Living Contemplatively as a Student

One of the things that puzzled me throughout my two years of NET is why so many missionaries struggle to maintain an active spiritual life after finishing their time on team.  How could anyone, after spending months immersed in daily personal and corporate prayer, exposed to the youthful dynamism of the Church and witnessing the Holy Spirit operating through them to draw young people to Jesus not continue along that same life-giving path? 

It doesn't puzzle me any more.

Life in "the real world" is hard, and nothing can fully prepare you to transition with grace into this new phase of life.

Quick disclaimer: I really hate the phrase "real world" as it is frequently used in juxtaposition with "the bubble", "team life" or "time on mission". These things are so real, and equally grounded in the daily experience of trying to bring the Gospel to the modern world. But for the sake of this post, I'm going to (reluctantly) use "real world" as a reminder that being an independent, unofficial missionary in the middle of some specific aspect of secular life is a starkly different situation to a clearly-defined, community-supported mission endeavour. 

Mission-alumnus or not, becoming a student throws you in the deep end of spirituality. I've found four facets of this phase of life - social climate,  academic culture, time-poverty and paradigm adjustment - particularly challenging to navigate, and I know I'm not alone in this battle. 

1.) Social Climate: this can probably be further subdivided into:

i. Value Recalibration - living life in a culture that cares little for what may once have been non-negotiable moral standards for you (e.g. particular boundaries on swearing, drinking, chastity, gossip, complaining etc.), it's hard to resist becoming steadily desensitised to unloving behaviour both in others and in yourself.

ii. Dismissiveness and Mockery - whether explicit or implicit, there's a mentality among what seems to be a majority of university students that religion is for the unsophisticated and the unscientific. Concession will be made that "you can believe whatever you want to believe," but the undercurrent, imbued with a heady mixture of rationality, pity and impatience, is persuasive. 

iii. Combative Antagonism - the Church isn't too popular at the moment, and living as its representative marks you as the target for accusations of bigotry, difficult questions and outpourings of injury and scorn.

2.) Academic Culture: many of this presents itself similarly to facet 1.2 (see above), but, I've found, holds even more persuasive power. When lecturers and academics, whom you instinctually trust as the source of a wisdom you're desirous to acquire, deride or subtly undermine either the foundations or the superficialities of faith, it's sure to deal a confusing blow to an enquiring mind.

3.) Time Poverty: study isn't easy. It saps up your time and your mental energy, and a relationship with God is quickly transferred first to the back burner, then to the warming cupboard to make room for all of the urgent woks that need attention. 

4.) Paradigm Adjustment: no-one is scheduling your prayer life in for you. You don't have team brothers and sisters for a regular accountability check. You don't often get to give your testimony in a formal context. Seldom do you experience the delight of helping someone encounter Christ for the first time. It's different, and it's hard. Those things which laid a stable foundation for your spiritual life have vanished, and you're not entirely certain how to go about reconstructing them alone.

What do you do with that? You struggle and you strive to be the missionary disciple you once were, and are discouraged by the million-and-one times a day you fall flat on your face. You drift away and then determinedly make a resolution to try again, only to find yourself more uncertain than before. You wake up one morning an atheist and decide not to leave your room until you've convinced yourself  of Christianity again (true story - only took four hours of prayer!).

Holy God, it's a hard battle, and it hurts me so much to see dozens of my brothers and sisters having to face it alone. A huge part of me, convicted by both personal experience and the agony of watching others navigate the challenge of remaining faithful as life goes on, doesn't believe it's possible. 

But then I sit at His feet. And I pray and I listen to Love's voice and He calls my name. 

And every painful and exhausting challenge is touched with His clarity, His wisdom and His hope. He shows me the way, and by falling in love with Him, every facet of my life is renewed by Love.

I cannot do it without Him. I cannot thrive for a single day if it doesn't begin with prayer - not just words prayed or chants sung, but a concrete and personal dialogue with the One who makes all things possible.  

When I stop living contemplatively, I stop living. Sure, I keep existing and striving towards goals and adjusting my appearance and opinions and hobbies to fit in. But I'm left adrift from all that breathes meaning and peace into my life when I willingly cut off from my anchor of faith, hope and love. 

By the grace of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is (slowly) teaching me to live right now well - and I know it's not just for me. "He comforts us in our every trouble so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort that God has given us." (2 Corinthians 1:4) 

I want to go on a journey together of discovering how to be contemplatives and missionaries in the context of student life. I want to talk about all the hard stuff and the seemingly insurmountable challenges and the victories we experience through the Lord.  I want to tackle the big questions (How do you really hear God's voice? How do you respond to the questions people ask? How do you reconcile your own quest for both faith and reason? How do you schedule your time to fit in 'the big rocks' of your spiritual life?). 

And I want our collective wisdom to form a rough blueprint for those who will come after us, so that they can draw hope that discouragement is not the only option. 

This is an invitation to more. The Lord is calling me to pray, to write and to live as one convinced that becoming a Saint as a student is possible. And if, in the quiet of your heart, you hear the same call - let's do this thing together. 

In Christ,

Kate 

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AMDG