Reflection
Changing the way we go about life is not all that difficult. We all do it all the time. We change jobs, states, houses, relationships, lifestyles over and over again as the years go by. But those are, in the main, very superficial changes. Real change is far deeper than that. It is changing the way we look at life that is the stuff of conversion. We do not need to leave where we are in order to become contemplative. “Flight from the world” is not about leaving any specific location. “Flight from the world” is about shedding one set of attitudes, one kind of consciousness for another. We simply have to be where we are with a different state of mind. What needs to be changed in us? Anything that makes us the sole center of ourselves. Anything that deludes us into thinking that we are not simply a work in progress, all of whose degrees, status, achievements, and power are no substitute for the wisdom that a world full of God everywhere, in everyone, has to teach us.To become a contemplative, a daily schedule of religious events and practices is not enough. We must begin to do life, to be with people, to accept circumstances, to bring good to evil in ways that speak of the presence of God in every moment.
Adapted from Joan Chittister, Illuminated Life
Prayer
Walk as children of light.
Ephesians 5:6
Action
What needs to be changed in you? How do you think you can be contemplative in your usual life? What can helpyou toward that desire?
Suggested Reading
So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away–look, what is new has come!
2 Corinthians 5:17
The change that the Spirit brings is different. It does not revolutionize life around us, but changes our hearts.
Pope Francis
Transformation is not merely a change of morals, group affiliation, or belief system—but a change at the very heart of the way you receive, hear, and pass on each moment.
Richard Rohr
A change of heart or of values without a practice is only another pointless luxury of a passively consumptive way of life.
Wendell Berry
A change of heart leads to change in behavior, and a change in behavior leads to changing the world.
Marianne Williamson
It is when you start to have the interest of people in your heart that when you start to make a change.
Peter Adejimi