…this ache, this sense of homesickness, this sense of deep longing for a homecoming… is so central to the contemplative way. So often we try to numb it. So often we try to run from it. A lot of contemplative living has to do with learning how to not flee from this restless inner longing. God made our hearts in such a way that only an infinite union with infinite love can fulfill us. Now this infinite union with infinite love is in fact the reality of the present moment. It is in fact the reality of who we always are. But we are exiled from the childlike visceral awareness of who we always are. And in this we feel the longing. And in this we feel the estrangement from the inherent holiness of our lived experience. –Jim Finley

In the midst of -15° windchill, I hop in my car to run a few errands. Some days, my phone connects to the car like an uninstructed jukebox, randomly playing selections from my library. I’ve embraced this relationship between my car and phone, pretending it’s either divine intervention or a private concert, minus the payment. 

Today, the voice of Jim Finley played. Jim, a contemplative psychotherapist from California who was a novice (new monk) under Thomas Merton, has been an influential voice in my own contemplative life for some time. We became friends when we lived no more than a mile apart in Santa Monica/Venice Beach.

As my car warms up, Jim is discussing moments of spontaneous contemplative experience, naming such moments as revelatory by their very nature. He expresses that in these moments, we sense that it is always now, and in every moment’s never-not-nowness, we can engage the fact that each present moment is inherently precious: “this moment is endlessly holy.” 

At first, my mind drives me to the times I’ve felt this unprompted awe, unconstrained pleasure, unplanned wonder––but my body, shivering in my seat, calls me back to the truth of today’s conditions. 

This moment?

The coldest day of the year, my shoulders quivering, my heart-aching, my body longing. 

This moment? 

Endlessly holy?

The windshield’s ice finally melts and it’s time to reverse out of the driveway. Jim carries on, naming these moments as moments we can accept as trustworthy. He suggests that by honoring such moments, having faith in such moments, we can be reminded that our own heart “in its most childlike hour did not deceive us.” 

I immediately begin to weep, feeling this truth in my bones. 

This is what it means to live a contemplative life, he says: “to have faith that our own heart, in its most childlike hour, did not deceive us.”  

The words resonate with the deepest parts of my soul. 

I tap the 15-second rewind button over and over, each time bursting into tears as if it was my first listen. 

The childlike moments of my heart are my most alive, most awe-filled, most wide-eyed with wonder, most truthful moments. Yet the childlike moments of our hearts can also be places of deep innocence, lack of protection, and frankly, naivety. And both parts of this childlike heart belong in these moments, both parts of this childlike heart are necessary for such moments to happen. 

This, I think to myself, is the truth that reveals this moment as holy. This heart-aching, body-longing, shivering, errand-running moment. 

Jim and I tend to have these times of contemplative reflection in my car quite often. Last year a random track from this same book peeled back layers of my misunderstandings of what it means to truly love. In those ten minutes, he speaks to the ways lovers connect not only by way of their commitment to go into their shared intimacy, but also through their commitment to get humbly vulnerable with their own and each other’s infidelities to that shared intimacy. He goes on to say that true connection, true depth, relies on a life that lives in fidelity to one’s own truth. 

Truthful living, true intimacy, with ourselves and others, requires recognizing each moment’s holiness, and honoring each other’s most childlike hours. Not because each moment is pleasurable, joyful, enlightening, or even good. But because each moment is never-not-now, because each moment is ever-here, because our childlike hearts do not deceive us. 

In the goodness of our childlike selves we deserve protection, admiration, and care. And in the contemplative life, we are shown those parts of ourselves anew. In many ways, I’ve experienced an aspect of contemplative life to be a kind of merging between this adult self of protection and childlike self of innocent wonder. Contemplative life integrates these parts so that I can live truthfully: in wonder, awe, in depth and intimacy, in each moment’s holiness. 

When we bring realness to ourselves and others, “the truth takes care of us, and we’re led in unexpected ways to unexpected places.” And that realness includes our childlike hearts.