Today, using the same metaphor, I’d like to suggest that the “listening” wheel, whether we call it contemplation, centering prayer, meditation, reflection time, etc., is actually the best wheel to use for steering the tricycle we call our life. (Again, while these popular terms may connote different things to different people, all are variations on the theme of listening.)
In his historic 2012 Address to the Synod of Bishops in Rome, 104th Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams offered an excellent explanation for why this may be true:
“[Contemplation] is very far from being just one kind of thing that Christians do: it is the key to prayer, liturgy, art and ethics, the key to the essence of a renewed humanity that is capable of seeing the world and other subjects in the world with freedom--freedom from self-oriented, acquisitive habits and the distorted understanding that comes from them. To put it boldly, contemplation is the only ultimate answer to the unreal and insane world that our financial systems and our advertising culture and our chaotic and unexamined emotions encourage us to inhabit. To learn contemplative practice is to learn what we need so as to live truthfully and honestly and lovingly. It is a deeply revolutionary matter.”[1]
Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane suggests that he didn't just talk. He listened for God’s guidance (that is, he practiced contemplation) regarding the most significant decision he would ever make…"My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want." (Matthew 26:39)...and then followed it.
The rest is history.
[1]http://rowanwilliams.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/2645/
archbishops-address-to-the-synod-of-bishops-in-rome.
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