WEEK 77
God, what is your guidance for me today? What would you have me see, say or do? How may I deepen my own spirit in yours?
Today,
use contemplation as a doorway to divinity.
Pay prolonged attention to any
aspect of creation and you will begin to
move into the realms where divinity can be
revealed in ever deepening ways.
Let your contemplation be accompanied by
humility, and wisdom will begin to reveal itself
through my grace.
Find spaces and times to be
alone with your thoughts. Enter my temple
of nature.
Look at a tree. Contemplate its branches
and foliage. Therein alone is hidden many divine
revelations.
Even a crack in the sidewalk speaks of me.
Everything in creation is a word about my
Presence.
Even should you decide to contemplate
the darkness of life it would eventually
lead you to wisdom and light and love,
for that is the ultimate truth of existence.
The time you spend in contemplation today
will give you a glimpse of its power and gift
of connecting you to the divine realms.
As you stop to look deeply into life today,
ask for my Presence
to guide your time of contemplation.
Be open to what comes.
What is revealed is between you and me.
It will be the wondrous dance
between the human soul and the Holy Spirit.
Evening Reflection
I have experienced contemplation as one of the most enjoyable, richly satisfying and enlightening spiritual practices I have engaged in.
In my life I have spent considerable time daydreaming or wasting time on television. In my early spiritual life, prayer and meditation were the most dominant aspects of my personal time in spiritual practice. Discovering contemplation helped deepen my connection to divinity and the world itself.
Silence within is the main thing for me. It can be done most anywhere. It is a mindset. Studies have shown most of the brain is actually silent and entering silence within is most restorative. I have learned to connect with the deep silence and the deep listening even while holding a conversation.
But I love seeing into things while alone in silence. I can hear my own voice and that of the divine. My own voice… in contrast to the din of noise and voices from all forms of media constantly telling me what to think or how I should see some issue.
When I say hear the voice of the divine, I am communication something that words cannot really convey. Contemplation is a doorway to revelation. Insights are revealed as a gift of God’s grace and the willingness to create space and time to commune with Holy Presence in an intimate way.
Once I experienced this beautiful practice it is something I wanted more of. The contemplative practice does not have to yield earth-shattering truths. The time I have spent in contemplation has affirmed things I only knew from hearing it from others. I have been able to see deep within me and understand things on a deeper level that goes beyond newspaper headlines and talk show banter.
Through this practice I have experienced owning or rejecting beliefs and understandings learned from other sources, now filtered in the quietness of contemplation, allowing me to hear and feel my own inner truth.
Today, following guidance, I deepened my experience of connecting with divinity… time stopped… and eternity was revealed.
