Quote for the Day
The contemplative discipline of meditation, what I will call in this book contemplative practice, doesn’t acquire anything. In that sense, and an important sense, it is not a technique but a surrendering of deeply imbedded resistances that allows the sacred within gradually to reveal itself as a simple, fundamental fact. Out of this letting go there emerges what St. Paul called our “hidden self”: “may he give you the power through his Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong” (Eph 3:16). Again, contemplative practice does not produce this “hidden self” but facilitates the falling away of all that obscures it.
— Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land:
A Guide to the Christian Practice of
Contemplation
Thank you. That is helpful.
August 31, 2010 at 9:43 am
Pingback: Contemplative practice | Peaceful Walk
Yup.
August 31, 2010 at 9:57 am
Beautifully said.
August 31, 2010 at 10:07 am
Laird’s quote seems to support what I call my four legs of spiritual disposition:
learning to let go
learning deep acceptance
learning to trust our source
learning to live with gratefulness
August 31, 2010 at 12:56 pm
What a well articulated description of true contemplation. It is so easy for the rational self to want and expect some tangible payoff for our prayer and time focused on communion. But as this offers, true communion is a grace given after we have lost the payoff calculator. Thanks Carl.
August 31, 2010 at 2:20 pm