Sunday, September 07, 2008

The second gaze

I make no apologies for reproducing the following without comment: I'm not feeling too well today, and in any case what could my comments add to such wisdom, truly? All I can say is that, as far as my slight experience goes, all Rohr says here has proved to be only too true!

My immediate response to most situations is with reactions of attachment, defensiveness, judgment, control and analysis. I am better at calculating than contemplating. Let's admit that we all start there. The false self seems to have the 'first gaze' at almost everything. On my better days, when I am open, undefended and immediately present, I can sometimes begin with a contemplative mind and heart. Often I can get there later and even end there, but it is usually a second gaze. It is an hour by hour battle, at least for me. I can see why all spiritual traditions insist on daily prayer - in fact, morning, midday, evening, and before we go to bed prayer, too! Otherwise, I can assume that I am back in the cruise control of small and personal self-interest, the pitiable and fragile "richard" self.

The first gaze is seldom compassionate. It is too busy weighing and feeling itself: "How will this affect me?" or "How does my self-image demand that I react to this?" or "How can I get back in control of this situation?" This leads us to an implosion, a self-preoccupation that cannot enter into communion with the other or the moment. Only after God has taught us how to live 'undefended' can we immediately stand with and for the other and for the moment. It takes lots of practice.

On a practical level, my days are two extremes: both very busy and very quiet and alone. I avoid most social gatherings, frankly because I know my soul has other questions to ask and answer as I get older. Small talk and 'busyness about many things' will not get me there. If I am going to continue to address groups, as if I have something to say, then I have to really know what I know, really believe what I believe, and my life has to be more experiential and intimate than mere repetition of formulas and doctrines. I am waiting, practicing and asking for the second gaze.

Your practice must somehow include the 'problem.' Prayer is not the avoiding of distractions, but precisely how you deal with distractions. Contemplation is a daily merging with the 'problem' and finding its full resolution. What you quickly and humbly learn in contemplation is that how you do anything is probably how you do everything. If you are brutal in your inner reaction to your own littleness and sinfulness, your social relationships and even your politics will probably be the same - brutal.

It has taken me much of my life to begin to get to the second gaze. By nature I have a critical mind and a demanding heart, and I am impatient. These are both my gifts and my curses, as you might expect. They are both good teachers. A life of solitude and silence allows them both, and invariably leads me to the second gaze. The gaze of compassion, looking out at life from the place of Divine Intimacy is really all I have, and all I have to give, even though I don't always do it.

God leads by compassion toward the soul, never by condemnation. If God would relate to us by severity and punitiveness, God would only be giving us permission to do the same. God offers us, instead, the grace to 'weep' over our sins more than ever perfectly overcome them, to humbly recognize our littleness rather than become big. It is the way of Cain. It is a kind of weeping and a kind of wandering that keeps us both askew and awake.

So now my later life call is to 'wander in the land of Nod,' enjoying God's so often proven love and protection and to look back at my life, and everybody's life, the One-and-Only-Life, marked happily and gratefully with the sign of Cain. Contemplation and compassion are finally coming together. This is my second gaze. It is well worth waiting for, because only the second gaze sees fully and truthfully. It sees itself, the other and even God with God's own eyes, which are always eyes of compassion.

Richard Rohr, from Radical Grace, with thanks to Inward/Outward

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