Introducing Centering Down: Contemplative Practices for Diverse Communities
September 2, 2026
David Bjorlin
This sermon was delivered at the NPTS Community Worship service on Tuesday, September 1, 2026.
A long, loving look at the real.
That is how Carmelite priest William McNamara defines contemplation.
A long, loving look at the real.
And I have to say, the longer I’ve sat with this definition after I first heard it, the more I’ve been struck by how countercultural it is. Each of the component parts of this definition is more contested and quite possibly more difficult in our present day than any time in history.
A long look.
In psychologist Gloria Mark’s book Attention Span, she gives an overview of three studies she led among office workers between 2004 and 2021. In each, they recorded the average time workers gave to a single task before switching to another. In 2004, people spent an average of two-and-a-half minutes on a single task on their computer before switching; in 2012 it was 75 seconds; by 2021 it was around 50 seconds.
A long look? In this economy? No, we’d rather pick up a few more tips and tricks toward efficiency, performance enhancement, and multitasking—for we are people trained toward quick, darting glances.
A loving look.
In a 2017 interview, former president of Facebook Sean Parker admitted the plan that drove the company’s research, “The thought process that went into building these applications…was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’” One way was to give dopamine hits of validation—likes, loves, shares— that encouraged more clicks, more content production, and more time on the app, a vicious circle Parker described as a “social-validation feedback loop.”
The other way is more nefarious. You can also ensure attention by playing off the tendencies of human psychology. Because our bodies and minds have been biologically conditioned to respond quickly to dangerous stimuli (the fight-or-flight response that comes from an adrenaline rush), one of the easiest ways to keep people paying attention is by triggering anger and fear—and so our algorithms on social media and YouTube give more divisive, outrageous, and extreme content and rage bait to keep us hooked.
A loving look? In this political environment? No, we’d rather stay locked in our siloes, doomscrolling from our encampment through articles and videos that prove the worst sins of the other side—for we are people trained toward angry and fearful looks.
The real?
Setting aside how much of our life is mediated by screens and how that in itself distorts reality, so much of what we see on these screens is also distortions. Deep fakes and fake news; AI-generated images and music (over 1/3 of the music being uploaded daily on Apple Music is now AI-generated); curated photos of vacations that photoshop the blemishes out, even our demonstrations of vulnerability and authenticity online are calculated and curated.
At the real? In this digital age? No, we’ll take the airbrushed copies of reality that are so much easier to digest quickly; even if they fail to nourish—for we are people trained toward unrealities, to facsimiles of the flesh-and-blood life around us.
A long, loving look at the real?
No, usually a fleeting, fearful glance at the virtual.
And the problem for those who wish to follow Christ is that, with a few notable exceptions, the God described in our sacred story will not compete for our attention. This God attested to in the Old Testament does not speak in the great wind, earthquake, or fire, but in “a still, small voice” (1 Kgs 19:12, KJV)—the sound of “sheer silence” (NRSV). Heck, this God discloses God’s own name as an untranslatable verb—“I am what I am,” or “I will be what I will be,” or some combination of those tenses (Exod 3:14). God is known by the action God takes rather than as a noun, a thing one might be able to grasp.
Jesus too refuses to prove his divinity by having his angels supernaturally save him, either from a swan dive off the temple (Matt 4:5–6) or the desolation of the cross (Matt 26:53). He even tells his disciples and those he heals not to go spreading the news of his miracles (Matt 8:4) or messianic identity (Matt 16:20).
If we want to see God move, hear the Spirit’s voice, smell the fragrant aroma of Christ, taste the Creator’s goodness, or touch the hem of the Holy One’s garment—if we want to experience God’s presence— we must re-learn how to take a long, loving look at the really real—with a capital R—at God—the Ultimate Reality; the Unmoved Mover; the Ground of Being; the Way, the Truth, the Life (John 14:6); the One in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28)—and a long, loving look at the real world and people around us that testify to their Creator.
This year during our community worship—thanks to a Vital Worship, Vital Preaching grant from the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and the Lilly Endowment—we will practice taking a long, loving look at the real together. Taking a phrase from the contemplative Howard Thurman, we’ve entitled the project, “Centering Down: Contemplative Practices for Diverse Communities.” And we will be bringing in six practitioners from diverse traditions that will demonstrate six different ways that their community has learned to take this long, loving look at the reality of God.
These practitioners will be joining us for two consecutive Tuesdays (so you’ll want to be there for both!). In the first, they will teach on the practice, give us some historical background, and explain how and why they have used it in their community. In the second, they will lead us in it. In the dinners that follow, we’ll have time to ask questions, reflect on the practice, and think about how we could lead them in our contexts.
In the Fall semester (the Spring semester’s schedule is yet to be determined), NPTS’s Center for Spiritual Direction and ECC pastor Rev. Rich Johnson will take inspiration from the Jewish prayer Dayenu—“it would have been enough”—to create corporate litanies of gratitude that teach a community of worshippers to dwell in sufficiency rather than perpetual want.
In October, Dr. Lauren Schwer, Director of Ignatian Spirituality at Loyola University, will lead us in imaginative prayer, a practice that uses scripture, our senses, and the leading of the Holy Spirit to encounter Christ by embedding us within the unfolding Gospel story.
Finally, Rev. Dr. Juliet Liu, a local pastor who teaches both spiritual direction and formation classes at the seminary, will invite us to pray with our ancestors, recovering the biblical practice of naming and remembering those who carried the faith before us in a communal act of prayer and belonging.
By the end of the year, we hope to give the community six different ways to practice taking a long, loving look at the real that they can also adapt and use in their own faith communities.
But I want to end with a word of caution. Too often contemplation brings to mind the lone hermit retreating from civilization, perched upon a mountaintop ignoring the noise and mess of the real world. But we engage in contemplation not to retreat into some idyllic fantasy realm, but to dive into the real of the world as it is—here and now.
As you may have seen on our social media feeds, your esteemed faculty and staff were recently on retreat, and we even managed to do some things other than ax throwing! As we began one of our morning sessions around a fire pit at Covenant Harbor on the shores of Lake Geneva, our Director of Academic Programming Alex Hofmann Macias led us in a breath prayer.
So, in a beautiful camp environment, we began that contemplative practice. Breathing in with the words, “Wait for the Lord,” and breathing out with the words, “He will renew our strength.”
Breathing in and out as the trees swayed and the birds called.
In and out.
In and out.
Then we heard the hum of a golf cart.
Apparently, it was trash day at Covenant Harbor. “Oh well, that’s no big deal,” I thought.
Breath in – CLANK! CLANK! CLANK! as the groundskeeper fussed with the lock and handle on the dumpster.
Breathe out – BOOM! as the dumpster door hit the pavement and shook the ground.
Breathe in – BASH! BASH! as heaps of trash were tossed in, which, if the sounds were any indication, seemed to consist mainly of bowling balls and free weights.
Breathe out – BASH! BASH! more trash.
Breathe in – BASH! BASH! somehow more trash.
Breathe out – CREAK! CREAK! as the door was raised back into place.
Breathe in – CLANK! CLANK! as the door was refastened.
Breathe out – BUZZ! as the golf cart raced away.
Breathe in – Ahhh! the blessed silence again.
Breathe out – DDDDSHHHH! as the massive AC unit for the retreat center shuttered to life ten yards away.
And on it went.
Surely this was a contemplative practice completely ruined.
Or was it the perfect contemplative practice? For I think all of these interruptions taught us an essential lesson we must always re-learn: contemplation is not about leaving the noise and clamor of the world forever to find some eternal stillness. Though these retreats can be essential places of renewal and reorientation, it is not an escape.
It is rather a practice that helps us still ourselves so that we can bring that stillness into the noise and clamor of the world, to maintain our stillness with Christ in the midst of the storm and respond rooted in Christ and our identity in him rather than react out of our anxiety or fear. In contemplation we learn to see the world as it really is, in all its glory and horror, and then be Christ’s hands and feet in its reparation and healing.
So let us learn this year to take a long, loving look at the real together.
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