To engage in the natural art of contemplation is to look long and steadily, leisurely and lovingly at anything—a tree, a child, a pear, a kitten, a hippopotamus, and really “see” the whole of it; not to steal an idea of it, but to know it by experience, a pure intuition born of love. This is not an aggressive act but gratuitous. Being discloses its hidden secrets as we look, wait, wonder, and stand in awe of it—not inquisitively but receptively. The mystic—that is, the contemplative—is never utilitarian or Machiavellian, greedily trying to get something out of everything. She simply stands before being, before the world, before the universe, before another human being, a plant, an animal. He enjoys it and leaves himself wide open to its revelation, to its disclosures of mystery, of truth, of love.

~ Christian Mysticism: The Art of the Inner Way, p.7.  William McNamara 

Mystics are characterized by existential humility, openness, reverence, wonder, and awe. The ineffable in them communes with the ineffable beyond them. Marked by radical receptivity, radical amazement, and radical responsiveness, mystics take nothing for granted but understand all, including their own lives, as a gift from God. For contemplatives, all is grace. Anything they own, they owe. They place their whole life at God’s disposal. They are marked by the ongoing practice of gratitude and praise, perceiving the world as a miracle, receiving life as a divine gratuity.

Especially conscious of the love of the giver and identifying and experiencing the source of divine gratuity as Love, mystics are above all else great lovers: lovers of life, God, creation, oneself, and others. James Finley points out that “Contemplation is both a direct experience itself and a habituated attitude.” Contemplation, as a specific spiritual practice and as an interior act of faith is a way of experiencing oneness with God who is infinite love.

As a way of life, as a way of going about one’s business and living in the everyday world, as a way of engaging in ordinary or difficult human situations, contemplation or mysticism is the extension into concrete daily existence of this intuitive awareness and experience of the intimate and infinite oneness with the God of extravagant love. As a way of participating in the liturgy of life, the mystic has a felt sense of the sacred kinship that exists between humans and the whole earth community. For the mystic, as Thomas Berry notes, “The Universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.”

PRACTICE:  

Radical Receptivity
Radical Amazement
Radical Responsiveness.

Take nothing for granted. Give thanks.

NB! I use the terms mystic/contemplative and mystical/contemplative interchangeably.