It seems that one of the fundamental differences between a contemplative life immersed in the world – be it by a religious sister or brother or by a layperson – and a contemplative life lived primarily withdrawn from the world – such as in Carmel or La Trappe – is the presence or frequency of action.

I don’t mean the dual presence of an active-contemplative life, such as the mendicant orders and many laypeople profess. I don’t mean the predominance of an active life, either.

I really just mean the presence and frequency of action in a way of life that is primarily contemplative.

Even if we are convinced that our life is called by God to be predominantly one of contemplation – that is to say, that the Gifts of Wisdom, Understanding, and Knowledge predominate in how the Holy Spirit wishes to guide us – it would be insane to shrink away from action and engagement in the world.

We go out and, while we are seeing Jesus in this world, some action consumes our attention. When this happens and my concentration on seeing and contemplating Jesus in and behind people – my concentration of the presence of the crucified God – falls away, I find that, in the first moments that the worldly tension disappears, I might, if I have not trampled underfoot the gift, once again regain that contemplative presence without effort. It’s as if it never went away.

But, at the same time, I know from experience that I was no longer conscious of it while circumstances were driving contemplation away. René Voillaume writes of the same theme:

The continuity of the presence of God is not in actual, explicit consciousness, mainly by the way of ideas or images, of this Presence, but it resides the the vigilance of love. Imaginative or intellectual attention is only a means to obtain this vigilance. The heart must stay awake, and it can stay awake, even when a human person gives himself entirely to a work or action to do it well.

Maybe it’s impertinent to ask, but I ask these kinds of questions: If contemplation was no longer conscious, then where did contemplation go? If it indeed never left me but if it was not part of my conscious experience, then God must have kept the contemplative gaze in my unconscious.

How is this possible? I know too from experience that contemplation subdues the passions. And, as Father Lallemant says,

… with contemplation we will do more in a month, for ourselves and for others, than we would have been able to do without it in ten years.

Contemplation brings our human nature in line. So that must mean that contemplation, to a certain extent, dominates our subconscious.

If we add all this together, what do we get? We have here evidence that contemplation resides neither primarily in the subconscious nor in the conscious mind. Is that nonsense? It’s only nonsense if the mind is broken only into conscious/subconscious. I guess we need to correct that. There should be more to the human spirit that that. In proper Latin, there must also be a supraconscious of the human spirit. There has to be a part of the spirit that lies above our conscious apprehension. Maybe it’s better to say a “spiritual unconscious”. Or maybe it’s just better to call it our “heart”. In any case, it seems that contemplation can keep going on in that supraconscious region – still dominating our subconscious passions and perpetuating the deep love of God – while the mind is distracted with tasks for our neighbour.

This is the amazing generosity of God. Even though it would be good to consciously experience a contemplative gaze all the time, he has made provisions for us. If we hold on to Jesus, he holds on to us. If we let Jesus hold on to us, he does.

God is so compassionate!

A meditation to close these thoughts:

I often read Psalm 95 in the morning. I don’t find it difficult to find (or project onto) this psalm the following meditation:

The Lord is a great God,
and a great King above all gods

– know that God exists, and that he rewards those who seek him.

In his hand are the depths of the earth

– the subconscious world is his. Don’t worry. His strength can dominate it.

the heights of the mountains are his also

– and the supraconscious heights are his, too. This is primarily where he touches our lives with deep passio divinorum, deep suffering of divine things. God isn’t proportioned to our little minds, anyway. Why would we expect that the best part of us is the part that is consciously thinking of him?

The sea is his, for he made it

– and asks us to be thrown up and down with its waves.

and the dry land, which his hands have formed

– and our rest.