Thinking and Living

Contemplative spirituality begins with a caring heart

Thinking matters.

I grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood, where I learned at a young age that acting impulsively and thoughtlessly could cause real harm. This ranged from one of my worst childhood moments (breaking a window when mindlessly angry) to witnessing the tragedy of a high school friend going to jail after committing armed robbery.

Spirituality, like life, does not benefit from unthinking actions and choices. What is fundamentalism, after all, but a “thoughtless” (i.e., uncritical) way of reading scripture? A thoughtless religion can lead to shaming people, excluding people, and reinforcing human bigotry rather than working to heal and transform such prejudice.

I feel like I had to write the above two paragraphs to set the proper context for a recurring theme in mystical writing: that it is our heart, not our head, that brings us to divine union. As The Cloud of Unknowing succinctly puts it, “By love, God can be embraced and held, but not by thinking.”¹ Cognitive ability — even that of great philosophers — only takes us so far on the spiritual journey.

As much as I love this principle, I think it carries the danger of subtly implying that we can check our minds at the church door. But since that leads to fundamentalism, it can hardly be what the mystics are trying to tell us. Which is why this quote from Richard Rohr is so helpful:

We don’t think ourselves into a new way of living. We live ourselves into a new way of thinking.²

Rohr eloquently and simply reminds us that an intellectual faith never matters as much as a well-lived or embodied faith. The mind is a great servant but a terrible master; and nowhere is this more true than in the contemplative life. We think carefully and responsibly to protect ourselves from problems like superstition, fundamentalism, implicit bias, and unexamined privilege. We need critical thinking and careful reasoning to sort through the complexities of life. But mystics like Rohr remind us: careful thought must be formed by compassionate living (not the other way around).

When we give our heart to love, compassion, justice, and learning to care the way God cares, we create an inner foundation where a thoughtful mind serves us and protects us well. So let’s not check our minds at the door, rather, may we invite our hearts to be our primary inner guide.

1. Butcher, Carmen Acevedo. The Cloud of Unknowing: A New Translation, Kindle Edition, p. 21.

2. Rohr, Richard. What the Mystics Know: Seven Pathways to Your Deeper Self, Kindle Edition, p. 14.