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Contemplative Consciousness: Awe and Surrender

To begin to see with new eyes, we must observe—and usually be humiliated by—the habitual way we encounter each and every moment. It is humiliating because we will see that we are well-practiced in just a few predictable responses. Not many of our responses are original, fresh, or naturally respectful of what is right in front of us. The most common human responses to a new moment are mistrust, cynicism, fear, defensiveness, dismissal, and judgmentalism.

SHARP TRIALS IN THE INTELLECT (Part I)

Saint Gregory of Nyssa says in his Life of Moses that any concept that attempts to define God “becomes an idol of God and does not make God known.” We have an insatiable and natural need to conceptualize. But in order to know God, the Christian contemplative tradition insists on The “unknowing ” that is higher (or deeper) than conceptual knowledge that the practice of contemplation cultivates. Saint Thomas Aquinas claims that “the end of