Beguiled by Beauty: Cultivating a Life of Contemplation and Compassion

by Wendy Farley

Contemplative disciplines, such as centering prayer and meditation, have been part of Christian life for centuries. They seem hard to practice now, not simply because our distracted and hyperstimulated age makes them difficult but also because they can appear irrelevant to the needs of a fractured and ugly historical moment. Yet these practices are more essential now than ever, claims Wendy Farley. These practices essentially awaken and attune us to the beauty both of the created order and of human relationships. Farley helps readers discover being made for both kinds of beauty, with contemplative disciplines immersing us in it. Tying these disciplines with contemplation allows us to engage with the struggle for justice in an unjust society. Beguiled by Beauty includes practical advice for readers to learn several contemplative-meditation practices.

Genres: Spirituality

200 pages, Paperback

Published December 15, 2020

Reviews

[Catherine Wicker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been thinking about how much prayer seems to be missing out of the Abramemic traditions, Christianity integrates it the least. Wendy’s book gives a completely different path forward. This form of prayer is one that brings it into all parts of the persons life. How do we switch from the macro to the micro.

[Conrade Yap · Rating 5 out of 5]

Modern versions of Christianity have been one of activism and various spiritual practices. Some even call for greater participation in social justice. The rush to do first without adequate contemplation can become a form of short-term gain without long-term benefits. Living in a busy world is already a hectic routine. With the evangelical fervor that pushes us to do more, no wonder Christians are in need of a vacation. Some might even need more such breaks. What if we could incorporate more regular retreats and opportunities for spiritual renewal? What if we could adopt a discipline of slowing down and being more contemplative in everything? More importantly, what if we could turn our contemplative activities into opportunities to behold God's work on earth and bless the community that we interact with? Before we can do that, we need to understand what contemplation is. This is how author Wendy Farley begins, by showing us the meaning and the reasons for contemplation. Beginning with an explanation of what contemplation is, she aims to help us cultivate this discipline in our everyday lives. She helps us "cultivate habits of wonder" as we become more aware of beauty and compassion. She defines the contemplative life as "a general attitude for integrating all the aspects of one's life into a spiritual whole." Everything from personal lifestyles to relationships, from the acknowledgment of nature to the recognition of its innate beauty, we are given tools to sharpen our awareness of the Divine, thus the title of the book. Contemplation takes us beyond the aesthetics into an admiration of the essence of God's creation. It takes us deeper from the visible to the invisible; to use our eyes to see the seen and to train our hearts to appreciate the Truth encapsulated in the unseen. Contemplation is not the end in itself. It is a way to grow closer to God, so that we may grow with deeper compassion to others in society. The author aims to help readers not only to appreciate the goodness of creation but the goodness of the Divine God. Farley begins with a declaration that we are made for God. Those familiar with the Westminster Shorter Catechism would be familiar with this purpose of human beings, to glorify God and to enjoy God forever. In practical terms, it would be doing good and to glorify God.

With the help of the spiritual practices of various religions and the spiritual wisdom of the saints, she describes the "intimacy and mystery" of contemplating the Divine. She points out the need to bring back the contemplative element in a culture that is filled with moralistic activism, social justice, and technological determinism. For contemplation is not simply about things we can do but also about the state of being. It is not just about accomplishing tasks but also about appreciating the beauty of creation. Beauty is that window into such a world. The premise is that beauty is the way to promote compassion and justice. It is a way to see the Divine. It is a way to build communities of love.

Having said that, there are tangible ways to accomplish the goal of compassion and community building. Ways like the spiritual practice of prayer. In prayer, we unite the habits of the heart, mind, and soul. In fact, prayer is a powerful way to re-calibrate our purpose and to push back against a world of hush. Contemplative prayer involves the practices of silence, solitude, and service. It is soul work. Gradually, Farley describes the many other practical ways we can cultivate contemplative living.

My Thoughts
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Firstly, this book is about contemplation. This is the fourth base of the four-point field of the ancient spiritual art of lectio divina. It is hard to practice contemplation in a noisy and restless world. That is because contemplation is the antithesis of a goal-getting and attention-grabbing culture. I must agree with Farley that we have become too busy for our own good. We have allowed technology to rush us to do even before we consider the meaning of it all. By coming back to the need for contemplation, we learn to pause our rush and to rest if necessary. A life without contemplation will be like trying to piece together a large jigsaw puzzle without first eyeballing the complete picture. Contemplation awakens our need for marvel. It helps us stay sane in this crazy world. Beauty is not something to be solved but to be admired. In doing so, we will not become so distracted into doing things but become more aware of who we are doing it for. If any part of the book could orientate us in this direction, it would have been worth the price of this book.

Second, we learn to see the world through the window of contemplation. Instead of starting with a goal in mind, it begins with who we are, what we have, where we are, and why we are here. It brings us back to the fundamental questions surrounding identity, meaning, significance, and purpose. These are the basics of life, something that our modern culture simply presumes we know. The problem with hurry is impatience. Farley shows us that contemplation is not some passive call to do nothing. Actually, it is an active way to ignite our capacity for contemplation. The human being is not meant to be running on just one leg of activism. We need the other leg to bring balance to our walk of life. We need contemplation to show us our need for intimacy with the Creator. Here, Farley shines when it comes to putting contemplation into practice. This use of the window of contemplation gives us a fresh perspective on everything we do. It promotes gentleness in a world obsessed with achievement. It encourages us to adopt nonjudgmental attitudes as we interact with people. More importantly, it helps us build a sense of wonder (positively speaking).

Finally, Farley is not afraid to include the difficult issues of life. Sometimes, authors can try to paint a picture of beauty only in the highlights, and ignoring the lows of life. Not Farley. What makes this work quite unique is that we can learn to cultivate a contemplative mindset even in times of pain and suffering. This should be the way as real life is really a journey of ups and downs. By recognizing the presence of pain and suffering, we learn to appreciate the Son of God who had gone through the whole process. The purpose is not to solve the problem of pain but to learn to journey through it. This is what life is about. Suffering can drive us to pray in a more profound way. We do not have to run after suffering in order to experience it. More often than not, suffering comes looking for us and when that happens, we need to be prepared. This way of contemplative thinking equips us to do that too.

Hopefully, this book about contemplation can serve as a spiritual starting torque to propel us to cruise along the ups and downs of life, without losing the hope of tomorrow even as we deal with the challenges of today.

Wendy Farley is Director of the Program in Christian Spirituality and Rice Family Professor of Spirituality in the Graduate School of Theology of the University of Redlands.

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5.

conrade
This book has been provided courtesy of Westminster John Knox Press via NetGalley without requiring a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.

[Robert D. Cornwall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beauty is supposedly skin deep. Perhaps not. That might be true of prettiness, but not beauty. Beauty takes many forms, and sometimes that beauty isn't pretty. Beauty is also something that might be internal rather than external. So how do w encounter beauty? Or better how might we be "beguiled by beauty? According to Wendy Farley, the path includes contemplation and compassion.

While Wendy Farley's book is about the contemplative life, it isn't a how-to book. Except for the final chapter, which offers a brief introduction to some of the ways in which one can engage in the contemplative life, it is more an argument for finding ways of living a contemplative life. One thing Farley acknowledges that many descriptions of living a contemplative life require the luxury of time and space to devote to spiritual practices. What she seeks to offer here is not a monk's life, but a way of encountering the beauty of God and creation in the midst of normal life.

Farley speaks for many of us when she writes that "I thirsted for the Beloved and longed to deepen and purify capacities for courage and compassion. But my dedication to being a mother and teacher entangled with the lives of my family and friends, my community and nation, made a contemplative way of life difficult to cultivate." (pp. xii-xiii). In other words, she understands the lives most of us live. But, what she proposes here is something "is a way to inhabit ordinary life." (p. xiii).

In the course of the book, Farley introduces us to the contemplative life lived in the context of ordinary life. She draws on Christian spirituality as well as other forms such as Buddhism and Yoga. While she engages with traditions other than Christianity to enrich the practice, she wants us to know that contemplative practices have deep roots within Christianity. The importance of engaging in contemplative practice, even if only for a moment at a time is that it opens up a person to the work of the Spirit, and this important as we live in dangerous times. As she notes in the opening chapter of the book, she approaches this conversation from the perspective of beauty. This is why: "Without remembering beauty, one might think of spirituality more in terms of beliefs or emptying the mind or ascetical disciplines. We might think of spirit disconnected from the body, art, and nature. But beauty is the threshold to Divine Goodness and a door into radical compassion." (p. 16).

Why engage in the contemplative life, whatever that involves? The answer is that "we are made for the beloved" (ch. 2). God desires intimacy with us and seeks it. That is why we can and must practice forms of contemplation. To do otherwise is to forget who we are. God becomes an appendage to our identities. This second chapter invites us to consider the nature of our relationship with God, with the "Divine Beloved." From the conversation about being made for the Beloved, we turn to a chapter on "awakening to the beauty." She reminds us that the Reformers were suspicious of beauty, which is why they stripped the church of art and decoration. But beauty is important. It reveals something about the Beloved. It is, she writes, "the most vivid and immediate expression of the Good" (p. 41). Beauty leads to compassion and justice.

She offers a chapter on practice, though it's not a how-to. It is more an argument for why practices are necessary. She does, however, introduce us to forms of prayer that can draw us into the beauty of the Beloved. She speaks of the value of religious experience and the discipline of regular practice. The point is taking stock of our inner being in conversation with God. Regarding finding time, she suggests setting the bar low, so it is reachable! In chapter 5 she speaks of contemplative dispositions. So she speaks of qualities of life, such as gentleness and nonjudgment (that doesn't mean we don't have opinions or live in a state of ethical neutrality). She writes that "nonjudgment is primarily a stance of openness toward what one encounters. When we encounter someone or something, what we experience is dominated by our pre-established categories and emotional valences." (p. 84). So the point is encountering the whole person and not just one part. Other qualities include peacefulness and wonder and adventure.

We move on in chapter 6 to a conversation about the mind and paying attention to it, so we can cultivate habits that "support our aspirations." (p. 97). Thereby we can guard the heart. Here we are introduced to conversations about truth, gratitude, compassion, and joy, as well as generosity. She brings into this conversation the concept of intercessory prayer, If chapter 6 focuses on the mind, chapter seven speaks of the heart. This is a conversation about the transformation of the person so that we might experience joy and compassion. I found the section of this chapter on suffering, very insightful. She reminds us that we all suffer in different ways, though not all suffering is the same. In the context of contemplation, we can acknowledge suffering for what it is. We should not pursue it, but also not flee it. In that we can find joy. It is here that she speaks of the feminine divine, addressing the fact that Christianity has emphasized masculine understandings of God, but by contemplating the feminine divine and drawing from feminine images of God, we can guard against toxic theology.

It is only after we move through these conversations about the value and importance of the contemplative life that focuses on the beauty of God and God's creation, that we get to actual practices, such as yoga, breath prayers, and other forms of practice. She points out that many resources can guide such practice. Her point is getting us to that point that we can engage in the practices that draw us into a relationship with God and contributes to compassion for others. While the ho-to manuals have their place, this is a good place to start so one has a sense of the possibility of being beguiled by beauty by the practices of contemplation in the context of ordinary life.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: A book on the contemplative life encompassing all of life as well as specific practices, written on the “borderlands” of Christian faith.

Wendy Farley sees contemplation as not mere practice (although practice is important to her) but a seamless part of a life of knowing the Beloved, being the beloved and loving others amid the suffering and beauty of the world. In our present, perilous times she believes that “a contemplative way of life may contribute to the capacity to endure these times with an open and courageous heart” (p. 3).

She describes herself as living and writing on the borderlands. She draws not only on contemplatives from the Christian tradition but upon other contemplatives as well and practices such as yoga that come from outside the Christian tradition. She avoids the use of the word “God,” which may carry mis- and preconceptions, using a number of other terms: “Beloved, Divine Mother, Goodness, Bright Abyss, Divine Emptiness, Dance, Spirit, Lady Love, Wisdom, as well as others” (p. 5).

Farley grounds the contemplative life in the realities that we were made for the Beloved and to apprehend the beauty of the world. She speaks of our forgetfulness of the divine and the awakening of the heart to the beloved. It is often the case that our hearts awaken to the Beloved through the beauty of the world, that in loving the beauty of the world, we love the Beautiful One. To love beauty is to be moved to compassion for suffering and as we come alive to the world, we come alive to it needs.

Practice is important and the remainder of the book explores various aspects of our practice as part of a seamless contemplative life. The practice of unceasing prayer and the balance of inner and communal practices, the elements of both structure and improvisation are part of this life. She explores the dispositions of mind and heart–of living in nonjudgement, peacefulness and relinquishment and wonder and adventure. She speaks of watching the mind including the importance of gratitude and guarding the heart, including the role of and our response to suffering in our formation. The final chapter discusses additional contemplative practices.

Farley writes from a life of contemplation and the text is rich, each sentence worthy of contemplation, meaning this is a book to be read slowly, a contemplative act in itself. One senses a person captivated by the Beloved, by beauty, and the wonder of our existence who can guide in this life. Her use of feminine language for the Divine will be a breath of fresh air for some, and perhaps a cause for apprehension for others. Likewise, her openness to contemplative and meditative traditions outside the Christian tradition may appeal to those on the “borderlands” and less so for more theologically conservative Christians. I would suggest that a work like this (and really anything we read!) be read discerningly. Farley has much to offer in terms of her love for the beloved, and especially for the ways she connects that love to the beauty of the world and a life of compassion that cares about justice. For those alienated by so much ugliness in the church and unloving versions of orthodoxy, this work may help in recapturing the wonder of both the Beloved and the Beloved’s world.

________________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher through Speakeasy.

[Grant Showalter-Swanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Beguiled by Beauty: Cultivating a Life of Contemplation and Compassion" by Wendy Farley is a practical exploration of the practice of contemplation and attentiveness to beauty. Farley makes this connection between contemplation and beauty by first emphasizing that “the core practice of a contemplative way of life is radical compassion….A contemplative way of life is motivated by a devotion to the welfare of others” (7). While contemplation is primarily practiced through interior work and discipline, Farley notes that such interior work is oriented toward relationality. This relationality originates, and is rooted, within the Divine. From this rootedness within the Divine Beloved, the interior work of contemplation then radiates outward as radical compassion for all creation.

With this understanding of the communal nature of contemplation and its interior work, Farley then defines beauty. She defines beauty as “the threshold to Divine Goodness and a door into radical compassion. When we fall in love with the beauty of the world, we care all the more passionately about the well-being of the environment and all of the beings in the world” (16). Since attentiveness to beauty connects humanity with the Divine Goodness of God’s creation, leading humans into radical compassion and care for that creation. Consequently, this attentiveness to beauty, according to Farley, is a crucial tool of contemplation. From this synthetic framework of the interior work of contemplation and attentiveness to beauty, rooted in relationality with Divine Goodness, leading to radical compassion amidst of all of creation, Farley structures the contents of "Beguiled by Beauty."

Following the first introductory chapter where Farley establishes this framework, chapters 2-3 elaborate this framework in greater detail. Chapters 4-7 provide general examples of the synthetic framework between contemplation and beauty, while also noting benefits and challenges within this framework. In the eighth chapter, Farley concludes with practical examples of contemplative practices that offer opportunities to be attentive to beauty within everyday life.

"Beguiled by Beauty" successfully achieves Farley’s goal of providing a theoretical and practical approach to contemplative practice that is attentive to beauty so that individuals can draw deeper into God’s Divine Goodness and bear fruits of radical compassion toward all of compassion. However, a greater exploration into the role of privilege within practices of contemplation would have made this text stronger. For example, Farley states that “the causes of well-being and unhappiness lie deep inside us and we share them without knowing it” (10). While this statement rings with truth, so too do systematic and structural injustice and marginalization dramatically and tangibly impact lived experiences within all of creation. Consequently, a nuanced discussion of the role of privilege and oppression, and their consequent impact on access to contemplation, would have made the argument of this text stronger.

[Howard Boswell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wendy Farley’s Beguiled by Beauty is a truly beautiful read. It may be one of the better books I’ve read on spiritual practices. Dr. Farley connects contemplation and compassion, an effective connection between spirituality and social action. Her language about God is refreshing. I’ll need to read the book again so that I grasp the wisdom in it fully.