Jessi hasn’t been inspired to write in the last week or so, and the blog was starting to look a little sad with only the daily del.icio.us links piling up, so I thought I should do my part and post something.
I’ve been reading some good books lately, so I guess I could share a bit about them. First, I read Father Thomas Keating’s book on contemplative prayer practice called, Open Mind, Open Heart
. I finished that one last week and started in on another great book, Lost Christianity, by Jacob Needleman. Both books share a common thread of digging into the Christian tradition to reveal holistic, transformational disciplines and practices that have too often been overlooked in favor of intellectual and emotional development.
I’ve felt for a long time that part of the equation was lacking, and both of these authors do a good job of shedding light on what that other part might entail. Both argue that there is an inner dimension in man beyond thought and emotion — a dimension that is actually of primary importance in spiritual development — that can only be developed through silence and contemplative practice.
There is a time for cultivating the mind and the heart, absolutely. And, there is a time to set these highly limited faculties aside and open our whole, unmediated selves to resting in the presence and reality of God through the practices of centering and contemplative prayer. This, I believe was the psalmist’s experience captured in the words, “Be still and know that I am God.”
Keating highlights the deep value of developing the inner life beautifully on page 44 of Open Mind, Open Heart:
“We fail to believe that we are always with God and that He is part of every reality. The present moment, every object we see, our inmost nature are all rooted in Him. But we hesitate to believe this until personal experience gives us the confidence to believe in it. This involves the gradual development of intimacy with God. God constantly speaks to us through each other as well as from within. The interior experience of God’s presence activates our capacity to perceive Him in everything else — in people, in events, in nature. We may enjoy union with God in any experience of the external senses as well as in prayer.
“Contemplative prayer is a way of awakening to the reality in which we are immersed. We rarely think of the air we breathe, yet it is in us around us all the time. In similar fashion, the presence of God penetrates us, is all around us , us always embracing us. Our awareness, unfortunately, is not awake to that dimension of reality. The purpose of prayer, the sacraments, and spiritual disciplines is to awaken us.”
Isn’t that great stuff? I find the prospect of living in that sort of awareness very exciting, and I have found this approach has reinvigorated my spiritual life in a new way. I don’t really have a point to make here, per se, other than to share with you where my mind has been this week. Maybe I will share more with all of you sometime soon.
-Adam
