Author David G. Banner describes how children can enlighten our understanding of contemplative prayer:
Contemplative prayer is the most basic form of prayer. The reason this is so is that contemplation is the most natural human form of knowing, a way of knowing very familiar to children, even if forgotten by most adults. As a child, you knew a way of opening yourself to the world and engaging with it that was even more basic and natural than thinking and talking. That way was contemplation…
Instead of thinking about what we are experiencing and trying to analyze or understand it, in contemplation we simply allow ourselves to be captivated by it. Rather than our trying to get it, we allow it to get us. We allow ourselves to be captivated by it, and we remain with it wordlessly…
Contemplation is knowing by this way of wonder. It is a way of knowing that is intuitive for children. No one has to teach a child how to gaze with fascination at tadpoles in a pond or an icicle in the sunlight of a winter morning. Children know how to stand in awe of the small, ordinary things in their world and see the specialness that is present in the moment. This is contemplation…
This knowing by the way of wonder that comes so naturally to children is an important part of the reason, I believe, that Jesus urged his followers to become like little children.
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