Turning aside
A deeper life
The noted teacher of prayer, clinical psychologist, and former monastic, James Finley, recently pointed out in an interview that life in a cloistered monastery is designed to protect and nurture a deeper life. Silent prayer and meditation, chanting the psalms and celebrating Eucharist, manual labor and study, times of solitude and devotional engagement with Scripture – this regulated life attunes one to the reality of God’s constant presence and activity, in our own depths and in the world around us.
Monastic life is based on the foundational insight of contemplatives and mystics through the ages, which Thomas Merton expressed so simply near the end of his life:
“In prayer we discover what we already have. You start from where you are and you deepen what you already have, and you realize you are already there. We already have everything, but we don’t know it and don’t experience it. Everything has been given to us in Christ. All we need is to experience what we already possess.”
The problem is that daily life for most of us does not support engagement with our own depths and the animating force that suffuses all creation. Our responsibilities and routines keep us so distracted and occupied that we have a sense of perpetually “skimming over our own depths” where our true life remains hidden.
But once in a while, and often out of the blue, something happens that awakens us. Quite unexpectedly, we feel connected with something vast, true, primordial, and beyond words. It could be the disarming experience of reading a bedtime story to a sleepy, enchanted child; it could be a flock of birds landing in a nearby field; it could be the touch of your beloved unexpectedly reaching for your hand, or it could be the wind and sunset before the arrival of a storm.
(Lee kicked up a playful wildness on the island: Winds blowing through fields of tall sea grasses gave the impression of delightful dancing. Trees and scrub oak seemed to relish the vigorous winds and driving rains, as if this was just the sort of shower and rub down they loved. And the waves kicked up, close in and far out at sea, drawing small groups of people to watch the show from the shore.)
Momentarily, fleetingly, you awaken to the wonder of your life and all of creation; and you “turn aside” from what you had been doing, like Moses, to take it in. The moment can feel so intimate that you understand why the Bible says that Moses heard his own name calling from the bush, “Moses, Moses….”
You are back. You are connected again with your way, your truth, and your life. You realize that you are now and always have been on holy ground.
Some might think this sounds like a sort of personal, spiritual spa, a way to get some “me time” and bliss out for a while. But remember what happened to Moses. His mystical, intimate encounter with the Divine continued with the Lord saying, “I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cry, and I am going to liberate them. I am sending you to Pharoah to bring my people out of Egypt.” In other words, if you’re looking for blissed out “me time,” Canyon Ranch is a better bet than practicing contemplation. God’s yoke is easy, God’s burden is light, and God wants to give us rest, but most of all God wants to unite us to God’s life and compassion.
In a nutshell, this is why many set aside time each day to practice silence – it is our way of turning aside from routines and habits that keep us skimming our own depths, so that instead we might attune ourselves to the Divine who is always with us – we do not need to acquire anything. “We already have everything,” as Merton said. God just waits patiently for our return, “in quietness and trust,” to our souls and our true life.
Our grasping, egoic minds hate this. Practicing silence and surrender means that the ego is no longer in control, so it pitches a fit: “This is a waste of time,” “You have so much to do,” “Others might be good at this contemplative stuff, but it’s definitely not for you,”…. Our minds can be insistent with their doubts and criticism.
Which is one reason practicing with a group once a week can be so helpful. Our daily lives and our own egoic minds do not provide much support for regularly “turning aside” in silent surrender, but a prayer group can be a kind of monastery for us, a community of support, nurture, and protection for attuning ourselves to our deeper life.
Just entering the room where your contemplative prayer group meets, or just showing up on Zoom where your group is gathering, can have a calming, encouraging, and deepening effect. That is certainly my experience of the Wednesday gatherings at Contemplative Chapel – friends and strangers alike whose kindness, generosity, and sacred intentions for each other illuminate what Ram Daas must have meant when he said, “We are all just walking each other home.”
