{"id":55,"date":"2020-05-04T10:59:11","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T15:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/wickstromwonderings\/?p=55"},"modified":"2020-05-04T10:59:11","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T15:59:11","slug":"contemplation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/wickstromwonderings\/2020\/05\/04\/contemplation\/","title":{"rendered":"Contemplation"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

In a March 2020 First Things<\/em> article, Michael Hanby writes that \u201cModernity is the radical and wholesale transformation of the world\u2019s relation to the divine.\u201d \u00a0With God reduced from \u201cfirst principle\u201d to \u201ca hypothesis,\u201d the door was open for the Enlightenment, in the name of reason, to restrict what reason is: \u201creducing knowledge to power and truth to functional utility and reconceiving reason as an instrument.\u201d\u00a0 In such an environment, \u201cUnderstanding ceases to be an end \u2026 and becomes a mere means.\u00a0 Contemplation \u2013 as useless<\/em> \u2013 becomes unintelligible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hanby\u2019s statement is complex, rooted in centuries of scholarly argument, and full of potential for endless discussion.\u00a0 My own goal is simply to focus attention on the word \u201ccontemplation\u201d.\u00a0 Over time I am becoming more and more aware that I would be perfectly satisfied to spend my days contemplating God, the world he is creating, and the people he has called into being.\u00a0 In other words, I am becoming what might be called a \u201ccontemplative\u201d.<\/p>\n

What this means is that, when possible, I spend the first hour of a new day reading and absorbing the thoughts of others and allowing them to percolate through my mind.\u00a0 When I study the Bible, I may sometimes read large portions at a time, but more often I am caught by a single phrase, by the contrast between two statements, or by the relationship of particular words.\u00a0 Likewise, when I go for a walk in the woods, I dilly-dally, picking up sticks from the path, noting vines that need to be cut, or just standing silently, listening to the wind, to a movement in the grass, to a woodpecker\u2019s hammering or a songbird\u2019s singing, and staring intently around me, not to know and classify but to sense and understand.<\/p>\n

What Hanby is suggesting by his comment about contemplation is that when a “vertical” emphasis on God, nature, and truth is replaced by a “horizontal” emphasis on the future and on possibility and an imagined utopia, contemplation is also subordinated to practical action.\u00a0 When we turn our face down from God\u2019s face and turn our focus to the world around us, we become more concerned with how things work than in what they are.<\/p>\n

I live in a practical world that seeks to see everything objectively and impersonally and therefore to measure everything in terms of its practical value.\u00a0 When I read the thoughts of others in such a world, absorbing and percolating should be replaced by applying and using \u2013 perhaps as a source of words to share with others.\u00a0 When I study the Bible, I should measure my worth by how many chapters and books I have reviewed, how much I have memorized, or what lessons I can apply.\u00a0 And when I take a walk, I should measure the number of steps I have taken, the distance I have traveled, or the number of species I have identified.<\/p>\n

Caught in this world, I have absorbed its tacit assumptions and have learned to enjoy the sense of fulfillment brought about through completion of practical tasks.\u00a0 At the same time, however, I also end up feeling guilty about my desire for contemplation and understanding and the possibility of sitting at the feet of Jesus with a vial of expensive perfume in my hands as his words flow over and around me, enveloping me without sinking in or turning to practice.<\/p>\n

Toward the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/em> by C. S. Lewis, Eustace represents modernity by observing that \u201cIn our world, a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.\u201d\u00a0 Ramandu\u2019s response suggests that there is something more: \u201cEven in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through contemplation, I seek to understand what a star is<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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  In a March 2020 First Things article, Michael Hanby writes that \u201cModernity is the radical and wholesale transformation of the world\u2019s relation to the divine.\u201d \u00a0With God reduced from \u201cfirst principle\u201d to \u201ca hypothesis,\u201d the door was open for the Enlightenment, in the name of reason, to restrict what reason is: \u201creducing knowledge to Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":185,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nContemplation - Wickstrom Wonderings<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Contemplation in the world of COVID isolation and quarantine.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/wickstromwonderings\/2020\/05\/04\/contemplation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Contemplation - 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