A very dangerous activity...

Contemplation is a change in consciousness. It brings us to see beyond boundaries, beyond denominations, beyond doctrines, dogmas and institutional self-interest straight into the face of a mothering God from whom comes all the life that comes.

To claim to be aware of the oneness of life and not to regard all of it as sacred trust is a violation of the very purpose of contemplation, the immersion in the God of life. To talk about the oneness of life and not to know oneness with all of life may be intellectualism but it is not contemplation. Contemplation is not ecstasy unlimited. It is enlightenment unbounded by parochialisms, chauvinisms, classisms and gender.

Transformed from within, the contemplative becomes a new kind of presence in the world, signaling another way of being, seeing with new eyes and speaking with new words the Word of God. The contemplative can never again be a complacent participant in an oppressive system. From contemplation comes not only the consciousness of the universal connectedness of life but the courage to model it, as well.

Those who have no flame in their hearts for justice, no consciousness of responsibility for the reign of God, no raging commitment to human community may indeed be seeking God. But make no mistake, God is still, at best, only an idea to them, not a reality. Indeed, contemplation is a very dangerous activity. It not only brings us face to face with God. It brings us, as well, face to face with the world, face to face with the self. And then, of course, something must be done. Nothing stays the same once we have found the God within. We become new people and, in the doing, see everything around us newly, too. We become connected to everything, to everyone. We carry the world in our hearts: the oppression of all peoples, the suffering of our friends, the burdens of our enemies, the raping of the Earth, the hunger of the starving, the joy of every laughing child.

Joan Chittister, from 30goodminutes.org with thanks to Inward/Outward

This is what I keep trying to say when I write about contemplative prayer as being not less involved than intercession as it is often understood, but more involved; not self-obsessed but self-forgetful.

Maggie Ross wrote unforgettably of this:

There are as many ways of intercession as there are moments of life. Intercession can become deep and habitual, hidden even from our selves. There is nothing exotic about such practice. What matters is the intention that creates the space and the stillness. Even something as simple as refusing to anesthetize the gnawing pain in the pit of your soul that is a resonance of the pain of the human condition is a form of habitual intercession. To bear this pain into the silence is to bring it into the open place of God’s infinite mercy. It is in our very wounds that we find the solitude and openness of our re-creation and our being. We learn to go to the heart of pain to find God’s new life, hope, possibility, and joy. This is the priestly task of our baptism.

She (Ross) references St. Isaac the Syrian (aka St. Isaac of Nineveh), the 7th Century anchorite, in her footnotes. I am not sure which passage she is thinking of precisely; but the one that comes immediately to my mind is this one:

What is a merciful heart? It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation, for humanity, for the birds, for the animals, for demons, and for all that exists. By the recollection of them the eyes of a merciful person pour forth tears in abundance. By the strong and vehement mercy that grips such a person’s heart, and by such great compassion, the heart is humbled and one cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in any in creation.

For this reason, such a person offers up tearful prayer continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm her or him, that they be protected and receive mercy. And in like manner such a person prays for the family of reptiles because of the great compassion that burns with without measure in a heart that is in the likeness of God.

(Ascetical Homilies, pp. 344-5)

Those words probably come nearer than anything I've read to expressing what I've come to feel over the years I've been praying like this. It was only when I truly accepted the truth of St. Paul's words, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express..." (Romans 8.26 NIV) and admitted to myself that they perfectly described the way I came to prayer, that I began to understand what this strange calling might mean; and what living as a signal of a new way of being, a human sign of God's merciful presence, might involve. And that I am only just starting to know, at a very superficial level, since it once again involves paradox. A sign is to be seen; the calling of the contemplative is to hiddenness.