Two recent spiritual reads mirror back the invitation to “dwell” in contemplation. As this incredible home we call Earth accompanies us on yet another whirl around the sun, we may find ourselves spinning in “busyness” and asking, as author Ursula Le Guin does, How am I prioritizing time for prayer, meditation, reflection?
Le Guin calls the question:
“I lived when simply waiting was a large part of ordinary life: when we waited, gathered around a crackling radio, to hear the infinitely far-away voice of the king of England … I live now when we fuss if our computer can’t bring us everything we want instantly. We deny time.
We don’t want to do anything with it, we want to erase it, deny that it passes. What is time in cyberspace? And if you deny time you deny space. After all, it’s a continuum—which separates us.
So we talk on a cell phone to people in Indiana while jogging on the beach without seeing the beach, and gather on social media into huge separation-denying disembodied groups while ignoring the people around us.
I find this virtual existence weird, and as a way of life, absurd. This could be because I am eighty-four years old. It could also be because it is weird, an absurd way to live.”
—Ursula Le Guin, interview by Heather Davis, Poetic Outlaws, Jan. 7, 2023
Cosmologist and author of Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe, Brian Swimme, offers the importance of spiritual reflection in terms of “dwelling” on a quote of Theoretical Physicist Albert Einstein who said: “I want to know how the old one thinks, the rest are details.” Upon reflection, Swimme cites:
“I thought when I read that as a young student, exactly, exactly! After reading that quotation, I just knew that I would spend the rest of my life wondering about how the old one, how God, thinks. And I then came across another statement from some Indigenous people in South America that reminded me of Einstein’s statement. They said: ‘In order to become human, you must dwell. You must contemplate the immensity of the universe.’ I just love that. There’s all sorts of things that are needed in life today … But both Einstein and these South American Indians are saying we need to dwell, we need to contemplate the deepest, deepest mysteries, the deepest immensities, these are the thoughts of God.”
—Brian Swimme, interview by New Dimensions Radio, Jan. 11, 2023
May we each transform this world by lingering long in the depth of mystery.
—Ann Jackson, PBVM, Prairiewoods spiritual services coordinator
sunset image by Barbara Sorenson