Prayer-Filled Life: The Contemplative Tradition

by Marvin Pritchard

The contemplative tradition addresses the human longing for the practice of the presence of God.

We all hunger for a prayer-filled life, for a richer, fuller practice of the presence of God. It is the contemplative stream or river of Christian life and faith that can bring us into intimacy with God.

Perhaps the most well known person who practiced the contemplative tradition was Nicholas Herman. He lived from 1611 to 1691 and we know him as Brother Lawrence. He wrote The Practice of the Presence of God. It seems that Brother Lawrence had made a career change in mid life from being in the French army and civil service to working as a cook in a monastery. He is quoted as saying “the time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen . . . I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were at the Blessed Sacrament.”

Another fairly well know contemplative was John of the Cross. He lived fro 1542 to 1591. He was in the Carmelite movement which was part of the Roman Catholic Reformation. His noteworthy contribution is the writing of several of Christianity’s great spiritual classics. He wrote five books the most well known was The Dark Night of the Soul. This book provided a keen insight into human nature and guided readers in the soul’s journey with God.

Another well know contemplative was Thomas Merton. He was a Trappist monk and lived from 1915 to 1968. Merton authored many books and poems. Merton is credited with being the most influential proponent of tradition monasticism in the twentieth century. Merton said, “Contemplative prayer is not so much a way to find God as a way of resting in him who we have found, who loves us, who is near to us, who comes to us to draw us to himself.”

The last modern day contemplative I want to share with you is Frank Laubach. He lived from 1884 to 1970. He was a successful missionary in the Philippians and very well educated . . . a B.A from Princeton, a graduate degree from the Union Theological Seminary, and M.A. and PhD. in sociology from Columbia University.

Even after a successful career as a missionary, he confessed that he had learned nothing of surrender and joy in Christ. This bothered him a lot. He had a devoted wife and family and all the trappings of success but he was weighed down with doubt and despair.

Laubach determined to do something about his miserable condition and decided to make the rest of his life a continuous inner conversation with God in perfect responsiveness to God’s will so that his own life could become rich with God’s presence. He resolved to spend as many moments as possible listening and in determined sensitivity to God’s presence.

As he began to live in moment by moment attentiveness to God’s presence, he experienced a remarkable change. By the end of the first month he had gained a sense of being carried along by God through the hours of cooperation with God in little things.

Laubach lived the second half of his life as God’s constant companion. His life began to flourish with the joy of God and even more amazing productivity. His life is a picture of the path of real change. He took time to be with God, was honest about the condition of his heart, and trusted that God desired the same intimate relationship that he craved.

Some of the contemplative life’s most basic characteristics and movements are described for us by Richard Foster in his book Steams of Living Water. As I read this book and prepared for this talk, I felt like a kid doing a dot to dot book; I felt that as each of these characteristics were described by Foster a line was drawn to another dot and a beautiful picture emerged.

I had experienced the characteristics but had no name for the experience. Listen as I share the way Foster describes them for us and see if they resonate with your soul.


Love
Over time we sense a deepening love for God that feels more like a gift than an achievement. In the beginning this feeling of love for God seems quiet and unassuming and it is hardly noticeable. The love for God comes little by little and it seems to fluctuate . . . high and low, hot and cold. In time it seems to grow deeper and stronger and steadier.

Peace
At the same time our love for God is growing, a peace slips into our lives . . . a peace that Foster says can not be analyzed or dissected. This peace is not due to any absence of conflict or worry. This feeling of peace is often interrupted in the beginning by distractions. But in time as it grows it seems to wins out over the distractions and noise of our lives.


Delight
Anther movement that Foster describes for us is that we begin to experience a delight. There is a pleasure, a friendship, joy . . . a deep joy. Foster described this as playfulness. God laughs into our soul and our soul laughs back into God. John of the Cross calls it “the sweet and delightful life of love with God . . . that delightful and wondrous vision.” It is not an uninterrupted delight. We experience an ebb and flow.

Emptiness
This seems like a contradiction but it is not really. We are entering a loving delight but we are pulled into intense longing, yearning, searching . . . a searching and not finding. We find but not completely. Foster calls it a dissatisfied satisfaction. John of the Cross called it “a living thirst . . . the urgent longing of love.”

Foster goes on to suggest that this emptiness is a darkness as well . . . we can feel as if God is hidden from us. Throughout these experiences solitude is our welcome companion . . . we are learning to be alone with God. Foster say that we need to understand that this emptiness, this darkness, this dryness is itself prayer. While delight is a feasting, emptiness is a fasting and both are needed for the growth of the soul.

Fire
When I read this in Foster’s book I was a little surprised . . . fire? But Foster doesn’t mean a literal fire. Foster says that in some ways this is more real than a literal fire. He says that as our love grows and intensifies, it becomes a steady flaming passion. Anything that causes distance or separation from God . . . disobedience or perhaps neglect is painful. “We feel and even welcome the purifying fire of God’s love burning out the dross; all stubbornness, all hate, all grasping need for self-promotion. And as the self-sins are burned away, the seeds of universal love blossoms and flower”.

Transformation
Foster suggests that each of these build on the other. Through it all, God gradually and slowly “captures” the inner faculties of who we are . . . first the heart and the will, then the mind, the imagination, and the passions. The result Foster says is transformation of the entire personality into the likeness of Christ. More and more and more we take on His habits, feelings, hopes, faith, and love.

Practicing the contemplative tradition brings strengths to our Christian walk, but there are a few potential dangers to be aware of. Foster says that these dangers are caused by distortions of the tradition.

Tendency to separate from ordinary life
Much of the literature on the Contemplative Tradition was written by monks. It is easy to say that they separated themselves from ordinary life so it was easy for them and not for me. I have to live in the “real world”. The monks did not have computers that makes one pull out their hair or diapers or crying kids or machines that malfunction.

Foster makes it clear that “in the middle of everyday life is precisely where prayer and intimacy with God needs to be developed”.

Tendency to extremism
A subtle form of danger lies in this same area. It is easy to become so intense with the tradition that it makes us unbalanced. We are so focused that we neglect other areas of our spiritual life. The one Foster mentions are the pressing social issues of our day. “When prayer and piety are used as a dodge from responsible action, we must expose this twisted and deformed spirituality as an imposter”.

Tendency to devalue theology over our faith
Sometimes inadvertently in our zeal to stress heart faith we devalue sound theology. Foster says “that in our attempts to correct intellectualism devoid of life, we must not debunk the necessity of right reason and clear thinking. We love God both from the mind and the heart and these two must ever be inseparable twins for us”.

Tendency to neglect community
Foster suggests that the tradition’s greatest strength has the potential to become a serious weakness. While the contemplative tradition stresses our solitude before God, it can easily lead us into individualism. We were not meant to live out our faith in isolation. We need community . . . we need brothers and sisters who love us, support us and give their discernment in our lives. Community helps us with our struggles and we gain strength from each other and lean not only from our mistakes but from others mistakes and we are able to encourage each other.

It is my prayer tonight that you will fall head over heals in love with God.


Resources:
Falling for God, Gary Moon
Streams of Living Water, Richard Foster
A Spiritual Formation Workbook, James Smith