It actually doesn’t make sense to talk about contemplative practice in isolation. It is interwoven into the journey itself. This is why I think many people fail in their attempts to establish a contemplative practice. It is because they are doing it apart from the larger context of the spiritual journey. It is like trying to drive your engine apart from your car. It just doesn’t seem to work. We don’t establish a contemplative practice in the same manner that we take piano lessons or join a service organization.
We shouldn’t really be too concerned if we haven’t yet established a contemplative walk. It is enough that we are seeking a spiritual depth. We shouldn’t really try to make it happen. God will build us toward the depths that we earnestly seek. What we can do is make place for God to draw us into those spiritual depths. James 4:8 says: "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you." We can draw near to God by making a place where He can find us. We can give Him greater access to us. This is our real work.
When I was entering onto a contemplative path I did not even know what it was. I was not trying to establish a contemplative practice. I just felt that I needed a deeper spiritual walk. So I simply went down to our family room every morning, not with the intention of doing anything, but just being where God could find me. I began with an intention, not any kind of practice. Eventually this developed into a full-blown contemplative walk.
In one of my contemplative classes I had someone come up and draw a circle on our white board. I asked this person to concentrate on the marker itself, and the line that was being drawn. Try this some time just with a pencil and paper. If your focus is on the pencil itself drawing the line, your circle will probably not be very round. This is how we normally arrange our affairs in life. We focus on each individual affair itself. It usually turns out to be quite a balancing act trying to put them all in order. You see, it is often this way in our spiritual practices. We try to make them just another of our life’s affairs, and to arrange them in the same manner.
So how can we draw a perfect circle? I made a sort of compass by tying a lag bolt to a marker with a piece of twine. I drew a dot on the board and placed the bolt over the dot. Then, without even attending much to the marker, I moved it around that center point in the fashion of a compass. The circle came out pretty good. Here, I was focusing on the center point, not the circle itself. This is really a form of contemplation in itself. In fact, it is the essence of contemplation; to focus on the center.
If we establish a spiritual center point then that tends to arrange our affairs in an orderly way around that point. Like spokes in a wheel, our affairs radiate outward from our center point and keep the outer surface of life firm and in a shape determined by our spiritual center.
As we go along this path that essential spiritual center point will begin to grow. Our spiritual space will enlarge. Here God will be able to bring whatever disciplines into our lives fit the way that He created us. The one essential thing along the contemplative path is what Paul tells us in Col 3:1-3:
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
