Prayerful awareness can lead us into solitude, which is where God calls us. It is from within this solitude we encounter the indwelling God. We could say that by fully and fearlessly embracing our solitude before God that we are enabled to become fully and fearlessly present to others. If our being in God is real, we may become as a mountainside shelter within which others may feel encouraged to continue their own dialogue with the Holy One. Thus, as we are in God, we become a place for others to be in God.
To wonder is to stand in awe of the ultimate mystery of life and to understand that mystery exists not merely in the ecstatic but in the ordinary daily life. Eliot Deutsch observed that wonder, unlike curiosity, does not try to figure out, or to explain. We do not wonder "at," "about," or "why" —we wonder with.
An attitude of contemplation helps us to see the quiet beauty that is all around us in the world, in the faces of the people in our lives or the way a cat stretches, as well as in the mundane tasks that take up so much of our time. We can begin to cultivate the "listening heart." This contemplative way of seeing, hearing, and feeling brings richness and depth of meaning to our lives. It allows us to know what is real and essential. It helps us move toward freedom and wholeness as we see more clearly into the truth of the moment.
Through the cycles and seasons of our lives' as we continue to grow in awareness, we begin to feel more at home in the world. We begin to appreciate and accept who we are... We move from periods of joyful expansion into a dark night of the soul. We seem to reap the harvest of the sustained practice of attention and compassion and come to know ourselves in a new and more forgiving light, only to forget and return to what we thought were old, discarded ways. We suffer and we experience great delight. Yet deep within is a place of understanding, and to find this place is to come home.
~ "Coming Home to Simplicity" by Molly Vass-Lehman & Paula W. Jamison in SEEDS OF AWAKENING
