A Letter to a Young Contemplative
I recently received a letter from a young person who has been listening to Secular Christ. He asked me a simple but penetrating question: How can I keep growing spiritually through the Christ image? Are there any words of wisdom that helped you along your path of living in the contemplative light?
The question struck home because it gets at the issue of practice. Concrete practice. What do I do today? How do I put this into my life? It’s something I’ve been thinking about a great deal in recent years, and I believe it’s absolutely crucial for a contemplative Christian. There is no contemplative life without practice. But not all contemplative practices are the same.
Contemplative Christian practice is distinct from many other spiritual practices. There may be concrete similarities, such as times set aside for meditation, but the intention behind Christian contemplative practice changes everything.
I took this opportunity to write at length to this person, sketching what I would call a set of Christian contemplative minimums. I’m very interested in this idea of minimum practice. When I was practicing Zen-style meditation, I tried to reduce practice to the absolute minimum and got it down to three breaths a day.
In yoga, in exercise, in many disciplines, the question arises: What is the absolute bare minimum you could introduce into your life such that there is no possible way you could tell yourself you don’t have time?
Three breaths. Who doesn’t have time to breathe mindfully three times a day?
And of course, what happens is that the three breaths become three more. You suddenly enter a space of mindfulness, and it becomes qualitatively richer than merely counting breaths.
Here, I want to introduce the idea of a minimalist contemplative practice, one that could be a secular Christian practice: a practice that does not require stepping outside one’s life, but is fully adapted to worldly life.
What I wrote to this person began with the following question:
Why practice at all?
It’s not obvious that we have to practice. After all, we are justified by faith and saved by grace. Why do we need practice? This question recalls Paul’s response to those who took grace as license to continue sinning. Paul’s answer is no. That is not what grace means.
When read in a certain light, Paul has a great deal to say about practice. Much of what appears to be moral teaching is actually teaching about spiritual and contemplative discipline.
We should not assume that all spiritual practices are similarly motivated. Christian contemplative practice has nothing to do with transcending our humanity, transforming our personalities, or becoming morally worthy of Christ’s sacrifice. It’s not self-help. All of that is unbelief.
Christian practice is for the sake of enjoying the gift already given, the victory already won, the presence of God that is everywhere and radiant all the time: in nature, in culture, in relationships, in our souls.
Practice gives us clarity, peace, mindfulness, and detachment from what Paul calls our lower nature. But this detachment has nothing to do with justifying ourselves or earning salvation. It has everything to do with training ourselves to enjoy the gifts of the Spirit: patience, kindness, self-control, joy.
We practice not to produce grace, but in response to it.
Nothing ultimately depends on our practice. If we don’t practice, if we live distracted and reckless lives, Christ’s victory remains what it is. Perhaps at the end of our lives we will wake up and find ourselves in the presence of the Lord we avoided, and he will not judge us harshly.
Practice is not essential in the sense of securing salvation. It positions us to receive what is already given. We practice to enjoy grace.
It may sound narcissistic, but it’s like sitting in the sun and deciding not to read or think or check your phone, but simply to close your eyes and let the warmth bathe you. Practice is for enjoying the grace of God that is always already active.
Christian contemplatives are not trying to perfect themselves. The model here is the monk. Monks exist in many traditions, but there is something distinctive about the Christian monk. A Christian monastery is not a school of self-improvement. It is a school of humility and charity.
Through daily prayer, communal life, and self-discipline, ordinary men and women learn how to enjoy grace, how to see the universe as theophany: a manifestation of God.
Secular Christians can learn a great deal from two millennia of Christian monasticism. Much of what developed in monasteries is directly applicable to secular life.
In particular, three practices can be adapted to life outside the monastery:
Lectio divina, meditatio, and ora et labora.
Lectio Divina: Spiritual Reading
Lectio is qualitative rather than quantitative. Nothing is less compatible with lectio than a reading list. This is not the time for getting through what you feel obligated to read. That is study, and study is something else.
Sometimes lectio is just a sentence from Scripture. Sometimes it’s a book you can’t put down because it inflames your love of God. Sometimes it’s a book you carry with you but don’t read at all. It simply rests on your lap as a reminder.
Traditionally, lectio centred on Scripture, though many monasteries have broadened this. The only criterion is the witness of the Spirit. You ask: Where is the Spirit drawing me now?
For me, recently, it has been Shinran and St. Paul. At other times it has been philosophy or theology. I once had a whole season as a young monk devoted to The Brothers Karamazov.
No one can decide this for you. Timing is everything. I still need physical books around me so they can literally fall off the shelf and land in my lap.
That said, Scripture has preeminence. A contemplative Christian life must be grounded in the Bible. We return to it again and again, and it becomes richer as our life deepens.
There is no reason not to read other scriptures, but we should avoid syncretism. Religion, like romantic love, requires absolute commitment. One path. One giving of oneself. When that commitment is made, the text opens.
Meditatio: Disciplined Attention
Meditatio is not about achieving divine consciousness or perfect mindfulness. We can be more relaxed than Zen practitioners, but not lazy.
Meditatio may mean thinking nothing at all, as Dōgen describes. It may also mean attending to thoughts the Spirit sends us, often insights arising from lectio.
We don’t choose the subject; we wait for it. But we must offer our minds daily for a set time.
Prayer itself is not in our power. The Spirit prays in us. But meditatio is something we must schedule. What monasteries schedule is not prayer, but availability.
Meditatio requires solitude. It cannot be done with others. Protecting solitude is essential. Time must be allocated, or the mind will flee.
For me, an hour a day is ideal, but not always possible. Sometimes I find a half hour in the late afternoon, a time when the logical mind slows, which is actually perfect for meditation.
Breath is crucial. Mantras can help. I’ve practiced the Jesus Prayer for decades. It arises spontaneously now. One can say it for one minute or twenty. It doesn’t matter. That is meditatio.
Ora et Labora: Prayer and Work
This practice is perhaps the most essential for secular Christians.
Prayer and work are not separate. To pray always means to be constantly available to the Spirit, especially in our work, which occupies most of our lives.
Work is a remedy for spiritual dryness. John of the Cross prescribed “silence and work” to those stuck in the dark night.
Even repetitive or menial work can be prayer when done with care. There is a qualitative difference between selling one’s time and working attentively.
Paul writes in Colossians that whatever we do, we should do it wholeheartedly, as for the Lord.
All work is service, but privileged people easily forget this. Time among the poor, the sick, and the marginalized reorients us. That is where Christ is.
Work must also be limited. Overwork is an addiction, a way of avoiding existential anxiety. The monastery limits work strictly for this reason.
There is more to say, especially about community, but I will leave that for another time.
I thank the young person who wrote to me. His question gave me an opportunity to think through something that has long been with me. I hope it helps others.