Dedicated contemplative practice will bear fruit, although the timetable and the precise manifestations of these fruits will be unique for each person. Among the fruits that have been observed in contemplatives through the ages is a desire to spread God’s justice through a life of service. Indeed, as contemplative practice allows us to see all creation as fundamentally one, issuing from and returning to the Divine Source, we come to recognize ourselves in the other: we are them and they are us. In so recognizing, the pursuit of true justice will come naturally, as we will not be able to tolerate injustice for another any more than we can tolerate it for ourselves. Don’t be surprised though, if, almost paradoxically, your service in pursuit of justice and the greater good also takes on a different tone, undergirded by deep peace and characterized by patience and reduced frustrations at the wrongs we see — even as we weep over them and are moved more readily to action on their behalf! This change is disposition arises because, while contemplative practice enables us to more readily perceive that which would seek to separate us from one another, it also allows us to recognize the endlessly patient work of Christ on behalf of new life for us all, and our role in that new life.