The Contemplative Life
Here’s another watercolor I did recently entitled “The Contemplative Life.” As a Protestant, we are very good at productivity. We live for it. Our churches thrive on new programs and building projects, our lives themselves are consumed with producing results–40 hours a week at work, etc. I am the chief of sinners, when it comes to this. I suppose we find our value, to some degree, in what we do. When asked to describe a friend, I usually say, “Oh he’s a lawyer, or she’s a med student.”
Recently, however, I have been absorbing the nourishment that comes from reading the contemplative writers–St. John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton, etc. I am discovering that true identity comes not from what we do, but from who we are. When we realize that we are the beloved of God (Song of Song 2), it transforms our relationship to God and others.
I painted this painting for a friend who has discovered the beauty of the spiritual disciplines. He has taken some radical leaps of faith in his life, leaving a very successful job to pursue uninterrupted intimacy and community with God. Chatting with him the other day, I have been astonished at how different he is. We often say that God changes a person, but it’s really true. When God gets a hold of someone’s life and they pour themselves into the Scriptures, they become something altogether different. Their attitudes are redirected, their conversations, too. There really is power in the Gospel, and I’m discovering it afresh in the lives of people who are willing to take radical leaps of faith to encounter the God who demands our everything.