The Foundation Is Contemplation
Thursday, April 3, 2025
Reverend Liz Walker is the founder of the Can We Talk… network, which creates safe spaces for people to connect through sharing their stories. She describes the importance of contemplative, healing practices to support the work of social justice:
[In contemplative practice] we are fully claiming the space and community we are in. We are seeking help in tending to our suffering. We are honoring our ancestors who testified, danced, and sang their way to transcendence in the midst of chaos and pain. In celebrating those past practices, we gently hold this community in hope and possibility. We trust that whatever needs to be healed will be healed by the Spirit of a creative God who works in and through us….
Dr. [Barbara] Holmes writes that the civil rights movement was born through the contemplative spirit of the Black church.
The spark that ignited the justice movements did not come from the hierarchical institutional black church. Rather, it was the quixotic and limber heart of that institution, its flexible, spiritually open, and mystical center, that ignited first the young people and then their elders to move their symbolic initiatives from ritual ring shouts to processional and contemplative marches. [1]
The contemplative practices of Can We Talk… are no less important than those of the civil rights movement. By lovingly joining our neighbors and sharing our painful stories in the interest of finding peace within our own souls, we are taking seriously the interior work necessary for our collective healing.
Some people would not consider a healing community like ours to be part of a social justice movement. They’d argue that our work is anemic—not the “on the ground” activism necessary to catalyze social change. But such critics may not be aware of the centrality of contemplative action in the work of social movements across history.
They may not be aware of the contemplation that sat at the center of the work of interracial groups of students who, in 1964, protested segregated Presbyterian churches in Memphis, Tennessee, by kneeling in public prayer….
The exterior work of social justice is only as strong as the interior work that births and fuels it. We can’t heal as a community if we do not concern ourselves with healing our inner lives. Storytelling, listening, movement, and music all represent the gentle, interior healing necessary to empower the hard work of social change. During the civil rights movement, Howard Thurman came under criticism for not taking a lead in the marches and protest and activism. But his writing and thinking and contemplative commitments helped the movement remain rooted and grounded in nonviolent resistance.
The people who come to our events may not lead marches or protest efforts against institutional racism. But they participate as truth seekers, unashamed to process their own pain. They show us that authentic joy is reached through a healing process. We help solve our community’s problems when each of us faces our own sorrow, authentically and creatively.
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Sara Young Jesus Calling
In Me you have everything. In Me you are complete. Your capacity to experience Me is increasing, through My removal of debris and clutter from your heart. As your yearning for Me increases, other desires are gradually lessening. Since I am infinite and abundantly accessible to you, desiring Me above all else is the best way to live.
It is impossible for you to have a need that I cannot meet. After all, I created you and everything that is. The world is still at My beck and call, though it often appears otherwise. Do not be fooled by appearances. Things that are visible are brief and fleeting, while things that are invisible are everlasting.
RELATED SCRIPTURE:
Ephesians 3:20 (NIV)
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,
2nd Corinthians 4:18 (NIV)
18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Today’s Prayer:
Dear Jesus,
In You, I find completeness. As You remove clutter from my heart, my longing for You grows, diminishing worldly desires. You are infinite, able to fulfill every need I could ever have.
Please grant me the wisdom to prioritize my yearning for You above all else. Help me to see beyond the fleeting appearances of this world and fix my eyes on the eternal, which is You and only You.
Thank You for Your immeasurable power at work within me, exceeding all I can ask or imagine. May I always seek You above all else. In Jesus’ name, amen.
