Standing, walking, seated, or lying down, free from torpor, let me as far as possible fix my attention on this recollection. This, they say, is the divine life right here.

*2 Corinthians 1:18-20, Christian Scripture, Revised Standard Version

18 As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No. 19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we preached among you, Silva′nus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No; but in him it is always Yes. 20 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why we utter the Amen through him, to the glory of God.

The human experience is a "yes and no" experience; we are surrounded by alternating "yess" and "nos" and rarely is "yes" pure and "no" pure - that is, solely "yes" or "no." This means human experience is disharmonious, without symmetry, for negation and affirmation remain in continual opposition and, so, tension. The need, then, of reconciliation. So, the calm and lightness that arise from Spirit, and in Contemplation, as release from "yes and no" and "yes" and "no" to "yes" and "Yes" - the "and" not oppositional, but of Oneness through Oneness: "no" melts within the union of "Yes," by the power of "Yes"; "absence" is transformed by "Presence."

As long as we are immersed in identity with "no" and "yes," including being pulled here-and-there by the "nos" and "yess" about us, and directed to us, we cannot live harmoniously, in Harmony, meaning in our "yes" in Oneness of likeness and being with "Yes." We are, then, in the world, meaning in merely human experience - returning to the "yes," wherein we cannot finally speak of an absence of "no" - "yes" having no absence - means, however, "yes" is untouched by "no."

This "yes" is always and alone - without "no" - in Christ, for this "yes" is "yes" in one Christ: let us not, however, identify this Christ, or Word, this Yes, as equated with any religion or absence of religion, as Jesus or absent of Jesus. Otherwise, "Yes" would not be purely "Yes."

The "Amen" uttered - and "Amen" means "Yes, Truly, Indeed" - as affirmation and exclamation is a confession arising from the Depths, spoken or unspoken, where "no" cannot enter, for there is no place in Fullness for absence, even as no doubt in a Good in which is no "yes and no."

Contemplation, then, is the living into the "yes" of "Yes," by the means, or graceful action, of "Yes," or Christ. The Source of even Christ, in Whom, or That, Christ is spoken from, into Creation and the soul, is glorified by the return of "yes" through "Yes," though the Source needs no glorification and seeks in Itself no such, for Pure Love seeks no addition to Itself as "Yes." The Sacred Marriage, then, is the wedding of "yes" and "Yes."

All Contemplative Prayer, then, rests, in some manner, in "Yes" to heal the fragmentation created by "yes and no" within us and about us. Contemplation transcends even "yes," for every "yes" is drawn by Silence into Silence, into "Yes." When, my "yes" is no more, there is only "Yes," no longer merely no "no." Contemplation, then, is an only "Yes" Life - I having no "yes" to "speak" from myself (a dying signified in baptism into Christ, meaning more than merely the water baptism, but not negating such a ritual as signifier), even when the emotions and thoughts are "saying" otherwise - Contemplation being free of trusting feelings and thoughts. One, therefore, is immersed within a world of human experience, yet, embodying the body as means for the healing of the disharmony in the world, not by violence, and certainly not by politics, but by Pure Love that sees and knows all equally.

*Move cursor over pictures for photographer and title. Lotus of the Heart is given by a Hospice Chaplain, who offers this Work to encourage in a spiritual, inclusive life to embody and encourage peace among all, as each is an expression of one Grace, a single, sacred Life.