A greater way

I have come to love contemplative prayer, and the contemplative lifestyle. Here I sit on a Saturday morning in a totally empty house, except for me, one sleeping dachsund, and one begging to go play Labrador. But she can wait, because this is very rare. Two kids spent the night at some friends, and my wife is at quilting class. For quite some time, I just sit with my prayer rope, walk around my somewhat flooded acre of meditative woods, sit and pray, walk and pray, and just experience the silence, the solitude, the beauty.

Of course, this moment won't last. And I couldn't stay like this forever. As much as I dream of a life totally full of contemplative moments, I am not strong enough for that or called to such. Even at last nights vigil at St. Constantine and Elena, I could only handle about an hour and 45 minutes before leaving after the gospel. And that is okay. "Pray as you can, not as you think you have to." That's a loose translation of a very profound statement from a book on contemplation.

So what if I could pray all day? What if I lived on a mountain, lived an extremly ascetic life, and devoted myself to prayer? Would I know and see God completely? As much as the saints who pursued such a life did find union with God, would they claim to have actually seen Him?

I reflect on the first part of one of the most powerful passages in scripture, I John 4:7-21. "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love each other, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."

Contemplation is almost the greatest game in town. Yes, I love to hike, walk, sit alone in silence, pray, read and wait for God. While all that is great, there is one thing greater. If I truly loved one other person, one time without any selfish reason or for my own good, or to try and appease or please God, if I actually sacrificed to my own detriment one moment on behalf of the poor just for their sakes, I have done greater than see God. I have actually allowed his presence in me.

I don't think there is a more powerful statement or thought in the entire bible, or any religious writing. And it makes me wonder if I ever really do love purely. I think of Christ in the garden, wrestling with doubt, under spiritual attack, and willingly going against his human nature will, to follow the Fathers perfect will. And that will is simply to love. For all our theological bickering, confusion, and polarized disunity, can we agree on one simple but profound point: love one another.

And so I take another step on this journey. To realize this contemplative path doesn't end here, but always must lead back to reality, and back to life. So that I can take that perfect peace, that love that God has shown me, and someday, somehow, in some little way, show it to another. In that will I not see God, even not only know God, but actually experience the living God living in me.