The Wired Soul

by Tricia McCary Rhodes

  Had it not been for a battle with the French for a town named Pamplona, in which he was hit in both legs by cannonballs, Iñigo Lopez would perhaps have never made the annals of history—and we, as Christ followers, might have missed out on some of the richest and most practical resources ever written for the faith journey. Hospitalized for seven weeks while undergoing numerous surgeries, Iñigo pored over the only books available—books by and about saints of old. Soon he had a series of spiritual experiences that would lead him to devote his life to Christ and eventually to write. His Spiritual Exercises, a four-week journey of prayer, meditation, and contemplation, continues to be relevant and life-changing for Christians across denominations today.[1]

  Iñigo, known today as Ignatius of Loyola, founded a monastic order he called “the company of Jesus,” teaching them how to be “contemplatives in action” by knowing and loving God so intimately that they would see him in all things as they lived and worked in the world. Today this order, known as the Jesuits, has some twenty thousand members in 112 nations. They are known and respected for their scholarship, as well as for their commitment to obeying Ignatius’s mandate. The official Jesuit website describes Ignatian spirituality as “not merely an inward journey, much less a self-absorbed one. It aims to bring people closer to God and more deeply into the world—with gratitude, passion, and humility—not away from it.”[2]

  There is perhaps no way of being in this world more at risk today than the contemplative one. While the drumbeat of the digital age beats with immediacy and speed, contemplative living is rooted in the slow momentum of time. While technology is, by nature, designed to increase efficiency, contemplatives often pursue a path that can appear patently unproductive. While expediency fuels the cyber-life, contemplatives are energized by the sacredness in ordinary moments. And while our Web-saturated existences can reduce relationships to instant messages and images on social media, living contemplatively calls for ever-deepening connections both with God and with others. Although this divide does not necessarily keep contemplatives from full immersion in today’s techno-world, it requires a high level of focused intentionality to do so.

  More on that later. But first, what exactly is a contemplative? The term is used today in the public sphere in everything from TED Talks to blogs to mainstream news to academic journal articles. Indeed, there are now contemplative neuroscience departments at several major universities. Perhaps because the conversation is less common in Christian (particularly Protestant) circles, there is no widespread agreement on what a contemplative life might look like. On the one hand, spiritual leaders like Richard Foster warn spiritual novices away from contemplation, noting that it is a form of prayer “for those who have exercised their spiritual muscles a bit and know something about the landscape of the Spirit.”[3] On the other hand, Eugene Peterson suggests that there is nothing really special about contemplation: It is “the Christian life, nothing more but also nothing less. But lived.”[4] This, then, is where we begin.

  Understanding Contemplative Life

  How do you define the indefinable? How do you describe the ineffable? How do you pinpoint the parts of a process that defies delineation? How do you put into words an experience that can seem as rare and exquisite as the finest of wines, yet as important to faith as air to our lungs? These questions plagued me as I prepared to write this chapter. Even my spiritual mentors, those wise saints who have written throughout the centuries and whose books have guided me on my journey, tend to talk about contemplation in diverse ways—and at times, as I’ve noted, they are at odds regarding its purpose.

  I confess, then, that I feel quite inadequate for this task. I have an evolving grasp of contemplation based on my own journey and years of reading, but I am keenly aware that the things I write will likely frustrate some who prefer a more didactic approach while causing contemplative purists to shake their heads at my naiveté. To that end, reader beware—what more can I say?

  For many people, the word contemplation conjures up images of silent saints in serene settings, transfixed by the presence of God. Indeed, one of Webster’s definitions of the term is “a state of mystical awareness of God’s being.” Unfortunately, this limited view has been singularly promoted by many scholars and spiritual guides in centuries past and present, and while it is accurate as far as it goes, it fails to capture the breadth of contemplation as a lifestyle for people of faith.[5] Contemplation does indeed make us more aware of the reality of God’s loving presence for ourselves. But it also causes us to see our world and the people in it in ways we never could otherwise.

  This gift of sight—of understanding that comes only by divine revelation—is a central theme in much writing and teaching about contemplation. In fact, one of the early desert fathers, Evagrius, called contemplation a theoria physike, which literally means “a vision into the nature of things.” Based on this understanding, Henri Nouwen concludes that “the contemplative life, therefore, is not a life that offers a few good moments between the many bad ones, but a life that transforms all of our time into a window through which the invisible world becomes visible.”[6]

  Another common theme related to the contemplative life is that it springs from a supernatural experience of God’s love. Thus, John of the Cross calls contemplation “a secret and peaceful and loving inflow of God.”[7] Another teacher explains, “Christic contemplation is nothing less than a deep love communion with the triune God. By depth here we mean a knowing love that we cannot produce but only receive.”[8] At the risk of oversimplification, I would like to suggest that Christian contemplatives are those for whom a vision of God’s love both infuses and informs the whole of their lives. To explore this further, let me try to untangle what I believe are some of the myths about contemplation.

  Myths about Contemplation

  First, I do not believe that contemplation is reserved for people who have reached a certain level of maturity in their faith. While the intimate knowledge of God evolves over the course of one’s lifetime, anyone who has entered into a relationship with Christ can be captivated by a vision of his unfathomable love, not merely in theory or by faith but through personal experience. My first taste came when I was nineteen years old, as I stood outside a gas station with an older aunt who challenged me to fall in love with Jesus. Her words arrested my heart, and I felt as if a gentle breeze were wafting over my entire being. Now, decades later, I can see that in that moment I drank the tiniest drop from an infinite river, but it was more than enough for me to know that my life would never be the same.

  Second, contemplation is nurtured by but not relegated to times of solitude and silence. As I will show later, in order to live contemplatively we do need times of withdrawal when we are alone with nothing more than our own hearts and the God of the universe. But this does not mean that we leave all of this behind when we venture out of our solitude. Indeed, to be contemplative means to live and move and have our being in the ebb and flow of God’s love, allowing it to soften our hearts and open our eyes—whether we are far from the madding crowd or embroiled in the noisy chaos of our daily existence.

  Third, the fruit of contemplation is not something that we achieve by our own merit, spiritual prowess, or even discipline. While some practices can help us prepare our hearts and we can do certain things to make ourselves more spiritually aware, only God can open the eyes of our hearts and shed his love within them (Romans 5:5). He alone determines how and when he will do so. As he reveals himself across the seasons of our spiritual journey—when we stumble and when we stand, in the dry times and the dark times, through the joyous celebrations and the agonizing losses—we will know more and more of this love that is beyond understanding (Ephesians 3:19-21).

  The truth is, however, that while living contemplatively spurs us to cultivate obedience, this does not make us worthy of a vision of God’s love; nor—on the other hand—do our weaknesses keep us from receiving it, for as Eugene Peterson reminds us, “all contemplatives are failed con
templatives.”[9]

  Finally, although there may be times when we’re so taken with the beauty of God that we feel as if we’ve been transported to some other realm (for example, Paul’s vision of the third heaven in 2 Corinthians 12:1-6), far more often contemplation entails glimpses of God’s love in momentary interludes. This can happen as we drive to work or kneel in glorious worship. It can surprise us as we are offering a sandwich to a homeless person or gathering to pray with friends or kissing our kids good night or savoring a moment in God’s Word. We can’t hold on to it when it happens, and we may struggle to put our experience into words. But in some way, as we taste and see that God is good, we know in our heart of hearts not only that are we loved but also that his love bathes our world and the people in it. These joys, though almost imperceptible, become the defining moments of our days.

  Living Contemplatively

  Contemplative living is best understood as a cycle that flows from action to inaction, movement to stillness, crowds to solitude, and back again. Pulling away to spend time alone is the pause, the rest note, the Sabbath of time, energy, and activity that enables us to fix our hearts on the living God. These moments, however, are never meant to foster ingrown introspection. Rather, God’s engagement across our busy lives runs like a gentle undercurrent through our times of silence, like the translucent stillness of a pond kept from stagnation by underground streams. Our experience of his loving embrace in that place carries us from our solitude back into “the midst of an anxious and violent world as a sign of hope and a source of courage.”[10] We don’t come by any of this naturally; we need patience, persistence, and a large measure of grace to flourish in the contemplative current.

  Contemplation in Solitude

  Solitude and silence are rare commodities in an age of perpetual motion, constant connection, and the unyielding pressure to multitask the moments of our days. Not only have we become habituated to compulsive activity, but, as I’ve noted throughout the book, the neural pathways in our brains that support things like quietness and contemplation are growing weaker as more and more of our lives become digitized. As a result, we are losing our capacity for rest, reflection, and resonance, all of which are central to the kind of meaningful existence for which God created and redeemed us.

  The good news is that, although it will take time and commitment, we really can rewire our brains to recapture these indispensable gifts by pressing into the practice of private contemplation in God’s presence.

  Rest. To rest—our first need in contemplation—means to put aside the noisy chaos without and within in order to connect authentically with God. Augustine, in his teaching on the Ten Commandments, calls this a “Sabbath in the heart,” and notes how hard it can be:

  God is saying, “Be still and see that I am God.” But you, so restless, refuse to be still. You are like the Egyptians tormented by gnats. These, the tiniest of flies, always restless, flying about aimlessly, swarm at your eyes, giving no rest. They are back as soon as you drive them off. Just like the futile fantasies that swarm in our minds. Keep the commandment, beware of the plague.[11]

  We all can probably relate to this and to the words of Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, who commented that “the deepest problem in prayer is often not the absence of God but the absence of me. I’m not actually there. My mind is everywhere.”[12] Resting requires that we rein in all of our thoughts and emotions so that we can be present to God in the moment. This Sabbath in the heart is where we want to remain, lingering in the stillness as we silently commune with the One who delights to spend time with us.

  Rest also means learning to let go of our need to impress or our effort to achieve, so that we can just be ourselves. For those of us who are used to playing out our lives in public on the digital stage, this is extremely difficult, and yet the struggle is not a new one. The writer of Hebrews explains that “whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works,” but then he offers the paradoxical refrain: “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest” (Hebrews 4:10-11). This is the conundrum of rest—we are to move from doing to being, from trying to relying, from activity to passivity, but we have to exert all of our energy to do so.

  Contemplation calls for us to let go of our need to accomplish something in times alone with God. We must strive for this because it feels so foreign to our normal way of thinking, especially about prayer. The moment we seek to do nothing but enjoy God’s presence, our egos fuss and fidget, and we feel the pressure to produce. Years ago I shared about contemplation with a group of missionaries, and one reacted incredulously, insisting that she could never waste time that way when she had so many people and needs on her daily prayer list. But resting means just that: wasting time on God himself—not on what he might do for us or in us or through us, but on him alone. Marva Dawn calls this “a total waste of time in earthly terms, a total immersion in the eternity of God’s infinite splendor for the sole purpose of honoring God.”[13]

  Reflection. From the place of rest we move to the second component of contemplation in solitude: reflection. Unlike in meditation, where we seek to focus our minds on eternal truths, here we simply seek to love God himself. Henri Nouwen calls solitude the “place of the great encounter,” noting that here God reveals himself “as the God who wants to give himself to us with an unconditional, unlimited and unrestrained love, and as the God who wants to be loved by us with all our heart, all our soul and all our mind.”[14] As we connect with God’s tender countenance, as we taste and see that he is good and that his loving-kindness is truly better than life, we cannot help but want to love him back—silently, wordlessly, effortlessly. This kind of encounter is what makes contemplation transforming, but it takes time; you really cannot rush love.

  A transforming vision of God’s love is rooted in our realization that he is not only transcendent but immanent. Thus, the miracle of the indwelling Christ is the very core of contemplation. Augustine helps us here again: “Why do we rush about to the top of heaven and the bottom of earth, looking for him who is here at home with us, if only we could be at home with him?” And then, “Return to your heart! See there what you perceive about God because the image of God is there.”[15] As we pull away from life’s mesmerizing minutiae and begin to envision Christ as our ever-present companion, his whispers of love become beams of light, warming the caverns of our hearts from the inside out. This is the fruit of reflection.

  In 1912, a pharmacist turned publisher named C. Austin Miles opened his Bible to John 20 and was captivated by the story of Mary at Jesus’ tomb. Soon the wall of his room faded away, and he saw a garden in his mind’s eye where a woman in white wept, clasping her throat to hold back sobs. He goes on to unfold the story of Peter and John coming and going, and then the moment when Mary saw Jesus. Lost in this encounter, Miles felt he was personally seeing Christ in all his glory as well. He described what happened next:

  I awakened in sunlight, gripping the Bible, with muscles tense and nerves vibrating. Under the inspiration of this vision I wrote as quickly as the words could be formed the poem exactly as it has since appeared. That same evening I wrote the music.[16]

  The poem Miles refers to here became the well-known hymn “In the Garden.” While it unveils a beautiful picture of the kind of encounter one has with Christ in contemplation—“He walks with me and talks with me and tells me I am his own”—Miles ends with this:

  I’d stay in the garden with Him

  Though the night around me be falling,

  But He bids me go; through the voice of woe,

  His voice to me is calling.

  As wonderful as times of contemplation are in God’s presence, his voice will always call us to go. As this happens, we experience the third phase of our journey in solitude, that of resonance.

  Resonance. Resonance is what happens when our hearts, vibrating with God’s love, understand anew why we are on this earth. As our eyes are lifted to our ordinary world and the day before us, rather th
an feeling fear or anxiety or a need to control, we experience a deep and personal sense of meaning about even the smallest details. Sven Birkerts suggests that resonance is what we miss when cyber-time is our perpetual reality—this propensity to ponder how the things we do and the way we live actually matters in the grand scheme of things, this awareness that there is an order and a sense of coherence to the world that transcends us.[17] Resonance is a sorely needed quality for us as Christ followers today: It prepares us to move about the world into which Jesus sends us. In other words, resonance spurs us to be contemplatives in action.

  Contemplation as We Go

  Yesterday as I was warming up in my gym’s spa, I was surprised to hear the following wafting through the air:

  Holy Spirit, You are welcome here.

  Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere.

  Your glory, God, is what our hearts long for,

  To be overcome by your presence, Lord.[18]

  Looking around, I realized the sounds were coming from the earphones of a young woman who had her eyes closed and was completely caught up in the music. She didn’t realize that all of us in that small room were hearing it as well. At first I was amused, and then I began to ponder: What would it look like if the prayer of her song was answered—not surrounded by other believers in some congregational worship time, but right then and there, where three strangers sat sweating, staring at the floor? What might happen in that place if the Holy Spirit were to fill the atmosphere? Or perhaps more importantly, if I were overwhelmed with God’s presence, how might it change the way I view these moments in my day?