Meditation: On Nothingness

Meditation: On Nothingness

In respect to meditation, it occurs to me that many of us tend to focus on God’s “being” in the world in the incarnation of Christ Jesus. Another avenue of contemplation is to focus on God’s “Nothingness”.  God’s “Nothingness”  In this approach, we want to “empty” ourselves and enter into the vastness or oneness of God.  In doing so, we …

Read More Read More

A Sense of Freedom

A Sense of Freedom

At my December 6 retirement party, I was asked, “What advice I would you give to someone just starting in Behavioral Health working with people experiencing mental health issues?” My response was: that the individual should become a listener, creating a safe space for the ill person to express their deepest feelings and fears without …

Read More Read More

Loss & Spiritual Intervention: Part 2

Loss & Spiritual Intervention: Part 2

With no resolution in sight, five years of legal issues would seem to many to be a “dark night”. It certainly is not without its daily struggles, especially as unanticipated challenges to home and our lives occurred. Still, through contemplative and other forms of prayer and action, the legal matters became peripheral to the realization …

Read More Read More

Loss & Spiritual Intervention: Part 1

Loss & Spiritual Intervention: Part 1

My treatment of the loss of business (I have described in an earlier blog, The Dark Night of the Soul: Part 2) had to do with spiritual awakening in meditation and contemplation. However, upon reflection, there were many practical, material aspects to the journey that, at the same time, reflected God’s intervention. Most often, it was …

Read More Read More

Contemplation as Integrated Prayer: Part 3

Contemplation as Integrated Prayer: Part 3

In contemplation, the supernatural becomes the natural. It is the way of life that encompasses all of life, which integrates the complexities and vagaries into a meaningful and harmonious whole.   One taste of the infinite love that God has for each of us is sufficient to perpetuate a lifelong journey of basking in that love. It is so immediate and so direct it heightens …

Read More Read More

Contemplation as Integrated Prayer: Part 2

Contemplation as Integrated Prayer: Part 2

Contemplation is being rather than doing, and thus is a predisposition of the soul toward God. All action is undertaken in a peaceful and restful repose since God is at its center.   Purposeful action is delayed until sanctioned by God. If action is required before the chance to put it before God in contemplation, it is taken under the guidance of the Holy Spirit with reliance on …

Read More Read More

Contemplation as Integrated Prayer: Part 1

Contemplation as Integrated Prayer: Part 1

You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. (Deuteronomy 6:4-6) Contemplation, as an enlightened state of being, enters into every activity of the life of the contemplative. Love of God, love of others is the standard by which all of life is measured. We, as contemplatives, are already fulfilled because we are doing the …

Read More Read More

Contemplation in Truth and Love: Part 2

Contemplation in Truth and Love: Part 2

Suffering as joy.  What I mean by this is, suffering can become joyful. As we know no other way to express the love burning in us than to offer it to God, as Christ did in the garden of Gethsemane and on the Cross.  Suffering is also to enter into the mystery of the shared collective human experience …

Read More Read More

Contemplation in Truth and Love: Part 1

Contemplation in Truth and Love: Part 1

True contemplation is illumination and enlightenment of the soul by God. God’s love so penetrates and permeates the being of the contemplative that all desires seem to pale in comparison.   All that is desired is the mind and will of our God; life becomes centered on God and for God.   In no sense is this a departure from reality. Awareness …

Read More Read More

Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 6

Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 6

God had indeed changed the direction of my life and I “knew” from the beginning of my CPE chaplain training that God’s will and my will were one. It was only a matter of a few months when my experience of the gift of union in God’s love in contemplation turned to direct action in …

Read More Read More