We live in a time of religious fervor, with adherents too busy clashing with each other to honor the sacred space we all share, the spiritual core of "soul-breath" – the same human family from the same Source breathing the same air on the same planet.
As the conversation turned to waiting, Brother Anthony leaned forward in his chair. "Contemplative waiting is consenting to be where we really are," he explained. "People recoil from it because they don't want to be present to themselves. Such waiting causes a deep existential loneliness to surface, a feeling of being disconnected from oneself and God. At the depths there is fear, fear of the dark chaos within ourselves.
Brother Anthony was exactly right. Ultimately, we are fleeing our own dark chaos. We are fleeing ourselves.