Pondering: Contemplation

Photo by Jon Sullivan

from Too Deep for Words: Rediscovering Lectio Divina
by Thelma Hall

Contemplation is a strange new land, where everything natural to us seems to be turned upside down--where we learn a new language (silence), a new way of being (not to do but simply to be), where our thoughts and concepts, our imagination, senses and feelings are abandoned for faith in what is unseen and unfelt, where God's seeming absence (to our senses) is his presence, and his silence (to our ordinary perception) is his speech. It is entering the unknown, letting go of everything familiar we would cling to for security, and discovering that in being "wretchedly and pitiably poor, and blind and naked too" (Revelations 3:17) (which grace reveals to us and which we fear to acknowledge--much less accept--in ourselves) lies the potential for all our hope and joy, because to know our true selves is to know we are loved by God beyond all measure.