Reflection
Contemplation is not a matter of place. “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 our 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 Illuminated Life by Joan Chittister
Prayer
May I see the sacred everywhere.
Action
Reflect on what needs to be changed in you. What specific things can you do in the circumstances in which you live? How can you see” a world full of God everywhere”?
Suggested Reading
Be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 4:23-24
-Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Matthew 5:8
Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, and his hand in every happening; This is what it means to be contemplative in the heart of the world.
Mother Teresa
What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.
Meister Eckhart
Once we become practiced at a contemplative worldview, a “thisness” way of seeing, there is nothing trivial anymore and all is grace.
Richard Rohr
When you shift your consciousness, when you change, your life changes too.
Maria Erving
When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.
Paulo Coelho