Contemplative Life

Vefútgáfa  |  Uppfæra stillingar  |  Afskrá Líka við Tísta Áframsenda http://waytoheaven333.blogspot.com Simplicity as a Key to Holiness of Life - by Br. Wayne Posted by Contemplative Life on 18 November, 2012 We live in a culture with which we continuously make our compromises. There is so much to admire about American society, for instance, the opportunities and resources to pursue our interests, or our unique spiritual path. Even though we may criticize the American way of life in our counter-cultural moments, particularly when we view it through the clear lens of our faith and the uncompromising vision of the Gospel, we all love our common culture in some way. Keeping the above in mind, let me offer an insight into the nature of simplicity that is not meant to denigrate our culture, but to suggest a spiritual resource to deepen our understanding of what God requires of us as he invites us into greater intimacy with him. The Gospel is essentially an ethics of love and a guide to relationship with him, with nature, others and with our own true selves. Relationship with the Divine, which is the real purpose of all prayer, is deep, abiding friendship with him; it is to reach and dwell in a powerfully transforming communion with the Persons of the Trinity. We are made for friendship with the Divine, and we need to be who we really are in order to cultivate this depth of friendship with God. Our true selves have a lot to do with how we have been wrought by the Creator, that is, made in the image and likeness of God. Simplicity uncovers for us the existential depth and reality of being an image and likeness of God, while our culture would lull us into an abysmal distraction and the pettiness of the consumer mentality. Again, there is so much that is good in our culture, but there is equally a lot that is detrimental to following the Gospel. To put the matter as simply as I can, it can be observed that American society is spiritually illiterate, morally confused, psychologically dysfunctional, addicted to violence, consumerism, and endless amounts of entertainment. Indeed, we live from movie to movie. Our culture is also in love with violence; it is a culture of violence, which it maintains with Hollywood’s willful and gleeful complicity. Simplicity itself alerts us to the truth so eloquently emphasized by Jesus that we should “not store up our treasures on earth where moth and thief can get at them.” Simplicity is not about having more, but being more. Being more is related to developing an attitude of loving kindness, of compassionate action, mercy, kindness and sensitivity. These are divine qualities. Sensitivity is a vast awareness; it requires that we make room for others, especially God, within ourselves. We must achieve our innate spaciousness. Vast sensitivity is a spacious being; it approximates the Divine being. The Divine is infinite spaciousness totally animated by Love. Christ enfleshed the spaciousness of God’s Love for us in the event of the Incarnation, an existential teaching for humankind and beyond. We cannot discover and cultivate our own innate vastness, our spaciousness as images and likenesses of the Divine glory if we are interiorly obsessed with the twin culture of entertainment and consumerism that surrounds us here in America. We have to liberate ourselves from this self-imposed complexity that so clutters our souls and oppresses our consciences in relation to the half-nots, the two-thirds of humanity living in conditions of nearly perpetual destitution. Simplicity becomes for us all a vehicle through the clutter, the possessive quality of our society, the relentless drive to have the impermanent. We must free ourselves, through a voluntary simple life, from the radical attachment to the impermanent. If we are to awaken more deeply to the divine sensitivity that is our nature as reflections of the glory God quite simply is, we must remove the obstacles in ourselves to this high estate of being. It is simplicity of life that guides us in this kind of growth by obviating the obstructions our culture has taught us. These are obstacles that stem from our own incapacity for generosity, our uncritical individualism, our selfishness, and they need to be set aside in acts of generosity, of love, and profound kindness. Simplicity is our teacher in healing and expanding our relationship with God, with others, with the natural world, and with ourselves. Simplicity of life directs us only to take what we require for our lives, and leave the rest for the sake of the larger community, and the desperate need of the marginalized poor. It is the constant realization that only God matters, and the absolute task of charity, of loving others in a non-sentimental cherishing of the members of the Mystical Body. In a very real sense, one lesson of September 11th is a curiously Gospel insight: the temporary state of earthly happiness, and the necessity of giving our attention and commitment to the Kingdom of Heaven. It teaches us further how unjust our possessiveness is, our lack of simplicity, when it results in the diminishment of most of humankind. To live in this way blocks us from the realization of our own personal responsibility in the terrible plight of the poor and the oppressed around the world. Until all have sufficient food, clothing, shelter, education, and medical care, there is no real justice in the world, and thus, no grounds for a permanent global peace. Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa, Charles de Foucauld, and countless others, are prophets of holy poverty, of that vital attitude and spiritual practice of simplicity of life that actually clarifies everything for us. They understood so well how necessary this practical virtue is in relation to our connection with nature, our relationship with God, with the poor who also surround us, and in our spiritual lives, if they are to be authentic. It is only through simplicity that our relationship with the Divine is single-minded and pure; it is focused, and our hearts then are undivided and free of preoccupation with the lesser goods of this world. With this kind of commitment to a voluntary sense of Gospel poverty, our relationship with God can soar to the heights of union, communion, and effective acts of mercy. Simplicity of life establishes a new relationship with the natural world; it makes true harmony possible, and in this harmony, Francis of Assisi is again our teacher. The simple life is one in connection with nature, in awe of her beauty, and aware of our essential dependence her. Living simply each day of our lives allows us to be genuinely part of nature, which is the real first world. It makes possible, furthermore, to be one with the poor because we are also poor. To be poor, in the sense in which Jesus advocates, allows us to be truly available to others, because like them, we are equally vulnerable. Finally, simplicity, poverty of spirit, frees us in our own spiritual journey, and teaches us in the flesh, so to speak, the radical freedom of a non-possessive attitude towards life, what the Gospel, in the example and words of Jesus manifests as indispensable to us in our own journey to God here in this world. Simplicity of life leads to genuine selfless love, summed up so eloquently by the poet Alan Ginsberg: “Holy is the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul.” Breyta áskrift | Afskrá

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