Always

Hence I would say...that the contemplative...will not normally be associated too firmly or too definitely with any movement whether political, religious, liturgical, artistic, philosophical...

- Thomas Merton

It's not that contemplatives find movements confusing or uninteresting. It's just that contemplatives don't have any real need of them.

Contemplative Christianity at root stems from a passive intuition of one's true self and of the depths of God's presence in us. Contemplative experience is not a manifestation that can be brought about, or increased, or modified by one's own efforts. Neither can it be prevented. Technically it is both effected in a person and without that person. At best, active, outward contemplative practices might prepare someone for this unpredictability, but in the end classical contemplative experience occurs without any conceptual intermediary. Nor is any active contemplative preparation necessary to prime one for passive Christian contemplative awakening. It can and does simply happen. Everything else is irrelevant.

By accepting one's contemplative nature it is therefore easy to resist the temptation to become enmeshed in other conceptual expressions of life. Why would anyone prefer the complexities and pretences of fads and campaigns proffered by false selves to the direct simplicity and overwhelming value of experiencing God? Indeed, historical Christian contemplation enables a person to fully live with themselves, at home in their own simplicity, independent of exterior supports, not dependent on the diversions and entertainment and conversations and business of others. This is fostered through an abiding awareness of humility and self-forgetfulness and renunciation while in the genuinely sacrificial love-service of others. There is no need to infer anything about anything, or of comparing oneself with the experience of others, upon which society so structures itself. It is a stepping away from thought and becoming intuitively aware of mystery that is understood as a present and actual reality within oneself, as well as in the surrounding natural world. Alternately, there does indeed exist an more general aesthetic element of contemplation, but without this critical religious element this natural propensity is limited and deficient...too pale and too vague and too dull to carry the full sense of the genuine experience of the fullness of contemplation which includes God's indwelling. And lastly, genuine Chrstian contemplative experience always conveys - in addition to its primary manifestation, which is the deepest sense of love - a sacred sense of dread. Always.