The contemplative life is for the most ordinary people

This is a continuation of the preceding post . . . Contemplation first flourished among those who lived the simple life—a life lived near the earth, aware of the cycle of the days and seasons, and who looked to God in all things (Celtic Christianity is an example of this in the West).

But these poor and relatively uneducated have not enjoyed the luxury of writing books---which is one reason it may appear that contemplation is a luxury of the affluent. These hidden "saints" have practiced the contemplative life, centering their hearts in Christ while they pull the plow, and calling upon the Holy Spirit to bless the hearth, the field, the womb, yielding their lives to the Father-Mother of All when their bodies fail and their loved ones die too young from war or disease.

That said, there are monks who have written, and some laypersons as well. And we have their testimony, though it’s not always easy to find. One of the chief purposes of this site is to help contemporary seekers to drink from the sacred fountain of Christian spiritual history.

As for the resources I promised to Miltali, here are a few:

1. The Way of the Pilgrim/The Pilgrim Continues His Way. A nineteen century exploration of the Jesus Prayer by an anonymous layperson who seeks to inspire the contemplative practice among Russian peasants.

2. The Wisdom of the Desert. A collection of wisdom sayings from the poor saints of early Egypt. Edited by Thomas Merton.

3. And for a non-Western, Indian exploration of the contemplative life, see Yoga and the Jesus Prayer Tradition: An Experiment of Faith, by Thomas Matus (out of print but available through this bookstore).

4. There’s also the little travelogue by the 6th century monk, John Moschos, whose collection of stories and anecdotes from his travels in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Asia Minor reveal a world seldom seen by modern people. Here's a people (largely poor, non-Western, and relatively uneducated) who signal an astonishing awareness of the presence of God, and they're made so because of their spiritual practices. It’s called, The Spiritual Meadow.

5. Add to this list my free little ebook download, "Returning to the Center: Living Prayer in a Distracting World." It's a memoir of my awakening and a personal ancd contemporary introduction to the treasures of the Christian past.

These are the ones that come immediately to mind. They’re mainly old. But that means they’re classics and have nourished saints throughout the ages. If you’re interested in carving out or enhancing a spiritual life for yourself these ought to give you a good start.

Recovering the root and center of our spiritual tradition

This is a continuation of the preceding post . . . For those who identify with Jesus, spiritual awakening in our times means a recovery of the root and center of the Christian spiritual tradition—a heritage too long neglected but kept alive by monks and mystics (who, incidentally, have generally been poor and most often not very powerful).

Take St. Anthony the Egyptian as a model of the poor, relatively uneducated, and often oppressed, who’s life inspired the Christian monastic impulse that has probably been solely responsible for the durability of the Christian faith in the world. For without the monks and their practices, often hidden from the world, we may well not have a Church today.

I her musing, Mitali hopes "that the contemplative life these days isn’t a luxury enjoyed only by the (relatively) rich and powerful," and wonders if there is a tradition of contemplation among the poor, the oppressed, and the uneducated.

It's a question of vital importance.

The history of Christian spirituality testifies that the life of contemplation and soul-care is no luxury for the rich and powerful—even though Providence is now awakening the affluent to the spiritual life they’ve too long ignored. And Christian clergy like me have largely failed this tribe; we've failed to invite them into this tradition and to find there the spiritual nurture they need. Instead we've pandered to their desire for programs and projects, and given them ideas to believe in without practices that can move faith from their heads to their living hearts.

(to be continued . . . )

Is the life of prayer and contemplation a luxury for the few?

Mitali Perkins is an old friend and a remarkable, spiritually aware writer. She writes about living between cultures and is particularly sensitive to the realities of race, ethnicity, and identity. About one of her many books, The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen, Publisher's Weekly says: "Perkins combines her fresh, unaffected prose with moving bits of Indian poetry and lore, rendering this well-thoughtout investigation of cultural identity doubly moving . . . A funny, honest, and homsepun story." In a comment on my recent post, Mitali says, "I spent the day today on a soul care Advent retreat and found myself once again in upper middle class white educated company. Could you point me in the direction of some reading that explores these spiritual practices for the poor, the oppressed, the uneducated? I certainly hope that the contemplative life these days isn’t a luxury enjoyed only by the (relatively) rich and powerful."

She puts her finger on an important question. Is the contemplative life a luxury enjoyed only by the relatively rich and powerful?

It's most definitely not a luxury for the few. Here's why . . .

In the West (and Westernized parts of the world), contemplative practices are in vogue. Stressed Western people are looking to contemplative practices for relief and enlightenment. These seekers practice things like yoga and read teachers like Tolle (not bad things). Many of them are white, upper-middle class disaffected Protestants. There are also large numbers of seekers from the affluent, “spiritual but not religious” tribe. Non-whites are increasingly among them as affluence shifts away from white America. Those seeking relief and enlightenment are responding to the bankruptcy of the Modern period. Modernity gave them ideas, but no real inner life. And so the affluent, who can afford therapists and chic conferences and retreats like the one Mitali attended, are also seeking a recovery of the contemplative life that sustained much of the world’s cultures for millennia.

So, we’re witnessing the awakening of the West and Westernized to the perennial Wisdom traditions. The chief practice in those traditions–whether those nurtured by the Buddha, Plato, Rumi, native shamans, the sages of Israel, and of course, Jesus—was the practice of contemplation, the inner eye, the prayer of the heart.

(to be continued tomorrow . . . )

Awaken to Advent through this simple spiritual practice

Awakening to the spiritual life after a long, raucous, and wandering path, a life full of many mistakes and painful episodes, a North African named Augustine lamented his spiritual dullness.  Augustine, later acknowledged as a doctor and saint in the truest sense of the word (doctor as healer; saint as holy one), points us toward the only place any of us can really meet God:

"Late have I loved You, Beauty, at once so ancient and so new!  Late have I come to love You!  You were within me, and I was in the world outside myself.  You were with me, but I was not with You."

As the world turns toward the mystery that is Christmas . . . God with us . . . you are awakening.  You are awakening to the God who is as near to you as the beating of your heart.

Here's a simple practice to move you from living all in-your-head, or "in the world outside," and instead into relationship with that "Beauty, at once so ancient and so new":

Quiet yourself, even for a moment before your computer.  Gently follow your breath (click here for suggestions on breathing) and the Breath/Holy Spirit will guide you from "the world outside" yourself and into the inner realm.  Gently repeat, "Come, Oh come, Emmanuel," and let the words ride on your breath.  The breath is the narrow gate into the heart, and the heart is the cradle of Christ, God-With-Us.

You touch eternity.  You brush up against heaven.  Now you know heaven's not up or out or somewhere other than where you are, nor is it waiting for you when you die.

It is in.

It is now.

It is here.

Return to this moment, over and over again

The spiritual life is a life of no illusions. Meet God here in the daily realities of this life, this place, the person or task or thing before you now. Meet God here or you'll not meet God anywhere. There's something deeply false and unspiritual in the temptation to want something else, be someone else, or go somewhere other that where you are now. Some people mistakenly think that spirituality is a flight into a different realm, a rejection of the world and ordinary things. There is no other world or place than this one. And if the incarnation of God in Jesus means anything at all (and I think it does), then this world, this place, the faces before us, the streets we walk, the chores we perform, these bodies of ours are all sacred. The truth is, matter matters. And an intentional spiritual life means you live fully awake to the wonder and sacredness of it all. A true spirituality is a united, undivided self--mind, heart, and body. I'm saddened when I realize how must of my life I've spent elsewhere. Elsewhere is always fantasy, illusion, unreality. I've spent too much of my life simply "in my head" and not really in my body, not truly present. It's little wonder, then, that true love has so often escaped me--except for those moments when I found myself drawn into the exquisite pleasure of the present, intensely awake to things like the allure of a rose's fragrant scent, the wonder of a child's innocent view of the world, the glory of a drop of dew trembling precariously on a leaf and looking as if it may burst at any moment.

The narrow gate into the spiritual life you seek stands before you . . . here, now . . . through practices like meditation, contemplative prayer, and the Jesus Prayer.  Many, Jesus said, will take the wide and easy road, undisciplined and nearly always pulled out of the present by the unruly thoughts in their heads. But there's nothing there for you but pain and disappointment.

• Enter through the narrow gate, walk the uncommon path.

• Plop down on the grass (or plunge into the icy, invigorating cold of a snowy field) and see and feel the world from as near the earth as you can get.

• Return to the moment over and over again and you will feel the spirit of life rising in your bones, the fire of the Spirit dancing within you saying, "Yes, Yes! More of that."

This beautiful photo comes compliments of Petra Oldeman Photography, the Netherlands.