Contemplation
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Then Alleluiah all my gashes cry;
My woe springs up and flourishes from the tomb
In her lord's likeness terrible and fair;
Knowing her root, her blossom in the sky
She rears: now flocking to her branches come
The paradisal birds of upper air,
Which Alleluiah cry and cry again,
And death from out the grave replies Amen.
Ruth Pitter
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Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil; every man knows that something is wrong when he is being hurt... And pain is not only immediately recognizable evil, but evil impossible to ignore. But pain insists on being attended to. God whispers in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
C.S. Lewis
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I did homage to Christ as one pledges his sword and his fealty to a king. In reality, I suspect, it was not like that at all: I did not choose, I was chosen. The loving prayers of Davy and the rest--the prayers of C.S. Lewis, not just his books and letters--these did the work of the King. And yet there is much to be said for the pledged sword, even though it be so only in one's own mind: if in some future year faith should weaken, one cannot in honour forswear the fealty tendered in " I choose to believe."
Sheldon Vanauken
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I love these last details of Fall
when past its prime;
the graying hills,
no longer color-crowded, climb
subdued to meet a brilliant sky;
when sunlight spills,
filtering through branches
newly bare,
to warm a newly covered ground,
and light the way
for tired leaves
still falling down.
Poems... could well be termed the footprints of a pilgrim.
I wrote because, at times, I had to. It was write, or develop an ulcer--or forget. I chose to write.
Ruth Bell Graham
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Gratefulness is something we can’t help when we see
God’s goodness. When we
choose to acknowledge God as the source of this life flowing out of us, we are
in worship. Worship can be expressed by singing, dancing, painting, writing... by doing anything with a joyful and willing heart, by
serving others.
Worship
is dynamic. It makes us glow with health and vibrance. It propels us forward
out of hesitancy. It recreates us where we have been broken or hurt. It colors
our world like a rainbow.
Emily Isaacson
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I am forced to accept that my best work has been born from pain; I am forced to see that my own continuing development involves pain. It is pain and weakness and constant failure which keep me from pride and help me to grow...
Because I am a writer I live by symbol, and because I was born into the Western World my symbolism is largely Judaeo-Christian, and I find it valid, and the symbol which gives me most strength is that of bread and wine. Through the darkness of my uncomprehending, through my pain and weakness, only thus may I try to become open to God's love and I move to the altar to receive the body and blood, and accept with friend and neighbor, foe and stranger, the tangible assurance that this love is real.
Madeleine L'Engle
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We need more poets, artists, musicians and intuitive thinkers who will call us all to recognize, develop and properly exercise the imagination...
Many Christians look at the whole idea of imagination with suspicion and fear. It is too subjective, they feel; it leads us into emotionally based decisions and attitudes. Poets and artists are pretty unstable anyway--let's face it; all that counter culture business and free love and liberation theology and radical politics and living in those unhealthy garret studios or communes with no steady job to bring in the money--idealistic, quaint, but irresponsible! How much safer it seems to trust our lives to establishment and expectations, and to follow tried-and -true formulas and middle-class values and the security of rules and regulations. Imagination? Metaphor? Art? It's dangerous.
Contrary to prevailing attitudes, thinking with the imagination, with metaphors, is one thorough biblical way for us to peer at and recognize and comprehend God's truth.
Luci Shaw
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It is hard to remember just when you first became aware of being alive. It is like looking through rain onto a bald, new lawn; as you watch, the brown is all pricked with pale green. You did not see the points pierce, did not hear the stab--there they are!
Emily Carr
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There is a long tradition in the Christian life, most developed in Eastern Orthodoxy, of honoring beauty as a witness to God and a call to prayer. Beauty is never only what our senses report to us but always also a sign of what's just beyond our senses--an innerness and depth. There's more to beauty than we can account for empirically. In that more and beyond, we discern God. Artists who wake up our jaded senses and help us attend to these matters are gospel evangelists.
Eugene Peterson
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In the winter of
1947, Abbe Pierre, known as the modern apostle of mercy to the poor of
Paris, found a young family almost frozen to death on the streets. He
scooped them up and brought them back his own poor dwelling, already
crowded with vagrants. Where could he house them? After some thought, he
went to the chapel, removed the Blessed Sacrament, and placed it
upstairs in a cold, unheated attic. Then he installed the family in the
chapel to sleep for the night. When his Dominican confreres expressed
shock at such irreverence to the Blessed Sacrament, Abbe Pierre replied,
"Jesus Christ isn't cold in the Eucharist, but he is cold in the body
of a little child."
Brennan Manning
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Contemplative Connections
We may think that we know ourselves
yet we are often unaware of the essence that rests in the center of our beings.
To discover our true self, we must cross the great abyss - a void in which we
cram all sorts of things that we believe we need or want in our lives. The
abyss becomes like a closet full of treasures that we feel somehow defines us,
our lives, our very being. Instead of these things defining who we are, they
serve to accentuate the illusion of our façade or our false self.
Navigating the Abyss
The journey across the abyss provides revelations about
our selves. This can be a disconcerting and frightening journey if we do not
have the tools and skills to navigate this great chasm. By what means do we
clear the debris that prevents us from embracing our authentic self? What
vessel can we use to navigate the abyss? The vessel that we use to cross the
abyss and clear the debris is contemplative living - our being fine tuned by
relationships that connect us to God, self, others and nature. Our ability to
navigate the abyss is enhanced through contemplative
living.
Contemplative living
is a radical yet simple means of discovering who we truly are by entering into
deep relationships with our selves, God, others, and nature. To live
contemplatively is to be in the present moment while being aware of life
unfolding.
Listening: The First Response
The Rule of St. Benedict is a tool
used for centuries in the ancient monastic tradition of contemplative living.
The first word in The Rule is listen. Listening
is often our last response. We are so inundated with
life's happenings that out of sheer exhaustion we tune out what is vital to our
spiritual beings.
A contemplative's commitment is to respond intentionally,
consciously, and without judgment to what occurs in his/her life.
Contemplative living calls us to
rest within the pockets of silence in our lives. These pockets are
opportunities to listen to ourselves, God, others, and all of creation. When we listen first and
then respond in both verbal and
non-verbal ways, we are replenished. We find the strength to release the
debris that forms the barrier to our true selves and that prevents our
ability to enter into the deep, sustainable
relationships with God, others, and nature.
Crossing the Abyss of Illusion
To cross the abyss seems a daunting task. Once in the
abyss we are invited to release the illusions about our selves and gently
embrace the beautiful essence that reside at the centers of our beings. In
each moment that we navigate the abyss, it becomes more and more apparent
that we cannot cross the abyss alone. It is within relationship with our
selves, God, others and nature that we come to know ourselves on
deeper levels and, in turn, reach out to others. And, they reach toward us.
The abyss that separates us from ourselves is only an
illusion. The same is true of the abyss that separates us from God, others,
and nature. Contemplative living calls us to a radical and bold move of
stepping into the abyss, finding the pockets of silence, and listening with
our hearts. Contemplative living calls us to enter into union with all by
stripping the illusions from our lives. Contemplative living opens our eyes
to the realization that there is no separation; God, ourselves, others, and
nature live in unity.
Thomas Merton
