Cultivating a Contemplative Culture Within
James Finley shares how in the midst of a challenging time in his life as a father, husband, and teacher, he felt drawn to renew the relationship with God he had experienced in the monastery:
I began to realize that what I wanted more than anything else was to be grounded once again in the experience of the communal presence with God that had so transformed my life since I was a small child, and which had deepened all the more in the monastery….
I could not at first see how it was possible for me to fulfill these reawakened longings. For, whereas every aspect of monastic life was carefully crafted to nurture the contemplative way of life in which the communal presence of God is realized, every aspect of the fast-moving ways of the world seemed to be moving in the opposite direction. Then it dawned on me that the contemplative way of life is not dependent on the monastic life that nurtures and protects it. My capacity to live a contemplative way of life was inscribed in my very being as a person created in the image and likeness of God. And so I came to the graced realization that I could, in the midst of my life in the world, cultivate a contemplative culture in my heart by renewing my fidelity to a daily quiet time in which I could once again learn from God how to love and be loved by God.
And so I began to get up early each morning as my wife and young daughter were still asleep. I would light a candle and sit out on the floor in the living room in an interior stance of silence and openness to God.
Impacted by the spirituality of Thomas Merton, Finley discovered an openness to the rich contemplative traditions of world religions:
I began to reflect on how graced I was in the monastery by the non-Christian spiritual masters who came to Gethsemani to visit Merton: the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh; the Jewish mystic and philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel; the Muslim Sufis; the Hindu yogi who had come from India to found an ashram; Bede Griffiths, the Benedictine monk who was living as a Christian yogi in his ashram in India; and John Wu, a Chinese Catholic….
With Merton’s help I came to realize that God’s presence is fanned out into these contemplative traditions of the world’s great religions as so many languages or paths to contemplative communion with the divine mystery that he and I were seeking in our own Christian tradition….
When I got up each morning to meditate … I began to renew my prayerful study of the classical texts of these non-Christian sources of contemplative wisdom. I renewed my practice of yoga, which I had discovered through Thomas Merton, along with what I learned from him about the Buddhist traditions of meditation as a path to ultimate liberation.
Reference:
James Finley, The Healing Path: A Memoir and an Invitation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2023), 100–101, 102, 103.
Image credit and inspiration: Jacob Bentzinger, untitled (detail), 2023, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Like the light of a stained-glass window making new patterns and shapes on a wall, we look at old things and old ways with new eyes and discover new ways of being.
Story from Our Community:
In the majestic landscape [of Kruger National Park], I strongly felt the consciousness of the Creator. I was overwhelmed by a sense of tranquility and also tension. I felt vulnerable to the unpredictable … forces of Nature like large wild animals and the changing weather. What might happen to our small community? This tension must be how religion began. I felt a burning need to fit all of life together in a sensible, beautiful circle. How do the grasses, trees, climate, reptiles, amphibians, mammals all relate to each other—and to us? It’s such a human need to classify everything around us and yet I felt grateful to perceive God in it all.
—Charles D.
