Simple Thoughts

Contemplative experience is very real, but elusive. It cannot be looked at directly. It is extremely personal yet transcendent. And there is no way to explain it satisfactorily to people who have not had any experience of it in their own lives. And yet it is easily recognizable to those who have. It recurs from generation to generation. Simplicity, sobriety, humility. It is very normal in the Christian life, yet it should be neither distorted nor exaggerated. No one experiences it except through obscurity and self-forgetfulness. You should not aspire to it unless you are willing to go all the way into self denial. And you should not expect anyone else to either understand or want to empathize or follow along. It is not a shortcut to anything, although it does bring about the peace that Christ promises. And in this sense the contemplative finds the self fulfillment that cannot be obtained by any other means but that everyone mistakenly runs after.