Reflection:
Our Contemplative Hope
In this reflection we explore the question of how our participation in our own awakening process can help humanity and the planet in the impasse that we are in as a species, and how this can be a participation on a broader scale in bringing hope where there seems to be none.
Opening music:
Listen to the following as an opening prayer.
Quiet Prayer:
Spend some time in quiet prayer, letting go of any thoughts when you notice that you have been caught up, and returning in quiet surrender to the present moment, to the transforming Presence of God.
End the time of quiet prayer by listening to the following song:
Lyrics:
Winter is the oldest season
But quietly beneath the snow
Seeds are stretching out and reaching
Faithful as the morning glow
Carry nothing but what you must
Lean in toward the Light
Let it go, shake off the dust
Lean in toward the Light
Today is now, tomorrow beckons
Lean in toward the Light
Keep practicing resurrection
Lean in toward the Light
The shadows of this world will say
There's no hope why try anyway?
But every kindness large or slight
Shifts the balance toward the light
Waters wind and open wide
Lean in toward the Light
Don't just walk when you can fly
Lean in toward the Light
When justice seems in short supply
Lean in toward the Light
Let beauty be your truest guide
Lean in toward the Light
The shadows of this world will say
There's no hope why try anyway?
But every kindness large or slight
Shifts the balance toward the light
The prayer I pray at eventide
Lean in toward the Light
All left undone be put aside
Lean in toward the Light
When forgiveness is hard to find
Lean in toward the Light
Help me at least to be kind
Lean in toward the Light
Lean in toward the Light
Lean in toward the Light
Lean in toward the Light
Lean in toward the Light
Lean in toward the Light
For Further Reflection:
Below are quotes from the talk for you to take this theme further.
Judy Cannato: "the connectedness is so essential that the movement of one part affects the whole. Physicist Paul Dirac once said, 'Pick a flower on earth and you move the farthest star.'"
Thich Nhat Hanh, telling of the crowded Vietnamese refugee boats: “If even one person on the boat stayed calm, it was enough. It showed the way for everyone to survive.”
Judy Cannato describes morphogenic fields as "a non-material region of influence within and around a particular form. It can be thought of as a field of information. ... Over time, morphogenic fields begin to have a cumulative memory and become increasingly habitual, making it easier for those entering the field to learn its associated habits."
“The greater number of previous morphogenic fields that resonate with and feed into the new, the greater the morphic resonance will be. ... The more morphic units participating or resonating, the easier the behavior may be acquired by those who are newly entering the field. ... the influence or resonance increases as the number of participants increases.”
Robert Thurman: “By transforming our consciousness, we participate in the transformation of the world.”
Teilhard de Chardin: “Remain true to yourself, but move ever upward toward greater consciousness and greater love! At the summit you will find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction, have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must converge.”
Judy Cannato: “it is possible to describe the kind of freedom at the heart of the gospel as ‘the capacity to choose to engage in the process of the evolution of consciousness.’ We have the capacity to make choices that will evolve us, both personally and as a species. ... We have the capacity to cooperate with the unfolding of the universe, a process driven by grace, which invites us to be co-creators.”
“Each of us is a morphogenic field participating, influencing, and being influenced by other morphogenic fields. What if we were to be intentional about maintaining an emerging morphogenic field? What if we were to engage our energies as consciously as possible in order to influence and help manifest this new emerging consciousness, a consciousness rooted in the past, yet filled with promise for our species and all life on our planet? Would this not be resonant with the call to live in freedom so that we might experience the depth of love? In such a critical moment in our own history, can we do anything but this?”
Constance FitzGerald: “It is my strong suspicion that the prayer of no experience (contemplative prayer), effecting an essential change in selfhood, may be emerging with such frequency as a response to a world driven by selfishness and self-concern. Any hope for new consciousness and a self-forfeiture driven by love stands opposed by a harsh reality: we humans serve our own interests, we hoard resources, we ravage the earth and other species, we scapegoat, we make war, we kill, we torture, we turn a blind eye to the desperation and needs of others, and we allow others to die. We simply are not evolved enough to move into a different future from which God comes to us. Our ability to embody our communion with every human person on the earth and our unassailable connectedness with everything living is limited because we have not yet become these symbiotic “selves.” We continue to privilege our personal autonomy and are unable to make the transition from radical individualism to a genuine synergistic community even though we know intellectually we are inseparably and physically connected to every living being in the universe. Yet the future of the entire earth community is riding on whether we can find a way beyond the limits of our present evolutionary trajectory.”
Romans 8:19: “For the creation waits in eager anticipation for the children of God to be revealed.”
Constance FitzGerald: “What this prayer predicts as possibility for what the human person and the human community are to become is far beyond what a coalition of strong willed, autonomous, right thinking, ethical people can ever achieve on their own. If the process underway in the prayer of no experience is silently dispossessing us of our possessive selfhood, might this forfeiture amount to an evolutionary leap toward selflessness? Reaching beyond the horizon of present expectation and imagination, willing to go beyond the boundaries of their lives/selves to make an irrevocable passage into a new place, a new way of “being” in the universe, these prophets of hope stand open to receive the unimaginable future to which God is alluring us, and more: they actually serve as the doorway to it.”
Clarissa Pinkola Estes: “Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good."
Ending prayer:
Lord we pray that you, the Source of self-giving and abundant love,
will awaken us in our inner beings,
so that we may know the indwelling presence of Christ.
And we pray that as we become more deeply rooted and established in Your love,
we may have power, together with all of the people of your creation,
to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
and to become convinced of this love that surpasses rational knowledge—
that we may be filled to overflowing with your generous, outpouring abundance.
Amen
(Adapted from Ephesians 3:17-19)
Ending music:
Lyrics:
Lord make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master grant that I may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love
For it is in giving that we receive-
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
And it’s in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen
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Sharon's book that was previously called "Contemplative Living" has been republished by AnamChara Books under the title "Deeper: Finding the Depth Dimension Beneath the Surface of Life". The Kindle version is available from Amazon, and the hard copy version can be ordered from loot.co.za or Takealot, or from your local bookshop through Ingram Distribution.