Quotes about Contemplation

God needs something to seduce you out and beyond yourself, so God uses three things in particular: goodness, truth, and beauty. All three have the capacity to draw us into an experience of union. You cannot think your way into this kind of radiant, expansive seeing. You must be caught in a relationship of love and awe now and then, and it often comes slowly, through osmosis, imitation, resonance, contemplation, and mirroring.

Because far too many religious folks do not seriously pursue this "reverence humming within them," they do not recognize

The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw and knew I saw all things in God and God in all things. —Mechtild of Magdeburg (1212—1282)

spirituality

In this high place it is as simple as this, Leave everything you know behind. Step toward the cold surface, say the old prayer of rough love and open both arms. Those who come with empty hands will stare into the lake astonished, there, in the cold light reflecting pure snow, the true shape of your own face. David Whyte, "Tilicho Lake"   Conservatives

Contemplation is really the change that changes everything—especially, first of all, the seer.

for Action and Contemplation puts it this way: "The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better." I

The human art form is in uniting fruitful activity with a contemplative stance—not one or the other, but always both at the same time.

15:9). Big Truth is intended to deeply change the seer himself or herself, or it is not Big Truth—or truth at all. Some form of contemplative practice is the key to this larger seeing and this larger knowing.

Whenever God is conceived in the soul, it is always an allowing, never an accomplishment.

To keep the mind space open, you need some form of meditative practice—something much more than saying prayers. In fact, if recitation of prayers does not lead to a change in consciousness, it is actually counterproductive.

The ordinary activities I find most compatible with contemplation are walking, baking bread, and doing laundry.