Contemplation

There is a bronze and marble sculpture by the French craftsman, Auguste Rodin, called "The Thinker." It is of a man sitting with his back bent forward, his right elbow on his left knee, and the back of his right hand below his chin. It is said, "The Thinker," depicts a man in sober meditation battling with a powerful inner struggle, and often used to represent philosophy. As a visual, this sculpture exemplifies someone in contemplation. When we talk about contemplating, we are talking about reflecting deeply and thinking intently about the spiritual realm, for contemplation may also be prayer and lead to some forms of meditation. To contemplate, is to reflect, view and evaluate thoughtfully and carefully.  It is exercising the mind, or one's  power of reason in order to make inferences, decisions, and to arrive at solutions or sound judgments. Once something has been contemplated, and usually the process takes a long time, evidence manifests and proof comes to bear in behavior and attitudes. Other forms of reflection are pondering, musing, and mulling things over. These things infer to consider thoughtfully and seriously, but not as deeply, and not as long. There is also speculation and rumination. These forms of thinking differ from contemplation in that good and bad thoughts are considered, whereas contemplation is of spiritual values, the good and the beautiful, the pure and the just. Thoughts in contemplation take root in the mind and produce their own circumstances of kindness and grace as these habits grow out of this type of deep thought. "Man is buffered by circumstances so long as he believes himself to be the creature of outside conditions, but when he realizes that he is a creative power, and that he may command the hidden soil and seed of his being out of which circumstances grow, he then becomes the rightful master of himself," James Allen, the the author of As A Man Thinketh. And from Philippians 4:8; "Finally brethren, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Priests, as well as friars (brothers, monks) and nuns, are known for their contemplative praying. However, anyone fitting the above description can be, relatively speaking, called practicing contemplation.