INWARD
JOURNEY
ROBERT
TRABOLD
Summer day – warm
- humid
but not
oppressive.
Clear sun
brightens up
yellow blooming
black eyed suzies in the garden.
I sit in quiet –
notice my heart beat
my breathing in
and out
pointing to a
presence within me
my Beloved.
Total mystery –
otherness
that my quiet
heart beats point to.
My Beloved covers
me
embraces me – my
whole body feels the touch.
I sit in mystery –
so deep within me.
I say nothing – I
let
my breathing
highlight the presence.
In the ebb and flow
of my life
in years gone by –
in moments now
in currents -
undertows that almost
did me in
Someone was there
– never let me go.
I bath myself in
this love
because of it, I
did not get lost
in crossroads -
curves of the years gone by.
No dead end streets
always an exit!
How lucky I am,
Someone loves me!
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INWARD JOURNEY:
OUR CONTEMPLATIVE PATH
Robert Trabold
I sleep
but my heart is
awake;
I am waiting for my
Beloved
to knock at the door.
Song of Songs: 5,2.
Since the 1960’s, Western
Christians are living in a renaissance of the contemplative path that had been
forgotten for many centuries and rediscovered when leaders such as Thomas
Merton, Thomas Keating and John Main (to name a few) met the holy men in the
East. This contact with the East allowed them to encounter God at their center
in contemplation and they started movements to enable Christians again to enter
into the contemplative path of religion. In this rediscovery of mystical
prayer, spiritual leaders stress that we are on a journey to know and accept
ourselves. In order to be successful in this pilgrimage, we need to contact the
Spirit (God) within us; in doing this, we discover that we are essentially
‘spiritual’ beings and are rooted in God. In this inward journey, we have to
achieve a necessary stillness of body and mind because prayer is not thinking
about God but being in the presence of the Divine.
Jesus worshipped God in the
Spirit at the center of his person giving us an example of how we also have to grow
in the awareness that the same Spirit is praying within us. We do this by the
repetition of a word or mantra in our meditation which over time puts our whole
person in tune with the stillness at our center. There are three levels of
growth in the repetition of the word. First, we simply say it for the full time
of the meditation. Secondly, with time, we say the mantra continually and
remain calm in face of distractions. Thirdly, we repeat it for the full time of
the meditation and are free of distractions. The goal of the repetition of the
word is to help us focus and rest in the presence of God within us. In
meditation then, we orientate our whole selves – mind, heart and body - to the
presence of the absolute at our center. Spiritual leaders alert us that praying
is not thinking about God but being with Him/Her. In Western Christianity, we
can be too rational in our approach to our Christian faith and this can cause
us problems. Focusing on the reality of God within us – at our still point,
helps us realize with time and perseverance that this presence of God is the
REALITY of our life. With our growth in contemplation, our identity and
definition of ourselves revolves around this intimate presence of the Divine –
our Beloved.
Like John of the Cross, spiritual
leaders mention that in silence, we need to listen, concentrate and pay
attention rather than think. They stress the importance of silence and
challenge us to be quiet and persevere in this journey. We are to be still and recite the word. When
we are silent, we do not have to justify ourselves, apologize or impress the
people around us. In stillness, we will encounter the reality in which we have
our being, helping us define ourselves and find our place among other human
beings. This being or ground of our being which we discover is a being of love
and through the years in contemplation, God woos us to love Him/Her and asks us
to reciprocate this love. We should sit in the eternal silence of God, the Divine
will call our name and we will know who we are. In reading this description of
our encounter with God in silence, we recall the opening words of the famous
poem by John of the Cross:
In a
dark night, burning with fires of love!
Today, we know that the Holy
Spirit was with spiritual leaders in the 1960’s when they went to the East and
rediscovered the Christian contemplative path. Movements of meditation and
contemplation have spread throughout the world, for example, the Centering
Prayer Movement, Zen-Christian Movement, John Main Meditation Movement, the
eremitical movement to name a few. Christians now have an opportunity to again
begin that inward journey leading them to the presence of God in the silence of
their center. In the 1960’s and afterwards, many Christians went to the East
looking for the contemplative path and joined the Eastern religions because
they could not find this in their churches. With the growth of the Christian
contemplative movements (monasteries without walls), people of faith have the
opportunity to begin their pilgrimage to their still point and as such deepen
their Christian faith and not have to leave it. Let us thank the Holy Spirit
who inspired the rediscovery of the Christian mystical tradition and whose
fruits we can appreciate and participate in today.
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