monday meditation and contemplation
Some days Fr Richard's meditation (scroll down) is too thoughtful not to pass along, all days it's better than anything I think or say or read or write.
His meditation today hits me head on as I sit here looking out across the Bay at a cloudless clear blue sky beautifully wretched bitter windy day, with a new bandage and freeze spots on my head from this morning's visit to the dermatology clinic and another long wait for the biopsy call.
Oft told before but I'm never going to repeat it because the farther it recedes in my rear view mirror the less certain I am about all of it and the more skeptical - - the evening of February 13, 1984, which would have been my grandfather Weller's 112th birthday, in my several-years-long spiritual, vocational, mental, emotional, physical, state of being transition from Navy to Church, I had a Moses experience that explained and righted everything that seemed to be going bad at the Time. "I AM speaking to you, Tom Weller."
It has never happened again, maybe because I expected that it would not, maybe because it was an illusion, maybe because that was my only Time of that sort of existential crisis, anguish, - -
maybe because in spite of all the lenten invitations and opportunities I've never really ventured far enough out into the Wilderness to deal with it or in search of it.
I can contemplate but I don't know how to meditate; but today Fr Rohr stirs me to think maybe I should give it a chance, right here in my 7H sty by the window.
I will Not report back on whether I do it or not, Nor will I keep +Time readers posted; but at ninety with Time that I call "the rest of my life" it may be a helpful lenten discipline, maybe I'll work at it and finally see (again, Mark 9:1 idōsin ἴδωσιν they see V-ASA-3P" perceive, realize, see spiritually with the mind's eye).
Thanks to Fr Richard, and equally to M2, whose suggestion about venturing far enough into the Wilderness sticks with me.
RSF&PTL
T90
Exodus: A Journey for Freedom
Learning to Choose Freedom
Monday, February 23, 2026
Father Richard describes how Moses gradually learned to trust in God’s love:
According to the book of Exodus, “The Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a person speaks to a friend” (33:11). And yet the Exodus text also demonstrates how coming to the point of full interface is a gradual process of veiling and unveiling. God takes the initiative in this respectful relationship with Moses, inviting him into a greater intimacy and ongoing conversation, which allows mutual self-disclosure, the pattern for all love affairs.
Moses describes this initial experience as “a blazing bush that does not burn up” (Exodus 3:2). He is caught between running forward to meet the blaze and coming no nearer, taking off his shoes (Exodus 3:4–5)—the classic response to mysterium tremendum. It is common for mystics, from Moses to Bonaventure, from Hildegard of Bingen to the Quaker Thomas Kelly, to describe the experience of God as fire, a furnace, or pure light. But during this early experience, “Moses covered his face, afraid to look back at God” (Exodus 3:6). He has to be slowly taught how to look at God. At first Moses continues to live like most of us, in his shame, insecurity, and doubt.
God gradually convinces Moses of God’s respect, which Moses calls “favor,” but not without some serious objections from Moses’s side: 1) “Who am I?” 2) “Who are you?” 3) “What if they do not believe me?” 4) “I stutter.” 5) “Why not send someone else?” In each case, God stays in the dialogue, answering Moses respectfully and even intimately, offering a promise of personal Presence and an ever-sustaining glimpse into who God is—Being Itself, Existence Itself, a nameless God beyond all names, a formless God previous to all forms, a liberator God who is utterly liberated. God asserts God’s ultimate freedom from human attempts to capture God in concepts and words by saying, “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be” (Exodus 3:14). Over the course of his story, we see that Moses slowly absorbs this same daring freedom.
But for Moses to learn foundational freedom in his true self, God has to assign Moses a specific task: create freedom for people who don’t want it very badly and freedom from an oppressor who thinks he is totally in control. It’s often in working for outer freedom, peace, and justice in the world that we discover an even deeper inner freedom. We must discover this freedom to survive in the presence of so much death. Otherwise, we can become cynical and angry and retreat from God and from other people over time.
In Moses, we see the inherent connection between action and contemplation, the dialogue between the outer journey and the inner journey. Contemplation is the link to the Source of Love that allows activists to stay engaged for the long haul without burning out. Moses shows us that this marriage of action and contemplation is essential and possible.