Waiting is Not Idle
Waiting in a posture of spiritual reflection, is much missing from our current culture. People wait, of course, in line-ups, on telephone lines, for trains and planes, and appointments. But there is a tendency to fill that waiting time with busyness. The various technological treats of which humanity is enamoured are brought out, and time, which might have been spent in quiet waiting, becomes a flurry of activity. In Joan Chittister’s thoughtful quest for a ‘spiritual vision for today’s world’ she writes that we have “lost a sense of Sabbath and take no notice as a culture of the starvation of soul, the loss of intimacy, and the exhaustion of the mind that has derived from depriving ourselves of reflection.”(1) By Sabbath, Chittister is not simply referring to the traditional day of rest in the Judeo-Christian calendar, but what she calls ‘Sabbath mind’, a state of gentle, loving reflection. Abraham Heschel expands the idea of Sabbath further, describing it as a harmonious atmosphere, a time in space of spiritual richness that “ennobles the soul and makes the body wise.”(2) So, too, the practice of intentional, attentive waiting ennobles the soul and grants the practitioner wisdom given as gift. This still, alert waiting, may be experienced in the practice of contemplation. Constance FitzGerald, a long time contemplative practitioner declares it to be an imperative for any shift in communal consciousness. She writes:
We need to understand and speak of the unleashed power, influence and freedom of contemplative love and wisdom, of their ability to pass beyond the limits by which desire, culture, evolution and religion are now enclosed. Contemplation can bring within the realm of possibility the purified imagination able to create not only a global economy and world community that make a human life more possible for the poor, oppressed and marginalized of the world, but even the paradigm shifts and transformations required to invent a new kind of earth community. (3)
Contemplation, when held in an active posture, is known as contemplative stance.(6) In its practice of attentiveness, its experience of a fuller reality, and its encounter with the divine Other, this spiritual discipline of compassionate waiting gives new sight to standard perceptions, training the mind and eye to resist the known in order to attend upon the unknown. It is accompanied by creativity able to imagine alternate ways of being in any given situation. Grounded in the certainty of sacred goodness, this practiced posture is able to hold steady in the face of uncertainty and apparent chaos.
It is important to note that contemplative stance is not for the dilettante, nor is it confined to the formally religious. Contemplative stance works alongside the daily routines of work and worry for all people. In times of stress, violence and despair. It is an inspired art form of observation. In allowing a new way of ‘seeing’, the contemplative stance is an invaluable competence to aid in the intentional shift in worldview where compassion is our mostly commonly used tool.
Inspirational writings that undergird this thought, and quote sources
Ronald Rolheisser, ‘Narcissism, Pragmatism, Unbridled Restlessness, and the Non-Contemplative Personality, Factors Militating Against Contemplation,” in The Shattered Lantern, Rediscovering a Felt Presence of God (New York: Crossroads Publishing Company 2004), 27-51.
Quote One: Joan Chittister, In the Heart of the Temple, A Spiritual Vision for Today’s World (Toronto: Novalis, 2004), 19. See also 16–19.
Quote Two: Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath, It’s Meaning for Modern Man (New York: Farrar, Staus and Giroux, 1951), 31. Heschel’s poetic thoughts on Sabbath expand its meaning past a day to, as he says, ‘an atmosphere’. He writes: “Sabbath is not a date but an atmosphere. For the Sabbath is a day of harmony and peace, peace between man and man, peace within man, and peace with all things. . . . The Sabbath is more than an armistice, more than an interlude; it is a profound conscious harmony of man and the world, a sympathy for all things and a participation in the spirit that unites what is below and what is above,” 30.
Quote Three: Constance FitzGerald, OCD, “The Desire for God and the Transformative Power of Contemplation,” in Light Burdens, Heavy Blessings: Challenges of Church and Chulture in the Post Vatican II Era: Essays in Honor of Margaret R. Brennan, IHM eds, Margaret R. Brennan, Mary Heather MacKinnon, Monti McIntyre, and Mary Ellen Sheehan (Quincy IL: Franciscan Press, 2000) 216
The posture of contemplative stance may be given other names—contemplative leisure, contemplative presence, contemplative attitude, contemplative prayer or simply ‘contemplation’ to name a few. I have chosen the phrase ‘contemplative stance’ for the purpose of this thesis as it denotes a specific intention—a place of ‘standing’ with purpose, a steady, intent posture awaiting grace. Contemplative stance consists of both an element of doing and an element of being. The phrase can be found within the practice of spiritual direction and also within the study of contemplative prayer and the tradition of discernment within Ignatian spirituality. Richard Rohr, who has devoted his life to this discipline and currently oversees The Centre for Action and Contemplation, speaks of it this way: “Contemplation becomes a way of life. I don’t like to think of it so much as something I do, but something I am; so I often use the phrase “the contemplative stance.” It’s a way of living, moving, and being in this world.” Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (New York: Crossroad Pub. Co., 1999.)
Janet Ruffing, To Tell the Sacred Tale (New York: Paulist Press, 2011), 19, 20.
In the question and answer period after the Shalem Institute Gerald May Seminar 2012, Cynthia Bourgeault, clarified this idea of contemplation not being about separation from everyday life. “As long as we identify “contemplative” with a lifestyle based on silence and separation, we’re always going to be in implicit tension with “the world.” The real challenge is to learn how to be the still point in the turning world, flowing into this world with the spaciousness of the infinite flowing out INTO the world, to bless and harmonize it, not to thrust ourselves upward and away from it.” Cynthia Bourgeault Q & A – Gerald May Seminar 2012.
Frans Maas, “Spirituality, Luxury or Necessity?,” in Towards a Theory of Spirituality, ed. Elisabeth Hense and Frans Mass (Leuven: Peeters, 2011), 73-81.
Monty Williams, “The Path of Contemplation,” in Stepping into Mystery: Four Approaches to a Spiritual Life (Toronto: Novalis, 2012), 51, 52.
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, (Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1972), 1-15. This entire book is a lyrical poem on contemplation, but the first two chapters are particularly good at establishing what contemplative stance is and is not.