I am on a personal journey of “Contemplative Prayer” trying to come to the end of myself and find my “true” self. The self that doesn’t need to be the center, the self that doesn’t need to know everything and the self that can truly know our God.
As Richard Rohr in his book Everything Belongs would put it; “We are circumference people, with little access to the center. We live in the boundaries of our own lives, in the ‘widening gyre’, confusing edges with essence, too quickly claiming the superficial as substance. We can remain on the circumferences of our lives for quite a long time. So long, that it starts feeling like the only “life” available.”
Not many are telling us these days that there is more to life than what we are living; I am finding life to the full, a large life, fully accepting my reality, embracing it, learning from it and coming alive! Finding God in my pain, my joy, my triumphs, my failures; what are you trying to teach me here Lord? How do I embrace bad news, good news, learn from it and rejoice because I have come closer to the end of myself and have more of you? Isn’t it amazing we learn more by learning less, the mystery of our God…
Our culture and even therapy teaches us that “I” am the most important; contemplation waits to discover what the “I”
consists of. What is the “I” that I am trying to shore up and expand? Who is the self I take so seriously? To discover the answer, we have to wait and observe.
Try this in your prayer time; wait and observe. We need to wait in silence. In silence all of our usual patterns assault us. Our patterns of control, addiction, negativity, tension, anger and fear assert themselves.
Mark 1:13 When Jesus was led by the Spirit to the wilderness, the first things that show up are wild beasts. “Contemplation is not first of all consoling. It is only real”.
