I am not a biblicist. I do not believe in the Bible. But I do believe in the God of the Bible. And my Christian identity begins its formation in that text. I have devoted my life thus far to understanding that text and its traditions.
So recently, while at a Bible study with friends, when a casual comment was made about contemplative prayer, I was shocked to hear it dismissed as less than Christian in comparison to Bible study.
I came late to the Christian contemplative tradition. I was told to read the classic English spiritual text, The Cloud of Unknowing, by my theology professor at seminary. I was reluctant, but when I finally read it, I found my spiritual life captivated.
The sole goal of the contemplative tradition, I learned, is a deep, deep reconfiguration of our identity. It aims to unite us with God -- the very shaping of who we are. Union with God is not something we acquire by technique but the grounding truth of our lives that engenders the very search for God. Because God is the ground of our being, the relationship between creature and Creator is such that, by sheer grace, separation is not possible. God doesn't know how to be absent. The fact that most of us experience throughout most of our lives a sense of separation is the great illusion that we are caught up in; it's the human condition. The sense of separation from God is real, but the meeting of stillness reveals that this perceived separation doesn't have the last word.
This illusion of separation is generated by the mind and is sustained by the riveting of our attention to the interior soap opera, the constant chatter of the cocktail party going on in our heads. For most of us this is what normal is, and we are good at coming up with ways of coping with this perceived separation (our consumer-driven entertainment culture takes care of much of it). But some of us are not so good at coping, so we drink ourselves into oblivion or cut or burn ourselves (as so many in our culture do) "so that the pain will be in a different place and on the outside".
The grace of salvation -- which is the same grace of learning to be still and in the very presence of God that's the heart of the Christian contemplative tradition -- dispels the illusion of separation. When my mind is still in contemplation, I'm brought face to face with the reality of the Christmas message: God has made his home with us. There's no distance, no separation. The deeper truth of Christmas -- and of the Christian contemplative tradition -- is that we are and always have been the love of God's heart. We are and always have been never alone. God is for us and we are one in God.