Street-wise 'contemplatives'

IT sounds like a contradiction, an oxymoron, an impossibility. How can one be both in the street and in the convent, active and at the same time contemplative, involved both in dirty manual labor and in abstract intellectual work, immersed both in the world and in heaven?

There, obviously, will be difficulties, but the combination is not impossible. Our Lord taught and showed it, the saints lived it. More, it is a requirement, not only because of our hard times now, but basically because of our nature.

Man would not be truly a man if the fails to develop this behavior. A man in that situation would be a man reduced, impaired, and handicapped. He impoverishes his life and his world if he fails to be both hustler-ly clever and angelically prayerful.

The Gospel already teaches us that we should be innocent as doves but clever as serpents. That's one of those evangelical indications that have to be taken more literally than metaphorically.

A man who fails to cultivate this basic behavior exposes himself to great danger, often without knowing it. He would fail to consider the finer points of human life like justice, working for the common good, charity and patience, mercy, etc.

Wisdom and prudence will escape him. The capacity to know what really is essential in life, what makes for proper human development, proper education, etc., will be compromised. The value of suffering will be missed.

There can now be a lot of talk and references to love and freedom. But I must say that short of considering them in intimate contemplation of God's designs, they will often remain ideals, eliciting some strong albeit short-lived sentiments and passions, but missing the real essence.

It's intriguing that in spite of darkening developments at present, and also maybe because of them, one hears these beautiful concepts more often these days. Good! But how many really work hard to learn how to reach these goals?

What is ironic is that while many seem to be very advanced in their technical knowledge and other fun skills like sports, fashion, and entertainment, the level of spiritual life continues to remain very low generally. What a shame!

Why do we need to be both street-wise and contemplative? Simply because the reality that governs a man's life goes beyond the sensible and the intelligible. It, by definition, touches the spiritual and even the supernatural.

The world of man is not governed only by the laws of physics, chemistry and biology, or economics and politics. It is governed mainly by faith, by beliefs, by religion. Man does not only have a heart and a head. He has a conscience, he has a soul.

The prevailing culture and mentality seems to confine us in the world of the senses alone, giving us the excitement of color, sound, shape, feelings, and passions. It wants us even to be concerned only with the here and now, the physical and even the hormonal. Let's be warned.

There may also be some interest in the intellectual world. But this, at best, can only give us ideas, judgments, logic, and arguments. They can offer us some tools to discuss issues, to make some inventions and discoveries.

But without entering into the world of religion mainly through prayer and even through contemplation, even while in our most mundane activities, he is bound to get lost in the maze of life, now more complicated and trickier.

I feel that we have to realize more deeply that the more immersed we are with the things of this world, the more immersed we should also be in the things of God.

We have to cultivate the proper disposition towards our spiritual life, to destroy what plainly are grips of laziness and prejudices in us and other cultural conditionings that undermine our life of faith.

We should go all out in our efforts to learn the arts and skills of prayer and contemplation, building a true unity of life, an integral life that embraces both the material and the spiritual, the temporal and the eternal.