Monday, January 5, 2015

As many of you know, my daughter Chelsea was killed in an auto accident early in the morning on New Year's Day. The shock was horrific, and we still do not know the details as to what happened. Along with her wonderful mother Paula, I'm only now coming fully to experience what the loss of my daughter's lovely presence will mean for me and all her big family and many friends. Please pray for all of us who love her. Chelsea's memorial service at St. Mark Catholic Church in Richmond, KY, was beautiful, attended by hundreds who knew and loved Chelsea. Please be assured that Chelsea, as throughout her life and even in her death, is now deep within the heart of God who holds her to his arms. As always God is loving her. All the many heartfelt hugs and expressions of sympathy helped heal the hurt and ease the pain we are experiencing. To all who have written and sent cards and letters, from the bottom of our hearts we say, "Thank you." As the new year unfolds, we hope you will stay in touch with us. We will long need your support and love.

Monday, December 15, 2014

Christmas for Contemplatives



A Little Essay for Those in Centering Prayer Communities

         We all know how lots of us Christians come to Christmas.  Some prepare for the Nativity by going through the season of Advent. That’s good. Some go to Christmas concerts and listen to Christmas music. That’s all well and good. Some decorate their homes to make them look festive. That’s just fine. Some get ready for Christmas by buying gifts for friends and family. That’s good and thoughtful. Some prepare a special Christmas dinner and invite guests and family to come and enjoy the food and one another. That’s exciting.  Some make sure they read Luke’s Christmas story when the family gets together. That’s surely worthy of imitation. Some go out on evenings near to Christmas and sing carols to neighbors and those in nursing homes.  O, that’s very good! On Christmas Eve some go to a special service and receive Holy Communion. That’s so wonderful. Some make it a special point to help the poor, work for justice, and promote peace. That’s great.  All of these are good, wonderful, and great ways to come to Christmas, and they are to be encouraged.

         But contemplatives have another way of coming to Christmas that is the best way.  In addition to many of the ways mentioned above, contemplative Christians have learned to read the Scriptures contemplatively and then pray quietly, often  with only a word or two. They simply let Christmas come to them.  Here’s how it happens within a contemplative woman, man or child.  By emptying themselves of their egos, the noise of one’s culture, and the preachy stuff of one’s religion, she or he becomes a “virgin” like Mary. The contemplative realizes that deep within herself or himself there is what Thomas Merton calls Le Point Vierge, “the virgin point”:

[It’s] a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives . . . [it] is the pure glory of God in us . . . like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely.[1]

As Carl McColman tells us in Answering the Contemplative Call, “It’s virgin in the sense of a kind of profound spiritual innocence” (24).  Some call is the apex of our soul; others say in the deep well of our life. Sometimes I think the virginal point is the image of God mirrored in our hearts.  However you and I imagine it, it’s where God, the Divine Mystery, connects with us.  It’s within, deeply hidden and silent. 

        We sense it like a woman senses the presence of her womb, often waiting for its emptiness to be filled with new life. All of this contemplatives intuit and sense to be so. Just so, sensing and waiting for the Lord, a contemplative practices quiet longing and desire for God. When she or he reads, for example, in Luke that Christ was born in Bethlehem, the contemplative knows that, like with Mary, Christ is most truly present when he is received, conceived, and born in one’s own Bethlehem, one’s own heart/womb—at Le Point Vierge, the virginal heart, the womb wherein Christ comes and is given birth. The virgin point, one’s the innermost secret heart, lies within—innocent and willing to receive and conceive like Mary--without an agenda, without preconceptions, without words and images, without ideas and notions about God or notions as to how Christmas should be celebrated.  A contemplative is happy to be like Mary: empty, bare, spotless, untouched, vacant, waiting, and virginal. The contemplative does nothing except whisper “yes” in heart/womb/emptiness so God may quietly and in holy silence--without hindrance--place Jesus into his or her life.

         Just so, the contemplative is most truly Bethlehem, the stable, or the cave where Jesus is born. The contemplative becomes the manger into whom Mary places Jesus. The contemplative hears the shepherds coming in from the fields to visit to worship Jesus in her or his heart.  The magi enter the contemplative’s heart with gifts for Jesus.  Christmas and all of Christmastide is within.

         Yes, Christmas happened long ago, and we remember it all with songs, food, concerts, and services.  But more importantly Christmas happens now, in each one of us as God delivers his Son, birthing him in you and me. As virgins in our stillness, in our so-called “centering” prayers, and in our contemplative lives, God lets us hold Jesus in our hearts and lives so that we nurse him with love, watch him grow within us, and see him for what He is—Emmanuel, God-with-us. Eventually with Jesus within us we learn how to love others, how to live non-violently, how to be hospitable, how to forgive, how to die, and how to live anew in resurrected vitality.




[1] Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (New York: Images Books, 155.

Monday, August 18, 2014

Deep Cleaning a Sacred Space

After spending several days deep-cleaning my study/library room (throwing away lots of clutter, packing up books to be given away, and polishing everything with Pledge scented with Orange Oil fragrance!), my special room welcomes me anew each morning when I wake up about 4:30 or so. Once inside and seated, my day begins with Centering Prayer, what one might call the "deep cleaning of a sacred space." I do some Scripture reading, sip down two or three cups of coffee, check email, and wait for a whimper at the front door where Miztie stands, wagging her tail, wanting breakfast. It’s the quietest time of the day, that special time when as someone in Jo Nesbo’s crime novel says, you can hear the soft sound of a “sparrows fart” as they sing and welcome the morning.  Well, I don't really know about the sparrow gastronomical effusions, but I can tell you that  I’m so happy that at times I join them, humming along when they sing.  And I do some writing.