Contemplation Is Not 'Not Action'

I've been intrigued by The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society for a couple of years now, so when I had the opportunity to volunteer at the annual meeting of their Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education (held at Howard University on October 8-11), I jumped into the gap.

This year's theme, Building Just Communities, is close to heart and mind for me. What I didn't realize, at first--and what I've since learned many of us don't realize--is how close to muscle the act of contemplation really is.

A friend and colleague summed up how I'd felt about it until I attended ACMHE: "I think of contemplation as an important precursor to action," he said. That's where I stood, too.

Then a thought occurred.

I was in attendance at the conference when this phrase arrived in my head:

"Contemplation is  not 'not action.'"

"The heart can change. The brain can change," said Rhonda V. Magee, keynote speaker at the conference, and Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco. She issued a dynamic challenge to the 200 participants in the conference at Howard University October 8-11, calling on us to see the work of contemplation not only as personal and reflective, but also pressing and connective, with the power to change the world:

"In whose name are you here? For whom are you standing?"  
Rhonda V. Magee

Magee's ACMHE keynote isn't available online yet, but you'll get a great sense of her work by visiting this 2013 talk she gave, via the Great Good Science Center.

Magee's call to contemplation as action seemed to keep all of us moving toward one another and through our most honest selves for those four days, as we completed our ordinary tasks of gathering. Registration, packet shifting, page-turning, meals, card exchanges, and the like were a little less routine than at most meetings. I vividly remember the sessions I took part in, but equally important, I remember a dozen really true encounters and conversations with individuals.

I'd never been to a meeting where more authentic and thoughtful eye contact was consistently made, where more truthful words were spoken with often passionate intent, yet paradoxically where listening and living in our own bodies was a central concern, and talk less important than usual.

If I tell you this sometimes terrified me, would it surprise you? 

I'm thinking about why that is. Actively.

[Illustration Carrie Bergman. Concept and design by Maia Duerr for CCMS.]