Contemplation (Definitions)

Driven or Drawn

8/5/2018

The essence of contemplative vision & practice is a willingness to be drawn.

This is rooted in an awareness that most of our thoughts and actions are driven by unconscious forces of enculturation and shame. And the confident hope that there is within each of us eyes that can see, ears that can hear and respond to the divine lure towards life, abundance, and finally Shalom for all.

So contemplative practice in its many forms is essentially a refusal to be driven, so that we might be drawn.

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Prayer: Fierce Patience

1/11/2016

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You know the experience of waiting for a word or memory that seems to be just beyond your mental grasp?

If you strain too hard for it you grow frustrated and it recedes. At this point you may decide that it's best to quit trying and trust that it will come to you when you're not thinking about it. And sometimes it does arise on its own.

But what if you're taking a test and you need to remember a geometry formula to solve a problem, or you want to remember an analogy that will perfectly express an idea for the essay that you're writing?

And doesn't life feel like an important test where you wish you had access to everything that you know, everything that is best in you?

This begs the question, "What is the state of mind most likely to surface the knowledge and love that you need to live well?"

It seems to me to be a combination of contradictory skills: an utter calm that is willing to wait as long as it takes for the treasure to reveal itself, AND a fierce focus that can follow the faint thread of vague and random images that will lead you, you know not how, to the object of your search.

The better you get at integrating these opposing energies the easier it becomes to slip into the "flow state" from which creativity and excellence emerge.

I'd like to suggest that this fierce patience is the heart of prayer. And more, that to move from the experience of scarcity and limitation to a place of abundance is contingent on developing the skill of prayer. This is why prayer is referred to as a "practice."

Faith in this realm is believing that the necessary treasure is available, has already been given, (abundant life, the kingdom of heaven within).

The activity of faith is in returning one's attention to waiting, with fierce patience, for the necessary abundance — which we can call love — even when everything appears to be less than. When your whole experience is lack, a lack of energy, courage, compassion, patience.

The ability to delight rather than diminish, to be patient rather than hurried, to be generous rather than fearful and stingy, all these things and many more needful things that make up the beautiful thing that we call love, they all exist. You've seen them. You've expressed them. They are the kingdom of heaven within that Jesus announced.

Yes, there is also a whole lot of fear and shame and all the willful ugliness that follows. Obviously. But all the darkness that ever was can not extinguish the light of love that shines from the image of God within you.

In prayer the ugliness becomes inert in the calm willingness to wait rather than react impulsively. And then the capacity to see and receive, and finally, to express the beautiful emerges, sometimes slowly in small kindnesses, sometimes explosively in courageous acts of generous solidarity.

Everyone knows that all good and beautiful things require skills that are developed through effort, but because of a misunderstanding of grace twisted over the centuries since the reformation, effort in spiritual matters has been equated with earning and pride rather than growth and humility.

"Salvation comes through faith alone, not through works, so that no one may boast."

Okay, whatever that really means, God only knows.

The reason I'm talking about salvation and grace and effort is because prayer is tangled up in religious ideas, and at the heart of true religion is grace, which is a gift, not earned.

But what I'm saying is that the gift of abundant life — which amounts to love received and freely given — has already been gifted, there is no need to earn it, but there is a need to access it. This is self evident. Love abundant exists. But I have and express a paltry portion.

The pearl of great price exists, it's worth selling all you have to acquire it. Prayer is the means of experiencing how everything but love has no value, so I become willing to let everything go and stand in poverty, open-handed, with fierce patience.

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Urs von Balthasar

8/8/2013

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"Contemplatives are like great subterranean rivers, which, on occasion, break out into springs at unexpected points, or reveal their presence only by the plants they feed from below."

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The Contemplative Mind

7/20/2013

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The contemplative mind is really just the mind that emerges when you pray first instead of think first. Praying opens the field and moves beyond fear and judgment and agenda and analysis, and just lets the moment be what it is—as it is.

Richard Rohr

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April 10th, 2013

4/10/2013

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"Contemplation involves moving away from dependence on props and structures, being set free from idols and false images of God."

--Kenneth Leech

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Contemplation

3/5/2013

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Looking without judging, naming, or coming to conclusions. (Because we can perceive so much more than can be contained in a name.)

Letting ones self be affected by the object of attention. (Being moved to action by a direct experience of the thing rather than thoughts about that thing.)

Waiting patiently for revelation to be given. "I do only what I see my Father doing and in like manner."

Contemplation implies trust in the goodness of creation. (Trust that God is still incarnate and able to lead through revelation)

The Contemplative Way

Looking and listening for God's compassionate presence and redemptive activity hidden in the ordinary events of life. "Do you have eyes to see and ears to hear."

David Norling

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Working Together With

3/5/2013

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Contemplation (the prayer beyond words and ideas) is a way to describe what Jesus did in the desert. It is not learning as much as it is unlearning. It is not explaining as much as containing and
receiving everything, and holding onto nothing. It is refusing to judge too quickly and refining your own thoughts and feelings by calm observation and
awareness over time—in the light of the Big Picture.

You cannot understand anything well once you have approved or disapproved of it. There is too much of you invested there. Contemplation is loosening our attachment to ourselves so that Reality can get at us, especially the Absolute Reality that we call God.

Contemplation is the most radical form of
self-abandonment that I can imagine. It is most difficult if there is not a profound trust that there is Someone to whom I can be abandoned! Such
self-forgetfulness paradoxically leads one to a firm and somewhat fearless sense of responsibility. Now I can risk responsibility precisely because I know “the buck does not stop here.” There is a co-creation going on, a life-giving synergism that is found somewhere between surrender and personal
responsibility—God fully “co-operating with those who love God” (Romans 8:28), and we slowly learning to “second the motion.”

Richard Rohr

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Driven or Drawn

Prayer: Fierce Patience

Urs von Balthasar

"Contemplatives are like great subterranean rivers, which, on occasion, break out into springs at unexpected points, or reveal their presence only by the plants they feed from below."

The Contemplative Mind

April 10th, 2013

Contemplation

Working Together With

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