I’m inspired today that the treasures of the contemplative tradition are now available to everyone. The living stream of Christian mysticism flows where it will. While contemplation throughout the Christian tradition has typically been associated with silence, prayer-filled scripture reading, and solitude, monasteries—while critical bearers of the tradition—no longer have a corner on the market. As access to the mystical tradition expands, so must the definitions of contemplation expand.
To put it directly, maybe I can be a mystic too—or at least an ordinary one.
A more seismic shift in spiritual paradigms is underway, though, than simply my own ability to pursue the once-obscure mystical path. After all, with the right resources, white, middle-class folks like me can shop the spiritual marketplace for as many self-improvement schemes as we wish. What’s at stake is not only who can contemplate God but also the places, times, and means of contemplation.
The Bible is a primary site for Christian contemplative awakening. It’s the text monks and nuns have chewed on for centuries in their quest for loving union with God. Early Desert Fathers and Mothers followed ancient Israel’s practice of chanting the psalms. The founder of Western monasticism, Benedict of Nursia, institutionalized psalm-singing through scheduled prayer times called the Divine Office. Origen of Alexandria launched a tradition of mystical commentary on the Bible, first suggesting that the erotic Song of Songs symbolizes God’s relationship to the soul. Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius saw Moses’s ascent to Mount Sinai as a paradigmatic moment of the soul encountering divine darkness.
Photo by Anton Sobotyak on Unsplash
It’s well worth wondering, though, just what sort of contemplation it is that the biblical characters engage in. Monks, nuns, and Spirit-attuned theologians pioneered the practice of contemplation through the biblical text, but what might contemplation in the biblical text itself look like on its own terms? My book The Holy Ordinary tries to explore this in an accessible way.
Generations of historical-critical scholars have helped Bible readers recover an awareness of context, original languages, and literary art forms. These are developments to be welcomed rather than shunned. To paraphrase one keen Bible reader, the author and speaker Rob Bell, “We don’t read the Bible literally. We read it literately.” But as critically informed readers ruminate on scriptural texts today, what emerges instead is distinctly not contemplative by the traditional Western Christian standards of silence, stillness, and solitude.
Maybe this is as it should be.
Sure, Elijah encounters God in a still, small voice, or, as 1 Kings puts it, “a sound of sheer silence” (19:12). But the Hebrew Bible’s Yahweh is known as much for speech and noise as revelation through silence. The Oxford historian Diarmaid MacCulloch surveys biblical silence and reminds us that it’s Yahweh who causes earth to reel and rock in 2 Samuel and speaks creation into existence. “Let there be light,” this God says, and there is.
To consider the Bible’s characters experiencing contemplation, a reorientation of definitions is in order.
Or maybe the Bible’s flawed and all-too-human characters can be mystics too?
Maybe the Bible’s visions of contemplation help expand what contemplation can be in our own time?
What if living under Empire, as nearly all the biblical characters do, shapes contemplation in startling ways?
What if, as contemplative writer and teacher Barbara A. Holmes claims, the world is the cloister of the contemplative? Where, when, and how do people contemplate in the Bible? I’ll explore some of these questions in upcoming weeks.
Note: this week’s post is an excerpt from my chapter “Contemplation in the Bible: Where, When, How,” in Contemplation and Community: A Gathering of Fresh Voices for a Living Tradition, edited by Jessica Smith and Stuart Higginbotham.
Book Release Events
I have two book launch event opportunities in October, one in person and one online, and I’d absolutely love to connect with you at one or both!
Images Cinema, Williamstown, MA, October 22, 7pm:
Join us in the Images Lounge for an engaging conversation with local writer, film lover and former Williamstown pastor Mark Longhurst to celebrate the publication of his new book The Holy Ordinary: A Way to God. Taking inspiration from mystics, modern prophets, and saints, with surprising insights from Christian scriptures, Mark writes about mysticism as something available to everyone. Through “How to be Contemplative and Active” and “Live Green like Hildegard of Bingen,” Mark’s book speaks to each person’s need for transformation. The evening will feature a book reading, discussion, and book signing.
Registration: Space is limited and pre-registration is required.
Center for Spiritual Imagination, Online, October 24, 7pm:
You are warmly invited to join us for an engaging online conversation with Community of the Incarnation member Mark Longhurst, author of The Holy Ordinary, a new book that explores the availability of every person to a contemplative life. Co-hosted by Adam Bucko, Director of the Center for Spiritual Imagination and Kris Coleman, Program Director, this online event promises to be a space for reflection, inspiration, and community as we gather to explore the sacred in the ordinary moments of life.
Thanks Mark! Looking forward to your book, congratulations. I am so grateful to be reminded how wonderful it is to love God, be still and pray like a monk.