5 April

In Contemplation. The Moment Of Great Decisions.

by Jon Katz
In Contemplation

Life is a great adventure, an experiment undertaken involuntarily.

It is, in many ways, a journey of the spirit through the material world, the world outside of us.

There have always existed interior souls, we call them mystics or contemplatives who have lived more intensely, knowingly, truthfully, than most people, who have lived purely externally and outside of themselves.

In our society, we no longer are given time to think, we have to scramble for silent moments, like mice after cheese.

We shut ourselves off from understanding who we really are or how we wish to live. Because for much of our lives, we have no idea, we wander from one place to another, and then, are astonished when our time runs out, and it is too late to think.

Like everyone else, my life is a struggle with the exterior world, with too much information and argument, too many messages about nothing, too little time with myself. The spirit travels through the material world, and it is the spirit that is hungry and starved of peace and meaning, too often anxious and unfulfilled.

We have created powerful tools that can do everything but leave us along, or show us how to think.

Fifteen years ago, I ran to a mountain and spent most of a year alone writing, and it was one of the most powerful and valuable experiences of my life. It changed my life, I saw myself in a completely different way. Here on the farm, Maria and I fight for solitude, for time to think, for contemplation. For an internal consciousness.

We both honor contemplation, we respect it and encourage it. We invite our spirit inward and we settle in ourselves, sometimes in the woods, sometimes out in a pasture, sometimes sitting with a dog or donkey, sometimes silently with one another. Life is a journey of the spirit through the material world, and since it is the spirit that travels freely, it is the spirit that feels and hears and sees the most.

Whenever I am in the external world, I ask myself if what I am saying is useful, and if what I am hearing is useful or meaningful. Does it matter. This morning, I received a half dozen messages on Facebook asking me how I was today. I get these messages almost every day, all of them from strangers.

I wonder at these messages. What are they about? Who are they for? What is expected of me? What is the meaning of messages that say nothing and mean nothing?

If our life is poured out in useless words,  wrote Thomas Merton, we will never hear anything, never become anything, and in the end, “because we have said everything before we had anything to say, we shall be left speechless at the moment of our greatest decision.”

The moment of my greatest decision is, I think, ahead of me, and when it comes, I wish to have something to say.

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