To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness - especially in the wilderness - you shall love the Lord.
Contemplation has become for me both a time of respite as well as resistance. As a resting or hiding place, quiet prayer and reflection is like an oasis in the wilderness. And while I may think I do not need refreshment and renewal, if I pass the oasis by in my hurry to do something else, I always regret it. Always. There is a place for fasting - abstaining from food or engagement with others or whatever form of emptying you choose - but never from resting in the grace of God's love. Since I was a child I have cherished the Advent hymn, "Comfort, Comfort Ye My People" taken from the Hebrew prophet Isaiah's poetry.
Comfort, comfort ye my people, speak ye peace, thus saith our God;
Comfort those who sit in darkness,mourning 'neath their sorrow's load;
Speak ye to Jerusalem of the peace that waits for them;
Tell her that her sins I cover and her warfare now is over.
Some contemporary people don't "get" traditional hymnody - it is true these songs rarely sound like anything else we listen to - but their melodies are stunning and they are an excellent way to make the Scriptures part of the soul. Singing this hymn grounds me in God's promises - especially when I am weary and in need of rest - and that is most of the time.
Make ye straight what long was crooked make the rougher places plain:
Let your hearts be true and humble as befits his holy reign,
For the glory of the Lord now o'er the earth is shed abroad,
And all flesh shall see the token that his word is never broken.
So first there is refreshment emotionally, physically and spiritually: then there is challenge. And I think the challenge is simultaneously social and profoundly personal. To choose to step out of the busyness, is a counter-cultural commitment. To ground yourself in the enormity of God's grace - and the whole body of Christ - is to practice living like you are NOT the center of the universe. To discern your place within the whole is to trust that God's love is greater than your wisdom, gifts or energy. Socially this is the polar opposite of popular culture's teaching that EVERYTHING is about YOU: be all that YOU can be! Politically this is true, too because our vision is on the common good rather than the whims of the individual. Fr. Richard Rohr puts it like this:
It seems to me that contemplation makes
it almost inevitable that your politics is going to change, the way you spend
your time is going to be called into question, and any smug or inferior social
and economic perspective will be slowly taken away from you. When anyone
meditates consistently, the things that we think of as our necessary ego
boundaries—giving us a sense of our independence, autonomy, and private
self-importance—fall away, little by little, as unnecessary and even unhelpful.
This imperial “I,” the self that most people think of as the only self, is not
substantial or lasting at all. It is largely a creation of our own minds.
Through contemplation, protecting this relative identity, this persona
(“mask”), eventually becomes of less and less concern. “Why would I bother with
that?” the True Self asks.
If your prayer goes
deep, invading your unconscious, your whole view of the world will change from fear
to connection, because you don’t live inside your fragile and encapsulated self
anymore. In meditation, you are moving from ego consciousness to soul
awareness, from being driven to being drawn. Of course, you only can do this if
Someone Else is holding on to you in the gradual dying of the False Self,
taking away your fear, doing the knowing, satisfying your desire as a great
Lover. If you can allow that Someone Else to have their way with you in
contemplation, you will go back to your life of action with new vitality, but
it will now be smooth, a much more natural Flow. It will be “no longer you” who
acts or contemplates, but the Life of One who lives in you (Galatians 2:20), now acting for you (Father) and
with you (Holy Spirit) and as you (Christ)!
The challenge of contemplation is clearly social, but it is equally personal. My spiritual director in Cleveland once had me practice this very simple and very difficult exercise: twice each day he asked me to sit quietly until I experienced myself resting in the palm of God's hand. That was it - no intellectualizing on the scriptures, no breathing practice or yoga postures - just resting until I felt myself surrounded, embraced, filled from the inside out and resting in the palm of God's loving protection. It took about six weeks and I didn't realize it at first - but when I felt this love from the inside out as well as all around me - I knew it was real in my heart. Again, Rohr observes:
Contemplation is the
key to unlocking the attachments and addictions of the mind so that we can see
clearly. I think some form of contemplative practice is necessary to be able to
detach from your own agenda, your own anger, your own ego, and your own fear. I find most people
operate not out of “consciousness,” but out of their level of practiced brain
function, which relies on early-life conditioning and has little to do with God
encounter or grace or mercy or freedom or love. We primarily operate from habituated
patterns based on what Mom told me, what went wrong when I was young, and the
defense mechanisms I learned that helped me to be right and good, to be first
and famous, or whatever I may want to be. These are not all bad but they are
not all good either.
All of that old and
practiced thinking has to be recognized and accounted for, which is the work of
contemplation. Without contemplation, you don’t see clearly. Everything is all
about you, and you just keep seeing everything through
your own agenda, anger, and wounds. Isn’t that most people you know? Few
ever achieve much inner freedom. Contemplation, sadly, helps you see your
woundedness! That’s why most people do not stay long with contemplative prayer,
because it’s not very glorious. It’s a continual humiliation, realizing, “Oh my
God, I did it again. I still don’t know how to love!” We need some form of contemplative
practice that touches our unconscious conditioning, where all our wounds lie,
where all our defense mechanisms are operative secretly. Once these are not
taken so seriously, there is finally room for the inrushing of God and grace!
All three consequences of contemplation are blessings - disciplined blessings, to be sure - but blessings nonetheless. Last week I found myself saying in worship, "From time to time, people ask my 'why are you always urging us to practice slowing down? You sound like a broken record. That is so unimaginative!" And that is true. But, I continued saying, "I can't help but be redundant when we continue to be so bad at contemplation. When people complain to me that their lives are so busy - when wounded souls tell me they ache for some spiritual refreshment - and when loving people act-out in ways that are crazy and hurtful ... it is clear that we aren't practicing the disciplines that can cure our souls. In a word, we're carping without resting in the blessing of contemplative prayer."
Earlier this week I found myself being ambushed and hurt - it came out of nowhere - and threw me into a panic. And I found out - again - how much I need to keep practicing resting in the Lord. Thank God for the tiny reservoir of grace I sensed that was born of past encounters. It is what I trusted and it is what compelled me to go deeper.
Do not fret because
of the wicked;
do not be envious of wrongdoers,
for they will soon fade like the grass,
and wither like the green herb.
do not be envious of wrongdoers,
for they will soon fade like the grass,
and wither like the green herb.
Trust in the Lord, and do good;
so you will live in the land, and enjoy security.
Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
so you will live in the land, and enjoy security.
Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to
the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
He will make your vindication shine like the light,
and the justice of your cause like the noonday.
trust in him, and he will act.
He will make your vindication shine like the light,
and the justice of your cause like the noonday.
Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him;
do not fret over those who prosper in their way,
over those who carry out evil devices.
Refrain from anger,
and forsake wrath.
Do not fret—it leads only to evil.
Do not fret—it leads only to evil.
For the wicked
shall be cut off,
but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.
but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.
I like the way Rohr wraps this all together:
When we are introduced
to the One Life, our smaller life becomes a
Every time you are
tempted to hate yourself, just think, “Who am I?” The answer will hopefully come: “I am hidden
with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3) in every part of my life. In Christ, I am
bearing the mystery of the suffering of humanity, its sad woundedness; but I am
also bearing the very glory of God, and even “sharing in the divine nature” (2 Peter
1:4). I am a living paradox of divine and human, just as Jesus was and which
Jesus fully accepted.
It seems that God keeps looking at what
is good in me, what is God in me, and of course always finds it entirely
lovable. God fixes God’s gaze intently where I refuse and where I fear to
look—on my shared, divine nature as God’s daughter or son (1 John 3:2). And one
day my gaze matches God’s gaze (frankly, that is what we mean by conversion and
prayer). At those times I will find God fully lovable and myself fully lovable
at the same time. Why? Because it is the same gaze, but they have become
symbiotic and look out at life together.
Now it is Sabbath time on a stunning autumn day that just begs for a walk in the woods.
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