Contemplative Eucharist

The Wednesday Morning Informal Eucharist is morphing into a Contemplative Eucharist--which really seems to suit the spiritual needs of the four of us regulars, anyway. This morning as I did it, I had a nice sustained awareness of my body as I celebrated. I noticed how my heart beat went up as a I spoke. I noticed the tightness in my shoulders and a dull ache in the left part of my chest, etc. During the intercessions (which I led in a free-form way with my eyes closed) there were rapid changes--lots of comings and goings. At one point I had the sensation of colours--especially purple for some reason. Having the liturgy to hold to, though, kept my intentionality centered. This is spiritually the good stuff--nice dark soil. Stay tuned to see where this goes. This morning we speculated about adding another Contemplative Eucharist during the Holy Seasons (Advent and Lent) on Saturdays or some other convenient time.

A thought that occurred to me during all this was about when you find a sense of being rooted or grounded you simply see everything quite differently. It's as though your eyes become wider and you can see more of what you are looking at.

One of the books I really need to read is The Contemplative Pastor by Eugene Peterson. But I think I pretty much know 90% of what he's going to tell me. As with most things, a recipe is much less important than a cultivated connection between hunger and the desire to cook.

A character on the show Northern Exposure was an obsessive chef. He asked his students feverishly, "WHY DO I COOK?" A brave underling ventures, "Because you're hungry?" "Hungry?" he works himself up even more, "Because I'm hungry? ... YES! I cook because I am HUNRGY." So true.

-t