towards the center. Conversations with these travelers will be of great benefit to the soul; she can get close enough to them so that they will be able to take her with them. 

St. Teresa of Ávila, Interior Castle, trans Mirabai Starr, p. 59

Fra Angelico, Scenes from the Lives of the Desert (ca. 1420)

Daily Examen of Consciousness: Reflect on moments in the last day when you were aware of God’s presence, and moments when you were distracted. A Jesuit Practice

Quakers discovered silent contemplation in the 1600’s:

We are a Religious Society, in direct descent from those of the 17^th century who realized that it is possible to have a direct communication with God; that we are not alone in our decision making, but that the Spirit is constantly on hand to guide and advise.

Kevin Redfern, ‘Doing Our Quaker Business’, in Searching the Depths: Essays in Search of Quaker Identity, (London: Quaker Home Service, 1998), p. 83.

Quaker beliefs are simply:

1. There is a living, dynamic, spiritual presence at work in the world which is both within us and outside of us.
2. There is God in everyone.
3. Each person is capable of the direct and unmediated experience of God.
4. Our understanding and experience of God is nurtured and enlarged in community.
5. The Bible is an important spiritual resource, and the life and teachings of Jesus are relevant for us today.
6. The revelation of God’s truth is continuing and ongoing.
7. Quakers welcome truth from whatever source it may come. 
8. Our inward experience of God transforms us and leads us into outward expressions of faithful living, witness and action.
9. Modeling God’s presence in our lives is more important than espousing beliefs. 

Modern Writings

Remember always that God has called us to show by our life together the joy, the simplicity, and the compassion of the Holy Cospel. Let these three qualities be jealously guarded.

Let us take care to live in God's Today, so that we may in some small way help others to prepare for God's Tomorrow. Let our life therefore be provisional and a sign of our faith in God's future. May our prayer and hope be fixed on that day of the Lord when His Kingdom comes and His will be done.

The Rule of the Community of the Transfiguration, Celtic Daily Prayer, Book 2, p. 149-1410

Spirituality practiced in the state of activity is incomparably superior to that practiced in the state of withdrawal.

Anthony De Mello, One Minute Wisdom

Yet at the end of this journey of faith and love which brings us into the depths of our own being and releases us that we may voyage beyond ourselves to God, the mystical life culminates in an experience of the presence of God that is beyond all description, and which is only possible because the soul has been completely “transformed in God” so as to become, so to speak, “one spirit” with Him. Since our inmost “I” is the perfect image of God, then when that “I” awakens, he finds within himself the Presence of Him Whose image he is. And, by a paradox beyond all human expression, God and the soul seem to have but one single “I.” They are (by divine grace) as though one single person. They breathe and live and act as one. “Neither” of the “two” is seen as object.

Thomas Merton, Inner Experience, p. 16

Before the contemplative seeks to liberate his soul from all external control, to purify and detach it from material, sensual, and even spiritual compulsions, and to surrender it to the truth and creative freedom of the Holy Spirit. 

Thomas Merton, Interior Experience, p. 128

Life can have an interior dimension of depth and awareness which is blocked by our habitual way of life, all concentrated on the externals. The real inner life and freedom of man begin when this inner dimension opens up and man lives in communion with the unknown within him. On the basis of this, he can also be in communion with the same unknown in others. 

Thomas Merton, Letter to John Hunt, 12/18/1966

The message of hope the contemplative offers you...is... that whether you understand or not, God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you, and offers you an understanding and light which are like nothing you ever found in books or heard in sermons. The contemplative has nothing to tell you except to reassure you and say that if you dare to penetrate your own silence and risk the sharing of that solitude with the lonely other who seeks God through you, then you will truly recover the light and the capacity to understand what is beyond words and beyond explanations because it is too close to be explained: it is the intimate union in the depths of your own heart, of God's spirit and your own secret most self, so that you and He are in all truth One Spirit. 

Thomas Merton, Letter to Dom Francis Decroix, August 21, 1967, HGL 15

Where contemplation becomes what it is really meant to be, it is no longer something infused by God into a created subject, so much as God Living in God and identifying a created life with His own life so there is nothing left of any significance but God living in God. As Jesus said, “He who loses his life shall find it.” 

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 284

God touches us with a touch that is emptiness, and empties us. He moves us with a simplicity that simplifies us. Our mind swims in the air of an understanding, a reality that is dark and serene and includes in itself everything. Nothing more is desired. Nothing more is wanting.

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 227

Evagrius [Ponticus] calls discipline the praktike, removing the blindfolds that prevent us from seeing clearly. Merton, himself very familiar with Evagrius, expressed the same idea. He told the monks of Gethsemani Abbey that the contemplative life is a life in which we constantly move from opaqueness to transparency, from the place where things are dark, impenetrable, and closed to the place where these same things are translucent, open, and offer vision far beyond themselves. 

Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devo 8/5/21

The contemplative state is established when contemplative prayer moves from being an experience or series of experiences to an abiding state of consciousness. The contemplative state enables one to rest and act at the same time because one is rooted in the source of both rest and action.

Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart, p. 75.

A habitus is a dynamism that generates an increasingly positive momentum toward love of God and neighbor. We feel some sort of inner drawing toward this; a longing, a sense that this is our path somehow. Typically this is the first great motivator in this pathless path is the sense that this appeals strongly to something within us. The other great motivator is despair. Sometimes just being silent and still is the least painful thing we can manage right now, when all our effort is crushed into barely surviving. After discovering that pain itself has a silent center and that our own pain is not private to us, however deeply personal it is, something opens up from within.

Martin Laird, Ocean of Light, p. 76-77

Be imi­ta­tors of me, as I am of Christ. 1 Cor. 11:1 Here­in lies the great chal­lenge for us: to be such imi­ta­tors of Christ that peo­ple can look at us and under­stand how Jesus would think, live, and act in the con­text of mod­ern soci­ety. To do this takes the fullest of for­ma­tion into Christ­like­ness. And such a mature for­ma­tion by its very nature will involve work akin to the labor pains of childbirth.

500 years ago, out of the rich spir­i­tu­al expe­ri­ence of these folk known as The Brethren of the Com­mon Life sprang The Imi­ta­tion of Christ, a path that called for the soul’s growth and devel­op­ment (for­ma­tion if you will) into Christ­like­ness by prayer­ful imi­ta­tion of Jesus’ own life, thoughts, habits, and inten­tions. It was an inte­ri­or empha­sis upon humil­i­ty, sim­plic­i­ty, and holi­ness ground­ed in a deep devo­tion to Jesus and intent upon devel­op­ing an inti­mate rela­tion­ship with God. It under­stands Jesus is a liv­ing Teacher show­ing us dai­ly how to live our lives as he would live our lives if he were us.

Then sec­ond, because it focus­es not on any par­tic­u­lar set of exter­nal actions but upon how we become a par­tic­u­lar kind of per­son, name­ly, a per­son who will do nat­u­ral­ly the kinds of things Jesus would do. And third, because it ush­ers us into liv­ing inter­ac­tion with the liv­ing Christ who comes along­side us empow­er­ing us to be the right kind of peo­ple doing the right kind of things in the midst of every­day life. ​“Jesus: ​‘Strive, my friend, to do another’s will rather than your own; always pre­fer to have less than more; always seek the low­er place and be sub­mis­sive in all things; always wish and pray that God’s will may be entire­ly ful­filled in you, for you see, the per­son who does all this enters a place of peace and rest’” (Book 3, Chap­ter 23).

Richard Foster, On the Imitation of Christ

Spiritual Warriors. Contemplative life is not for the timid. Its scary to be quiet, and it takes courage to be still. No one could be expected to sit on the battlefield of her own mind without being armed with the sword of unconditional truth in one hand and the sword of unconditional love in the other. And yet neither is the journey inward a journey for the elite. It is not necessary to pass through elaborate initiations to earn access to a place where we can meet Reality and say yes to it. When we turn inward, investigating the present moment with patience and inquisitiveness, we become a beach across which the wave of love may break and transform the topography of our soul. 

Mirabai Starr, Wild Mercy, Living the Fierce and tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics, p. 26

Psychologically speaking, the simple fact is that the “contemplative personality” is only found in about 1% of the general population (I’m basing this on research done by Carl Jung and by the developers of the Myers-Briggs Personality Type test). Frankly, most people find it difficult to pray for extended periods in silence. I do not point this out in order to judge people — on the contrary! I think it is wonderful that God has endowed human beings with so many different personality types and characteristics. But for many people, the contemplative approach to spirituality is simply unappealing, or too difficult. For people who are natural extraverts, who naturally have a more scientific than intuitive mind, and who naturally are thinkers more than feelers, often find the spiritual practice of silence to be unappealing or simply too difficult to do regularly. 

Carl McColman, Reconciling Mystical Teachings with Conventional Christianity. 

7 dimensions of the process of relating to God.

Discovering God

Pondering God

Seeking God

Encountering God

Loving God

Imitating God

Union with God

Carl McColman, Union, Intimacy, and Love: the Dynamics of Christian Mysticism

The heart of mystical spirituality is to cultivate a meaningful, intimate relationship with God — and then to let the Spirit guide us, each in our own unique way, into what a truly contemplative life looks like. Questions like “How do I live in the spirit of contemplative prayer?” or “How do I live a truly contemplative life?” really boil down to this: “How can I discern, and respond to, the leading of the Spirit in my life?”

Carl McColman, Living in the Spirit of Contemplative Prayer

Soul friends: Loving companions who gently share their knowledge and care with anyone who seeks to follow in their spiritual footsteps. 

Carl McColman, Christian Mystics, p. xix

The contemplative life is a gradual process of surrendering the autonomy of the will into the unitive encounter with the Divine where God and self are not two and in the vast openness of this non-dual place, growth in humility compassion and love naturally ensues. 

Carl McColman, Christian Mystics, p. 207

As you ripen and mature on the spiritual path that meditation embodies, you will consider yourself blessed and most fortunate in no longer being surprised by all the ways in which you never cease to be delighted by God. Your heart becomes accustomed to God, peeking out at you from the inner recesses of the task at hand, from the sideways glance of the stranger in the street, or from the way sunlight suddenly fills the room on a cloudy day. Learning not to be surprised by the ways in which you are perpetually surprised, you will learn to rest in an abiding sense of confidence in God. Learning to abide in this confidence, you learn to see God in learning to see the God-given Godly nature of yourself, others, and everything around you. 

James Finley, Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God, p. 33–34

Merton’s message is that each of us lives in the hermitage of our daily self. Beneath all our achievements, plans, travels, and conquests, we have but life. No matter what we have is always enough, for nothing is enough. No matter who we become, we are nobody. For in the ground of our being we live Christ’s life. In the foundations of the heart, God is present in our simple presence to life. 

James Finley, Merton’s Palace of Nowhere, p. 84

We cannot intentionally create unless we are able, first, to imagine. 

Geneen Marie Haugen

The Path Home: Healing Dualisms

1st Dualism: First and primary separation by the developing psyche, between self and other. Creates experience of separation.

2nd Dualism: Distinction made in the developing mind between now and then; with it arises the sense of time and mortality, evolves into fear of death. 

3rd Dualism: Boundary placed by the developing psyche between the body and the mind: child places the locus of identification in the mind.

4th Dualism: Strongly placed boundary between acceptable and unacceptable parts of the self; Jung defines it as between the persona and the shadow.

Kathleen Singh, Grace In Dying,  Glossary

The life of faith is learning how to rest in an Ultimate Love and how to draw upon an Infinite Source. On a very practical level, you will then be able to trust that you are being held and guided. In fact, you can trust after a while that almost everything is a kind of guidance. When you doubt the possibility of guidance, you’ve just stopped the flow. But if you stay on the path of allowing and trusting, the Spirit in you will allow you to confidently surrender: There’s a reason for this. God is in this, too.

Richard Rohr

Contemplation is meeting as much reality as we can handle in its most simple and immediate form—without filters, judgments, or commentaries. The ego doesn’t trust this way of seeing, which is why it is so rare, “a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:14). The only way we can contemplate is by recognizing and relativizing our own compulsive mental grids—our practiced ways of judging, critiquing, blocking, and computing everything.

Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion 2/15/21

As part of our emphasis on orthopraxy over orthodoxy, the Franciscan tradition taught that love and action are more important than intellect or speculative truth. Love is the highest category for the Franciscan School. While orthodoxy is about correct beliefs, orthopraxy is about right practice: doing the practices and living the lifestyles that end up changing our consciousness. Francis of Assisi said to the first friars, “You only know as much as you do!” Franciscan teaching, which is based in Scripture, has freed me and many others to live more embodied, loving lives. 

Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion 2/8/20

You don’t think yourself into a new way of living as much as you live yourself into a new way of thinking. Contemplation and action are forever connected and cannot be separated. Some have a primary inner experience and that inner experience has social, economic and political implications. Some people set out to act and their inner experience is given to them on the journey. No matter where you start, action and contemplation must meet and feed one another. When prayer is authentic, it will always lead to actions of mercy; when actions of mercy are attempted at any depth, they will always drive you to prayer. 

Richard Rohr, Yes, And Daily Meditations p. 35.

Contemplation, you see, is a very dangerous activity. It not only brings us face to face with God, it brings us, as well, face to face with the world, and then it brings us face to face with the self; and then, of course, something must be done . . . because nothing stays the same once we have found the God within. We become new people, and in the doing, see everything around us newly too. We become connected to everything, to everyone. We carry the whole world in our hearts, the oppression of all peoples, the suffering of our friends, the burdens of our enemies, the raping of the earth, the hunger of the starving, the joyous expectation every laughing child has a right to. Then, the zeal for justice consumes us. Then, action and prayer are one.

Joan Chittister and Richard Rohr, Prophets Then, Prophets Now

And on the path of self-acceptance, These twelve illusions you shall shed:

The illusion of being unwanted: For, in truth, there is no such thing as an unwanted soul. The illusion of being unlovable: For your true self is love.

The illusion of unworthiness: For you are always deserving of love and success. The illusion of being weird: For there is no such thing as normal.

The illusion of needing external validation: For your worth is never dependent on another's approval.

The illusion of being insignificant: For your presence impacts all of humanity.

The illusion of being powerless: For within you lies the strength to shape your destiny and influence the world.

The illusion of not being good enough: For you were born good enough.

The illusion of being a burden: For your existence is a precious gift, and your contributions add value.

The illusion of being unsuccessful: For success is subjective, and your path is uniquely yours.

The illusion of being ugly: Because that label only ever reflects the viewer being incapable of seeing beauty.

And the illusion that aging decreases your value: For, in truth, you are not a body but a soul.

Tahlia Hunter

Living School Symposium 8/21