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Richard's Daily Meditations

Valle Grande (detail), by © Shirin McArthur.  

CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER

In order to understand contemplation and the contemplative mind, we need to talk about our true self in God. This is the only self that has ever existed, and the only self that contemplates reality in its first and final big frame. The small, false self can only “calculate”—with itself as the reference point. As if it were! The work of religion is to get you to know who you are and always have been: “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). From this vantage point of love and union alone is spiritual knowing possible.

You came from God and will return to God. Your deepest DNA is divine. You are already a spiritual being—the much more difficult question is how to be human! That is what we have yet to learn. I believe that's why Jesus came as a human being: he didn't come to teach us how to go to heaven but to teach us how to be simple, loving human beings here on this earth. Some “non-religious” people do this much better than us “spiritual” folks.

Adapted from the CAC Foundation Set: Gospel Call to Compassionate Action
(Bias from the Bottom) and Contemplative Prayer
(CD, DVD, MP3)

Prayer:
Clear my mind for your truth.