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.

Let God kiss you

Here's a revolutionary spiritual practice that can bring you into the present and can change your experience of this moment:

With only a very few exceptions, welcome whatever you face in this present moment as if you'd asked God for it specifically.

You spend a lot of time dwelling on what you want instead of what is. You waste a lot of good energy fighting your way through this present moment, because it's not what you thought you'd signed up for or what you think God should have given you. You dream of a better job, a better body, a better friend or spouse or child or boss. And you're in essence praying for deliverance from this moment. But what if you're praying against the present God's given you? What difference would it make today, right now, if you yielded and embraced this moment---even its pain---as a gift from God?

Of course there must be exceptions. No one should accept as gift the cruel things humans can do to each other. Those are more rare than you may think. While you may suffered great cruelty at a moment the past, you're not facing it at this very moment. The pain was real, but right now it's a pain that can only live in you with the permission of your memory. Let it go. It's hurt you too long.

Come into this moment.

Be.

Here. Now.

Breathe.

Let God kiss you.

Toward inner and outer peace

My soul is buffeted, even tormented and mauled by the thought-beasts that try to drag me into the spaces and places outside of me. These spaces are increasingly crowded by obligations and demands and worries---full of thoughts that want to make me believe I'm always behind, never good enough, always living from a deficit. Unless I make space between the me-who-I-really-am and the mind-made-me, the false self constructed by these thoughts, I'll never live well. The thought-beasts will be always nipping at my heels.

This is no way to live.

Today, I'll pass through the narrow gate of my heart. Throughout the day, I'll pause and breathe my prayers again and again, drawing these maverick thoughts down into my heart. They'll meet Christ there.

Perhaps a few will be still, be silent . . . simply be . . . along with the rest of me.

And those that won't? Well, I'll refuse to follow them. I'll let them go, muttering as they march stubbornly onward.

from my journals, September 25, 2007

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.

Love moves us where we wish to go

Another journal post on the practice of unceasing, interior prayer. From September 13, 2007:

Why does God send love into our hearts? Why tend this love so diligently, unceasingly? Why love for God above all else? Because, as Jesus said, "where your treasure is there will your heart be also."

Our affections move us. If we love foolishly, we move through this life as fools. If crude loves attach us to unholy things, we become crude and unholy.

"The foot of the soul is love," wrote St. Augustine, "for it moves us by means of love to the place it's going."

The place I long to go is God. My love for God is the only thing that'll move me where I long to go.