We are interdependent beings, made in the image of God. We flourish when our lives reflect this deep reality. And yet we lose sight of the relational truth of our being.
“My heart was deafened by the din of my mind,” wrote St. Augustine, pointing to how internal mental noise can deafen us to the simple, unitive song of reality.
The problem is not our thoughts and feelings themselves, but how we relate to them. Our reactive inner chatter gives rise to a strong sense of “I” and “you,” of “mine” and “yours,” reinforcing an illusion of separateness.
All too easily, this false conceptual distance can become an emotional distance and then a moral distance.
Over time, compounded by the culture we live in, our imagined separateness hardens, contributing to rivalry and competition where there might have been collaboration and friendship.
Many people experience the illusion of separateness as a sense of living at a distance from their life, from those around them, and from God. It can feel as though meaning and connection are always just out of reach.
This perceived disconnection often leads to a sense of isolation and loneliness—even in the midst of busy life. We forget that we are already held in a deeper belonging.
“God is the ground of our innermost being,” writes Martin Laird, “yet we skim along on the surface of life. Our lives are rather like that of a deep-sea fisherman who was fishing for minnows while standing on a whale.”
Looking outside ourselves for happiness, we lose sight of the wellspring of joy within.
As we push the boundaries of scientific and technological achievement, we so often overlook our innate capacity for love, compassion, wisdom, and peace.
Yet beneath all our striving, something quieter calls—a longing to return to what is already whole within us.
“Contemplation is the key to the essence of a renewed humanity that is capable of seeing the world and other subjects in the world with freedom,” writes Rowan Williams, “freedom from self-orientated, acquisitive habits and the distorted understanding that comes from them.
“To put it boldly, contemplation is the only ultimate answer to the unreal and insane world that our financial systems and our advertising culture and our chaotic and unexamined emotions encourage us to inhabit. To learn contemplative practice is to learn what we need so as to live truthfully and honestly and lovingly. It is a deeply revolutionary matter.”
In a culture marked by distraction, contemplation reawakens our capacity to see clearly, choose wisely, and act with compassion.