Writing as a Contemplative Exercise
Exploring the theological dimensions of writing as an activity
Often theological writing is seen as an intellectual activity, a thing that scholars and theologians do in a dry, logic-chopping sort of way. Writing is seen as an exercise of the mind, not the heart. Writing is seen as an expression of one’s thoughts, rather than an expression of one’s soul. “To write clearly is to think clearly,” as the saying goes.
Obviously, not all writing is conceived in this way. Poetry, for example, is widely considered to be a matter of expression the inner depths of one’s soul rather than an opportunity to merely show off one’s intellect.
Theological writing is often conceived in academic, scholastic terms, seen essentially as a matter of logic, rigor, analytical thinking, scholarship, study. That is, theology is often understand as a “left brain” activity rather than a “right brain” activity.
But as the example of poetry indicates, theological writing can be so much more. Consider the Psalmists and their writing. Surely, they are “doing” theology insofar as they are writing about the nature of God. But the Psalms also reveal a more mystical and contemplative dimension. You can see the emotion and pathos and directly in how the Psalmists write.
This is seen clearly in phrases like “O God!” which are repeated over and over. This is when the writer cries out to God. This “crying out” during the act of writing itself is what I would consider mystical writing, which is when writing itself becomes a contemplative and mystical activity, done so for the purpose of experiencing God in the writing process itself and not merely for using writing a means to express abstract intellectual propositions about God.
The mystical tradition usually talks of “contemplative exercises” in terms of things like prayer, fasting, and meditative contemplation of the Scripture. But I want to propose that writing itself can be a contemplative activity. On this conception, “To write mystically is to think mystically.”
But what does it mean to “write mystically”? It has to be writing of a certain sort. I am not talking about scholarly writing, which is often focused on scholarship, references, footnotes, arguments, history, and situating yourself within an academic dialectic and putting forth intellectual propositions to either be believed or not believed.
The writing I am talking about is not so self-conscious and logical as scholarly theological writing. Instead, the writing flows out of you. You don’t have to think much in order to do this kind of theology. Instead, the goal is to write in a such a way that the writing comes automatically, without explicit conscious thinking.
Many Christians are skeptical of such “automatic” writing as they think it opens you up to demonic influences or something. But that’s not really what I am talking about. The writing I am talking about is not about summoning dark forces or anything so sinister. It’s simply a matter of writing what comes to you, guided by the basic assumption that one should not think too much before deciding what to say.
It is similar to improvising in music. With improvisation, self-consciousness is the enemy. You do not want to become self-conscious of the next key you are going to press. Instead, you want to focus on being in the moment and present, getting into the flow of things. You become kind of guided by the outflow of music itself. You become immersed in the music.
Which is not to say you can’t think about keys and chords and patterns and motifs while you are improvising. But these things should be transparent and not the explicit focus on the playing. The goal is to let go completely as you play, letting your fingers guide along the keys of their own accord, with your ears guiding you in the flow of music, rather than your intellect plodding forward in a logical manner.
Similarly, the goal of contemplative writing is to let yourself be guided in the outflow of words as you cry out to God. The goal is to become immersed in what you’re writing, to open yourself open to being present and not self-conscious. When you become self-conscious, the writing stops, the spontaneity stops, and you lose the flow.
Contemplative writing is less concerned about the content of what you are writing than the fact that you are writing in a flow. Obviously, you do not want to just write down random keystrokes. For that will produce meaningless nonsense. But the point is to keep writing. You can always edit later. But the spirit of the exercise is to keep the thoughts flowing, to keep the words coming.
It is like meditation. The goal is to watch your thoughts in a nonjudgmental way. To let your thoughts pass you by. Similarly, with contemplative writing the goal is to observe yourself writing in a nonjudgmental way. If you become too self-conscious and judgmental, you will think to yourself, “This is dumb. I sound dumb. I do not sound intelligent. What I am writing is garbage. This is pointless.” And then you seize up and begin to stare at a blank sheet of paper, unable to keep the flow of writing going.
With contemplative writing, the goal is to keep the writing going no matter what. But what makes it particularly theological? Well, as mystics like Thomas Merton have pointed out, the true goal of the contemplative life is to not necessarily separate out prayer as this clearly demarcated activity separate from non-prayer. The goal is to see all of life as a prayer to God. Breathing itself becomes a prayer! Accordingly, even if you are not explicitly talking about God in theological language, contemplative writing itself becomes a prayer, indeed as all of life is a prayer.
So, with contemplative writing, you do not need to be explicitly talking about the nature of God and His properties in order to be “doing theology,” because all of life itself becomes a theological exercise. Theosis, or divination, is not a process that only occurs in discrete bits. It’s not like, as a mystic, you only divinize in explicit prayer, and soon as you stop praying and go make yourself breakfast, that you have stopped the process of divination. Rather, the goal in the contemplative life is to see the breakfast just as much a crucial part of the divinization process as the explicit prayer and Scripture reading.
Does that mean there is no purpose to a separate time for explicit prayer and Scripture reading? No, of course not. Setting aside specific times for regimented spiritual activities like explicit prayer and Scripture reading is very important. Indeed, following a daily liturgical program of regimented prayer as with the Book of Common Prayer can be a very powerful spiritual habit. For it is in the rigidity of such structures that we can find surprising moments of spiritual freedom. And the habit of explicit contemplative can build a muscle-memory for loving God with all your heart.
But as Merton says, all of life should be a prayer! We should not stop praying simply because we are not praying! That sounds paradoxical, but I don’t think it is that complicated. When Jesus said the whole of the law is summarized in the command to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, do you think He intended that to mean that we are only maximally loving God whenever our conscious minds are explicitly focused on God in acts of prayer or Scripture and when we are not doing those things we are loving God less?
Hardly! But what does it mean to love God with all your heart when your conscious mind is focused on writing a report for work, or when you’re engaged in a conversation with a friend about politics, or any number of “non-theological” or “non-spiritual” activities of daily living? While I must admit a definite degree of humility here insofar as I do not pretend to have come anywhere close to understanding what this means or how to implement it in my life, I would wager a guess that what Jesus means by loving God with all our hearts is connected with the second related command, to “love our neighbor as ourselves.” So, both commandments have to do with love. But what does that mean? It means we are to embody a Christ-like love. Which means to be self-sacrificial. To patient and kind. To love our enemies. To love those who are not lovable. To not boast or be prideful in our thoughts and actions. To be calm and not angry. To be truthful. To not envy what others have.
So, when we are writing that report for work, or talking about politics, what is the ultimate concern? Are we focused on egotistical jockeying for power and status? Are we interesting in one-upping our friend with a better story, or thinking only about what we want to say next, or are we truly interested in listening for the sake of listening itself, out of love for our neighbor? Are we focused on doing what’s best for others? Are we focused our own selfish interests or are we focused on doing what’s best for everyone else?
Obviously, this is easier said than done. But that is exactly why Jesus asked us to “be perfect.” He knew this was impossible. He knew we would fall short. He knew that perfection is an impossibility given the finitude and corruption of human nature. We are selfish, egotistical creatures by our very nature! But that does not mean we should not strive to be better. That we should not ask for the Grace of God to bestow us with the gifts of Spirit so that we can be less egotistical and less selfish. The impossibility of the command to be perfect does not mean we just give up in despair and fall into degeneracy. Rather, it is an admonition to strive even harder towards that ideal! But in such striving, we will inevitably come to realize our short fallings, and thereby gain wisdom in the humility of knowing just how difficult it is to love God with all our heart and to love our neighbors as ourselves. And it is always easier to love others from the perspective of humility rather than pride, which is about self-love.
Humility is an unnatural state for humanity. The easiest and most natural thing in the world is to love ourselves with all our heart. To love status with all our heart. To love how smart and clever we are with all our heart. To love money and security with all our heart. To love sensation and pleasure with all our heart.
So, when we are making breakfast, when we are writing that report, when we are engaged in “non-spiritual” activities that take up our explicit conscious attention, the hope is that all the “spiritual” activities like prayer and Scripture reading build up our contemplative muscle-memory such that doing those “non-spiritual” activities in the spirit of love and humility and self-sacrifice becomes second nature. And it is when the distinction between our “spiritual life” and our “non-spiritual” life becomes blurred as a result of this muscle-memory, that is when we know that the Holy Spirit is working within us to divinize our souls, to make us “little Christs,” as C.S. Lewis said.