The mountain and its well-worn paths

“But we are not the weather. We are the mountain.”

Contemplative prayer is a discipline I’ve sought out most of my adult life. Martin Laird taught me how to do it in his book, Into the Silent Land. The basic practice involves sitting upright in a straight-backed chair and breathing a single word to empty the mind and fill oneself with the presence of God. The goal of the prayer is to get free from daily distraction and move into oneness with God. Laird tells us that we are the mountain and we are clearing out the passing weather. He says, “Because God is the ground of our being, the relationship between creature and Creator is such that, by sheer grace, separation is not possible. God does not know how to be absent.” He goes on:

“The grace of salvation, the grace of Christian wholeness that flowers in silence, dispels this illusion of separation. For when the mind is brought to stillness, and all our strategies of acquisition have dropped, a deeper truth presents itself: we are and have always been one with God and we are all one in God” (John 17:21). The marvelous world of thought, sensation, emotion, and inspiration, the spectacular world of creation around us, can be considered as patterns of stunning weather on the holy mountain of God. But we are not the weather. We are the mountain. Weather is happening: delightful sunshine, dull sky, or destructive storm. But if we think we are the weather happening on the mountain, then the fundamental truth of our union with God remains obscured and our sense of painful alienation heightened.

“When the mind is brought to stillness, we can see this clearly. We are the awareness in which thoughts and feelings (which we take to be ourselves) appear like so much weather on Mount Zion

“To glimpse this fundamental truth is to be liberated, set free from the fowler's snare (Psalm 123:7).”

In the heat of life itself, with its joy and suffering, with its ecstasy and tumult, with failures and accomplishments, it is hard to separate ourselves from that weather and to find oneness and wellness with God. Laird is saying we are already united with God and the project of our life is to become aware of this.

It is almost impossible to separate the weather from the mountain while we are in the midst of living, especially when that weather is harsh. The storm takes us over and it’s all we see and know. Taking time away, then, from the weather, is essential to quiet ourselves and reclaim our unity with God. For me, the practice of contemplation is slow and it takes a long time to see that I am the mountain and not the weather. The good news is that it is not supposed to happen fast. And the difficulty that I sometimes have in quieting and emptying my mind is why we call this contemplative practice, practice.

So I return again and again to find my oneness with God even when the weather is brutal and my earthly circumstances oppressive. Finding oneness with God is comforting, but I am not called to live in a monastery. God and life have given me a different path: I’m a father, a pastor, a citizen, and much more. So in my daily life, away from the sanctuary of oneness with God, I must uphold my responsibilities, and try to make the world better for everyone who suffers.

In prayer, I am allowed to be rather than to do. In this in-between life, we will always balance our doing and being, our action and prayer, and the more we contemplate, the more readily we will be able to act despite our circumstances. Our oneness with God allows us to transcend the weather, but more than that, it allows us to navigate the rough seas, the vast ocean. We recall, even in our distress, that we are the mountain, and not the weather. Thus a contemplative life is not necessarily a static life, but rather, one that triumphs despite circumstances and through them.

In the tumult of life, it is understandable and necessary to get caught up in the weather. We cannot act like we can transcend it when it is pouring down on us. And like any mountain, the weather affects us as well. It changes us. It will never separate us from the love of God and our oneness with God, but it can change our geography. It takes time for the weather to change us, but if we are moved to be intentional, the weather returns to its familiar paths, as opposed to saturating us completely. The mountain develops well-worn paths for the water, and they become streams and rivers. They are nature’s gutters that keep our whole house from getting destroyed.

At first, in the newness and youth of life, the weather can overwhelm us and every storm system can preoccupy us entirely. Sometimes we aren’t even aware that it is raining because we start reacting to the rain. In my past, when the storm has been severe, it has felt like my life might be falling apart. But I’m grateful that through the practice of contemplation, through knowing that I am one with God, even the most difficult of circumstances find their paths and they drain. Every storm runs out of rain, and every well-formed mountain has a path for that rain.

My ability not to be destroyed cannot be based on the weather. A sunny spring day is preferable, obviously, to life in a windy blizzard or a torrential downpour, but we can’t predict the weather, and we are, always, the mountain. We can't rely on the good times, or their memory, because invariably there are hard times and memories of those hard times.

But as we turn to God in contemplation, we develop paths for that weather to exist and not consume us. Recently, some of the hardest memories of my life have resurfaced within me. It has resulted in some sleeplessness, some anxiety, and some fear. But I am grateful that the paths for those weather patterns are well-worn in this old mountain I call my body and my life. I’m comforted by the presence of God, especially as it shows up in the people I love around me, both old and new, and even in Christ and Christ’s body called the church.

There will come a day when oneness with God is all we experience, and when the weather is always bright and the days, endless. Until that day, I commit myself to seeking my oneness with God, so that when it rains, when it pours, I remember that I am the mountain, and not the weather. I can marvel at the weather, wonder about it, and even work to do my part to withstand it and help others do the same.