As I wandered through the streets of New York City for the first time
this week, I found myself swept up into the great rituals of consumerism,
mesmerized by the flashing lights, the soaring buildings, and the windows
filled with beautiful things I suddenly wished to own. A rural Canadian in NYC
for the first time is a bit like a child in Disney World, amazed by the sights
and sounds and smells which heretofore did not exist.
Wandering the streets through Time Square, I imagined myself in a
magnificent temple, the worshippers carefully attending to every detail of
décor, ritual, and celebration. Of course, there was sacrifice too, but no one
was thinking about that at this moment. Everyone was rushing about in
preparation for some magnificent feast day. It occurred to me that I could be
walking through both a movie set and some celebration from long ago.
In the stillness, I knelt to pray in the chancel (at the front near the
altar) and suddenly suspected that the earth was standing still. The entire
world was whizzing by outside, but inside I was experiencing a deep sense of
peace like the calm after a storm. This is the beauty of the contemplative life: that even amidst the busyness of our 21st-century lives we can
learn to anchor our internal selves in a stillness quite apart from the rush of
the world.
Wandering the streets through Time Square, I imagined myself in a
magnificent temple, the worshippers carefully attending to every detail of
décor, ritual, and celebration. Of course, there was sacrifice too, but no one
was thinking about that at this moment. Everyone was rushing about in
preparation for some magnificent feast day. It occurred to me that I could be
walking through both a movie set and some celebration from long ago.
What I did not expect, however, was the serene sense of stillness I
would find as I entered the building, leaving the clamour of the street
outside. I wandered into the nave, the cavernous room filled with pews, and was
surprised at the number of people gathered there to pray. As I moved closer,
however, I saw that these were not people gathered to pray but homeless men and
women finding sanctuary in the worship space. They were sleeping, their
tattered bags and grocery carts scattered around them in the pews and on the
floor.
In the stillness, I knelt to pray in the chancel (at the front near the
altar) and suddenly suspected that the earth was standing still. The entire
world was whizzing by outside, but inside I was experiencing a deep sense of
peace like the calm after a storm. This is the beauty of the contemplative life: that even amidst the busyness of our 21st-century lives we can
learn to anchor our internal selves in a stillness quite apart from the rush of
the world.
Over the coming months, I propose that we have a conversation about the
contemplative life and what it looks like to find that place of internal
stillness. I work at fostering such a life in many ways, but the most
transformative have been ancient prayer rituals passed down by my ancestors in
the faith. Sometimes I run into the holy like I did in the church of St. Mary
the Virgin, while other times I fail miserably, but the contemplative life is
never about “arriving.” It is about opening the door to the church again and
again, hopeful about what we will find there.
If you would like to join me in this conversation about the
contemplative life and finding places of stillness, I would be honoured to hear
about the ways in which you’ve encountered the holy, the sacred, and the presence of life in the daily and
mundane. Similarly, I hope that my own encounters will challenge you to reach
deeper into the recesses of the soul to meet the one who waits there.
