The echo of contemplation

Photo: http://www.wertheimerportal.de/

The inner call that births beginnings is our enduring reminder that it���s never too late, that the new always awaits us.

The young tree of my life was planted in a culture constrained by many limiting beliefs. It believes there is not enough for everyone, that having is being, and that age is an ending. It believes that it owns space, and place, and most often feels owned by time.

Friends from cultures close to the natural world remind that truly, it���s the reverse. Whatever we may think, we are one with space, ���owned by it���, as it were. But in the matter of time, the invention of our minds, we are free to take ownership, and choose.

Photo: Nelson Ashberger

In reflecting about space, and how to direct one���s time, artist Mark Tobey said:

���The dimension that counts for the creative person is the space he creates within himself. This inner space is closer to the infinite than the other, and it is the privilege of the balanced mind… and the search for an equilibrium is essential���to be as aware of inner space as he is of outer space.���

And where is that balance to be found? In what longs for us to hear it, and to become the ear with which it is heard, as the kind visionary knew:

Photo: Lauren Chuslo-Shur

���Contemplation is also the response to a call: a call from Him Who has no voice, and yet Who speaks in everything that is, and Who, most of all, speaks in the depths of our own being: for we ourselves are words of His. But we are words that are meant to respond to Him, to answer to Him, to echo Him, and even in some way to contain Him and signify Him. Contemplation is this echo. We ourselves become His echo and His answer. It is as if in creating us God asked a question and in awakening us to contemplation He answered the question, so that the contemplative is at the same time, question and answer.”

~ Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation