Chapter 2: The Contemplative Tradition: Discovering the Prayer-Filled Life
Chapter 2
The Contemplative Tradition: Discovering the Prayer-Filled Life
As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God,
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
-Psalm 42: 1-2a
Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continuously return.
—Thomas Kelly
2 
WE ALL HUNGER for a prayer-filled life, for a richer, fuller practice of the presence of God. It is the Contemplative Stream of Christian life and faith that can show us the way into just such intimacy with God. This reality addresses the human longing for the practice of the presence of God.
SEEKING A HISTORICAL PARADIGM
The life of Antonius — a Christian who lived many centuries ago — is for me a powerful example of the Contemplative Stream of faith and witness. Let me tell you his story, and in the telling we will catch a fuller picture of the Contemplative Tradition.
Antonius grew up in a rather well-to-do family in Egypt. His parents were committed Christians, and from everything we can learn, he had an excellent upbringing. But tragedy struck when Antonius was only a teenager: both of his parents died suddenly. As a result, the responsibilities of caring for the home and providing for his younger sister fell upon Antonius — a tough assignment for any young person! But he rose to the occasion.
Into the Desert
Antonius’s life vocation arose out of prolonged meditation on the book of Acts. For some months he had been prayerfully considering the moving stories of the disciples being of one mind and heart, holding all things in common, and giving to those in need. Then, one Sunday when the Gospel lesson was read — “Go sell all that you have and give to the poor and you shall have treasure in heaven” — the words spoke directly into Antonius’s heart. And he obeyed that Scripture quite literally. After making provision for his sister, he sold off his parents’ estate and gave the money to the poor. Another Scripture that deeply affected him at this same time was a sentence of encouragement from Jesus: “Do not be anxious for tomorrow.” On the strength of those two Gospel passages, Antonius went out into the Egyptian desert, seeking God.1
Antonius’s literal understanding and application of Scripture may embarrass us today. And certainly some of the things he did were a bit excessive, to say the least. But we need to understand that he was living at a time when Christians were becoming increasingly secularized. Seeing this, Antonius, and others like him, tried desperately to keep the Church from forgetting its first love. In the only way he knew, Antonius shouted, “No! Somehow, someway, Christians ought to be different; somehow, someway the Church ought to be different!”
Almost instinctively Antonius understood that the followers of Christ were the athletae Dei, the athletes of God. And, like a good athlete, Antonius had a single-hearted devotion toward the goal of Christlikeness. And so he renounced possessions in order to learn detachment; he renounced speech in order to learn compassion; he renounced activity in order to learn prayer.
So off he went into the solitude of the Egyptian desert, not just for a few days or weeks but for twenty years. Please understand, he did not do this to avoid responsibilities at home or to get away from people. Antonius went into the desert to discover God … and to fight the devil.
And fight the devil he did! The stories of his struggles with demonic forces are voluminous and fantastic — strange, perhaps, to modern sensibilities. But before we jump to analyzing the experiences, we would do well first to listen to them.
His first temptation experience, we are told, happened because the devil “wished to cordon him off from his righteous intention.” And so he paraded before Antonius a host of memories about what he was leaving behind: “the guardianship of his sister, the bonds of kinship … the manifold pleasure of food,” and the like. At first all of this raised “a great dust cloud of considerations” in Antonius’s mind. But his resolve stood firm. Next the devil “hurled foul thoughts” at him, but Antonius “overturned them through his prayers.” So the devil “resorted to titillation,” but Antonius, “seeming to blush, fortified the body with faith.” So, turning to more blatant sexual temptation, the devil decided to “assume the form of a woman and to imitate her every gesture,” but Antonius “extinguished the fire of his opponent’s deception.” Back and forth the fight went, Antonius winning round after round until the devil “fled, cowering at the words and afraid even to approach the man.” Concerned that we understand whose power was behind these victories, Antonius’s biographer writes, “This was Antonius’s first contest against the devil — or, rather, this was in Antonius the success of the Savior.”2 Well it may have been “his first contest,” but it was far from his last.
Another confrontation underscores the dramatic character of these stories. Antonius was visiting some above-ground tombs when demonic spirits attacked him and threw him to the ground. Not just once or twice, but again and again. Battered and exhausted, Antonius shouted out, “Here I am — Antonius! I do not run from your blows, for even if you give me more, nothing shall separate me from the love of Christ.” He then broke into song: “Though an army should set itself in array against me, my heart shall not be afraid.”
The demons, astonished by this courage, retreated. But at night they attacked again, violently shaking Antonius’s room. With terrifying noises the spirits took on the form of “lions, bears, leopards, bulls, and serpents, asps, scorpions, and wolves.” In the midst of the commotion, Antonius declared, “If there were some power among you, it would have been enough for only one of you to come. But since the Lord has broken your strength, you attempt to terrify me by any means with the mob; it is a mark of your weakness that you mimic the shapes of irrational beasts.” To this the demonic spirits had no defense. Defeated, they scattered.
Then Antonius was given a vision, “a certain beam of light descending toward him.” Humbled by the divine Presence, he nevertheless sought to understand why God would let him go through such terrible struggles: “Why didn’t you appear in the beginning, so that you could stop my distresses?” The response he heard spoke not only to his present situation but also to his future ministry. “And a voice came to him: ‘I was here, Antonius, but I waited to watch your struggle. And now, since you persevered and were not defeated, I will be your helper forever, and I will make you famous everywhere.’”3
These are the kinds of stories that are sprinkled throughout those first twenty years of solitude Antonius spent in the Egyptian desert. They show us that desert life was as much warfare as it was serenity. In fact, Antonius became known as a warrior against demons.*
The demonology in these stories is subtle and psychologically suggestive. The stories deal with far more than the conquering of demons; more profoundly, they deal with the conquering of the self — the demons within. Throughout the stories there is a penetrating element of self-scrutiny, self-knowledge, self-mastery. The demonic stood not only for what was hostile to human nature but for what was incomplete in human nature. Always the demons seemed to manifest themselves in exactly those guises that would make the desert monks the most needy and the most susceptible to temptation. All of the stories carry with them the sense of growth in grace, of character formation, of clarifying the motives and intents of the heart. For Antonius the issue was not so much conquest over particular demons as progress in virtue. In this we see how the Contemplative and Holiness Traditions interface with one another.
Throughout this process of desert temptation the role of spiritual discipline (askesis) was prominent. In fact, the very purpose of going into the desert was for training in spiritual discipline. This life involved solitude and fasting for the sake of intense, internal focus; meditation and prayer for the sake of deepening spiritual communion; Scripture study and reflection for the sake of the transformation of the mind; and manual labor and exorcism for the sake of doing the works of the Father.4
Now, the purpose of these Disciplines of the Spiritual Life was to train the body and the soul in righteousness. This, in turn, produced established men and women who could stand firm in the time of trial.
We find this kind of character formation in abundance in Antonius. His biographer writes, “It was not his physical dimensions that distinguished him from the rest, but the stability of character and the purity of the soul. His soul being free of confusion, he held his outer senses also undisturbed, so that from the soul’s joy his face was cheerful as well.”5 Antonius became characterized as “tolerant in disposition and humble of soul.”6 In fact, so striking was the transformation of his life that “simply by seeing his conduct, many aspired to become imitators of his way of life.”7 This was the fruit God produced in him from the years of solitude in the desert.
Into the World
Evidently this interior formation was not for Antonius alone, for after his twenty years in the desert God catapulted him into one of the most remarkable ministries of that day. Proclaiming the everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ, he moved freely among both society’s elite and its rejects — teaching, counseling, healing, expelling demons, and more. The Emperor Constantine Augustus sought out his counsel, but Antonius also ministered tirelessly among the poor in the mines and in the prisons.8 He confronted unjust judges and preached the gospel with great power. His speech was full of grace, often bringing reconciliation between hostile groups.
Antonius’s healing ministry was known throughout the region. Once, a count — Archelaus by name — asked Antonius to pray for a saintly and desperately ill woman, Polycratia, who lived across the Mediterranean Sea in the city of Laodicea. Moved by her need, Antonius did pray for her, “and the count marked the day on which the prayer was spoken.” Returning to Laodicea, Archelaus found Polycratia in perfect health. When he inquired about this dramatic change of circumstances, the people mentioned the day she had been healed. Immediately Archelaus “pulled out the sheet on which he had marked the time of prayer. And checking it, he at once showed the writing on the paper, and everyone was astonished to realize that the Lord had freed her from her pains just when Antonius was praying and appealing on her behalf to the goodness of the Savior.”9
Often the healing work was accompanied by a well-nigh-amazing discernment. On one occasion a man named Fronto came to Antonius seeking healing. He had multiple maladies, among them a growing blindness. Antonius discerned that Fronto was inordinately attached to him. So, rather than pander to his dependency needs, Antonius counseled Fronto to take responsibility for his own life, saying, “Leave, and you will be healed.” But Fronto did not leave, could not leave, would not leave, so attached was he to the master. As a result, no healing occurred. Time went by, and Antonius continued to resist Fronto’s lavish subservience. “You will not be able to be healed while staying here,” Antonius warned him again. “Go out, and when you arrive in Egypt you will see the sign accomplished in you.” At last, in desperation over his physical illnesses and with great sadness, Fronto turned to leave his master. As he walked away, he was healed!10 Such was the wisdom and discernment of Antonius. Indeed, wisdom and discernment are among the natural results of a prayer-filled life.
Though the stories of divine healing through the hands of Antonius are many and varied, not everyone was healed. We are told that with those who suffered, Antonius “sympathized and prayed.” He was “neither boastful” when healing occurred “nor disgruntled” when no healing occurred. “He encouraged those who suffered to have patience and to know that healing belonged neither to him nor to men at all, but only to God. … The ones who suffered therefore received the words of the old man as healing, and learned not to dwell on their infirmities but to be patient. And the ones who were cured were taught not to give thanks to Antonius, but to God alone.”11
The healing aspect of Antonius’s ministry reminds us of the tie between the Contemplative and the Charismatic Traditions. And the sensitivity in the exercise of that healing work teaches us many things. The stories of Antonius’s wisdom in teaching and disputation were legendary. Once two Greek philosophers came up the mountain to visit him, hoping for an opportunity to cross intellectual swords with him. When they arrived, Antonius said through an interpreter, “Why did you go to so much trouble, you philosophers, to visit a foolish man?” Respectfully, they responded that he was not foolish, but wise, and that they had come to him because of his wisdom. He replied, “If you came to a foolish man, your toil is superfluous, but if you consider me wise, become as I am, for we must imitate what is good. If I had come to you I would have imitated you; but since you came to me, become as I am; for I am a Christian.” At this the two philosophers knew they had met their match.12
On another occasion he was disputing with some Greeks who were ridiculing the cross of Christ. After considerable argumentation Antonius said to them, “Look, there are some here suffering from demons (for there were some who came to him distressed by demons, and he said, bringing them into their midst) — you cleanse them, either by your syllogisms, or by any skill or magic you might wish, summoning your idols! Or, if you are not able, end the war you wage with us, and behold the power of the cross of Christ!” Whereupon Antonius called upon Jesus in prayer and made the sign of the cross over those who were afflicted by demons. Immediately “the men stood and were sound, coming to their senses and giving thanks to the Lord.”13
The effect of his teaching ministry is expressed well in the words of his biographer: “All rejoiced while Antonius talked about these things. In some, the love of virtue increased, in others carelessness was discarded, and in still others conceit was brought to an end. And all were persuaded to hate the demonic conniving, marveling at the grace given by the Lord to Antonius for the discernment of spirits.”14
It is interesting to note that toward the end of his life Antonius returned to the solitude of the Egyptian desert, free from any compulsive attachments to “his ministry.”
Have you by now recognized that I have been telling the story of St. Antony, or Abba Antony, the founder of the Desert Fathers and Mothers? He lived in the third and fourth centuries (c. 251-356), and his story has been immortalized for us by Athanasius in The Life of Antony, a famous fourth-century biography that became something of a literary sensation in its day.
At the end of his biography Athanasius powerfully summarized the force of Antony’s life:
It was as if he were a physician given to Egypt by God. For who went to him grieving and did not return rejoicing? Who went in lamentation over his dead, and did not immediately put aside his sorrow? Who visited while angered and was not changed to affection? What poor person met him in exhaustion who did not, after hearing and seeing him, despise wealth and console himself in his poverty? What monk, coming to him in discouragement, did not become all the stronger? What young man, coming to the mountain and looking at Antony, did not at once renounce pleasures and love moderation? Who came to him tempted by a demon and did not gain relief? And who came to him distressed in his thoughts and did not find his mind calmed?15
That was Abba Antony. What about you and me? We live in very different times and in a very different place. But even so, we can still learn much from Abba Antony about the contemplative life, about the gaze of the soul upon God.
SEEKING A BIBLICAL PARADIGM
All the Traditions that form the structure of this book are deeply rooted in Scripture. And our understanding of each Tradition is immeasurably enriched by giving attention to its biblical expression. Examples of the Contemplative Tradition abound — from the Psalmist, who meditated upon God’s character, Law, and creation, to Mary, the mother of Jesus, who pondered all things in her heart; from Elijah, who kept a lonely vigil over earthquake, wind, and fire, to Mary of Bethany, who chose to sit at Jesus’ feet. But certainly one of the most glowing illustrations of the Contemplative Stream is John the Beloved, one of the original apostolic band.
John was one of the first to follow Jesus and one of the last at the foot of the cross (John 1:35-39, 19:26). Between those two events he was with Jesus almost constantly throughout his earthly ministry. And following Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, John lingered longer and contemplated more deeply than most on the Christ event. New Testament scholar Everett F. Harrison notes that John was “more alert than the others to the greatness of Jesus and was conscious of being at the center of an epochal, transforming movement in human history.”16
John is a model of the Contemplative Tradition for several reasons. The Gospel that bears his name has all the marks of an author who had spent a lifetime meditating upon Jesus’ life and ministry.17 This is most assuredly why A.H.N. Green-Armytage speaks of the Gospel of John as “the work of a contemplative.”18 Then too, if we can identify the Seer of Revelation with the Apostle John, as I believe we can, we have a powerful example of how God could use the solitude of Patmos to bring forth perhaps the most profound apocalyptic visions in the entire Bible. But most important of all is John’s teachings, especially his teachings on love. Entering into God’s great love for us and our responding love toward God is the abiding gift of the Contemplative Tradition. As Green-Armytage has written, “A contemplative … makes the love of God his main, his only object in life.”19
A Son of Thunder
The outline of John’s life, such as we have it, is straightforward enough. He was a fisherman, working for his father, Zebedee. The fishing business was prosperous enough that they had employees-Peter was likely one of them (Mark 1:20, Luke 5:7-9). Salome was John’s mother, and it is possible that this is the Salome who was the sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus (Matt. 27:56, Mark 16:1). If so, that would make John a cousin to Jesus.
On three occasions the Gospels present John in a rather unfavorable light — certainly far from the kind of person we picture as a shining example of the prayer-filled life. Once Jesus is traveling toward Jerusalem, and he sends some disciples on ahead to a village in Samaria, evidently to make arrangements for the night’s lodging. The village people refuse the request, and John and his brother James are incensed by their lack of hospitality. They ask Jesus, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Luke 9:54b). Now, in asking this, John is clearly within the tradition of Elijah, who had a knack for casting fire upon his enemies. But in Jesus, one greater than Elijah has arisen, and the young John has yet to understand the difference between the fiery denunciations of Elijah and the everlasting gospel of peace that Jesus brings. Jesus rebukes him.
On another occasion we detect a harsh intolerance in John. Evidently, upon seeing an “uncertified exorcist” casting out demons, John tries to stop his work. Rather proudly, it appears, he announces to Jesus, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.” Again John fails to understand the all-inclusive nature of Jesus’ mission and kingdom, and the Master has to rebuke him, saying, “Do not stop him; for whoever is not against you is for you” (Luke 9:49-50).
A third occasion gives hints at the personal ambition that drives John and his brother James. They approach Jesus with a rather audacious request: “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” Of course, they have no idea what they are really asking, and Jesus tells them as much in his kind but firm rebuke (Mark 10:35-40; cf. Matt. 20:21). These occasions may well explain the nickname that Jesus gave to John and his brother James: “Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17).
The Inner Circle
I imagine that these three events caused John genuine embarrassment in later years, but they are counterbalanced by three events in which only the inner circle — Peter, James, and John — had the privilege of participating. In the first, a synagogue leader, Jairus, begs Jesus to come to his little daughter, who is near death. But before Jesus arrives, messengers come, saying that the child has already died. Jesus continues on nonetheless, and we are told specifically that he “allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John” as he went into the home of Jairus. Once there, he made everyone at the house leave except for the child’s mother and father. He then took the child “by the hand and said to her, ***” Talitha cum,’ which means, ‘Little girl, get up!’ And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about” (Mark 5:35-43). Think of it: John was one of only five to witness this overwhelming event. Can you imagine the effect it must have had upon him?
The second event is the well-known transfiguration, and only “the three” are allowed to accompany Jesus. “Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.” We are told that the disciples “were terrified” at what transpired (Mark 9:2-8). (I am sure we would have been terrified too!) Think of it: John was one of only three to witness this all-consuming event. Can you imagine the effect it must have had upon him?
The third event occurs following the Last Supper. Jesus takes his disciples down and across the Kidron Valley and up to the Mount of Olives. When they come to the entrance to Gethsemane, he instructs the other disciples to “sit here while I pray.” But craving the company of “the three” for his moment of greatest agony, he “took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be distressed and agitated. And said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake.’ And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed” (Mark 14:32-35). Throughout that dark night Jesus prayed the agonizing prayer of relinquishment; and Peter, James, and John, overcome with sorrow and confusion, slept. But evidently they were awake long enough to overhear Jesus’ torturous prayer and to watch his physical struggle, perhaps even to see the bloodlike sweat. Think of it: John was one of only three witnesses to this excruciating event. Can you imagine the effect it must have had upon him?
“The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved”
These events, and others like them, produced a change in John that was altogether amazing. We see in him a deepening, settling, contemplative love. But I have yet to mention what was certainly the single most important influence in producing this transformation — namely, Jesus’ notable love for John. Five times in the Gospel of John the author speaks of “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 21:7).20
The first occurs in the Upper Room. As they gather for the Passover meal John sits next to Jesus, certainly a position of high privilege. John’s head is resting easily on Jesus’ chest as the two recline on cushions, John being on the right side and leaning to the left, according to custom: “One of his disciples — the one whom Jesus loved — was reclining next to him.”
Jesus then makes the startling announcement, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” John bolts upright with the announcement, and all the disciples begin looking around, wondering who it could be and what this could mean. Peter, thinking of a way to discover the culprit, motions to John to ask Jesus who he is referring to. John reclines back near Jesus and quietly, privately, asks, “Lord, who is it?” Quietly, privately, Jesus tells him, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish” (John 13:21-30). John alone among the disciples now knows the identity of the betrayer. It is a wonder that Jesus is willing to trust John with this privileged information, and an even greater wonder that John can remain calm (and silent) as the evening wears on.21
Following Jesus’ arrest, only two disciples overcome their fear sufficiently to watch the trial, “Simon Peter and another disciple.” We are not given the identity of this other disciple, but John is the likely candidate. Because of his acquaintance with the high priest, John has access to the hall where the trial is being held. John, in fact, speaks to the woman guarding the gate and is able to get Peter inside. Peter evidently stays back with the servants, where, as you may recall, he gets into considerable trouble. But John is able to go in close where he can hear the proceedings and thus becomes an eyewitness to details that are otherwise inaccessible to the followers of Jesus. Perhaps he is close enough to look into the Master’s eyes and see the giving and forgiving love Jesus has for him (John 18:12-16).
And perhaps it is John’s answering love that draws him irresistibly to the foot of the cross. From atop the cross Jesus “saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her.” Jesus’ next words both honor John’s love and care for Mary’s need: “Woman, here is your son. … Here is your mother.” From that point on, we are told, “the disciple took her into his own home” (John 19:25-27).
On Easter Sunday morning Mary Magdalene rushes up to Peter and “the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved” with the news that the grave stone has been removed and the body is missing. Together Peter and John run toward the tomb. John, younger and more agile perhaps, outruns Peter and arrives at the tomb first. He hesitates at the tomb’s entrance, but Peter brushes past him and goes inside. Taking courage, John joins Peter inside the tomb. Together they see the linen grave cloths lying in orderly array, bearing no sign of pillage or violence. A little distance from them rests the soudarion that had been around the head of Jesus. Looking at these things, John “saw and believed” (John 20:2-10). John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” was the first one to believe in the resurrection of Jesus.
On one last occasion we find the double use of that intriguing phrase. That occasion occurs beside the Sea of Tiberias. Seven of the disciples decide to go fishing together. But fishing, the one thing they know how to do well, they cannot do that night. Then, through the early-morning mists, they catch a glimpse of a form on the shore. A voice calls out, inquiring about their success. Grudgingly they shout back that there was no success, only failure. “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” And they oblige. I wonder whether John, as they cast the nets again, is thinking about another time when he heard those same words (see Luke 5:1-11). Immediately, the net is filled to the breaking point, and just as quickly John knows who spoke to them. “That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’” (John 21:1-8).
John has been called the Seer of Patmos, and so he was, but long before Patmos he was the Seer of Galilee. He saw, he knew, he spoke. Commenting on John’s discernment in this situation, Everett Harrison writes, “the understanding of the many comes through the contemplation of the few whose hearts have been attuned to the Lord.”22
The haunting phrase we have encountered four times now — “the disciple whom Jesus loved” — does not speak of a love past or terminated. The tense suggests a continuous flowing of Jesus’ love, and John reciprocates in love. John’s heart-love needs no scrutiny that day beside the Sea of Tiberias. That is Peter’s need, not John’s. Once Peter’s heart has been probed and the prophecy has been given about his martyrdom, Jesus begins to walk along the shore, speaking to Peter in words that come like an echo from the past: “Follow me.”
As the two of them walked away together, “Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; he was the one who had reclined next to Jesus at the supper and had said, ‘Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?’” (John 21:20). Peter, amazingly free from morbid preoccupation about his own future death, cannot help asking about the future of his friend and comrade. Patiently, lovingly, Jesus helps Peter see the question as a diversion from his own marching orders: “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!” (John 21:22). As events unfolded, we know that Peter served Jesus through a martyr’s death and John served Jesus through old age, but both served in answering love.
“Little Children, Love One Another”
God’s great love for us, and our answering love, is a prominent theme in John’s writings.23 His Gospel, as you know, contains one of the most treasured passages in all the Bible about God’s love: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).
The theme of love is a guiding feature of the Upper Room Discourse. In it we hear articulated Jesus’ new commandment: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). In the marvelous teaching on “abiding,” the theme of love again appears: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. … This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:9-13). And at the conclusion of Jesus’ high priestly prayer for unity, we hear the theme of love reiterated: “I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26).
But it is in John’s Epistles that we find the greatness of his teaching on love. The First Epistle especially reverberates with the theme of love, and through it we hear the echoes of the fourth Gospel: “For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another” (1 John 3:11).
Please understand, John’s call to love does not refer to some warm feeling or an abstract ideal. He is talking about clear-headed action toward God and others that is rooted in Jesus’ sacrificial action on our behalf.
From the outset John makes it clear that our love is not an originating love but a responding love: “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Nor is God’s love toward us vague or ethereal. From years of contemplating the divine condescension, John saw that “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10). In this emphasis on responsive love John helps us see something of the interplay between the Contemplative and the Incarnational Traditions. Divine love (which is at the heart of the contemplative life) must be given visible expression (which is at the heart of the incarnational life).
Therefore, the incarnation — and most specifically Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross — becomes the visible sign of God’s love toward us. This is one reason that John placed such importance upon confessing “that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.” For John, the failure to make this confession is a certain sign of “the spirit of the antichrist” (1 John 4:2-3).24 In this emphasis on the incarnation John again helps us see something of the interplay between the Contemplative and the Incarnational Traditions. To repeat: divine love (which is at the heart of the contemplative life) must be given visible expression (which is at the heart of the incarnational life).
With the source and spring of our love clear, John then proceeds to make the action of our love clear: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us — and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” (1 John 3:16-17). No teaching could be more straightforward and clear than that. Or this: “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars. … The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also” (1 John 4:20-21).
Now, with these concrete expressions of love clearly before us, we are prepared to hear what must be considered the high-water mark of John’s teaching on love: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love” (1 John 4:16b-18). Clearly, John deserves the title history has given him: the Apostle of Love.
During the reign of Domitian (A.D. 81-96), John was banished to the island of Patmos, where in complete solitude he received the mystic visions that form the core of his Apocalypse, the last book of our Bible. Released from Patmos, John spent the remaining years of his long life as Bishop in Ephesus.25 Tradition tells us that when John was no longer able to walk, disciples would carry him into the worshiping community, where he would urge the people again and again, “Little children, love one another.”26
And so, from the intimacy of the Last Supper, to the contemplative teachings on love, to the solitude of Patmos, to the pastoral ministry in Ephesus, John provides us with an exemplary model for the Contemplative Tradition. Deepest intimacy and abiding love, prayerful meditation and discerning contemplation — these are the marks of John’s life and ministry.
SEEKING A CONTEMPORARY PARADIGM
Regardless of how inspiring the stories of Abba Antony and the Apostle John might be, they are far removed from our day. Can this contemplative way of life be experienced in our time, especially among those of us who must constantly face the demands and pressures of ordinary life? To find an answer to this pressing question, we can do no better than to consider the life of Frank C. Laubach.
A man of prayer and a man of action, he was the Apostle of Literacy to “the silent billion,” as he referred to those who could neither read nor write. Earning degrees from Princeton University, Union Seminary, and Columbia University, he was highly sophisticated theologically and psychologically.
Laubach’s greatest work grew out of the ashes of a bitter disappointment. He had been a missionary educator in the Philippines for over ten years, helping establish Union Seminary in Manila and serving as dean of the School of Education at the University of Manila. Then in 1925 the seminary decided to establish a separate administration for its growing college in Manila. Laubach, a member of the board, desperately wanted the new position of college president, but out of chivalry he voted for his opponent. He lost the presidency by one vote.27
The Solitude of Mindanao
His educational career now in shambles, Laubach spent two years in bitter self-recrimination, and an onslaught of illnesses left him a semi-invalid. Finally, realizing that his emotional self-flagellation was affecting his health, he sought a deeper devotional life. Even though this did not take root, eventually his health did return, and in 1929 he accepted the call to evangelistic work in the area surrounding beautiful Lake Lanao on the island of Mindanao, Philippines. Since Lanao was isolated, dangerous, and lacking in health services, Laubach’s wife, Effa, and their only surviving child — three children had died from malaria — stayed in Baguio, nine hundred miles to the north.
Hence, with only the companionship of his dog, Tip, Laubach labored among the Maranao people. Success was elusive at first. Each evening, with Tip at his side, Laubach would climb Signal Hill back behind his cottage. On top of that hill overlooking Lake Lanao, disheartened and utterly alone, he sought companionship with God.
One December evening in 1929 on Signal Hill, Frank Laubach had a transforming experience. His own words describe it best:28
One evening I was sitting on Signal Hill looking over the province that had me beaten. Tip had his nose up under my arm trying to lick the tears off my cheeks. My lips began to move and it seemed to me that God was speaking.
“My Child,” my lips said, “you have failed because you do not really love these Moros. You feel superior to them because you are white. If you can forget you are an American and think only how I love them, they will respond.”
I answered back to the sunset, “God, I don’t know whether you spoke to me through my lips, but if you did, it was the truth. … Drive me out of myself and come and take possession of me and think Thy thoughts in my mind. …”
My lips spoke to me again: “If you want the Moros to be fair to your religion, be fair to theirs. Study their Koran with them.”
Climbing down Signal Hill, Laubach told some local priests that he wanted to study their Koran. “The next day,” he notes, “they crowded into my little cottage, each with a Koran under his arm. They were bent upon making a Moslem out of me! So we went to work with great zeal.”
Of that pivotal event Laubach said, “After that night on Signal Hill, when God killed my racial prejudice and made me color-blind, it seemed as though He were working miracles at every turn.” From this watershed experience two great pioneering efforts emerged — one internal and the other external — both inextricably bound together. The first explored the growth of the soul under God. The second involved the development of a literacy movement that eventually reached an estimated sixty million people.
Journey Inward
Laubach’s letters and journal notations on his inward journey are endlessly moving. Fortunately he preserved his early experiences on Signal Hill in what could arguably be his most important piece of writing, Letters by a Modern Mystic. These letters to his father describe the “open windows and swinging doors” into a vastly deeper and fuller spiritual life than he had ever known.
One glorious experience occurred on 24 May 1930: “The day had been rich but strenuous, so I climbed ‘Signal Hill’ back of my house talking and listening to God all the way up, all the way back, all the lovely half hour on the top. And God talked back! I let my tongue go loose and from it there flowed poetry far more beautiful than any I ever composed. It flowed without pausing and without ever a failing syllable for a half hour. I listened astonished and full of joy and gratitude. I wanted a dictaphone for I knew that I should not be able to remember it — and now I cannot. … ‘Why,’ someone may ask, ‘did God waste his poetry on you alone, when you could not carry it home?’ You will have to ask God that question. I only know He did and I am happy in the memory.”29 Stories like this, reflecting the vibrancy and excitement of Laubach’s spiritual growth, are legion.
On 10 February 1931, Laubach evaluated what had been happening to him: “If there is any contribution that I have to make to the world that will live, surely it must be my experience of God on Signal Hill.”30 And the reaction of the people was a constant source of amazement to him. “I do nothing that I can see excepting to pray for them, and to walk among them thinking of God. They know I am a Protestant. Yet two of the leading Moslem priests have gone around the province telling everybody that I would help the people to know God.”31
This led Laubach into many experiments in prayer. His “Game with Minutes” is the delightful spiritual exercise of forming a habit of having God in mind each minute we are awake. “Impossible,” you may say. Laubach himself wondered about its feasibility: “Can I bring God back in my mind-flow every few seconds so that God shall always be in my mind as an after image, shall always be one of the elements in every concept and percept? I choose to make the rest of my life an experiment in answering this question.”32
While going through busy days filled with literacy development, he was constantly “learning the vocabulary of God” (a phrase that he later used as a book title). On 1 January 1937, from Nagpur, India, he wrote, “God, I want to give You every minute of this year. … I shall try to learn Your language as it was taught by Jesus and all others through whom You speak — in beauty and singing birds and cool breezes, in radiant Christlike faces, in sacrifices and in tears.”33
One of the most stunning lessons Laubach learned was how prayer and work blend into one. On 11 March 1937, while working on a literacy plan for the Urdu Dihate Indian dialect, he wrote, “Of all today’s miracles, the greatest is this: To know that I find Thee best when I work listening, not when I am still or meditative or even on my knees in prayer, but when I work listening and co-operating.”34 This, you see, is a marvelous contemporary expression of the ancient Benedictine rule ora et labora, “work and pray.”
Everywhere he went Laubach experimented with what he called “flash prayers.” At a station in Allahabad, India, he wrote, “This morning, as I came from the train and prayed for all the people on the street, I felt new energy surge into me. What it does to all of them to receive that instant prayer I may never know. What it does for me is electrical. It drives out fatigue and thrills one with eager power.”35
He attempted many similar experiments. Once, after what seems to have been a tennis match, he wrote, “Yesterday, Lord, I saw how an experiment in prayer may be tried by athletes! I tried to put my arm in Thy control and my playing improved so much that instead of losing, I won. I tried to put my opponent’s arm under Thy control and believe he did better. We humans have not begun to suspect what a field for useful scientific research prayer is!”36
Laubach’s prayer experiments constantly turned him to the needs of others. On 27 April 1937, at Kikuyu, Kenya, he felt God speaking to him: “My child, when you pray to Me of your own little troubles and doubts, your prayer is pretty thin and small. When you reach out to help other people by offering yourself as a channel for Me, your prayer becomes at once large and noble.”37
Often intercession for others filled his diary notations. On 22 May 1937, at Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, he wrote, “Sitting in the church alone for a long while trying to give Thee out to many people, I wanted to become that way habitually, so that to see a man would be more than to pray; it would be to give him my soul filled with Thee, O Christ. Can I become that way to the English with their insufferable snobbery? Can I ignore it? Can Love and I draw a circle to take them in and to understand them and to give my soul to them full of Christ? That is a good test!”38 Always he kept trying to learn how intercessory work could be done better. He wrote, “Father, am I not learning that the best way to pray for people is to go and sit near them and pray while there? Perhaps holding their letters or photos in my hand is as effective. This experiment which I began May 8 with letters and photos, recording the hour when I pray, may answer this question.”39 All of Laubach’s manifold experiences in prayer reinforce to us that at its center the Contemplative Tradition is a prayer-filled life.
Journey Outward
It would be possible to go on and on with these many experiments in growing a soul that Laubach felt were his greatest gift to humanity. Equally significant, however, is how he brought the life of contemplative prayer directly into the world of action and social concern. This is seen most fully in the worldwide volunteer movement he developed for promoting literacy — a movement informally known as “each one teach one.” In time, this work, which was a direct outgrowth of his inward spiritual explorations, extended to two hundred different languages and dialects in over one hundred countries. But the work did not begin as a worldwide movement. In 1929, in total obscurity beside Lake Lanao, Laubach began learning the Maranao language. Up to that point almost no work had been done in the field of adult literacy education.* Lanao proved to be the perfect laboratory, for the Maranao language was uncomplicated and perfectly regular. Before long, with the help of several paid staff members, Laubach had large numbers of adults reading, and he was publishing a bimonthly newspaper, the Lanao Progress. Then, in December 1932, Laubach received word that mission funds for the program were being cut because of the Depression. Sadly he called his crew together and explained that he could no longer pay salaries for the teachers. At this, one of the most influential chieftains on the island, Kakai Dagalangit, stood and said, “This campaign shall not stop. It’s Lanao’s only hope.” Then, staring directly at the teachers with fierce eyes, he declared, “I’ll make everybody who knows how to read teach somebody else, or I’ll kill him.”40 Laubach wisely modified this “teach or die” approach into “each one teach one,” and the Laubach Literacy Movement was born.
Word of Laubach’s literacy program in Lanao spread quickly, and numerous groups interested in trying to duplicate his efforts elsewhere wrote him, seeking help. Attempts to respond by correspondence produced only meager results, so Laubach determined that he would arrange to visit missionary educators at sites along his route home on his next furlough to the United States. He paid all expenses of this first literacy tour himself, a tour that took him to Singapore, Ceylon, India, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey.
Once in the United States Laubach met with friends to consider the potential for developing a worldwide literacy program. This led to the founding of the World Literacy Committee, which provided the financial backing for his vision.
Laubach returned to India and tried to tackle the problem of 325 million illiterate Indians, a far more formidable task than he had faced in Lanao. While the Maranao language had only sixteen letters, some of the Indian languages had hundreds of letters and letter combinations. In addition, almost all printed material in India was written in a literary style far different from the common, spoken language. Traveling sixteen thousand miles and conducting conferences throughout India, he finally developed a technique of “picture-word-syllable” correlations that could teach illiterate peoples to read in Hindi, Urdu, and Marathi. He met with Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru and was involved in over two hundred promotional and organizational meetings for the literacy of India.
In 1938 Laubach published Toward a Literate World, the first in a host of literacy development writings, the most famous being, Forty Years with the Silent Billion. His burning passion for literacy took him to every continent of the globe, where he worked both within and outside Christian settings. He met with kings, prime ministers, presidents, generals, and colonial administrators from Lebanon to Malaya. He developed literacy in Afghanistan, Nepal, Dutch New Guinea, and nearly one hundred other countries. He worked with President Harry Truman to build broad-based support in the United States for increased international aid for literacy efforts. He developed an English literacy program — Streamlined English — which continues to be used to this day. And on and on it goes.
Perhaps one event can stand as a paradigm for hundreds of similar stories. In 1950 Laubach decided to develop a literacy program in Dondi, Angola. The news of Laubach’s coming spread, and by the time he arrived, thousands of people were waiting. To reduce the group to a manageable size, Laubach told the crowd that literacy training would be given only to those who had walked twenty miles or more. Twelve hundred people remained! In three days Laubach and his team created an Umbundu language literacy primer. Large charts of each lesson were used to teach four hundred schoolchildren, each of whom in turn taught two others. Under every tree as far as the eye could see, “teachers” and students were hard at work.
By the end of the week the young teachers began presenting their students to five examining boards who were in continuous session. Nearly four hundred new readers received diplomas at a graduation ceremony attended by more than four thousand people. Of this event Laubach wrote, “The emotion and exclamations of those new literate graduates beggars all description.” Cheers rose as Laubach announced a gift of five hundred dollars to translate his graded reader, The Story of Jesus, into Umbundu. Upon leaving Dondi, Laubach found himself torn between “gratitude for what had been accomplished and regret that we could not stay there the rest of our lives.”41
In the Contemplative Stream Frank Laubach stands as a shining star. His profound and multifaceted prayer experiences catapulted him into a worldwide literacy mission. What can we say about his life and his work? Perhaps his own words speak most eloquently: “God, what is man’s best gift to mankind? To be beautiful of soul and then let people see into your soul.”42
DEFINING THE CONTEMPLATIVE TRADITION
“Beautiful of soul.” Certainly this is one of the deepest descriptions of the Contemplative Stream, the prayer-filled life. But all of us are painfully aware of how far we fall short of that description. How do we become “beautiful of soul”? The devotional masters struggle to describe this process to us: “This divine, loving fire of contemplation … this burning of love … the fire and wound of this forceful love … this very fire of love … love aflame … the fire of divine love.”43 In fact, the two most common words used to describe the contemplative way of life are fire and love. Purging, purifying fire. Enveloping, comforting love. This is the stuff of the contemplative life.
Put simply, the contemplative life is the steady gaze of the soul upon the God who loves us. It is “an intimate sharing between friends,” to use the words of Teresa of Avila.44 Let me describe for you some of the contemplative life’s most fundamental characteristics and movements.45
Love. Through time and experience we sense a delicate but deepening love for God that feels more like a gift than an achievement. In the beginning this love is so quiet and unobtrusive that it is hardly perceptible. John of the Cross calls it a “secret and peaceful and loving inflow of God.”46 This is a great encouragement to us, for early in our prayer life — try as we might — we are unable to truly love God. This love comes little by little, and at first we experience a great deal of fluctuation in its intensity. High and low, hot and cold. In time, however, our love grows deeper, stronger, more steady.
Peace. At the same time, in slips a peace that cannot be analyzed or dissected — “a peace that passes understanding,” as Paul puts it (Phil. 4:7). This quiet rest, this firmness of life orientation, is not due to the absence of conflict or worry. In fact, it is not an absence at all, but rather a Presence. This peace is interrupted often by a multitude of distractions, especially in the beginning. But no matter — it is still there, and it is still real. And in time its quiet way wins over the chatter and clatter of our noisy hearts.
Delight. Another movement we begin to experience is delight. A very wise woman — one who had been through great hardship in her life — captured the essence of this quality for me when on one occasion she declared, “Fun ahead, saith the Lord!” There is pleasure, friendship, joy — deep joy. And playfulness. God laughs into our soul and our soul laughs back into God. John of the Cross calls it “the sweet and delightful life of love with God … that delightful and wondrous vision.”47 But it is not uninterrupted delight. We experience an ebb and flow, an exquisite delight mingled with a painful yearning.
Emptiness. Which brings us to an opposing, almost contradictory movement in the contemplative life: emptiness. At the very moment we are entering a loving delight, we are also pulled into intense longing, yearning, searching — searching and not finding. Well, there is a finding of sorts, but not a complete finding. Perhaps we could call it a dissatisfied satisfaction. John of the Cross calls it “a living thirst … [the] urgent longing of love.”48
Often the emptiness is a darkness as well. We experience Deus Absconditus, the God who is hidden from us. Dryness too — a Sahara of the heart. Throughout these experiences solitude is our welcome companion, for we are learning to be alone with the Alone. Please understand, this emptiness, this darkness, this dryness is itself prayer. It is a heavenly communion of an ascetic sort. While delight is a feasting, emptiness is a fasting, and both are needed for the growth of the soul.
Fire. Still another reality we experience as we grow in the contemplative life is fire. Not literal fire, of course, but real fire nonetheless — in some ways more real than literal fire. The initial movement of love now intensifies, becoming a steady, flaming passion. Anything that causes distance or separation from God — disobedience or perhaps mere neglect — is painful in the extreme. So we feel, and even welcome, the purifying fire of God’s love burning out the dross: all stubbornness, all hate, all grasping need for self-promotion. And as the self-sins are burned away, the seeds of universal love blossom and flower.
Wisdom. This leads to a still deeper movement of the Spirit: wisdom. No sterile intellectualism or impersonal awareness, this is a knowing and inflowing of God himself. We are filled with “the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14). We know as we are known. We enter that eternal life which is to “know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3b). Prayer turns into the deepening self-communication of the Trinity, a self-communication we are privileged to listen in on and even participate in.
Transformation. Through it all, God gradually and slowly “captures” the inner faculties: first the heart and the will, then the mind, the imagination, and the passions. The result is the transformation of the entire personality into the likeness of Christ. More and more and more we take on his habits, feelings, hopes, faith, and love.*
DISCOVERING THE MAJOR STRENGTHS
The Contemplative Tradition brings many strengths to our Christian walk. Let me mention four.
The first and most fundamental contribution of the Contemplative Tradition is that it constantly fans the flames of our “first love” (Rev. 2:4). Its message is this: “Love God with all your heart … love God with all your heart … love God with all your heart. Without heart-love you have nothing.” The contemplative life is always calling us back to our beginnings, always forcing us to the root, always reminding us of our foundation. It keeps saying to us, “Fall in love with Jesus over and over and over again.”
Now, we must not let the simplicity of this message fool us. Maintaining our “first love” demands ceaseless vigilance. We need habitual reminders that the Christian life comes not by gritting our teeth but by falling in love.
Second, the Contemplative Tradition forces us beyond merely a cerebral religion. It insists on the insufficiency of intellectual formulation alone. Thomas Merton writes, “The contemplative is … he who has risked his mind in the desert beyond language and beyond ideas where God is encountered in the nakedness of pure trust, that is to say in the surrender of our own poverty and incompleteness in order no longer to clench our minds in a cramp upon themselves, as if thinking made us exist.”49
This emphasis is important because of our perennial tendency to keep faith at arm’s length — even from ourselves. If all this gets too close to us, we might lose our objectivity, our perspective. And our independence. (Oh, how we fear the loss of our independence!) It is the Contemplative Stream that teaches us the truth of George Matheson’s prayer:
Make me a captive, Lord,
And then I shall be free;
Force me to render up my sword,
And I shall conqueror be.50
The stress upon the centrality of prayer is a third contribution of the Contemplative Tradition. Contemplatives do not think of prayer as a good thing, or an important thing, but as the essential thing, the primary thing. Theophan the Recluse put it well: “If prayer is right, everything is right.”51
But the Contemplative Tradition offers more than an insistence upon the pivotal nature of prayer. It also offers a distinctive angle on prayer: a stress upon silence and a call to unceasing prayer. Brother Lawrence shares with us his practice of the presence of God: “I do nothing else but abide in his holy presence, and I do this by simple attentiveness and an habitual, loving turning of my eyes on him. This I should call … a wordless and secret conversation between the soul and God which no longer ends.”52
Fourth, more than other approaches to faith the Contemplative Stream emphasizes the solitariness of our life with God. In the language of the old folk spiritual, we must travel this “lonesome valley” alone. “No one else can walk it for me. I have to walk it by myself.” Solitariness does not mean individualism, but it does mean that there are limits to the role of the community. I am responsible for developing a personal history with God. You too. That is not something others can do for us. So, while we always want to affirm the importance of the Christian community, we need to understand that our growth in grace must contain a good dose of solitude.
This is a rocky, desert spirituality. We are summoned to explore the desolate, barren landscape of the soul — landscape that most people studiously avoid (except perhaps in their nightmares). It is the place where we find true hope, but only after we see how like despair hope is. It is the place where we discover that the cross means mercy and not cruelty, life and not death. These are some of the things that we learn from the Contemplative Tradition.
UNDERSTANDING THE POTENTIAL PERILS
Not everything in the Contemplative Tradition is positive, however. Every movement has its dangers and perils, and the Contemplative Stream is no exception. But forewarning will help forearm us, help us avoid dangerous shoals and riptides. (I should add that these dangers are caused by distortions of the Tradition; they are not essential ingredients in it.)
Certainly the most obvious danger encountered in any exploration of the Contemplative Tradition is the tendency to separate it from ordinary life. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that much of our literature in this field is written by monastics. It is easy to wonder, for instance, if the contemplative life is applicable or relevant to computer programmers and machinists and stay-at-home dads and moms with clothes to wash and floors to clean. Let’s be honest: the desert monastics did not have to concern themselves with diapers or baby-sitters or PTA meetings.
But we need to be absolutely firm in our insistence that smack in the middle of everyday life is precisely where prayer and intimacy with God need to be developed. True, some may have special callings to intense expressions of contemplative living that are separate and apart, but the vast majority of us build a history with God right in the midst of our families and our places of living and working and among our neighbors and friends. These places comprise the “holy ground” where we are to find God. Church attendance and Bible reading and other “religious” activities will find a place in our overall experience, but the truly holy place for us will be at our office or workbench, at the playground with our children, in the quiet sanctuary of our home or apartment, with our spouse or in profound solitude (if we are single).
A subtle form of this same danger is seen in the way an intense focus upon the contemplative life keeps some people from serious engagement with the pressing social issues of our day.53 When prayer and piety are used as a dodge from responsible action, we must expose this twisted and deformed spirituality as an impostor. White-hot love for God is necessarily tied to a concern for the broken and bleeding of humanity. A genuine prayer life powerfully connects us with the suffering and pain and injustice of our fallen world.
A second peril is a kind of “consuming asceticism.”54 Asceticism itself simply means “training”; we derive our English word “athlete” from the same root. And we all need to train in the spiritual life. But just as we can find people who are obsessed with exercise, so we can find people suffering from “spiritual gluttony.”
While modern people are seldom in danger of this temptation — our temptation runs in the opposite direction! — it certainly plagued Christians in earlier generations. For instance, Simeon Stylites, the famous Egyptian “pillar saint,” lived for thirty years on a sixty-foot-high column, binding himself to the pillar by a rope so that he would not fall. “The rope became embedded in his flesh, which putrefied around it, and stank, and teemed with worms. Simeon picked up the worms that fell from his sores, and replaced them there, saying to them, ‘Eat what God has given you.’”55
In Europe and the British Isles we find examples of the same kind of consuming asceticism, with every practice more fantastic than the one before. St. Ciaran mixed his bread with sand. St. Kevin remained in a standing posture for seven years. St. Finnchua spent seven years suspended by his armpits from iron shackles. St. Ite caused his body to be eaten into by beetles.56
We today are appalled at these excesses — and in truth they are appalling. But are they all that different from today’s excesses? We find people, for example, whose entire lives revolve around having “buns of steel.” Consuming asceticism and inordinate exercise are opposite ends of the same obsession.
We avoid a consuming asceticism by clearly understanding the true purpose and right place of ascetical practices. We train in the spiritual life so that we have the ability to live rightly. It is not fasting for fasting’s sake, for example, but fasting so that we can learn feasting upon God. The Disciplines of the spiritual life are a means, not an end. The end is “to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.”57 The end is “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). The end is a wild, hilarious love relationship with God in which we freely live and do the will of God.
The third peril in the Contemplative Tradition is the tendency to devalue intellectual efforts to articulate our faith. This can sometimes border on (or plunge headlong into) anti-intellectualism. We can see this in the various mysticisms that are divorced from solid theology. And even completely orthodox writers in this Tradition can sometimes inadvertently contribute to this problem in their zeal to stress heart-faith.
It is not hard to understand why this danger emerges. We have all seen the kind of cold, obtuse theology that cannot engage the will or touch the heart. However, in our attempts to correct intellectualism devoid of life, we must not debunk the necessity of right reason and clear thinking. We love God with both the mind and the heart, and these two must ever be inseparable twins for us. (This is an issue we will revisit in a later chapter, for it is a danger that emerges in many guises.)
The fourth and final peril I want to discuss with you — how I wish it truly was the final peril; these dangers are legion — is the tendency to neglect the importance of the community of faith. Now, this is a checkerboard peril, for many contemplatives are part of intentional communities that show forth some of the most sterling examples of loving, nurturing accountability. But, as we will see more than once, a Tradition’s greatest strength has the potential to become a serious weakness. The contemplative stress upon our solitariness before God — a message we desperately need to hear — can lead us, especially in Western cultures, into an individualism that thinks only in terms of “God and me.” Certain mystical expressions — especially those tinged with an anti-institutional spirit — are particularly susceptible to this danger. Sometimes it is tied to the anti-intellectualism noted above, which causes people to ignore the rigorous theological work of the past. The result: a doctrinal naivete that frequently leads to an unknowing heterodoxy.
Suffice it to say that we need connections. True, God may call out an occasional Elijah or John the Baptist, but these exceptions only prove the rule. The vast majority of us are not meant to live out our faith in isolation.* We need the community of faith, the body of Christ. We need other sisters and brothers who love us, support us, and give us their discernment. And we need to be connected to the heavenly community of the past — “the communion of saints.” We are empowered by learning their stories, sharing their struggles, gaining strength from their courage, learning from their mistakes, and being instructed by their teaching.
PRACTICING THE CONTEMPLATIVE TRADITION
Always, with each and every one of these Traditions, we must answer the question of how to translate it into practice in everyday life. Here, then, we must ask how the contemplative way can be experienced as part of our daily routine. Because the answer could comprise an entire volume, let me be suggestive rather than exhaustive.
First, experiment with varied venues for solitude. Take a pre-dawn walk, listening to the awakening sounds of your world (whether city or country). Limit your speaking for one day and see what you learn about yourself and others. Sit in an airport or bus station and observe people carefully, reflecting on what you see. Take a one-day silent retreat — or a three-day retreat, a seven-day retreat. Go to the city for a social justice retreat. Make your next plane flight or bus trip a personal retreat. For one month leave your car radio off and make your morning commute a mini-retreat. Arise at 2:00 A.M., light a single candle as a reminder of the presence of Christ, and for one hour listen to the sounds of the night. You will, I am sure, think of many more ways to discover wilderness time for yourself.
Second, for a time set aside your normal Bible reading and try praying the Scripture. This is prayerful reading in which we turn our heart and mind and spirit ever so gently to the divine Center. All of our external and internal senses swing like a needle to the polestar of the Spirit. We read slowly, quietly, prayerfully, pausing at any word or phrase where we feel the Spirit’s drawing.
Perhaps we come upon Nehemiah’s wonderful statement, “The joy of the LORD is your strength” (Neh. 8:10). We stop and wait, yielded and still. The Spirit may plumb the depths of our weakness, exposing reasons for our lack of strength and giving us intense longings for a strength that is not our own and not dependent upon the winds of circumstances. We begin praying the Scripture, “Lord, help me to enter into your joy … forgive my hankering after joy in things that never fully satisfy — food and superficial talk and frivolous things. Let me soak in your joy.” Instruction from the Spirit may come. Or song and dance. Or joy-filled prayer in a language unknown to the conscious mind. And more. I am giving only hints here; you, I know, will find your way as you pray the Scripture.
Third, undermine that perennial, everlasting human itch to get ahead with intentional times of “holy leisure.” Take a nap. Spend an hour visiting with your neighbor about nothing important. Help each other watch the sun go down. Take a walk, not for exercise or to study plant life but for the sheer joy of walking. Stop praying for a day. Listen to the birds — not to get some “message” from them but to hear them. Sit in the silence, doing nothing, having nothing, needing nothing. Take a bath instead of a shower. Waste time for God. The ideas are endless.
THE CALL TO PRAYER-FILLED LIVING
QUESTION:
What is the Contemplative Tradition?
ANSWER:
A life of loving attention to God.
QUESTION:
Why should we explore it?
ANSWER:
Because through it we experience the divine rest that overcomes our alienation.
Every one of us is called to be a contemplative — not in the sense of a particular vocation we call “the contemplative life,” but in the sense of a holy habit of contemplative love that leads us forth in partnership with God into creative and redeeming work. Thomas Merton writes, “I have not only repeated the affirmation that contemplation is real, but I have insisted on its simplicity, sobriety, humility, and its integration in ‘normal Christian life.’”58 I invite you to the adventure of exploring in “normal Christian life” a loving attention to God and a growing union with God.
* In light of the renewed interest today in “spiritual warfare,” we might do well to study carefully the life of one who had become a master in it long before any of us came on the scene.
*The Russian literacy campaign had been launched in 1921, but Laubach was unaware of it.
* We will look at the process involved in transforming the personality in Chapter 3 (“The Holiness Tradition: Discovering the Virtuous Life”).
* If you feel that you are the rare exception to this rule, my only counsel is to be sure your divine authorization is repeatedly confirmed. (If I were in that position, I would go so far as to ask the Authorizer for identification papers!)