Enculturation

It is a sad fact that throughout history and today many who wish to portray themselves as solitaries or contemplatives are in some fashion or other closely identified with both wealth and/or highly conservative benefactors, as well as with rather reactionary and even archaically idealized views of people, society, and God. This supposed denial of the world and contemplation is very much influenced by these economic and social presuppositions.

From the simple standpoint of the direct experience of God in the present these should serve as reminders that no matter how much some people wish to use the facade of contemplation as a cover for something else, humans are always inevitably fitted into some sort of social structure, and must both recognize and navigate through these contexts if they are to learn to deny these influences in any sort of manageable manner that does not itself demand that other protocols are first adhered to and followed before God will have anything to do with you.