The Charism Of An Inborn Contemplative Life...

...first of all requires a psychology of being naturally self-emptying. The one thing that this person wants more than anything else is to understand in the fullest way what it means to love. They have an inborn unconditional regard for others. They have come face-to-face with God and have heard God whisper their secret name (Revelation 2:17). Their life is not one of denunciation, flight, or withdrawl, each of which are only reactive actions that can be applied by the will in shaping one’s character. And although many who enter contemplative life can justifiably and truthfully participate in doing so through an intentional reshaping of their character, genuine, inborn contemplative psychology has no need to be willfully shaped in learning how to do this. In other words, theirs is a natural repulsion from the agitation and confusion from all of the tedious baggage and useless attachments of vain concerns that occupy the vast majority of people. For them the peace of Christ is a wide open door; there is no struggle to leave the vain concerns of the self behind and to simply walk through. The place where this psychology flourishes is in a desert existence. They have no need to be validated as an instutional product. A return to the desert (eremos) is the most natural leading of the Holy Wind (pneuma) and it is easily responded to, although it may take some time for them to give themselves permission to do so, given corporate insistence that only non-contemplative social structures are valid forms of identification. And this psychology of special, direct love occurs not only toward God, but for the mutual aid of all, and is especially readily identifiable to others who also have heard their secret name called.