Contemplative?

Someone – Karl Rahner? – wrote that the church of the future will be contemplative. Can’t see it myself, although I certainly agree that it should be. The church exists deeply immersed in the culture of individual success or failure narratives. People assume they are the authors of their own lives, for better or for worse. Everyone has an opinion, and listening is a rare commodity. Professional listeners now charge a fee. All of this, it seems to me, is the diametric opposite of contemplative spirituality.
That being the case, the church had better get used to being not regretfully but properly counter-cultural. The old word for that is prophetic -- confronting and challenging the principalities and powers and the prevailing culture. While as we know there are plenty of centres of authentic spirituality throughout the church and beyond, it is not clear to me that the church itself is changing in that direction. Power and status still matter and become the default positions in the local parish and the church’s wider and weightier counsels.
We have become so enchanted by our personal narratives – in the cult of competitive CVs, in the counselling industry, on TV, radio and in the print media... even narratives of failure, shame and disgrace carry their own value. Victims have narratives which can earn them recognition, status and money. The celebrity cult, all-pervasive to the point of nausea, is simply a solipsistic performance desperate for an audience. Michael Jackson, his ruined face, terminal drug addiction and his crazed devotees... his hideous funeral epitomised for me all that is sad, empty, lost.
The cupboard is bare. The grand narrative which said that you could succeed if you knew how, is everywhere discredited. The church has lost its way, since Jesus clearly taught otherwise than hierarchies, status, power and control. And somewhat terrifyingly, the new grand narrative seems to be apocalypse, environmental catastrophe. A recent letter to the editor of a newspaper informed us that the writer intends to hang on to his guns, even against the law, because “they will eventually be needed”.
This is why, for me at any rate, contemplative spirituality, Christian Meditation, the disciplines of St Benedict as an oblate, have come to be so meaningful. They are the only way I know, these days, to embody and live my original commitment, long ago, to the way of Christ.