Go • Do • Be
Three Ways of Being Contemplative, One Way of Contemplative Being
Filmmaker and theologian Cassidy Hall devoted six months to exploring the spirituality of Trappist monks and nuns, then co-produced a movie on the fragile state of silence in today’s world, going on to co-host a podcast called Encountering Silence (of which I also was one of the three hosts). After completing her seminary education, she wrote a poetic and visionary book called Queering Contemplation where she fosters an eye-opening and heart-expanding conversation between LGBTQ and other marginalized persons, the contemplative tradition and the essential commitment to work tirelessly for justice. The result: one of the most innovative and thoughtful books on contemplative and mystical spirituality of our time.
Toward the beginning of the book, she speaks personally of her own contemplative practice, yet in doing so offers a beautiful template for everyone:
Sometimes contemplation is a place I go, sometimes a practice I do, and sometimes a place I can be. But true contemplative life necessitates a balance and compels us to engage in the ebb and flow between our individual experience and communal well-being. — Cassidy Hall
I call this substack “Mystical Journey,” echoing Cassidy Hall’s recognition that sometimes contemplation is on the go. But the mystical life is far too paradoxical and multi-valent for any one metaphor to satisfy. Sometimes this journey is not a journey at all. Sometimes the mystical journey is the mystical stillness: a place to be. And sometimes it is the mystical call: an invitation (or a mandate) to practice a way of life, a commitment to action, a method of prayer and liberation and transformation.
Like the Christian image of God-as-trinity combines three distinct persons into one unified divinity, so too the contemplative dimensions of going, doing and being are unique and separate, yet also non-dually one. There is no essential difference between where we go, what we do, and how we show up to be. And yet, each of these is distinct and represents a different approach to mystical living. Such is the complex/simple nature of the spirituality of silence.
If you are like me, you may find that of the categories “going,” “doing” and “being” one or two more naturally speak to you than the other(s). That, I believe is normal, for we are all unique. But may we open our hearts to a way of seeing and living that finds and celebrates the oneness in each of these dimensions of contemplation.
Source for quote: Cassidy Hall, Queering Contemplation: Finding Queerness in the Roots and Future of Contemplative Spirituality (p. 4). Broadleaf Books, Kindle Edition.