Contemplative Life and Vulnerability to Pain

[[Dear Sister, I wondered if you feel pain differently because you are a contemplative. I read that one hermit is unaware of most pain unless it becomes really intense and then she comes back to a more physical level of consciousness. The post I read gave the impression that most of the time she is in touch with God but not with the temporal. She said, [[The pain has to be enough, or coupled with such as red-pink streak going up foot from pinkish-red toe, to be enough to bring me back to more physical awareness. And, perhaps this is true, also, for bringing my mind to more conscious awareness of spiritual readings. I'm finding my mind is away, possibly close in with God, but I don't know for sure, of course. It flies from my willed awareness or forced consciousness; the thoughts become whatever God weaves within.]] Do persons of prayer feel pain less? Do you?]]

LOL! Interesting question. I'm pretty sure I experience pain the same as anyone else. I deal with chronic pain, but I do that the way most people do --- medically. I try to pray through this specific kind of pain, but generally it is too distracting so I medicate as necessary and meditate as possible. Other kinds of pain (psychic, emotional), of course, are something that can only be lived through with prayer --- no medication is possible or desirable. I think it is possible that contemplatives are actually more sensitive to these kinds of pain --- after all, they are not numb to them but vulnerable.  But what you cite raises serious questions regarding self-care and attentiveness; I wonder how appropriate it is to be so wrapped up in what one describes as some sort of non-temporal "God-consciousness" that one is generally unaware of infections, injuries, etc. Beyond this I wonder at the phrases "willed awareness" and "forced consciousness". It sounds like the writer is setting up some sort of human will versus will of God calculus or something where being in touch with God means being unaware of oneself and the needs of one's body. These ideas seem to me to be antithetical to a healthy contemplative life.

It may well be that someone's prayer life allows them to move more easily through pain and to function more freely in spite of it, but what is being described here is the presence of recognizable and, one assumes, preventable infection in one's foot for instance. No contemplative I know would EVER suggest their awareness of God or the presence of God's life and love within them detracts from the critical or essential attentiveness to reality which is part of the very definition of contemplative life. Just the opposite in fact. Contemplatives honor God and the life God has given to and entrusted them with. They, especially when they are Christian, approach reality from an incarnational perspective. They know that we are "temples of the Holy Spirit" and members of the very Body of Christ. They see the everyday, supposedly mundane as sacramental and thus, essentially sacred, and they take what care they can and must do to honor this foundational truth of creation.

It is pretty well known that throughout its history Christianity has sometimes fallen prey to an unhealthy dualism rooted in misreadings of texts that speak of detachment or despising the "things of the world" or the Pauline contrast between a body of flesh and one of Spirit. The passage you cite reminds me of some of these misreadings. Especially it reminds me that when Paul speaks of being "in the flesh" or refers to the "flesh body," he is speaking of the whole person under the sway of sin; when he speaks of being in the Spirit or refers to the "spiritual body," he is speaking of the whole person under the power of the Spirit of God. Similarly it reminds me of the piece I wrote a while back looking at the spiritual life as the life we each live under the power of the Holy Spirit. (cf., What Spirituality really Means) More specifically, it is the embodied human life we live in and through the dynamism of the Spirit of God whenever we focus on the vulnerability to Love-in-Act this involves.

In my own experience there have been times when contemplative prayer has involved occasional periods of "raptness" where I am not aware of sensations in my body and where I may even have ceased to breath for periods of time. BUT apart from these very rare "experiences" this same prayer has made me more capable of genuinely incarnational life. Many of us may have reasons which detract from this ability to live a healthy incarnation or embodiment of the Spirit of God, but the life of prayer is not one of these. Instead a healthy contemplative prayer life counters and helps heal those things which may prevent healthy embodiedness.

 One final comment on the passage you have cited. As I noted above, I am concerned with the reference to "willed awareness" and "forced consciousness" which supposedly gives way to "whatever God 'weaves within"'. Attentiveness is a central characteristic of contemplative life, but so are awareness and consciousness. These are "the way we are in the world"; they are part of what contemplative life witnesses to. In contemplative life we attend to reality; we are aware of and consciously honor reality. We are empowered by God for this. While prayer is certainly the work of God within us it is the work/dynamism which illuminates and sharpens, makes whole, empathetic, and compassionate. It is the Spirit of life and love, truth and beauty, the flame of light and comfort which thus becomes the source and ground of genuine rest (Sabbath) and "at-home-ness" (eternal life). The Divine life is the Spirit within us which does not supplant our intellects or consciousness and awareness but instead perfects them.

To float through life in some sort of dissociative state is simply incompatible with contemplative and especially with eremitical life. (Such states may actually represent part of what the NT refers to as "hardness of heart" --- something I am hoping to write further about soon.) Times of genuine prayer which take us up or carry us away from more "everyday" consciousness and awareness are wonderful and are to be honored, but generally speaking these also serve to transform the way we see things so that all reality is transfigured through it. This may mean an increased experience of pain because it will ALWAYS mean an increased vulnerability to reality --- just as it did with Jesus and his own life, passion, and death. Contemplative life is vulnerable life and vulnerable life is obedient life which is responsive to the whole of creation, including the dimensions of sin and death still at work in reality. We must be wary of labeling forms of dissociation (which need not be pathological) "ecstasy", "rapture," or Christian detachment.

Questions On the Place of Silence and Solitude

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I read you blog occasionally throughout the year. I am interested in learning how you think lay people can live solitude and silence given your experience as a Roman Catholic hermit. I am a single woman who feels called to live with more solitude and silence. Recently, I was reading a book that spoke about how lay people can live with a sense of enclosure in the Benedictine sense. A sense of guarding our time with God and having sacred space. It really spoke to me, not because my life is so busy but because more of who I am. So I would [ask] how solitude and silence figures into this?]]

 

Hi there! Thanks for writing! There is a lot of literature available these days about silence and solitude. Most of the books out there do not expect readers to become hermits. They recognize that God dwells in silence and that silence is necessary for any person to hear the voice of God. You are sensitized to guarding time and space to create a sacred place to be with God; silence is an essential part of  such a space. Otherwise it would be like carving out time and space and then filling the resulting "place" with boxes of junk while turning on a TV, radio, and stereo at the same time. We carve out sacred space (or create what is called a "cell" in monastic literature) so that we can 1) meet God, and 2) meet ourselves. But more than dedicated time and space this requires an environment of silence and solitude. We practice silence and solitude so that over time we maybe changed into persons who know how to listen to and believe in the profoundest content of or presence within our own hearts; we practice these things because we are made for them and are shaped into whole and holy persons by the love-in-act that comes to us and claims us in them.

 

Of the books available on Silence and Solitude, a number approach the matter from the phenomenon of noise. Most recognize that noise is ubiquitous in our world and in our own lives. Just in terms of external silence, for instance, we cannot seem to work without "multi-tasking" and having ambient noise in the background. We cannot be with others without filling the time with conversation --- including our time in Church or chapel! Beyond this our being-in-the-world is usually noisy and careless. Marketers fill the environment with music meant to distract and make us stay and shop or buy more. When noise seems to overwhelm  the "muzak" (or whatever it is called today) the usual solution is to add more noise to cover that. I am always surprised that even our prayer tends to be incapable of real silence; it is all about talking. Don't misunderstand me; pouring our hearts out to God requires words but words are required until we reach that place beyond all words and can only wait and worship in silence.

Robert Cardinal Sarah has a relatively new book out which refers to "the power of silence against the dictatorship of noise". It's a good description of the place noise holds in our world, and it is a dictatorship which makes us less and less human or capable of being human --- especially when we understand that we are meant to be "hearers of the Word." Sarah's major thrust seems to be the insight that unless we practice and achieve silence and solitude at points in our lives we will not be able to hear or respond to God.

 

So how does anyone in this world begin to live silence and solitude? First, learn to cultivate outer silence and attentiveness. Silence is meant to allow attentiveness; it has a purpose, especially early on as one learns to embrace it. Begin to turn off sources of ambient sound. Cut out multitasking and attend to the thing at hand; give it your entire attention. Learn to move and act quietly. Create space for attentiveness; for instance, try not to fill time with activities meant to distract. (For me the big temptation there is to read in order to distract myself; sometimes this is acceptable, but other times I just need to be attentive to whatever is going on, including the noise that is abounding!) I think you get the idea here. Take time walking in nature when you can. When you turn on the stereo or TV and choose what will play attend to it as fully as you can. The idea is to learn to be present to the music or program, to engage with it, enjoy it, and then, to turn the TV/stereo/computer off!

The next thing (there is overlap of course) is to learn to listen to our own hearts. Besides outer silence we need to cultivate an inner silence which is typical of recollectedness. From that place you will come to know yourself and the God who holds you in existence with his love. The purpose of enclosure and of silence and solitude is to ensure the place and necessary conditions for an encounter with God in the depths of our own hearts. Especially one turns to lectio divina in this context, the meditative reading of the Scriptures and some other books. If you have not learned how to do lectio I cannot recommend more emphatically that you take the time to do so. If you do lectio I can't recommend more emphatically that you make it a center of your daily practice. In my own hermitage this is the heart of any spiritual praxis apart from quiet prayer and often it is linked to or foundational for much of the day's quiet prayer. Additionally, one tool which is very helpful in this process of cultivating an inner silence  and ability to attend to God in us is journaling. Journaling helps us to listen to the voice(s) of our own hearts. It can assist us to express the more superficial "noise" of our lives, but more significantly it can help us hear and claim the deeper voices, including the silence of God. Using journaling in conjunction with spiritual direction can be an important element of any life of prayer and I highly recommend these. The purpose of all of this is to create an environment in which you and God can meet and embrace one another.