I say, “I am here, I am here” to people who do not even invoke my name.
—Isaiah 65:1
Father Richard views each moment as an opportunity to practice contemplation, to see things as they are, and to receive the gift of divine presence.
The real gift of contemplative practice is to be happy and content, even while we are simply sitting on the porch, looking at a rock, or benevolently gazing at anything in its ordinariness. When we can see, accept, and say that every single act of creation is “just this,” we allow it to work its wonder on us.
So go learn, enjoy, and rest in inner contentment and positivity—a full reservoir of fresh water, both before what feels like success and after what we might experience as failure. Then we have the treasure that no one can take from us or give to us. We will be ready to be captured by many moments of awe—and we will be capable of the surrender that brings both foundational union and joy.
Remember, the whole process most often begins by one, long, relished moment of awe, one fully sincere moment of beholding anything and saying, “Just this!” And, as Isaiah promised, we will know that every moment is shouting, “I am here! I am here!” [1]
Spiritual writer Amy Frykholm acknowledges that while contemplation may sound simple, the practice of “beholding” anything takes desire and discipline.
Let’s be clear, though, contemplation of any object, person, idea, or being is much more difficult than it sounds. First of all, we face the difficulty of sitting down for beholding at all…. Don’t underestimate the paradigm shift required for the act of beholding, just how different it is from our everyday lives and just how shiny and compelling our everyday life will seem when we propose pausing for some time beholding. In our society, we talk frequently about the pull of technology, … but the problem we are describing is much older in nature than our cell phones.
If we are able to get ourselves situated for beholding, we will notice the next difficulty arising: We are constantly being taken out of presence by our own thoughts…. Any act of attention is not a sustained experiencing. It’s a series of successive efforts to bring attention back to the same thing, considering it again and again. This kind of encounter is a series of repeated acts of will. We gradually train our attention to encounter, discovering its fruits in slow and subtle movements over time. Whatever you behold, you eventually become beholden to. You enter into a love relation. You recognize your own dependence on the created world, the way that you are held, even as you are holding.
And sometimes grace carries us away, and we glimpse, maybe even for several seconds at a time, the whole interconnected, openhearted world … welcomes us. [2]
References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Just This (CAC Publishing, 2017), 24, 25.
[2] Amy Frykholm, Journey to the Wild Heart (Orbis Books, 2025), 28–30.
Image Credit and inspiration: Patrick Hendry, untitled (detail), 2015, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. A person stands in a contemplative “just this” moment with the night sky.
Story from Our Community:
Today’s meditationon Visio Divina led me look more closely at the Corita Kent’s serigraph artwork, “Spring Into Winter,” on my office wall. I noted for the first time a small, heart shape in the center of the flower, reminding me that in the “winter” of my life, my heart is protected in this flower’s center. Since Corita’s art often looks more like “splash” than details, I’m reminded not to become too engrossed in the minute-by-minute drama in the daily news, but to hold a gentler, more trusting stance like that of Julian of Norwich: “All will be well, and all manner of things will be well.”
—Julie B.
