Reflection
To have a contemplative view is to be a unifier, to see creation as integrated, and to reverence all its expressions. A contemplative vision is not naïve. It recognizes the pain and distortions in the world. Yet, while acknowledging what is wrong, it enables one to see through and work toward the wonder of the innately possible. The contemplative is imbued with the presence of the Sacred in all life and in creation. One is enabled to see everything reflective of God.
Prayer
Bless us with the gift of contemplative vision.
Action
Am I aware of the Sacred in life? How can I reverence God’s presence in this world?
Suggested Reading
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of God’s hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight,
O God, my Rock and my Redeemer.
Psalm 19
When we acknowledge that all of life is sacred and that each act is an act of choice and therefore sacred, then life is a sacred dance lived consciously each moment. When we live at this level, we participate in the creation of a better world.
Scout Cloud Lee
Love’s greatest gift is its ability to make everything it touches sacred.
Barbara De Angelis
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
Albert Einstein
It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know of wonder and humility.
Rachel Carson
The miracles of the church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.
Willa Cather