Contemplation

School work goes regardless of trick or treating. But at least I got an interesting lecture and discussion out of it!

My professor posed the question, "Richard Foster describes the contemplative life as 'the steady gaze upon the God who loves us.' Is such a steady gaze possible, practical or realistic?"

I believe a steady gaze upon God is possible. After all, people fixate their attention on what they love—be it their career, hobby, politics, sports, or Star Trek. So I can say, "I love God and my attention is naturally drawn to him" and I would be truthful in a sense.

Contemplation, however, implies a thoughtful observation. It is my experience that this kind of observation does not often come naturally. But we can train ourselves to be observant. When I first began directing television programs it seemed impossible that I could pay attention to the output of multiple cameras, VU meters, waveform monitor, vectorscope, and the clock simultaneously. Over time I found that it came easily and could carry on a conversation at the same time with my camera operators.

The quality most helpful to me in the practice of thoughtful living was noted in this evening's lecture: “living the tensions of life reflectively rather than avoiding them." I missed out on a lot of spiritual growth in the past because I tried to make my life fit an ideal of Christian living where no tensions existed and every issue could be easily resolved. (Oddly enough, I didn't learn about living life reflectively so much from any of the works I read on spiritual formation as I did by catching a glimpse of this quality in the writings of Frederick Buechner.)