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Ironically, the word "awe" comes from a root with a meaning "to be depressed." Awe is an inspired wonderment, wherein the self recedes before the vastness of the Holy Presence. This receding is like looking into the Sun and having to turn the eyes away. The human cannot encompass the Glory of Life.
Spiritual Contemplation entails a consistent practice of holy silence and inner solitude, partly due to the need for this receding of the self. Such silence and solitude is the admission of the magnitude of Grace. Silence and inner solitude welcome Divine Nearness and Holy Manifestation that we often push away by the exertion of the self. Indeed, often persons refuse the receding of the self by asserting the self in worship, alone or with others. I observed this as the norm when I was a pastor of Christian churches. Persons would say we were going to worship to meet and worship God, while they entered the sanctuary acting oblivious to that claim; worship was usually, at best, a friendly social gathering. We were meeting one another and, mostly, our individual selves. Persons who have never been seized by the Holy will likely not welcome the relaxing of self, which maintains itself by assertion, to engage heartfelt worship. Spiritual Contemplation is the process of relaxing this self-with-assertion.
So, where does one go to be with others and feel this awe? Likely, most find it rarely or never in worship with a group, even if they encounter a maximum of emotional fervor. Yet, to be excited is not the same as to be in awe, to be worshipful. Excitement is of the feelings, reverence of the heart.
By asserting the self, even in religious activity, such as in ritual, we push the Holy away and guard the illusion of our self-independence and self-control. Part of the dread arising from intimacy with the Sacred is the Sacred dismantles this grand illusion. So, why should we be surprised that most persons hide from the Sacred, some while being actively "religious" or "spiritual"? Why should it surprise us that likely the most worshipful persons hide at times from the Luminosity of Love? Instead, I would be surprised if it is not wise that we do at times, for our retreating is a sign of our coming close to Life.
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