Contemplation and Nonviolence
Thursday, September 25, 2025
Activist and organizer Paul Engler connects nonviolence and the contemplative path:
Jesus was a singular figure in history—a teacher, prophet, and embodiment of the Divine. He offered a path to individual salvation through grace and prayer, a way represented today by the contemplative stream of Christianity. But he also offered something more dangerous: a revolutionary program of nonviolent resistance to empire, practiced by the early Christians and echoed through history by prophetic Christian minorities—those who have embraced strategic, principled nonviolence in the face of systemic evil….
Jesus stood in a long lineage of Jewish prophets who imagined, for the first time in history, a vision of liberation where the enslaved could exit empire, cross the wilderness, and birth a new society within the shell of the old. This idea—that a promised land could emerge amidst Pharaoh’s rule—would echo through Enlightenment revolutions and democratic uprisings across the globe.
But unlike secular revolutionaries who sought merely to replace one king with another, Jesus pointed to the roots: to the structures and systems that bear the fruit of institutional sin. He experimented with radical asceticism, wandered with prophetic disciples, and was shaped by desert mystics who mirrored in the first century Judaism, similar traditions found among the Sadhus of India, the Bhakti saints, and countless other holy figures who surrender all to the Divine.
This inner path—of prayer, ego-death, and mystical union—is a revelation in itself: that the promised land is not only a political reality, but also a psychological and spiritual one. Beneath the false self and reactive emotional programs (as Thomas Keating put it) lies our “original blessing.” Or as Richard Rohr reminds us again and again: the Imago Dei—the divine indwelling—is already within.
Our Earth, once assumed infinite in its bounty, now groans under the weight of extractive systems that for the first time in history hit their limits of total expansion. Climate change is just the tip of the iceberg. We are entering the sixth mass extinction. Ecosystems are collapsing. The coral reefs are dying, the forests are being cut, and over the last 80 years half of bird, and over half of fish populations have been wiped out. The canary in the coal mine is indeed dying. A third of the planet may soon experience drought annually. And still, the dominant culture accelerates forward—driven by a propaganda machine of individualism and consumerism.
Even astronauts, peering back at Earth as a blue marble suspended in darkness, speak of a revelation: that Eden is not a myth but a fragile truth we’ve exiled ourselves from.
Contemplation—whether through the Christian mystics, Buddhist mindfulness, or Indigenous ceremony—reveals this loss. And it invites us into the paschal mystery: a cycle of life, death, and resurrection that Jesus lived, not only as theology, but as cosmic pattern. What if the streams of contemplation and nonviolent resistance merged? What if our movements toward personal healing were also movements toward systemic transformation? To live the Gospel fully is to embrace both.
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Jesus Calling: September 25th, 2025
Pour all of your energy into trusting Me. It is through trust you stay connected to me, aware of My Presence. Every step on your life – journey can be a step of faith. Baby steps of trust are simple for you; you can take them with almost unconscious ease. Giant steps are another matter altogether: leaping across chasms in semi-darkness, scaling cliffs of uncertainty, trudging through the valley of the shadow of death. These feats require sheer concentration, as well as utter commitment to Me.
Each of My children is a unique blend of temperament, giftedness, and life experiences. Something that is a baby step for you may be a giant step for another person, and vice versa. Only I know the difficulty or ease of each segment of your journey. Beware of trying to impress others by acting as if your giant steps are only baby ones. Do not judge others who hesitate, in trembling fear, before an act would be easy for you. If each of My children would seek to please Me above all else, fear of others’ judgments would vanish, as would attempts to impress others. Focus your attention on the path just ahead of you and on the One who never leaves your side.
RELATED SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 23:4 (NLT)
4 Even when I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will not be afraid,
for you are close beside me.
Your rod and your staff
protect and comfort me.
Matthew 7:1-2 (NLT)
Do Not Judge Others
1 “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. 2 For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.
Proverbs 29:25 (NLT)
25 Fearing people is a dangerous trap,
but trusting the Lord means safety.
