I have been contemplating contemplation lately. The moment I begin though, I see the amber warning light that care must be taken or an accident will occur. What seems to be now,
second nature to me in my life when I am
living it has become a mass of confusion when I attempt to
explain it.
Contemplation, like meditation, is easier said than done as it is, throw in a little
Major Depressive Disorder, and you've
got more than a few forks in the road; you've got a real
party in your head.
Not only do things like expressing yourself as you used to back-in-the-day become almost impossible, but good advice you remember and may want to share looks like a jumbled mess when seen on paper/satan's screen. So for now, I will put fingers-to-keys and let others (rightly) speak for me.
Thomas Merton, in his, New Seeds of Contemplation, says:
Contemplation is the highest expression of man's intellectual and spiritual life...proceed(ing) from an invisible, transcendent and infinitely abundant Source...above all, awareness of the reality of that Source. It knows the Source, obscurely, inexplicably, but with a certitude that goes both beyond reason and beyond simple faith. For contemplation is a kind of spiritual vision to which both reason and faith aspire, by their very nature, because without it they must always remain incomplete. Yet contemplation is not vision because it sees "without seeing" and knows "without knowing." It is a more profound depth of faith, a knowledge too deep to be grasped in images, in words or even in clear concepts. It can be suggested by words, by symbols, but in the very moment of trying to indicate what it knows the contemplative mind takes back what it has said, and denies what it has affirmed....
So, wow. Who can describe or know the unknown/unknowing? (See: Contemplative Prayer, Thomas Merton; and, The Cloud of Unknowing, Ed. Johnston, etc.) I am reminded of an unforgettable visit to Jesus in The Box. I was being overly-scrupulous (((again))) so Father gave me, as penance, a walk in nature to enjoy the beauty of God. Of course I thought I had POOF landed in a old Jesuit's box! (ha) I even had to repent to Number Three Son because I mocked said good priest. The brisk, get-it-over-with, I-don't-get-it penance-walk did lead to my contemplative journey, though. Thanks be to God.
Merton continues:
Poetry, music and art have something in common with the contemplative experience. But contemplation is beyond aesthetic intuition, beyond art, beyond poetry. Indeed, it is also beyond philosophy, beyond speculative theology. It resumes, transcends and fulfills them all, and yet at the same time it seems, in a certain way, to supersede and to deny them all.
...contemplation seems to supersede and to discard every other form of intuition and experience - whether in art, in philosophy, in theology, in liturgy or in ordinary levels of love and of belief... (but) it is and must be compatible with all these things, for it is their highest fulfillment. But in the actual experience of contemplation all other experiences are momentarily lost. They "die" to be born again on a higher level of life.
...contemplation reaches out to the knowledge and even to the experience of the transcendent and inexpressible God. It knows God by seeming to touch Him. Or rather it knows Him as if it had been invisibly touched by Him...
This is a new favorite book I am plowing through - A Spirituality for Real Life
I have been reading this for 16 years and humbly suggest it as a learn-to-pray guide*:
*Note: 365 days a year she will give you a different book which taught her to pray.
Happy and blessed contemplating contemplation! Being cautious of the amber lights means that you, dear reader, must stop before your excessive contemplating makes it impossible to contemplate anything atall.
