Celebrating my birthday today with a blizzard continuing outside. Wrote my funeral arrangements yesterday. You never know!
Yesterday and Monday I am doing a presentation on contemplation. This Sunday's Gospel is the Transfiguration of Jesus, which Luke presents as a prayer experience. At a friend's recommendation, I began today to read Richard Rohr's The Naked Now about the urgent need for contemplation.
Even in grammar school I would sometimes sneak off to the church for a "visit." In high school I experienced guided meditation. Then I found making the Stations of the Cross privately a contemplative experience. I started reading a passage of scripture and talking to God about it. In 1980 I began doing "Centering Prayer," which has become the mainstay of my life. Contemplation has become even more a part of my life since I retired. There are all kinds of ways to do it. I think everyone can.
In the last century the great theologian Karl Rahner said, "The devout Christian of the future will either be a 'mystic'...or he will cease to be anything at all." The future is now.
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