The Contemplative Bridge

My most treasured keepsake from college is an old beat up journal. College was a very dark time for me. I felt alone in my darkness. On the outside, I might have looked like I was flourishing, but on the inside, I was losing myself. The darkness felt like it would consume me, and at times if felt very palpable in the long sleepless hours of the night. I was desperate, and in my desperation, I began to search for God. 

I did not grow up in a Christian home. I did not have any theology, or even the basic story of the gospel to fall back on. Somehow, I just knew that I needed to connect with something deeper in me and in the world, and that “something” was God. My search led me into philosophy where I discovered the Christian mystics and the contemplative tradition. In their writings, they described to me their experiences of God, the God who is love. I read and I read, and then I too began to experience this God. I suppose you might say I became a contemplative as I longed for time alone with God where I would sit in the stillness and quiet; I would dialogue with God through journaling. I processed for the first time people and events in my life that needed unraveling, and God listened as our conversation unfolded. God sat with me in my darkness and the light began to dawn, and it was the light of God’s love in my soul. 

That was many years ago now, and I never really received answers to my “why” questions. But I do know that I received the love of God in that dark place; a love that brought healing and a pathway forward. The mystics continue to remind me of the mystery of love that shines in the darkest of places. Psalm 139 is breathtaking as it declares there is nowhere we can go where we will not find the spirit of God. 

In today’s landscape, many are walking in darkness where hatred and division feel consuming. In this reality, I want to rediscover the love of God that discovered me in my darkness, long before I had any faith or creed. This is the extraordinary gift of the contemplative path, meeting with God in our soul and coming face to face with the fierce love of God where there are no walls that separate, divide, define, or condemn us; instead, we experience the human desire to be loved, accepted, and known as we experience the radical inclusivity of God’s love. The contemplative path is the bridge that unites us as human beings loved by God. 

I want to be a “contemplative in action,” and renew my desire to serve God out of that pure love that brings peace and confidence even in dark places. And I want to listen with compassion to those I am called to love and companion. We serve and walk together with our eyes fixed on the light that has dawned, both in our souls and in the world. We long to see and follow that light of God’s love in today’s darkness.