Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations

The contemplative mind is really just the mind that emerges when you pray first instead of think first. Praying opens the field and moves beyond fear and judgment and agenda and analysis, and just lets the moment be what it is—as it is.

We really have to be taught that mind now. It was systematically taught—mostly in the monasteries—as late as the thirteenth and even into the fourteenth century. Plus agrarian, suffering, uneducated, and non–media-saturated people probably learned contemplation much more naturally. But once we got into the oppositional mind of the Reformation and the rational mind of the Enlightenment, the contemplative mind pretty much fell by the wayside. The wonderful thing is that it is now being rediscovered across the Christian spectrum, and there is no select group that holds it or that teaches it, although we Catholics have easier historical access to it, as do the Orthodox if they were influenced by the Philokalia.

Contemplation also links us with the Native and Eastern religions, who often held on to the contemplative mind much better than we did in the Western world—which was formed by Greek logic, Roman upward mobility, and a whole bunch of technological advantages that left us enthralled with our ability to perform and achieve.

Adapted from the webcast What is the Emerging Church? (CD, DVD, MP3)

The Daily Meditations for 2013 are now available
in Fr. Richard’s new book Yes, And . . . .