Dear Friends,
Greetings from Assisi!
With all the violence and chaos going on back home in the US right now and with all the war and violence in many parts of the world, I wanted to share with you a quote from Rowan Williams. This is the quote with which I end each weekly retreat, encouraging our Meditators to become part of the revolution:
“Contemplation is very far from being just one kind of thing that Christians do: it is the key to the essence of a renewed humanity that is capable of seeing the world and other subjects in the world with freedom—freedom from self-oriented, acquisitive habits and the distorted understanding that comes from them. To put it boldly, contemplation is the only ultimate answer to the unreal and insane world that our financial systems and our advertising culture and our chaotic and unexamined emotions encourage us to inhabit. To learn contemplative practice is to learn what we need so as to live truthfully and honestly and lovingly. It is a deeply revolutionary matter.“
We could easily add to “financial systems” and “advertising culture” political systems run amuck. Rowan’s point is so important. There are people calling for “revolution.” The same old talking heads are calling for “war.” The “us” and “them” mentality grows stronger every day. And everyone has a solution for how to deal with the “problem.” And, of course, the “problem” is always “them.”
The only revolution that will work is the Revolution of Contemplation. Why? Because contemplation goes beyond words and our world is filled with too many words—words that rarely come from a place of deep reflection; words that are increasingly nasty and accusatory.
Contemplation calls us to put down the words, to stop talking. It invites us to let go of all the inward chatter as well, to still all our mental gymnastics.
Thomas Keating, founder of Centering Prayer, explains that in contemplation we “sit down and really receive the sound of sheer silence. No thinking. No reflecting. No expectations. No thought of yourself as praying or meditating. Just do it. Just let the silence or the presence of God—which is almost synonymous with silence—rise up in you, or sink into it, or rest in it.” He reminds us that what we discover over time is that in the silence we are resting in the safety of our Beloved. And we begin to see ourselves, others, God and the whole world from a deeper, more expansive, more compassionate and loving perspective.
I can’t help but think of Francis and Clare, the two saints in whose footsteps we walk during these Assisi Retreats. It was quite prayer in chapels all over Assisi and in the quiet of Monte Subasio that led Francis to a radical change in his life, and a deep awareness of God present everywhere and in everyone—even in the lepers he used to so despise. It was her own practice of contemplation that led Clare to learn how to live in relationship with all. And she encouraged others to steep themselves in the practice. She wrote to one of her sisters:
Place your mind before the mirror of eternity!
Place your soul in the brilliance of glory!
Place your heart in the figure of the divine substance!
And transform your entire being into the image of the Godhead Itself through contemplation.
Now that’s revolutionary!
So instead of scrolling through Facebook to see who agrees and who disagrees with you (in other words, who is “us” and who is “them”); instead of joining in the mindlessly mean chatter of X; instead of tuning into the cable news cacophony, join the Contemplative Revolution.
It won’t take you out of the world. It will, with time, take the weary world’s mentality out of you. And it will open you up to the greatest gift you can give to yourself and to the world: words and actions that come from the deepest place of all, our Source, our Center, Our Infinite Wellspring: God who is Love.
Pace e bene,
Father Liam