Desire

Where do contemplative people come from? Contemplative people come from all walks of life and personalities. Eventually, contemplative people seem to take on some of the same characteristics like simplicity, justice, caring for the poor, but these characteristics are more the fruit of a contemplative life than common characteristics present at the beginning of a contemplative journey.

The common characteristic of contemplative people is that they all seem to have been visited by grace in a way that tore back the veil to time and eternity. Author James Finley eloquently puts it this way, looking back:

…We are able to see moments of love, birth, religious experience, justice, aesthetic inspiration, or of sensing the incomprehensible stature of simple things, we glimpsed a great depth, which we intuit to be the hidden depths of the life we are living*…

These glimpses into the depths “have occasioned within us the DESIRE for a more abiding, daily awareness of the depths so fleetingly glimpsed*” along with the “riddles*” or mystery that go along with them. 

This weekend I have been feeling this desire; the desire to abide, and to be constantly aware of the divinity of the present moment. How about you? Looking back...Was there a time in your life where you sensed there must be something more? Did you have a "glimpse into the depth of things? Maybe at some point you sensed the "incomprehensible stature of simple things?" Or through a "moment of love, birth, religious experience, justice, aesthetic inspiration" you sensed the "depths of the life you are living."

Learning to pray: If you have the desire to abide and live in the present moment and mystery of God’s grace, accept the invitation to “join in the general dance*.”

*“Contemplative Heart” James Finley