I grew up in the Church in a small Kansas town, baptized in the Disciples of Christ congregation, then spending time in the Southern Baptist, then in the United Methodist, where the youth minister discipled me and the girls were cuter. At each of these I was exposed to the Bible and the personal reading of Scripture, though I don’t remember the suggestion of reading it for a “devotional” or “formational” purpose. Mainly we spent time with Scripture for an assurance of eternal salvation or for helping others get saved.
It wasn’t until becoming a student at Friends University and spending time with Richard Foster, James Bryan Smith, and Lynda Graybeal (my mother) that I was introduced to the slow, reflective type of reading that I would now label devotional, both of the Bible and the many shining lights of the Christian Tradition, Tozer and Lady Julian and the stories of St. Francis and all the rest. Now in my 40s, for many years I have had the privilege of spending time with these voices for discipleship.
These days my spiritual reading palate is becoming a little broader, particularly in spending time on the bridge between the active and the contemplative life. Most often I am reading in the arena of activity that many would not consider “spiritual,” magazines and newsletters and web articles and such, and it becomes contemplative as regularly and somehow intuitively, in the midst of the reading, I will stop and ask myself, “What does this mean for me?” Of course I cannot answer this in full in the moment, as a person can’t act on every new idea at once, but I do think simply asking the question is the beginning of the process of change.
Of course, if one wants to live a holistic life between active and contemplative then gaining from the writing of the contemporary author Richard Rohr is quite essential. A Franciscan religious, he is the Founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque (hello spell check!), New Mexico. He speaks and writes a lot on being a contemplative, but he is very active at it given the amount of writing and speaking that he does, so I guess that makes Father Rohr pretty well qualified on this active/contemplative intersection.
At present a friend and I are working through Father Rohr’s Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer. (We have been in this book for most of a year, so perhaps applying the word “working” is a bit of a misnomer.) For me, Father Rohr’s writing has become an extended meditation in how to see with new eyes. The world is animated, enlivened, enlightened by God. The goodness of God is all around us. God has done this. God wants us to see the world and ourselves and our friends and our neighbors the way that God does. Everything.
Being by nature an activist Everything Belongs is encouraging me to both create time for the quiet and solitude of contemplative prayer and also to think of every space and place as an opportunity for contemplation, even and especially in the midst of action. There is a mindfulness of which the great Christian devotional authors write, and of which Father Rohr reminds us, that is available at any time, no matter what we are doing. This is birthed first in the quiet of the cell, and it is also available to us as we are on our cell phones, in the everyday of living. Growing in this capacity is helpful for both ourselves and the whole world as we will treat others with compassion as we better understand the empathy God has for each of us and for all of us. Developing this mind, this way of seeing is the foundation.
For me, Father Rohr’s writing bridges the Contemplative and the Incarnational, the life of Prayer and the inherently Sacramental nature of the creation that God has made and called good. Our lives here in real time are where we pray, and prayer can infuse all of our time. This becomes all the more the reality as we are opened to the grace of God and the mindfulness of the life and calling of Christ that it brings. No doubt I will be living in this metaphorical small town for the next 20 years or so.
Join the Conversation
Do you find yourself more of an activist or a contemplative?
What has helped you infuse all of your life with prayer? Does this idea encourage or discourage you?
 For a number of years Felicia and Lyle SmithGraybeal have been involved in shared ministry (15) and marriage (13). Felicia is a priest in the Episcopal Church. She enjoys pastoral care and spiritual formation ministry and tolerates preaching. Lyle is the coordinator for RENOVARÉ USA and likes planning events and working with authors. Noah is their dog; he finds living with them in Frederick, Colorado, quite nice.
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