Contemplation is true awareness of life as it is

This post is a continuation from yesterday: The idealization had to die for me to find the true path of contemplative living.

Contemplation is not hiding from the world. It's the deepest form of immersion, or better, communion---a true awareness of life as it is, not as it would be, should be, or could be (unhelpful idealizations, fictions, and illusions that keep me outside of and distant from this present moment).

Contemplation is living radically, here, now. Watching the face before me. Listening to her voice. Attending to beauty or pain behind those eyes. Being present in a way that really matters.

Reawakened, I worked too hard

This post is a continuation from yesterday: But even reawakened and hungry for the spiritual Reality that comes through contemplative living, my drive was still too much alive. Desperate for God, I drove my inner life, working too hard at it, always seeking but never finding.

Contemplation was still captive to an idealization.

I still saw in my mind a monk robed and silent and lost in the bliss divine Love. I longed to taste the bliss, but I was not a monk. I was busy, active, involved in the wide and wonderful and sometimes frightful world.

How could I find the way?

When I first heard of contemplation

When I first heard of contemplation, I had in mind some idealization---a picture of a mountain-top mystic enrapt by the Divine Mystery. I wanted something of that experience but the vision was not only unreachable, much of it was undesirable. I was young then, active, goal driven, wanting to squeeze the best out of life, make something of myself. To me, the contemplative life was unrealistic.

Only later, at mid-life, when many of us face a major re-evaluation of the life we're living, did I---forced by great necessity---reawaken to the gifts of contemplation for this active life.

Unceasing prayer is not quietism

Another journal post on the practice of unceasing, interior prayer. From September 16, 2007:

The path I follow in contemplation, the prayer of the heart, is not mere quietism. It is not transcendental meditation or emptying or relaxation. It certainly transcends. It does empty. And it often relaxes. But it's more. It is active. In fact, it is warfare.

It aims at the deepest form of asceticism, the highest form of freedom.

It aims to watch the rising of thoughts as a fly fisherman watches for a trout rising for the fly. I take told of each thought before it lures me away, and pull it instead, down toward Christ within my heart.

I draw thoughts in and down, following the breath, until, in the presence of Christ, they give up their pretensions; in the presence of Christ, they're made nothing in comparison to Love. I practice loving God alone, beyond all thought, Who alone satisfies. All thoughts become as nothing to me.

This is not relaxation. But it does lead to rest---the hesychia of purest prayer.

In this practice habits are formed, and from habits comes virtue---that inner freedom from all false loves. Virtue is the unceasing, instinctive love of Love Herself. In loving no other thing---truly no-thing---we have Him-Who-is-Everything.

I pray this way so that I may be bound to God in each and every moment---and not to my false self and the lower loves which are driven unconsciously by the unceasing lure of relentless, untethered thoughts. This way there will be no created thing between God and me---not even a single thought that clouds my vision of Him, not even a solitary passion that shades my heart from the splendor of Her.

Toward a simple rhythm of daily prayer

Okay, so here's a lesson from the 14th century to the 21st. Maybe you'd prefer something a bit more modern, up-to-date. I assure you there's nothing more up-to-date for the living of these days than some instruction from a century a lot like our own---instruction that's been treasured now for some seven centuries. Richard Methley, a teacher of the life of prayer in our turbulent world, describes his own practice of daily prayer (this comes from James Walsh's introduction to the Cloud of Unknowing, pages 17-18).

Methley instructed those who seek God to go to their accustomed place of prayer, concentrate the whole attention on God, hide from every creature, close the eyes, and begin with a simple, affective, preparatory prayer (like the Jesus Prayer).

His own habit was to get away from the distractions of daily life for three brief episodes---at dawn, noon, and just before sleep---for up to 15 minutes. Just a brief and simple dip into the Holy. He practiced a longer season after supper---a half hour.

My own practice has settled into a similar rhythm. Most people, with a little renovation of their lives can improvise on this instruction. Lots of folks do similar things with other occupations---reading the paper, smoking breaks, watching TV, a Starbucks run.

You may tell yourself you have no real time to pray. Frankly, you'd be surprised at how much time you actually do have. But you'll have to put a little muscle behind shifting things around.

The key is not to bite off more than you can chew as you're making the renovations.  A little time here and there goes a long, long way.