12 December 2011

Is My Personality Compatible with Contemplation?

Some personality types resist contemplation, claiming it’s not for them. They are usually the very out-going, extraverted, intense types. But intensity can be a form of distraction (Richard Rohr) and is often a substitute for presence. And presence is what enables us to live the bursting abundance of now. Contemplative disciplines teach us presence as nothing else can. We cannot experience God in the past or the future. We can only experience God in the present now. Slowing down and adopting some contemplative disciplines may be the very thing that “intense” types need in order to participate fully in the complete substance of their active engagements—which when experienced in this way of posture and presence is actually an encounter with the Divine.

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