“This is a story told of a mother and her little daughter in Trinidad. They are the poor of the earth, and the mother takes great care each evening to launder the one well-worn dress that her daughter wears to school day after day. Each morning, as the little girl leaves the front door to set off for class, her mother asks her to stop and turn toward her for a moment. ‘Just stand there. I love to look at you.’
“Contemplation is a way of looking, a way of seeing. The more I see, the more I love. And the more I love, the more I see. Seeing by loving; loving by seeing. But the one caught up in contemplation knows that it is not only I who look and gaze and behold; it is the Other, whose name above all naming is Love, who gazes upon me. A beloved child hears the word of a mother: ‘Just stand there. I love to look at you.’ It is ours to be gazed upon . . . even while gazing.” (Michael Downey, The Heart of Hope)
Witnesses to Hope 