Recently I was sharing some thoughts about contemplation. That continues to be a topic that intrigues me because I want to live my life as a contemplative. For me that does not mean joining a monastery and doing it that way. I do plan to keep visiting monasteries and trying to learn from the monks who see this way of living as central to what they are doing. I would like it to be central to what I am doing, too, but recognize my context is different than their context.
Sometimes, however, I think I can overdo the differences between my context and the monastic context. Clearly, I do not live in a monastery. No one would confuse my little condo with a monastery. If you walk into my place, there would be little indication that anything religious goes on here! I would claim it is because I am a Quaker, but the truth may be closer to the fact that my life is about as normal as any other person’s life in the secular world. I still have a ways to go.
But I am also confident slapping a few statues on the wall and lighting the occasional candle is not the way to become more spiritual. Granted they might enhance my efforts, but it really is effort that is required. Effort sounds like hard work (and maybe some of that is needed), but effort is probably more like choosing and being intentional. We all have choices in life and we live out those choices through our intentionality. If we do nothing, then we have opted out of intentionality and let life go on autopilot. For many folks, that is watching tv, surfing the internet, Facebook, etc. It feels like you are doing something, but nothing counts.
In the process of preparing some thoughts on contemplative living, I turned to a book I used some time ago. Belden Lane is a wonderful writer who helps me see life in new, fresh ways. He is recently retired from teaching spirituality at a Jesuit university in St. Louis. He is a Protestant teaching in a Catholic context with a serious love of nature. I really like that combination! I pulled down his book, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes, and begin to re-read marked passages. Then I hit a section that I wanted to spend time pondering.
Lane begins by offering this observation. “When the ego embraces indifference and the heart exercises attentiveness, we become, for the first time, truly available to others.” (201) This does a couple things. It suggests a nice way for me to think about being contemplative and it ties this into the idea of community. This sentence from Lane is an immediate challenge. First, we are told to let the ego embrace indifference. That sounds easy enough, but when I think about it, I realize that is not easy at all. I am not really sure my ego wants to embrace indifference! My ego shouts, “but what about me!!”
I like the idea of the heart exercises attentiveness. I am sure attentiveness is very important to being contemplative. In fact, I know one writer who would say that contemplation is attentiveness. I could agree with that. The trick is unless the ego embraces indifference, it will be difficult to be attentive. In fact, the ego wants you to be attentive to me. After all, the ego wants to make me the center of attention. Being contemplative changes that equation. Being contemplative shifts attentiveness to the other. Or better, we become available to others, as Lane tells us.
He adds to this when he comments, “Openness to the person before us…suddenly becomes possible.” Being attentiveness to the other opens us up to new experiences. A part of attentiveness is openness. If my ego is in charge, I tend to be closed. I am closed to the other, except for what the other can do for me. Contemplation is not concerned about my egocentric needs or desires. Being fully and deeply human is much bigger than these ego needs and desires.
Lane now switches to the arena of love. He says, “To love someone is to grant him or her the gift of one’s pure and undivided attention, without preconceived expectations of what the other person needs, what we imagine the best in the situation, what the particular results we want to engineer. This is a love finally purged of the ego’s calculating desires, a love without strings.” I very much appreciate this switch to love. Love is the central concern of being contemplative, because we are told in countless ways that God is love.
Love is at the heart of the universe. In fact, Ilio Delio will tells us that evolution is love unfolding---it is God’s continuous creative. To be attentive and contemplative is to be aware of this unfolding and be willing to participate fully in it. The concern is much bigger than our little egos.
Ultimately, this is good news. In the short run, it feels threatening. It is threatening because the ego feels threatened when it is not in control. But love is not about being in control. For many of us, this is a hard lesson to learn. We fear we cannot trust this kind of love. We fear we will not be in control. But if we can learn to be attentive and through that, become contemplative, we will realize there is nothing to fear.
In fact, this is the best news we can get!
Sometimes, however, I think I can overdo the differences between my context and the monastic context. Clearly, I do not live in a monastery. No one would confuse my little condo with a monastery. If you walk into my place, there would be little indication that anything religious goes on here! I would claim it is because I am a Quaker, but the truth may be closer to the fact that my life is about as normal as any other person’s life in the secular world. I still have a ways to go.
But I am also confident slapping a few statues on the wall and lighting the occasional candle is not the way to become more spiritual. Granted they might enhance my efforts, but it really is effort that is required. Effort sounds like hard work (and maybe some of that is needed), but effort is probably more like choosing and being intentional. We all have choices in life and we live out those choices through our intentionality. If we do nothing, then we have opted out of intentionality and let life go on autopilot. For many folks, that is watching tv, surfing the internet, Facebook, etc. It feels like you are doing something, but nothing counts.
In the process of preparing some thoughts on contemplative living, I turned to a book I used some time ago. Belden Lane is a wonderful writer who helps me see life in new, fresh ways. He is recently retired from teaching spirituality at a Jesuit university in St. Louis. He is a Protestant teaching in a Catholic context with a serious love of nature. I really like that combination! I pulled down his book, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes, and begin to re-read marked passages. Then I hit a section that I wanted to spend time pondering.
Lane begins by offering this observation. “When the ego embraces indifference and the heart exercises attentiveness, we become, for the first time, truly available to others.” (201) This does a couple things. It suggests a nice way for me to think about being contemplative and it ties this into the idea of community. This sentence from Lane is an immediate challenge. First, we are told to let the ego embrace indifference. That sounds easy enough, but when I think about it, I realize that is not easy at all. I am not really sure my ego wants to embrace indifference! My ego shouts, “but what about me!!”
I like the idea of the heart exercises attentiveness. I am sure attentiveness is very important to being contemplative. In fact, I know one writer who would say that contemplation is attentiveness. I could agree with that. The trick is unless the ego embraces indifference, it will be difficult to be attentive. In fact, the ego wants you to be attentive to me. After all, the ego wants to make me the center of attention. Being contemplative changes that equation. Being contemplative shifts attentiveness to the other. Or better, we become available to others, as Lane tells us.
He adds to this when he comments, “Openness to the person before us…suddenly becomes possible.” Being attentiveness to the other opens us up to new experiences. A part of attentiveness is openness. If my ego is in charge, I tend to be closed. I am closed to the other, except for what the other can do for me. Contemplation is not concerned about my egocentric needs or desires. Being fully and deeply human is much bigger than these ego needs and desires.
Lane now switches to the arena of love. He says, “To love someone is to grant him or her the gift of one’s pure and undivided attention, without preconceived expectations of what the other person needs, what we imagine the best in the situation, what the particular results we want to engineer. This is a love finally purged of the ego’s calculating desires, a love without strings.” I very much appreciate this switch to love. Love is the central concern of being contemplative, because we are told in countless ways that God is love.
Love is at the heart of the universe. In fact, Ilio Delio will tells us that evolution is love unfolding---it is God’s continuous creative. To be attentive and contemplative is to be aware of this unfolding and be willing to participate fully in it. The concern is much bigger than our little egos.
Ultimately, this is good news. In the short run, it feels threatening. It is threatening because the ego feels threatened when it is not in control. But love is not about being in control. For many of us, this is a hard lesson to learn. We fear we cannot trust this kind of love. We fear we will not be in control. But if we can learn to be attentive and through that, become contemplative, we will realize there is nothing to fear.
In fact, this is the best news we can get!
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