Sister Lillian Harrington is ninety-one years old and one of my best friends at Mount St. Scholastica Monastery. When I asked Sister Lillian if she ever contemplates the end of life, she informed me, “I don’t think about death. I think about living.”

Living mindfully, in the present moment. Monastic men and women refer to this as “the contemplative life.” It’s what author Joan Chittister calls “living beyond the obvious.”  St. Benedict in his Rule urges us to “listen with the ear of the heart.” Contemplation asks us to see with the eye of the soul.

That’s not always easy for busy professionals juggling work, family and community commitments. When I was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, I’d arrive around nine in the morning. Suddenly, I’d look up from my desk, and it would be dark outside. The whole day had passed, but with my head buried in work, I’d missed it!

My stays at the monastery have taught me to pay attention to the day’s natural rhythms of sunrise, sunset, moonrise; to the interesting faces, and scenes of life unfolding around me. Whether you’re in a monastery or the middle of Michigan Avenue, contemplation asks us, as Sister Imogene Baker puts it, to “be where we are, and do what we’re doing.”