The Big Book of Christian Mysticism: The Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality

by Carl McColman

  Lament and Complaint. Things don't always go well in life. Bad things happen. Disease strikes; divorce breaks up families; crimes occur; jobs are lost; loved ones die. It's a terrible mistake to assume that prayer should always be positive as if we have to reassure God that we have everything under control and there's nothing to worry about down here. On the contrary, prayer can be its most effective when you are broken, hurting, angry, scared, lost, or confused. The key is to bring these feelings to God, dark and shadowy though they may be, without censorship or self-editing. When you lament, you share with God just how bad things are for you; you express your frustration, particularly for God's perceived absence or inaction. God is big enough to take on your sorrow and your anger. In fact, your spiritual life is impoverished if you do not offer these parts of yourself to God.

  CHARISMATIC PRAYER

  Charismatic prayer literally means "gifted prayer," and refers to prayer inspired directly by the Holy Spirit. According to the New Testament, charismatic prayer is given "in the spirit" and expressed in the "language of angels" (I Corinthians 13:1). The fancy word for this is glossolalia, or speaking in tongues, referring to the lovely but unintelligible "prayer language" that characterizes charismatic prayer. The NewTestament identifies the miraculous ability to speak or pray in an unknown language as one of the miracles associated with the presence of the Holy Spirit. While at least one story in the Bible suggests that speaking in tongues includes the miraculous ability to speak a human language unknown to the speaker (Acts 2), the concept of the "language of angels" implies that at least some forms of glossolalia involve utterance that is not related to any earthly vocabulary, grammar,or syntax. Critics of glossolalia insist that these unintelligible words and sounds have no rational or logical meaning in other words, they're little more than vocalized nonsense while proponents insist that such speaking or praying in the spirit has an objective meaning that is hidden (dare we say mystical?). Whichever you choose to believe, it is clear to those who pray in tongues that this method of prayer is deeply liberating, in that it frees the mind from having to be in charge of the prayer. By allowing the syllables to flow forth often in a beautifully melodic song the person who prays in tongues is free to let the experience manifest on a level higher or deeper than rational thought. Praying in the spirit is all about praying in love and joy, at a level beyond what mere words can hope to express.

  Not everyone has the gift of tongues, and the New Testament discourages believers from going out of their way to seek it. If you don't have a natural ability to pray in tongues, follow the Bible's advice and seek the "higher" gifts of growth in wisdom and love. If praying in tongues and singing in the spirit is a part of your spiritual experience, be aware that there is a profoundly mystical dimension to this form of prayer. Because charismatic prayer functions at a level beyond normal human reason, it can serve as a doorway to the deepest and highest form of prayer: contemplation.

  BEYOND THE LANGUAGE OF PRAYER

  The four-step process of lectio divina leads from sacred reading to meditation to prayer to contemplation. Eventually, your thoughts fall away before the deep and profound silence that characterizes the presence of God. Sooner or later, you discover that your words, no matter how eloquent and meaningful they may be, are like distracting noises in an otherwise restfully quiet cathedral. You cannot hear even your own words, let alone any "word" from God, if there is too much noise interfering with your prayer. Words need to be expressed in at least a relative degree of silence in order to be heard and understood. Eventually, your interest and focus in prayer will turn from your words even if they're offered spontaneously to the silence that lies behind and beneath and before them.

  Because prayer ultimately leads to contemplation, however, do not think of it as merely an opening act the hors d'oeuvre before the meal. Whether formal or conversational, prayer that involves words and thoughts is not only a necessary prelude to contemplation, but also a necessary companion to an ongoing contemplative practice. When you fall deeply in love with someone, you can enjoy many quiet hours together. But that does not mean that you no longer need to talk or listen to what each other has to say. On the contrary, a deeply contemplative spirituality needs prayer as surely as a beautiful diamond needs a golden setting in order to be fully appreciated.

  Prayer is not just a means to some mystical end. Saying the Rosary or the Jesus Prayer often enough will not somehow qualify you for supernatural experiences or extraordinary levels of consciousness. Prayer is an end to itself, and functions as its own reward. But it's also a way for God to prepare you for his deep silence and to foster within you the fruit of the Spirit, such as love and joy. Through the discipline of prayer, you are invited to an ever-unfolding adventure in loving God.

  Learning to pray is a lifelong process you will never complete, no matter how many years you devote to prayer or how deeply intimate your relationship with God becomes. You will encounter dry spells, fear of meaninglessness, and unremitting doubt that will threaten to overwhelm your feeble efforts to connect to God through your words and thoughts. To keep it meaningful, integrate your prayer into all areas of your life your work, your relationships, your creative endeavors and anchored in a community of faith. By embedding your prayer in the reality of human relationships, you make it easier to love God and to love your neighbor simultaneously.

  CHAPTER 15

  Prayer Beyond Words

  The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him!

  HABAKKUK 2:20

  Meditation is the mother of love but contemplation is its daughter.

  FRANCIS DE SALES4°

  As traditionally understood, Christian meditation differs from Eastern spirituality in that it's a "thinking" form of meditation. Disciplines likeYoga and Zen typically involve techniques that focus on silencing, or at least ignoring, the cognitive chatter of the mind. Christian meditation, by contrast, is a way to relax and open up your mind, to ponder gently and expansively the stories and doctrines of the Christian faith. This is an important bridge between the word of God as you read it in a book, and the word of prayer that you offer up to God.

  This does not mean that Christian mysticism lacks an appreciation for the deep interior silence that Eastern seekers encounter during their meditation practice. On the contrary, immersion in the silence that lies beneath and beyond thought is as important to Christian mysticism as it is to any other mystical tradition. The spiritual practices associated with contemplation (also called contemplative prayer) take you to the most silent places in your soul, just as surely as Zen meditation takes Buddhists to their own silent temple within. Since Christian spirituality is relational, however, its goal is not for you to achieve self-enlightenment or self-realization, but rather to enter into ever-expansive loving communion with God. Thus, for Christians, even your explorations of silence will have a fundamentally relational character. To enter into the silence, seek it not merely in the solitary practice of meditation, but in the context of prayer the relational act of responding to, seeking, and nurturing intimacy with God. This is what contemplation is all about.

  Whether you seek to foster contemplative prayer by your own initiative ("acquired contemplation") or await it as something miraculously given to you by the grace of God ("infused contemplation"), it represents that ineffable point where the words of your prayer shade over into everdeeper strata of silence. Contemplation is, therefore, the summit of Christian spiritual practice, just as surely as lectio divina is the foundational practice of the inner way.

  APPROACHING CONTEMPLATION

  As prayer is the heart of Christian spirituality in general, so contemplation is the heart of the mystical life. What begins with lectio is completed in contemplation the point at which thought is laid gently aside; the point at which the present moment becomes the moment of presence. Time spent in contemplation is time dedicated exclusively to God and love and emptiness and unknowing. In contemplation, you come most fully to that place
where you brush up against the mystery of God the frontier within you where your thoughts and opinions and beliefs suddenly become tiny in relation to the vast, awe-inspiring silence of the dazzling divine presence. And in that awesome place, you are invited to think little and love much. Contemplation has been neatly defined by the nineteenth-century saint John Vianney who describes his prayer life in the simplest of ways: "I look at God and God looks at me." This is the heart of contemplation.

  Contemplation is, in fact, silly. "Silly" is a rich word that comes from the old German selig, meaning "blessed," and also "foolish." I Corinthians 4:10 speaks of being "fools for Christ's sake." Contemplation is time wasted foolishly for God and for God's love foolish because you can't control it, master it, program it, or figure it out. All you can do is enter into it, be present to it, and offer yourself to the unknowing. Contemplative prayer is a potential portal into an ecstatic experience of mystical union, although that's rather like saying a lottery ticket is a potential windfall of a million dollars. For most, the rewards of contemplation are gentle, humble, and even ordinary. And while most lottery tickets bring no reward, even a fretful and distraction-laden half-hour of contemplation is never wasted, for God is present even in your suffering, your doubts, your distractions, and your fidgeting.

  More than anything else, Christian contemplation is a discipline of prayer. Unless you recognize this, its mystery and its inexplicable nature will remain lost to you time spent in contemplation will seem to be time wasted rather than time set on fire with a love that cannot be measured or mapped. Contemplation does not replace the other forms of prayer we have considered scriptural prayer, the Daily Office, the Jesus Prayer, or spontaneous conversational prayer. Indeed, one mistake that novice contemplatives sometimes make is to immerse themselves so totally in the practice of contemplation that they abandon all other forms of prayer. This is like launching a boat into the open sea without bothering to bring a compass or a GPS. Contemplation needs to be "anchored" in an overall prayer life just as a successful journey needs to be guided by useful and effective navigational tools.

  THE SILENT TEMPLE WITHIN

  Contemplation is one of those words with a murky history. It comes from the Latin verb contemplare, which means "to observe" or "to notice." The word is also rooted in the word "temple," however, relating it to sacred space, or a place set aside for spiritual matters. In its pagan usage, contem- plare involved the reading of auguries -a divination technique in which people sought guidance from the gods or other spirits. Once Christianized, contemplation lost its association with divination, and came to signify the prayerful practice of attending to the presence of God. While this may suggest devotion in an actual temple in other words, a church it also evokes a more spiritual sense of seeking the presence of God in a gathered community of believers, wherever they may be (Matthew 18:20) or perhaps most significantly, in the solitude of your own heart (I Corinthians 3:16). Thus, for Christians, contemplative spirituality consists of the effort to spend time "in the temple" of silence with God. In contemplative prayer, therefore, you listen in receptive silence, and hold yourself open for the purpose of fostering the experience of God's presence within you --a presence promised by scripture (John 14:17).

  Some of the earliest Christian mystics, who abandoned a comfortable life to seek God in the deserts of Syria and Egypt, entered into deep silence to pray -a practice written about by spiritual teachers like Evagrius Ponticus. This wordless prayer is not just a relic from the ancient world, however. Evidence of contemplation as a central Christian spiritual activity is also found in the Middle Ages (see The Cloud of Unknowing), after the Renaissance (John of the Cross), and into the modern and postmodern eras (Thomas Merton).

  In the twentieth century, a new era of contemplative spirituality dawned when many Christians discovered the rich practices of the Eastern wisdom traditions. Some Christians even began to write about contemplative spirituality using terminology and imagery drawn from Eastern sources. Thus, the Benedictine monk John Main wrote about "Christian meditation" (redefining meditation as a practice of interior silence, in contrast to the traditional Christian understanding of the word) while Trappist monks like M. Basil Pennington, Thomas Keating, and William Meninger borrowed the language of Thomas Merton to teach a method of contemplation under the name of "centering prayer." By the early twenty-first century, some uninformed Christians ironically began to attack centering prayer (and contemplation in general) for its so-called "Eastern influence," dismissing it as a syncretistic innovation. These objections do not take into account the long tradition of authentic Christian contemplation that stretches back into the early centuries of the Christian faith. Even though many Christian contemplatives (myself included) believe that Christians can find their faith enhanced and nurtured by respectfully learning from other wisdom traditions, the practice of contemplation is so thoroughly Christian that it is appropriate even for those who only feel comfortable engaging in orthodox Christian spiritual practices.

  Contemplation ushers you into the prayer of wordless intimacy, of moving beyond thought in a natural, gentle, and authentic way. Various methods of contemplation have been practiced by Christians at different times and places throughout the history of the church. In its purest and richest form, however, contemplation does not require a method or a specific exercise. As many mystics have taught, pure contemplation is pure grace -a gift from God, not the fruit of human endeavor.

  The process of moving from praying-with-words into the silence of contemplation can be compared to moving from time spent in a lush, verdant garden into a more austere landscape where life is sparse and marked by at least some measure of suffering. It's easy to fall in love with the garden and, by extension, with prayer that anchors itself in the sweetness of experiencing (or even merely imagining) divine love and heavenly bliss. But, just as not all landscapes are lush with vegetation, not all prayer is automatically suffused with an experience of joyful connection with God. Sooner or later, you will feel led to leave the garden and move into the wilderness. Sooner or later, you will need to take several deep breaths and face the "harsh terrain" within you the untamed chatter of your mind, your murky passions and the self-serving desires of your deep subconscious, and the shadow dimensions of your psyche.

  Some of these wilderness places may be dry and arid, like a desert; others may be thick with nearly impenetrable vegetation, like a rainforest; still others may be stark and uncaring, like the endless gray of the postmodern urban landscape. But, just as Jesus retreated into the desert to fight the demons and ultimately experience the loving care of the angels, so you will travel your own path into the barren unknown when you embark on the spiritual life.You must walk this path because others have walked it before you, because Jesus walked it, because spiritual maturity mandates that you learn to discern the presence of God, not only in joy and happiness and abundance, but also in emptiness, in unknowing, in the shadow places, and even in the midst of the roiling frenzy of your own soul.

  BECOMING A CONTEMPLATIVE

  Strictly speaking, contemplation involves no method or technique of prayer. Over the centuries, various spiritual teachers have in fact developed methods or techniques for fostering inner silence. But contemplation itself can never be reduced to a mere procedure. Contemplative prayer is not so much about mastering silence or achieving a desired state of consciousness as it is a gentle, unforced opening-up of your mind and hearta simple gesture of allowing yourself to sit in the uncreated presence of God. In other words, contemplation is not something you achieve; it is something you allow. You open yourself to spend time with God, just as you allow yourself to spend time with anyone you deeply love.

  To enter into contemplative prayer requires nothing more than a commitment to spend time in silence, with the specific intent to offer the time to God. Time spent in contemplation is time spent listening gently for God's soft whisper. But this is more easily said than done.

  We live in a particularly noisy
world, increasingly defined and dominated by technology, and therefore by the noise and stress that technology brings into our lives. From machinery to music, from telephones to traffic, from broadcast media to mental chatter ours is a world filled with persistent, ever-present, and often simply frantic noise. As a result, silence feels foreign and awkward, if not anxiety-provoking, for so many people. Even the best-intentioned Christians face many obstacles to contemplative prayer: a busy life, an active mind, a nervous body. These can all contribute to forces both external and internal that conspire to prevent us from simply sinking into the silence where God's presence may be discerned as a "still small voice" (I Kings 19:12).

  For this reason, contemplation is not something that you can do just once or twice or even just once in a while. Contemplative prayer, like any other endeavor designed to foster genuine intimacy with another person (or, in this case, with God), has to be a frequent and regular part of the relationship. The communion with God we seek through contemplation can be found only within the context of a recurring ideally, daily discipline. Since contemplation is the culmination of the practice of lectio divina, easily the best way to foster a daily practice of contemplative prayer is to devote time each day to lectio. Even if you rest in contemplative silence for only two to five minutes at a time, this regular practice can be far more valuable to your spiritual transformation in Christ than an occasional thirty-minute marathon of silence.