Experiencing God - Contemplative Service 15

"Solitude is necessary for spiritual freedom.  But once that freedom is acquired, it demands to be put to work in the service of a love in which there is no longer subjection or slavery.  Mere withdrawal without the return to freedom in the action, would lead to a static and deathlike inertia of the Spirit in which the inner self would not awaken at all."  

Thomas Merton: Inner Experience

What is this “service of love” for the contemplative?

In December of 1982 at 36 years of age, I became a deacon.  But becoming a deacon does not really provide an answer to the question above. The service of the deacon can play itself out in many ways, and when you examine the ministries of all the deacons, you will certainly see evidence of this.  Some are administrators in churches; some are chaplains in hospitals; some serve in their home parishes in a variety of activities, etc. There are some common functions that all deacons are asked to do, such as reading the gospel, serving at the altar, or performing baptisms and marriages. Over the past thirty years, I've ministered in all of these areas and more, and continue to do so.  But this does not provide an answer to the question addressed above. Is there a particular "service of love" for those who choose to live a contemplative life?  The answer to this question for me “no” there is not.  Does this answer not contradict my quote from Thomas Merton above?  No, I do not think so. Now let me explain.

The discipline of meditation is a practice of silence and stillness that places us in the present moment.  It is a discipline whereby one sets aside their plans, agendas, thoughts of the past and future, feelings and experiences in order to “give attention” to the “now” at the center of our being.  What we discover as we set aside all that normally occupied our self-consciousness is that we have moments when we come in touch with another level of consciousness which I will call “other”. 

For me, coming from the Christian tradition, this “other” is Christ.  The “seeker”,  (which exists for everyone at the self-conscious level) is discovered to be the “sought” as we  dissolve all elements of self-consciousness.  It is here, in this “other”, that God’s Kingdom is present; in the present moment; freed from all other distractions.  The tool that is used to enter into this union with Christ is the mantra, a single word to which we give our full attention until it too goes as the last remnant of self-consciousness.  We are not asleep. We are attentive to nothing, and in that nothing, the Christian find Christ.

The whole discipline of meditation is to free ourselves from our self-preoccupation, particularly with past, future, and fantasy projections that constantly seem to occupy our full attention.  Because these projections are so determined to occupy our full “attention”, the attention to the present moment is not visible; or, at most, faintly visible.  However, after many years of meditative discipline, we are able, through gift, to cross over this gap from self-preoccupation to the “other”.  It is here that the words of St. Paul are brought to fruition:  “I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me".  

The service of love of the contemplative is to assist others, to whatever extent possible, to live in the silence and stillness of this “other”; Christ. The contemplative, by their nature, being  changed by the practice of this discipline, tend to place lessor and lessor emphasis on future or past plans, agendas, and tasks to be preformed.  The reason for this is because these are the very things that have caused the self-preoccupation that the discipline of meditation attempts to avoid. 

The "service of love" that is most important to the contemplative is that which is “now”.  Being present, giving attention to “now” in whatever form it presents, is our "service of love".  The reason for this is because it is “now” that Christ is present.  The past which is gone, the future which is yet to come, appear like only illusions.  The “now” can be filled with the most simple of tasks like washing the dishes; or the most profound, like speaking to hundreds of people.  But each is as significant because Christ is present in the “now”.