Is Contemplation for the weak?

Scripture: Genesis 32:22-32
When I used to think of the words "retreat," "monks," and "contemplation" I imagined people far removed from my world filled with the stress of daily living and the anxiety that is so pervasive in our world. My image included an escape from real life and challenging encounters. Especially with the word contemplation, I presumed it was for people with too much time and not enough to do. The monks at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit and the book we read from challenged my assumptions.
So is Contemplation really a retreat from all that is anxiety producing and challenging? Merton contests such assumption us with a strong word of "no."   "On the contrary, the deep, inexpressible certitude of the contemplative experience awakens a tragic anguish and opens many question in the depth of the heart like wounds that cannot stop bleeding." I liken Merton's thoughts to C. S. Lewis' notion found in the Chronicles of Narnia book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when Lucy asks about the mysterious figure of the Lion, Aslan (the Christ figure). "His he safe?" she asks fearful and innocently. "Well of course he isn't safe," responds Mr. Beaver.
If Contemplation is about encountering the God who is holy, then in contemplation God will reveal to us and break down the idols we incessantly create, challenge us from mere good thoughts and intentions toward right attitudes and actions, break us out of our self justifications toward self emptying and these conversions come at no little fight and struggle from us. Contemplation isn't for the weak, but for the brave!
Questions:
How does the idea of contemplation change if it happens in the presence of a loving and holy God that desires we be transformed into the likeness of Christ?
The Life with God Bible asks “Could one reason [we are afraid of being alone] be an unhealthy reliance on other people instead of on God for our well-being and happiness?” Is this true for you? How can you become more comfortable with silence?
What wounds does God desire to heal within you? Might you end up with a limp like Jacob? In what ways would you be stronger because it?

Benedict’s Rule of Listening

Scripture: Psalm 81 “Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of you heart.” That is how the Prologue to The Rule of Saint Benedict begins. “Listen.” What a needed virtue. Not just within our relationships with others, but also to God.

Last time we discussed Contemplation as a gift and awareness. Contemplation is much more than a technique for creative brainstorming that leads to new ideas and exciting connections. Though contemplation might lead to something like that, contemplation "is not the fruit of our own efforts" Merton advised. Beyond mere thoughts, contemplation is ultimately an experience with the one named, "I AM." As opposed to receiving some new insight about God or carried away in psychological fantasies, contemplation moves us toward the mystery and freedom of the God who cannot be contained by our attempts to control Him or use Him for our own feelings or benefits. The gift in this case is its own reward, the Triune God who exists eternally as Father, Son, and Spirit, communal and one, self-emptying and sacrificial love. Merton reminds us that God is not a "what" or a "thing" but a pure "Who." (13) Beyond our own agendas and uses, however noble they may be, may we take intentional time to listen with our inner ears that we might hear and be drawn to the One who is in constant search of us and desires to give of His very self.

Questions:

Why are we so quick to speak and so slow to listen?

Try one of the following exercises: Spend one day soon trying only to speak when you have to, so that you might focus on listening to other’s needs. Spend a meal in silence focusing on gratitude for God’s provisions.

What do you think God is trying to say to us?

What contemplation is and is not

Scripture: Psalms 62
I had many false assumptions about contemplation going into my retreat at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit. From Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation to the time spent in silence and in worship, I learned that contemplation is exciting and invigorating.  Contemplation is no isolated, introspective navel gazing selfish aloneness. Merton speaks a whole lot about what Contemplation is not. Appropriately so since it is much maligned in our culture of pseudo-community that really only desires to avoid loneliness and noisiness at all cost. Among the words Merton uses to describe Contemplation include: awake, active, aware, alive, awe, and gratitude. I believe Merton accurate to describe contemplation as "a kind of spiritual vision." He writes, "Contemplation is a sudden gift of awareness, an awakening to the Real within all that is real." (3)
Our vision is often too low and too narrow. We are usually busier than worker bees and more distracted than the most hyperactive feline. The result is we become like a ship in a storm without an anchor being tossed about here and there. Beginning with a place and time of silence, contemplation can anchor us to the God who is fully present in this world seen in the microsphere to beyond our atmosphere, from the internet to the cityscape. But in our distraction we not only miss the wonder and greatness of the world around us, we fail to hear from the God speaking within. We miss the awe of the God of the universe and compassion of the one who cares for and feeds the birds of the air. Contemplation, then, far from navel gazing, might go on to produce the compassion and aliveness for which we have been longing.
Questions:
What are your assumptions about contemplation?
How might contemplation lead to awareness of the Real?
How often do you feel distracted? How might contemplation bring focus and attention to what is real among us?

"Why can't I buy a monk robe in the Abbey gift shop?"

Scripture: Psalm 62
"Why can't I buy a monk robe in the Abbey gift shop?" I confess I asked this question to myself just before the ringing of the bell to signify we stand for the beginning of the evening Vesper service at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit. This is home to a Roman Catholic community of contemplative monks that belong to the Order of the Cistercians of the Strict Observance. This question came into my mind despite being on a retreat at this Cistercian Monastery for 48 hours to this point. This question was the very antithesis of what I had been learning on my retreat. Living some of the contemplative way on our retreat included 4am Vigils (with a 30 minute silent mediation in the dark!), 7am Lauds & Mass Service, 12:15pm Midday Prayer service, 5:20 Vespers or Evening Prayer, and 7:30 Compline or Night service. That is not to mention the Great Silence from 8pm to 8am and that all our meals were to be in silence. In addition to this, the purpose of my retreat was to learn more about Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk himself (the monastery he was apart of in Kentucky, helped found this one) through lectures on his book New Seeds of Contemplation.
A small bit of wisdom from this retreat noted how we often attempt to use God for our purpose or imagine Christ in our image. Yet here I was, 48 hours in my experience, and still like a pilgrim at Disney World, I was desiring to purchase or consume that which has taken monks at least two years just to begin and a life that will never be complete. The words of the lecturer I had for the week puts my crazy question in proper perspective: one doesn't become a saint overnight. In fact, after decades of living a consumerist, rat-race lifestyle, even a few days in a monastery and hours of contemplation wouldn't be enough to radically change me. However, I could tell the seeds of contemplation were beginning and felt like water to parched land.  
As Merton notes in the Preface of his book, the problem with the word contemplation is it "it sounds like 'something,'...a spiritual commodity that one can procure…[that if] possessed, liberates one from problems and from unhappiness." (xvi)
Rather than a possession or commodity or hobby, contemplation can provide a space for us to hear God and God to find us. "For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation." Psalm 62:1, 5
Questions:
How does silence make you feel?
How do you make a place for God to find you?
How might intentional times of silence be rewarding even if you hear nothing?

Church and Fundamentalism: Dialogue II (Mushy Liberalism or Better Story?)

Fundamentalism: My principles can show you just how far your morality is sinking. Don't you even remember the head coverings (I Corinthians 11:15) and the greeting of one another with a kiss (Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26; 1 Peter 5:14)? Oh, if the people would just truly take the Bible seriously how the world would be better off and will return to normal!
Church: Don't you know Fundamentalism how young you really are? You are not as old as you suppose yourself to be. Perhaps you are the one who needs to do some revisiting of history. Read again of the Enlightenment fathers and see how your roots lie there. In fact, you might even have the eyes to see what a strong trust, perhaps even a dangerously wrong - idolatrous even, foundation you have in your own reason!
Fundamentalism: Oh what gushy liberalism! Your people have this stubborn tendency to keep speaking about a story or narrative.  God of the Story or God of the Truth! Which will bring greater security? Truth is what you need. Come home I say, come home again and we will reason together (Isaiah 1:18). You need me so much more than you realize. You are forsaking the Truth!
Church: Reason, reason, reason. Who's reason? Can't reason be swayed, twisted, and selfish? Why once again we see where your true faith lies, reason! Stories are no weak vessel. Whose actions haven't been shaped by the lessons learned from stories such as The Boy who Cried Wolf? Jesus did not come as reason in flesh, but a person. So when we speak of Truth, we speak of Truth revealed in the form of a person. To understand a person you must understand their story! My people have an incredible story of being loved by God. God did not set down to give them mere rules to apply across all generations and all cultures. Rather it is a story that helps shape beliefs, actions, groups, cultures. Fundamentalism, I think I'll keep searching for a better story. 

Church and Fundamentalism: Dialogue I (Survival of the Church?)

Fundamentalism: Oh, you've forgotten your real self Church. You need to come back home. Don't listen to any of these other tempters; they are no good for you. In fact, they are all dangerous!
Church: Dangerous, huh? Right now it feels as though it is dangerous not to listen. There is so much happening and changing, if I’m not listening then the message will fall on deaf ears and I will be out of touch with those I have a passion to connect to God.
Fundamentalism: Church, you need to listen to me. They really are getting to you. Flee them with all your might. I heard you question yourself because of their lies and deception. Come back home to me now if you want to survive! I am your only hope for survival.
Church: Survival is a trust found only in God. In fact, my survival is always tenuous. Just as my groom risked His life in sacrificially giving it to the Father because of their love for the world so too do I follow the same pattern of sacrificially giving of myself such that my survival is staked in trust of God.
Fundamentalism: Come back to me and I will teach you again of those absolutely essential beliefs that make you what you are. The list that began with the Apostle's Creed and the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed is but a start. By the time the Reformation came I was really beginning to show my abilities. In the Scopes Monkey Trial I was really at my height. Oh and how I've led so many to get close to predicting the last day. My people can see clearly the evils of not taking the Bible seriously. They read the Bible just as they would a science text book. My people can prove beyond a shadow of doubt how evil entertainment, technology, experience, and politics really are.

Church and Experience: Dialogue II (Defining Love)

Experience: If you would just have more Love how your people (and the world!) could be cured of its insensitivity and self-centeredness. Too often your people look like a Social Club rather than a hospital for the sick. Your people so easily forget the Lord's Greatest Commandment: Love God, Neighbor, Self, (Matthew 22:36-39). Love embraces instead of excluding. Love that will be for all no matter what they look like, what they believe, what they do. Doesn't God love all? Why can't your people be more tolerant?
Church: Love is certainly important. Love is a part of God’s essence and should be of mine. You have named some very important Scripture passages that are at the heart of what I am. But, Experience, for all your lofty talk about love can you define it for me?
Experience: Unconditional, tolerant. Love, love, love.
Church: Those are characteristics of love I've heard a lot lately. I recall the story of how the prophet Hosea was called by God to merry Gomer, the whore. This shows God is faithful in spite of the people's unfaithfulness. God is committed to them even when their own commitment is shaky and tentative and even non-existent. But also in this story God doesn't change who He is for them. God is, in fact, free from them. God can be free because God is so stable in His ability to give love without changing.
Experience: I'm not sure I follow you Church. Aren't you proving my point? God is love therefore the experience of love and giving of love is enduring and eternal. See, Church, you need me. Enter into a contractual agreement with me. 
Church: Experience, you too have made me think. Though, love is more than a concept. Love is tangible. More than simply a feeling or tolerance of ideas and behaviors, God's love was tangibly expressed in giving of His Son and how the Son lived and died for the world. God's love is compassionate. God's love is sacrificial. Certainly you are right that experience of God's love should lead toward (and even be measured by our) love for our neighbors. But love is also free from having to bow at the altar of tolerance, because it is rooted and has as its foundation in the Holy God of Scripture. That's why, my dear friend Experience, I must pass.