Hopewit

A man of near-frenzied action . . . and snatches of contemplation. Are you a contemplative? Am I?        To contemplate is to "think profoundly and at length; [to] meditate." To be a contemplative is to be "a person whose life is devoted primarily to prayer, especially in a monastery or convent." If that latter definition is too specific for you, it can be made more general, as in, "someone who's given to contemplation." Common synonyms for contemplation include meditation, reflection, deliberation, observation, consideration.         "Contemplative living is living in true relationship with oneself, God, others and nature, free of the illusions of separateness," wrote Thomas Merton, an American Trappist Monk widely known as a Christian contemplative. Followers of the daily meditations of Fr. Richard Rohr may have, like me, been puzzled by the language of contemplatives; theirs is a jargon that obviously has to be learned before it's com...

You say ...   Nadine Ens I was contemplating  success  the other day, specifically whether or not my father and mother had lived successful lives. I gave that up pretty quickly; there just aren't any solid criteria for measuring  success , although there are any number of debatable ones, like wealth, health, achievement, happiness, fame, etc.               Perhaps I was thinking about my parents because I wasn't prepared to think these thoughts about myself, an 80-year-old who sleeps in a recliner because of a worn-out spine and who breathes like one who has inhaled far too much smoke, pollen and chemical fumes over four-score years.               Standard advice is that we do ourselves a disservice when we waste our time on regrets. But I slip into regret territory from time to time. My regrets seem to centre around all those questi...