*Sanctuary, Chiaralily, Flickr
* * *
For the Eternal alone,
my soul waits in Silence.
*Hebrew Bible. Psalm 62.1.
If we strive to be happy by filling all the silences of life with sound, productive by turning all life’s leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth.
*Thomas Merton. No Man is an Island.
* * *
St. Bonaventure, a 13th Century Franciscan, presented a formula for depths from which we arrive at meaning, or interpret signifiers: the eye of flesh, the eye of mind (or, reason), the eye of contemplation (or, Spirit). These are developmental stages, as normal as learning to sit up, then crawl, then stand, then walk, then run, ....
The contemplative, through the eye of contemplation, sees things with a unitary vision, characterized by immediacy, by intimacy. Nicolas of Cusa, a 15th Century German cardinal, taught that the only way to know spiritual truth is through this immediacy, this intuitive capacity. Once the eye of contemplation is developed through spiritual practice, this seeing is spontaneous. We do not try to see, seeing happens naturally. This is not an un-rational or ir-rational, seeing, but a post-rational seeing, not mind-less, but beyond-mind.
On the way to this unitive seeing, the contemplative may have endured repeated, even painful, transformation of lesser seeing. Often the person of Prayerful Silence is seen to be heterodox and heretical, a threat to the ideology of the majority of conventionalist-religious. The contemplative might feel isolated and misunderstood, due to this seeing. Yet, this is a beautiful seeing, and a seeing he or she would not forfeit to be understood and approved of by others.
* * *
*Christ the Redeemer in Rio..., Carlos Eduardo, Flickr
* * * CLOSING BLESSING * * *
Grace and Peace to All
The Sacred in Me bows to the Sacred in You
*You are welcome to contact Brian at briankwilcox@yahoo.com .
The presentations at this site cover a long time period. Each one represents part of an on-going Pilgrimage, and the writer's ideas, practices, and experience have changed over time. This change is the quality of any living Journey. Please read with this in mind, allowing the inner Teacher to speak to you as you need at this particular time in your own living Journey. Thanks!
