Contemplative soup... or a contemplative life? Which is it?
Now, admittedly, when someone usually thinks of contemplation, he or she most likely has a mental image something like the above photo: someone special "contemplates": the rest of us don't, for we do "real work", and there isn't time enough in the course of our everyday-lives for "contemplation"... But if not a "contemplative life", how about humungous portions of contemplative soup? If one were to read a "Manual on Mysticism", surely there would be some sort of definition and perhaps example of "contemplation". But, truth be told, contemplation is not just the purview of the professionally religious. Oh sure, professionals have developed many techniques of contemplation and practices which both broaden and calm the mind so as to ready oneself for contemplation, but no professional has anything over that of the contemplative practice of a mother hovering over a sick child... We are all now knee-deep into the 21st century: wars, climate change, racism, sexism, nationalism, oppression, exploitation, unlimited greed, and slick propaganda machines to deceive, manipulate, and control are everywhere on the loose. This being fact, we can't afford to leave contemplation as the domain of the religious professionals any longer! We all need to become contemplatives -- right exactly where we are! In short, we need chefs and circles of contemplative soup! Where are you, right now, as you are reading this? That precise "place" has to become your hermitage of the heart. Above technique and all else, contemplation is the movement and expansion of Love's Presence and Delight in our hearts. The concentrated breaths of that mother hovering over a sick child, side-by-side with an expansive loving heart is the height, breadth, and depth of contemplative practice... To lose one's sense and fear of being an isolated ego is an inevitable consequence of contemplation: the "contemplative professional" disappears, as it were, into a surrender and identification with the Sacred Other: such a person in such a moment, lives only in a conscious love-union with the Other... It is also exactly so for the mom and her breathing and loving her sick child... Love is that which calls us out of our fears and into the radiance of simply loving... Loving is creative as it is gifting: circles of contemplative soup are gatherings of neighbors and friends who are willing to practice and acknowledge their cultivation of the Beatitudes and of contemplative moments in their everyday-lives. One could call this a form of the monastic life. But, obviously, it is also quite different: for if there is a mother, then there is also the practice and gifting of sexuality. So the contemplative is also breathing and loving in her expressions of sexuality... The point is this: we are each and all called to become contemplatives: it is the surrender and identification with our Sacred Other which frees our fear-based egos: and it is in loving that the ordinary moments of our lives become both contemplative and extraordinary. You are the chef of your contemplative soup. Your choices of attention or of inattention will have consequences: too much stirring might dissolve the veggies, as the following of distractions might find the beans getting stuck on the bottom of the soup-pot and burning. It is similar with contemplative soup circles: sharing stories, "wonderings", poetry, and sacred scripture, requires attention to just the right amount of reference to recipe and stirring (or not...) To be contemplative, is to simply welcome opportunities to abide, for awhile, in loving...
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AuthorRobert Daniel Smith was privileged to serve the homeless and marginalized for 30 years in California. He is living now almost within shouting distance of the Twin Cities. He is a poet, artist, writer, and long-time Companion of the Way still dreaming... Archives
May 2022
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