Cultivating Contemplation & a Mysticism of Rhythm (Life of a Day Finale)

“This is not a dress rehearsal – this is your life.”

William H. Murray

We began this series with a line from a poem that pulls back the curtain of life…a poem that helps me re-member the fullness that lay awaiting in each of my days. Old Albert Camus got there first when he wrote, “I realized then that a man who had lived only one day could easily live for a hundred years in prison. He would have enough memories to keep him from being bored.” (p.79, The Stranger).

The life of a day is not news, but a reminder. It is a reminder of the mysticism of rhythm.

This final episode of the Life of a Day series, or series finale to give it some panache, is all about you. It is about offering a reframing of your day with a new way of seeing, a new way of showing up. In the Life of a Day I used the Liturgy of the Hours as an overlaying framework for naming and participating in contemplation that arises during day; in making of coffee, morning meditation, going for a walk, washing dishes, and raising a pint with friends. I heard from a number of you seeking to integrate such a contemplative rhythm in your life. So let’s carry this forward, first with naming who this mysticism of rhythm is for, why one would participate in such a rhythm, and then a strategy for seeing opportunities to implement a contemplative rhythm that honors where you see contemplation peeking its head into your day.

To be clear this series has all along been all about–and for–us contemplatives in the world. This was not created for  those who have a tidy procedural spirituality, ding-free or without bruises from the fists of reality. This series is also not for those who mark mindless busyness as a banner of achievement. No…there is plenty out there for them already. This series is for you, you who are pursuing contemplation while getting dressed and making oatmeal for your kids, for you whose hearts are broken open by the latest news of refugees, for you who open your doors of hospitality to the kid who needs a safe place to go after school, for you who tirelessly works to draft local policies to serve your neighborhood community, for you who refuse to accept the dominant white supremacist culture as the norm while building news road of equity. For you who seek the God of wonder embedded in the world.

This is the contemplative church to which I belong, whose members I will likely never meet at a Sunday morning service, and we will never gather under the same banner or feel the need to worry about its a name…but we do seem to recognize our kind when we bump into each other. It is the folks that don’t advertise or need the blessing from the pulpit who have been my north stars in participating in the Life of a Day. A number have been claimed saints or sages by various religions, but a far greater number were never known beyond their county lines.

Contemplatives are rarely afforded a reprieve from the world as it spins. The Great Mystery is always in movement, always asking us to show up, to taste and see. To risk. This is what the Life of a Day is all about. This is the ‘why’ of a contemplative rhythm. Seeing and being in a fierce loving relationship with Reality from the tip of your hat to the tip of your toes. To risk being a mystic of rhythm. If you take the examples from my life you’ll notice that I chose some of the most basic aspects of my contemplative embodiment as I see it; drinking, prayer, movement, cleaning, and being in community. Ordinary lived experiences that we all share from a contemplative posture. Hat tip to Jesus for opening the gate for me into this field of contemplative wonder.

This is the strategy for beginning to move in a contemplative rhythm, write down all of the things you do on the regular…cook breakfast, refilling a water bottle, do laundry, make love, send emails, change diapers, commute to work, argue, the morning constitutional, laugh, and so forth. You get it.  Reflect on which of the activities you listed give you pause–an interior or exterior pause–in the bustle of your day, even for just a full deep breath. The practice of seeing the contemplative keyholes is not an attempt to see all of the ways contemplation can be integrated into your life, but beginning to see the contemplative doors you unknowingly walk through in the course of your day. A few questions that have helped me think through these doorways…How are these elemental aspects of my day latent with contemplation? How does my body respond when I imagine these activities as invitations to contemplative practice? What sensations are present? What would happen if certain daily activities became ritualized cues to practice being a contemplative in the world?

That’s it. You can build in these moments of recollection around your particular life. Here is another one of mine. At the end of the work day is, I close my window shade, take a deep breath and say to myself – the shade is closed, the workday is done. See, I can get very attached to work and outcomes because I care so damn much. This caring can tip over until my sense of being is tied up with my work and my supposed work successes and failures. One might call this over-identification with my work (for some really helpful teaching on this checkout Cynthia Bourgeault’s teaching on non-identification) .This little mantra the shade is closed, the workday is done and the physical practice of closing the shades, is my internal and external cue that I have done what I could do today, I let go of all that I completed and all that I left undone, and return home to my family. This act of releasing the work of my hands, heart and mind keeps me free to dance with Mystery under the glow of the moon. Most days this is easy, other days not so much, but this ritual has bent my experience towards non-identification with work. And it does help to share this journey. I recently started sharing a work studio space with my friend and colleague Cliff. There was a day where I was leaving the studio without closing a shade…and Cliff wryly said – Aren’t you forgetting something?

What do you think might happen if you have a handful of cues for intentions, body awareness, deep listening, prayers of all varieties percolating throughout your day? On the outside it will look like your day is humming along  per usual. But in reality you will consistently be re-opening yourself to participate in Mystery as a contemplative in the world. You will be showing up to minor tasks with more juice, more presence . Do you have any idea how that might throttle the life of your day? One might even wake up to their own life more often.

And that friends, is my hope for you with this series. That you see the opportunity for a contemplative rhythm in your life and join its song. That you wake up to your life more often. That’s why I do it. To be more fully alive each and every day. So I hope you keep reading all the contemplative books, listening to all of the contemplative podcasts, doing your meditation sits and embodiment practices, standing up for injustice, being in solidarity with the marginalized, and soak in those rich conversations of depth that fill you with joy. But even moreso I hope you show up fully in your flesh and marrow to take stock of the contemplative moments arising when you are feverishly plunging away at a clogged toilet, singing in a choir, protesting mountain top removal, shoveling a driveway, grieving the loss of a beloved or wiping tables at the end of your shift.

This is your life, be awake for it, mark it every day with rituals that remind you are alive…O Great Mystery. The mysticism of rhythm awaits.

We’ll end where we began, with the first lines from Tom Hennen’s poem, The Life of a Day

‘Like people or dogs, each day is unique and has

its own personality quirks which can easily be seen

if you look closely.

Image Credit: Brandon Ross