Contemplation

Some time ago, Jesuit preacher Fr. Walter Burghardt wrote that contemplative prayer is “taking a long, loving look at the real.”   This is the intention I bring to prayer, to meditation, to contemplative life in its many variations.  Contemplative sabbath: that space for grace and renewal.  Contemplative listening: that quality of friendship that cherishes nuance and depth.  Contemplative worship: that kind of communion that resists every urge to rush, to finish, to manage the clock.

Deep Steps, Maine, January 2019

Waiting for my daughter after school today, I see dozens of teens on their cellphones and one lying in the grass.  She interests me, resting there among green shoots and spring clover, her eyes closed in the warm sun, her hands folded patiently across her chest.  Contemplative adolescence?  What moves her to trust the soft grass, the warming of the earth, the universe around her?  What does she see--with her eyes closed, her soul at rest?  Who teaches her to take "a long, loving look at the real" at the end of another school day?

Maybe our good works, our activism, our resistance: maybe all these things ripen in such restfulness, such peace, such contemplation.  Maybe discipleship in the absence of contemplation becomes brittle, lonely, even desperate.  Fr. Burghardt's insight reminds me that faith is always about the loving look, the grateful acknowledgment, the wonder that accompanies incarnation.  Isn't it time to take "a long, loving look at the real"?