…my atheism is far from devout, but a rather lazy halfhearted form of the creed, tinged with what the French call la nostalgie de la croyance. It is that nostalgia for faith that has led me into any number of monasteries and churches to seek out the company of the pious. Nor am I so uncertain of the inefficacy of prayer, but am beginning to suspect that gazing, listening and contemplating may influence the material universe.
…so writes Richard Selzer, retired professor of surgery at Yale Medical School in his autobiography Down From Troy: A Doctor Comes Of Age.
I was especially struck by that last sentence. I know in my own life that “gazing, listening and contemplating” on the mysteries of God in the morning definitely does the material universe, in how I approach the rest of the day, the week. I become centered and my life flows from that center. If like me, you want to believe that center is God, so be it.
I believe just the act of contemplation of something, someone outside yourself brings you more in tune with the universe. It sounds paradoxical. Focus outside yourself and inside yourself you become more focussed than you previously were.
