Reflecting on Experience

An indispensible feature of Christian prayer is paying close attention to one’s own experience as a disciple and missionary. The focus becomes: “What is touching my heart today?” This is not just idle reflection. An answer emerges from all the concerns, satisfactions, feelings, aspirations, people, events and circumstances of the moment. The essence of a contemplative life is journeying in the presence of God.

My Punjabi instructor in Lahore, Pakistan, would quote the poet Iqbal: “You sit with your backs to the setting sun, and then declare there is no God”. The point was made that the search for God must be marked by reflective awareness, plus rigorous asceticism. Human experience is at the heart of our encounter with God. 

The moments of special grace may be fleeting, but it is well to encourage the possibility. Morris West, in one of his novels, put it this way: “You ask me to conceive of the Godhead. I can’t. I don’t try. I simply contemplate the immensity of the mystery. I am aware that I am part of the mystery. My act of faith is an act of acceptance”. 

The New Zealand poet, Joy Cowley, has a poem called:”Which God?” She asks which God should she pursue. Is it the One she creates for herself? Or, the real One? The One she creates has limitations, established to satisfy herself. The real God is more expansive, and constantly calling her beyond herself. A friend in Korea would say: “God is not God the way you would be God if you were God”.

Edwina Gateley once focused her retreat exercises on an effort to find and understand God. She found great satisfaction in a phrase from Eckhart: “God is always at home in you. It is you who has often gone for the walk.”

As much as we listen to the spiritual experiences of others, nothing is as important as considering one’s own experience. The basic task is to discover ourselves as beloved of God. We acknowledge that we stand in a world completely penetrated by a living God. We understand ourselves as people of God-experience. This is a vital factor in shaping an energetic mission spirituality.

Karl Rahner noted that in these secular agnostic days, the time is approaching when one will be either a mystic or an unbeliever. The basic questions for mystics are: “How do we engage the quest for the God? Are we passionate about prayer? Does contemplation make a difference to our lives?”

Fr Michael Gormly is presently at St Columban’s, Lower Hutt, New Zealand.

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