Contemplative Formation

Learning to live from a deeper place

Contemplative formation is not primarily about learning more information or mastering a spiritual technique.

It is a way of becoming more attentive.

Attentive to God.
Attentive to our own lives.
Attentive to what may be quietly unfolding in the ordinary.

Spiritual life can easily become focused on understanding, deciding, improving, or accomplishing.

Contemplative formation begins somewhere quieter.

It begins with the possibility that God is already here, and that part of our work is simply learning to notice.

Learning to notice

Over time, contemplative formation may help us become more at home with silence, uncertainty, and the unfinished places of our lives.

It can teach us to listen before explaining.

To notice before deciding.

To receive before trying to manage.

To remain with a question long enough for something deeper to emerge.

This does not mean withdrawing from ordinary life. In many ways, it means entering ordinary life more fully.

The conversations, interruptions, losses, relationships, questions, and small moments of grace that make up a human life can all become places of encounter.

Formation over time

Contemplative formation is rarely dramatic. It usually happens slowly.

It may involve becoming more comfortable with silence, learning to notice what is actually happening, receiving Scripture as a place of encounter, and growing less dependent on the need to produce an answer.

Much of what I have come to understand about contemplative life has been received through years of formation, spiritual direction, silence, and companionship with others on the contemplative path.

That formation continues to shape the way I listen, write, accompany others, and create.

Spiritual direction and contemplative formation

Spiritual direction and contemplative formation are closely related, but they are not quite the same.

Spiritual direction is usually a one-to-one relationship in which a person is accompanied in noticing the movement of God in their life.

Contemplative formation is broader. It shapes the way we listen, pray, notice, respond, and live over time.

Each, in its own way, can help us become more attentive to God and to the life we are already living.

Within Shared Tomatoes

A contemplative way of seeing is woven through much of Shared Tomatoes.

It appears in reflective writing that does not rush toward conclusions.

It appears in spiritual direction.

It appears in the invitation to notice what ordinary life may already be revealing.

And it appears especially in Creating Space, where witness, Scripture, prayer, reflection, and silence are allowed to work together without demanding a predetermined outcome.

The intention is not to manufacture a spiritual experience.

It is to make enough room to notice what may already be present.

An invitation

You do not need to become someone else in order to live contemplatively.

You do not need to escape ordinary life.

You do not need to have unusual spiritual experiences.

The invitation is simply to become more present to the life already being given, and to trust that God may already be there.