Retreat

If the Cross is deeply contemplated, it is saying that love is supreme, and that the darkness and the apparent unfairness of life can be endured. In the Cross, love is able to speak ... speak to any human situation, whether of loss, of persecution, of disillusion.

Fr. John Woolley

As we begin the Lenten season, it reminds me again to look within, to recognise those unhelpful hiding places and defensive positions, those habitual reactions to others and to life, and to seek Love's comfort, Love's help, Love's understanding, Love's patience, Love's company, Love's solitude, Love's resilience, Love's invitation to surrender and overcome, Love's rest. 

Silence

God's poet is silence! His song is unspoken 

And yet so profound, and so loud, and so far,

That it thrills you and fills you in measures unbroken -

The unceasing song of the first morning star ....

Joaquin Miller, The True Poet

There was a beautiful calmness this week, a gentle invitation for the Spirit into Silence. It was restful, with a grateful recognition of peace, simplicity and community. And then, typically, a familiar moment of turmoil arrived, with its not-so-welcome recognition of panic, confusion and isolation. It amazes me how our default polarities sit so closely together, pulling us from one extreme to the other.

The spiritual masters, saints and mystics have recommended for hundreds and thousands of years, that we consciously place our attention on Silence and Presence, rather than on the story or object of our disharmony; focus on the Presence rather than on the circumstances of the turmoil; focus on the background Silence in which this is all taking place. In this way, the circumstances are acknowledged, allowed and absorbed into the entire background, rather than so dominating our foreground that we cannot even sense Silence as the background.

This is a practice of prioritising Presence over the restless, ever-changing, often weary landscape of our minds. It is the repetitive action of placing our attention on God, on Silence, like the hall light we leave on through the night while we sleep. Ramana Maharshi tells us to concentrate on the light, rather than on what is illuminated by the light. This is our permanent landing place. This is certainly one reminder I constantly use, and somehow, I recognise my true Self there, in recognising God, and an ease comes to the Spirit.

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.

Mahatma Gandhi

Silence, as Presence, as Beingness, is the background which holds all else, and into which everything is absorbed and dissolves. It is Silence in the presence of turmoil, peace, fear, frustration, joy, disappointment and inconsistency. It is Silence in spite of noise, interruption, disharmony, joy, progression, success. It is the Silence within which our inner knowing is revealed.

In an attitude of trust and silence, we bow everything to God. Contemplation confirms that a higher order of balance and harmony is working its way out in us and in Life itself. These moments of turmoil take us beyond Resilience. We just need to keep our eye on the light, and watch it continue to shine forth in and around us.

Returning to silence is returning to peace.

Returning to peace, the world reharmonises itself.

Lao Tzu

Beyond Resilience

Each life is a mystery that is never finally available to the mind's light or questions. That we are here is a huge affirmation; somehow life needed us and wanted us to be.

John O'Donohue

What we can miss most at times of turmoil is Rest, the ability to move through our daily activities with the often unappreciated comforts of familiarity and knowingness. Turmoil introduces change, doubts, insecurities, frustrations, and an unknowingness of what new direction will unfold.

At times we overreact. We grade the level of turmoil as being higher than it actually is. Even a small trigger can catch us believing for a time something hugely significant is happening. At other times, we are shocked how wide the ripples and how deep the implications of change which are thrust upon us.

I always felt resilience was one of the most enviable of human qualities, found more in some people than others. Resilience and adaptability help shorten the adjustment time in periods of change. This bounce-back-ability is often seen to be at its peak in children. They may cry in pain after a fall or a falling-out with a sibling or friend, and then quickly recover and begin a new game together. The compulsion for fun and the enjoyment of the moment or the game, or the company of their buddy, by far overrides any pain they can now hardly even remember. It seems at some point, the felt pains stack up, even for children, and a subtle strategy to avoid pain begins, and can last a lifetime if left unchallenged.

Even for those lucky adults who have a high level of resilience, there are many times when they too find themselves at a loss and struggle to adjust to what life is presenting. Grief, illness, relationships, home life, work, finances, and funnily enough, even the weather can severely affect our equilibrium. We need time to come back to Resting. (See Be Yourself Post)

I knew I was hearing Truth when I realised Contemplation concerned not so much a quick-fix solution or a dogma, as a re-directing inwards of my attention and focus. It invites the fullness and impossibility of a situation to exist, and with it, the full vulnerability of Unknowing. In time, we gain tolerance for this vulnerability and this Unknowing, and a wonder at the harmony with which each new situation becomes resolved, too often in spite of us. This takes us beyond resilience.

One of the strange laws of the contemplative life is that in it you do not sit down and solve problems: you bear with them until they somehow solve themselves. Or until life itself solves them for you. Usually the solution consists in a discovery that they only existed insofar as they were inseparably connected with your own illusory exterior self. The solution of most such problems comes with the dissolution of this false self.

 Thomas Merton