Confessions of a Radical

As a ONE on the Enneagram, I have always had a compulsion for trying to improve things--for improving the world and especially for improving myself.  My desire to fix the world manifested mostly in through a keen interest in politics and social movements.  My childhood heroes were not Spiderman or even Luke Skywalker (though I was quite the fan of both), not sports heroes or movie stars, but rather Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gandhi.  

Seriously.  These were the men I wanted to emulate.

So I was interested in history, in politics, and especially in the spiritual dimensions of social transformation.  In college I was heavily involved in peace and environmental activism on campus and in the classroom.  I first studied journalism, but then decided that I wanted to get down to the roots of why there was injustice in the world and how to correct it, and ended up taking my degree in philosophy and religion.  I went to grad school to study theology and ethics.  But this wasn't "in the trenches" enough for me, so I became a teacher with the intent of transforming the world one kid at a time, and foolishly thought that with my "spare" time I would continue to devote myself to community activism.

Of course, I quickly discovered that teachers don't really have that much spare time, especially compared to college students.  So the activism slowed to a stop.  Meanwhile, working in the bureaucracy of the public schools led to cynicism.  My values didn't change, but my confidence in government did.  Always interested in all-encompassing political philosophies, I studied libertarianism and adopted a nearly anarchist outlook on social change.  But that critical stance toward the world remained.

There was a corresponding struggle for transformation going on inside me, which I'll write about some other time.  My point in all this is to demonstrate how thoroughly I actually am a ONE and always have been.  And it's always been all or nothing.  The world had to change according to my viewpoint, and my viewpoint was total: Marxism or anarcho-capitalism, the change was motivated by a comprehensive system of ideas that left little room for nuance or compromise.

One of the lessons of the Enneagram is that God is constantly inviting us to grow and become whole.  Now, this is a theme with great appeal for a ONE, of course.  But for a ONE, the growth means letting go of some of that harsh, critical stance toward the world.  I remain a ONE, but something happens to the way I manifest my personality as a ONE.  I move toward greater tolerance, understanding, compassion, and above all patience.

Something happened while I was in Norway that has caused a subtle but significant shift in my attitude toward the world of politics lately.  It wasn't that they saw the world differently than me, it's that the Norwegians bent all the definitions of politics I had come to know.  They are neither liberal nor conservative, neither socialist nor capitalist.  They are collectivists and individualists at the same time.

Some people have heard me talk or write about Norway and think I've just fallen in love with the people there and think they can do no wrong.  I do love Norway and the Norwegian people, but I have no such notions about the rightness or wrongness of their political system and attitudes.  They just demonstrate to me that there are multiple ways of looking at a problem, and far more than just two solutions.  Reflecting on the Norwegians has brought a kind of peace and deep reflection to my mind when I watch the news now or reflect on politics.  My absolutist perspective has been tempered by a new kind of openness and curiosity.  

This is how a ONE begins to come to redemption.  And this is just the beginning.

Knowing the "ONE"

A few months ago, while visiting friends, I noticed a book on their shelf about the Enneagram. I read and studied the Enneagram some many years ago, but had not thought about it in a long time. I borrowed their book and carried it around Norway during my trip, but didn't read much. Then last month at the LCG meeting the Enneagram surfaced again in the conversation, and with a few pointers from Michael, I resumed my studies using the Enneagram Institute's website and the Richard Rohr book, Discovering the Enneagram: An Ancient Tool for a New Spiritual Journey.

The Enneagram is a very old personality profile system likely developed by Sufi mystics but adopted in the last century by both Christian contemplatives interested in its uses for spiritual direction and by secular psychologists who saw it as a tool for human growth in general. The Enneagram proposes that there are nine basic personality types ('ennea' means 'nine' in Greek), though the system is subtle enough to recognize scores of combinations (hundreds when the various levels of growth and development are considered).

It's a humbling look into the human psyche, because the Enneagram pulls no punches. We are all deeply broken and our brokenness is laid bare when we study the features of our own personalities. The system is useful for identifying features within myself that I might not discover otherwise--and probably wouldn't--if it were left up to my own powers of introspection.

Long story short, I'm a "ONE" on the Enneagram. Riso and Hudson, the Enneagram Institute folks, call this type the Reformer. The name is nice, and there are many great gifts to this particular personality. We are dedicated to making things better--both ourselves the world. We are advocates for change and we are absolutely dedicated to growing individuals and society into more integrated, balanced versions of the ideals we believe in. Of course, this is also a very dangerous way to look at the world, and we become extremely critical and judgmental of everything and everybody, especially ourselves.

This is a kind of extreme description, a caricature of traits that make up the ONE's personality, but I identify myself in it thoroughly. In future posts over the next few weeks, I'll explore the Enneagram is greater depth, what I'm learning about myself and others through the process, and especially what God is revealing to me about how I can come to know Him better.

Becoming Easter

It has been a joyous Easter season so far on many levels. I have felt confirmed and renewed by the liturgies, the spring weather has been pleasing, I am happy to be home after long travels abroad, and a very dear friend is entering the Church next Sunday and I have the honor of being his sponsor. Many great blessings are converging for me at the moment.

Lent did its work on me too, simultaneously convicting me of my own sinfulness and leaving me acutely aware of the general brokenness of the world while also longing for a metanoia, a renewing and rebirth in Christ. A couple of simple, small things happened in last night that vividly brought to my awareness this collective brokenness and need for redemption.

As I was leaving a restaurant with some friends and casually crossing the street to my car, some stranger in a passing vehicle yelled at us hatefully for crossing too slowly. Then, as I drove home, a passenger in the car ahead of me casually tossed a beer can out the window, littering the beautiful country roadside.

These things combine to leave me with a slightly sick feeling, struck by how selfish and unfeeling people can be. And these are tiny, insignificant slights compared to the real injustices and cruelties that are unleashed in the world every day. Above all, I am left with a powerful sense of my own self-centeredness. The judgment I feel toward others is quickly turned inward as I contemplate the thousands of little ways I also show disrespect and a lack of caring. The violence, intolerance, and apathy of the world is reflected in my own tendency toward all these things.

The world is broken, and I am convicted by this brokenness with a great desire to do something in response. Of course, the only place I can effect any kind of healing is within my own heart, and even then only by divine grace.

So this week I'm meditating on the Paschal Mystery as it applies to my own heart, a heart that is broken like all the rest, and how I can let the joy and peace and compassion and understanding and tolerance and acceptance and reckless love of Easter become my gift of healing back to myself and to the world. This is no easy meditation, but I'll continue to sit with it and see what happens. It is the only response to a broken world. It is the testament of Easter.

Lord of My Life

"All the faithful should listen to the word as it is announced in the liturgy or in Bible services and respond according to their ability.  In this way, for the whole Church, Lent will not be merely a season simply of a few formalized penitential practice, half-understood and undertaken without interest, but a time of metanoia, the turning of all minds and hearts to God in preparation for the celebration of the Paschal Mystery in which some will for the first time receive the light of Christ, others will be restored to the communion of the faithful, and all will renew their baptismal consecration of their lives in God, in Christ."

--Thomas Merton, Seasons of Celebration

I feel the great stirring within me, the anticipation and expectation of Easter.  The liturgical calendar and the scripture readings and rites that accompany it have succeeded in bringing something to life within me.  Lent has revealed many dark corners within me that are in need of redemption, but not without the abiding promise of deliverance.  The light of Easter is about to break, and I have never been more aware of my need and desire to surrender completely and wholly to the Lord of my life.

I am not sure I have ever felt quite like this.  Don't get me wrong.  I am not hearing angels' voices or experiencing special charisms.  Rather, I just have this deep sense of calling and confirmation within me.  "The Lord GOD has given me a well-trained tongue," the Scripture says today, "that I might know how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them."  

Perhaps there are many ways to speak to the weary.  I'm not sure what my way is, but I am pretty confident I will be led there if I remain open.

The "Universal" Church

I had a couple of powerful "church" experiences in Norway that are worth sharing too.  Two of my American companions were also Catholic and we decided to visit the little Catholic church in Lillehammer one Sunday morning.  It was my first experiencing attending Church outside the U.S., but it revealed to me just what we mean when we call the church "catholic," as in "universal."

Immediately when we entered I felt at home.  The smells and sounds were completely familiar to me.  We introduced ourselves to the young priest, who of course spoke perfect English and welcomed us.  I had read that the Catholic Church in Norway has traditionally had an unusual sort of reputation.  It has been the refuge for intellectuals, artists and scientists--usually converts from others traditions or from no faith background at all--and has a heavy monastic flavor.  But today's church in Norway is increasingly an immigrant church as waves of newcomers from Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa arrive daily, and many of them are Catholic.

This was evident at Mariakirken, the Catholic community in Lillehammer.  We were surrounded by a great diversity of faces, including Poles, Phillipinos, Somalis, Vietnamese, Norwegians of course, and even an American we discovered later.  The liturgy was all in Norwegian, but the structure is the same all of the world, and we found that with the little worship aid we could follow right along, singing and proclaiming the responses in our heavily-accented Norwegian voices.  It was a deeply unifying experience to gather with these people from all over the world and share in communion and a universal liturgy of praise, worship, and reflection.  It even made me appreciate how the old Latin liturgy provided a truly universal language for the church, and how those Latin fundamentalists might have a valid point or two about the importance of the old rites.  But the truth was, Latin wasn't needed for us to understand each other and be one.

The other powerful church experience took place at Domkirkeodden, the ruins of the old cathedral at Hamar.  The original cathedral dated back to the 13th century, but it was burned in the mid-1500's and all that remains are parts of the walls, stone pillars, and the reassembled altar stones, recovered from nearby fields where they probably were used as cattle and sheep fencing for some centuries.  The church is now surrounded by glass walls and ceiling at the same height as the original cathedral.  This preserves the ruins but also leaves the space open to the majestic view of Lake Mjøsa surrounding the peninsula on which the ruins rest, the nearby mountains, and the vast blue sky above.

Here we received a guided tour from the site's director, a fantastic story teller (and trained Luther priest) named Steinar.  He brought us inside the cathedral of glass and stone and, lest we think this strange structure was no longer a church, he had us close our eyes and listen while he sang the "Kyrie Eleison."  My eyes filled with tears of joy and peace and at once I felt at home in this ancient place.  Then Steinar led us up around the altar, which has been restored and is used again for interdenominational services.  Here looking across the altar past the ruined walls to the lake, the mountains, and sky, Steinar pointed out how in this place the past, present, and future are united.  We were one people and one earth on that holy ground.

Homecoming

"In building a community of pardon that is the temple of God, we have to recognize that no one is complete, self-sufficient, perfectly holy in himself.  No one can rest in his own individual virtues and interior life.  No man lives for himself alone.  To live for oneself alone is to die.  We grow and flourish in our own lives insofar as we live for others and through others.  What we ourselves lack, God has given them.  They must complete us where we are deficient.  Hence we must always remain open to one another so that we can always share with each other."

--Thomas Merton, Seasons of Celebration

I am happily at home again after a month-long visit to Norway.  As many friends know, I approached the journey with some reluctance, fretful about the loss of my routines, the lack of time for quiet reflection, etc.  I even began to think of the trip as a kind of Lenten experience, a penance of sorts, a surrender of the ordinary and familiar.  

And it was.  But it was also a Lenten experience in the holiest sense, in that through surrender I experienced a great renewal and regeneration.  I cannot convey how wonderful my journey was, how thought-provoking, heart-warming and life-changing.  There were the actual experiences of being in a beautiful place and doing strange and unusual things, but more importantly was the intimate encounter with the people who opened their homes to us, shared their lives, and introduced us into their ways of thinking and living while eagerly desiring to learn from us too.

My routines were disrupted indeed, but I now can see what deep ruts had begun to define my life and way of thinking about work, about myself, about my world.  The break from routine gave me new insights into how closed I have become in subtle ways, and a renewed desire for deepening my friendships and making new ones, for traveling and experiencing new places, and above all for nurturing my need to listen deeply to the needs and opinions of others.  I am a man of deep passions and strong views, and that can be a gift.  But it can also be a heavy burden when it blinds me to the wisdom of others.  And so I now carry a strong yearning for more openness, deeper listening, and above all a heart of peace, compassion and understanding for others.

I have been so richly blessed in my life.  The opportunity to visit Norway was just one of many examples of the riches that I have received.  I have deserved none of them, and I find myself bewildered and humbled by this graciousness.  Why me?  I don't know the answer to this, but I do know how I must respond.  To the best of my ability, I must use the great beauty and goodness of my life to serve others, to share with others, to lift others up so that they too might know some degree of beauty, goodness, and joy.

I don't know how to do that, and I am a deeply broken man, not a prophet or saint.  But just as surely as I have been given these special experiences, I will believe that the One who Provides will also lead me to where I can do some good, if I remain open, quiet, humble, and willing to listen and be lead.

I am home, and yet the journey is just beginning.

Mercy Now

"The purpose of Lent is not only expiation, but above all a preparation to rejoice in God's love.  And this preparation consists in receiving the gift of His mercy--a gift we receive insofar as we open our hearts to it, casting out what cannot remain in the same room as mercy."

--Thomas Merton, Seasons of Celebration

This passage from Merton calls to mind a fantastic song, "Mercy Now," by Mary Gauthier.  It's a beautiful prayer for grace and mercy on us all for the big messes we make in our lives, in our families, in our workplaces, and in the world.  The song is also a call for us to have mercy on each other, and on ourselves.

Perhaps the hardest of all is mercy for ourselves.  I find in myself the need for mercy, often in the strangest places.   In a couple of days I'm going to leave for an overseas trip that will last a month.  It's an opportunity of a lifetime, at very little personal expense to myself, an experience that I am sure will grow me personally and professionally.  

And yet, there is a deep resistance within me.  Part of it is being away from my wife, part of it is letting go of many things at work and fretting about how much will be waiting for me when I return, part of it is fear of dealing non-stop with new, unfamiliar people (which I don't mind, but for an introvert, that's work), sleeping in strange beds, eating strange food, having a new routine, having less time to read, pray, write, and just be by myself.

I will be gone most of Lent.  Earlier in the week I was thinking about the Lenten implications of all these disruptions to my routine, and I started to think about my trip as a kind of Lenten journey in itself.  Lent takes us out of our comfort zones, and that's certainly what I'm about to do.  It will lay bare some of my basic fears of not being in control, and paradoxically my fears about both being overwhelmed by contact with others and my fears about being alone (the separation from my wife is weighing heavily on me, though I am sure we'll have nearly daily contact).  

Its not that I'm ungrateful for the opportunity, and I'm not consumed by these fears, but it goes to show how even in the midst of great excitement and new beginnings, there is much within ourselves that needs mercy.  For Lent, I'm going to give up a little bit of control, give myself a break, and try to have a good time in spite of all my hang ups and fears.  I'll blog here as I'm able.  Pray for my journey, and I'll be back soon.

Season of Healing

"We must remember the original meaning of Lent, as the ver sacrum, the Church's "holy spring" in which the catechumens were prepared for their baptism, and public penitents were made ready by penance for their restoration to the sacramental life in common with the rest of the Church. Lent is not a season of punishment so much as one of healing."

-Thomas Merton, Seasons of Celebration

I am just now beginning to feel normal after a four-day bout with a nasty virus that left me unable to eat, unable to go to work, barely able to write or read (only in short bursts--there are certain pleasures I insist on no matter what). I could not just rest quietly, either. I was forced to confront that absolute lack of control we have over even our own bodies when we are ill.

This illness was a small burden compared to those others face, I am sure, but after a few days I began to view it as a kind of pre-Lenten desert experience. It purged and cleansed me physically, and, if I had caught on to the idea sooner, might also have had some purgative spiritual effects as well. Maybe its not too late.

Today I'll start trying to eat again, but I do so with great mindfulness of what I am ingesting and how much. It's not just paranoia over making myself sick. I also have noticed how mindlessly I fill myself with all manner of sugar, caffeine, alcohol, fast food. Not that any of those are inherently bad. What's perhaps worse than the up-down effect it has on my body is how I just consume like a machine with little regard for the effect, or more importantly, the experience of the food, its taste, the company I am with, the pleasure of eating.

I return to work today as well. In just two days away, I have had to surrender control of many things, and I gained a little perspective. Just like eating food again, I approach work today with a little trepidation. Part of it is fear of being reconsumed into the whirlwind of busyness, manipulation, and other fakeness that characterizes so much of work. The other part, though, is a genuine desire to appreciate my work and its effects, to be grateful for the contribution I am making, and especially to more skillfully deal with my co-workers--probably the source of greatest frustration for me. My brief "desert experience" reveals clearly that I cannot transform my workplace, and especially my colleagues. I can't even transform myself. But I can begin to open myself up to being transformed. And that requires quiet, contemplation, listening, self-reflection--skills I've dabbled with during my four day "retreat."

I think that this is how Lent is supposed to work as a season of healing. I had the "grace" to be unwillingly sent on such a journey, but with Lent we get to intentionally create a kind of mini-desert experience for ourselves. By stepping back, withdrawing momentarily from our habitual patterns, our unskillfulness is revealed in all its messy glory. We experience some degree of shame, but also a desire for repentance, and God's unwavering openess to our return. Above all, the desert cleanses our perceptions, helps us see what was there all along, and opens us for real healing.

Saying "yes" to the present moment

"I do believe, help my unbelief!"
--Mark 9:24

Perhaps there is no statement in Scripture uttered by anyone other than God that is truer than this one. It is certainly the most beautifully human statement I can recall.

To acknowledge at once both our desire to believe and the limitations of our belief, the limitations of our desire to believe, in fact. And belief, of course, is far more than simple intellectual assent to some formula or doctrine. Belief, in this sense, is faith, the ultimate letting-go into the basic benevolence of the universe, a saying "yes" to whatever is unfolding in this present moment.

I've been trying to recover from a nasty virus the last three days. At various times I have prayed for healing and seethed with resentment that my body has betrayed me, especially during this all-important final week before my month-long travels. It did not occur to me, at least until just now, that the purest act of faith in this situation might have been to simply say "yes" to my illness, to accept and embrace the reality of my finite, mortal body in this complex, interdependent universe in this particular moment in time.

Doing so would not mean that I ceased to take care of myself or do the things needed to get better quickly. But it would mean that all the self-absorbed, existential resistance I put up to the present moment might give way to clarity, equanimity, and openness. Probably a much better condition for healing.

We believe, and we disbelieve, and somewhere in the dance between God meets us.

Solitude and Solidarity

"People brought to him a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village."
-Mark 8:23

The Carmelites produce a wonderful little quarterly journal called Spiritual Life. The Fall 2008 issue includes an article from Susan Muto titled, "Flee to be Free: The Call of the Desert." Pdf version of the article here.

Dr. Muto writes that humans have a deep inner long for solitude, just as we also have a deep, innate desire and need for community:

The quest for solitude, to be alone with the Alone, is not confined to a monastic elite: it manifests itself in all people seeking to find the meaning of life; it is as natural an instinct as that for solidarity or the reaching out of oneself to find communion with like-minded others.

The story from today's Gospel reveals both dimensions. The blind man is brought to Jesus for healing by others, but Jesus calls him away into solitude to actually restore his sight.

Many who are called to a more contemplative life experience a similar paradox. We are called to silence and solitude, but we also crave the contact of others who understand this impulse, who can affirm and support this instinct. This is great charism of lay contemplative communities. It takes others to learn to be alone, and only by being alone can we really learn to be present for others.

Good Problems

"Do you not yet understand or comprehend?
Are your hearts hardened?
Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear?
And do you not remember,
when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand,
how many wicker baskets full of fragments you picked up?"
They answered him, "Twelve."
He said to them, "Do you still not understand?"
--Mark 8:14-21

Oops.

Yes, I do understand, but I forget.

I grumble and worry about problems at work, forgetting that there are millions who do not have a job.

I fret about the challenges of relationships, of finding the time to visit with friends and family and meet my many perceived social obligations, forgetting that there are those utterly alone.

I feel anxious about an upcoming trip overseas, forgetting that there are those who cannot move on their own, let alone who have the opportunity of a lifetime such as mine.

I am troubled over the many responsibilities I have because of owning a home, cars, and a myriad of consumer goods, forgetting that there are those who are homeless, penniless, who have nothing.

I feel unworthy and broken because of my short-sightedness and self-centeredness, forgetting that I am loved and redeemed and healed anyway, no matter how many times I forget.

Thank you for forgiving my forgetfulness, Lord. Thank you for these problems. Amen.

Sabbath

"So God rested on the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work he had done in creation."

--Genesis 2:3

God didn't need to rest, I am sure. So what is the Sabbath all about? After each work of God's creation, He reflected on it, and declared it "good." God took the time to step back from this holy work, to consider it, ponder it, and revel in its beauty and goodness. God did that.

Maybe God does need to rest, what do I know? I doubt it still. But what God does definitely need--or perhaps what God simply likes to do--is appreciate the wonder of the creative process, of being itself. God is an artist who is not simply content to create, but takes joy and even awe in the act of creating, and in the breathtaking nature of what is created, of what is.

We humans observe Sabbath for multiple reasons. Certainly we do in fact need rest, just as the earth needs to rest from our labors upon it, and the tools of our labor need rest, maintenance, restoration. The creative process of living is dependent on regular periods of rejuvenation.

But, just as we are made in God's image, perhaps we need Sabbath to also revel in the wonders of creation, both God's and our own. To ponder, contemplate, and allow ourselves moments of joy and awe. To look upon what we and God have accomplished, and to know that it is "good."

The pace and connectedness of modern life make it so that an actual Sabbath day is rare for most of us. For contemplatives, though, Sabbath is more than a day, it is an attitude toward life, a continual turning inward, to a place of rest, reflection, restoration, and revelation, allowing ourselves to be amazed at what we and God have wrought.

Praying for Healing

"They scurried about the surrounding country and began to bring in the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was."
--Mark 6:55

As I meditated on this passage today, the internal Judger within me immediately felt disdain for these people: "They were only seeking Jesus out to get what they wanted from him! I'll bet most of these folks took their healing and then high-tailed it back home, never to give him another thought."

Folks often say that what we judge in others the most is what we actually disdain in ourselves.

How many times have I prayed for my own self-serving needs, and how little has my heart been changed? How quickly have I forgotten the grace I received? And how generously God answered my prayers anyway, just as He did these people? We are not so different, any of us. And God loves us anyway, and wants our joy, and happiness, and healing.

The Country Beyond Words

"Teach me to go to the country beyond words and names. Teach me to pray on this side of the frontier...

I need to be led by you. I need my heart to be moved by you. I need my soul to be made clean by your prayer. I need my will to be made strong by you. I need the world to be saved and changed by you. I need you for all those who suffer, who are in prison, in danger, in sorrow. I need you for all the crazy people. I need your healing hand to work always in my life. I need you to make me, as you made your Son, a healer, a comforter, a savior. I need you to name the dead. I need you to help the dying cross their particular rivers. I need you for myself whether I live or die. I need to be your monk and your son. It is necessary. Amen."
--Thomas Merton

The last week or so--really, for weeks now, I have pretty much failed to live out the Cistercian values of silence, solitude, even prayer really. I have been away from home, visiting family, working late, engaged in all manner of activity, both internal and external. I have a big trip coming up in a few weeks, and I'm anxious about that too, and the result has been distraction, exhaustion, frustration.

I sat down to really pray this morning for the first time in days, and my words just came out a kind of wordless croak.

And that seemed perfectly okay with God. So we sat there, together, in the silence. And I was just me, exactly where I am, and God was just God.

Hidden Majesty

"When I consent to the will and the mercy of God as it 'comes' to me in the events of life, appealing to my inner self and awakening my faith, I breath through the superficial exterior appearances that form my routine vision of the world and of my own self, and I find myself in the presence of hidden majesty."
--Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Some days I just can't feel it. My heart feels barren, my prayers are flat, almost echoing as if I'm speaking in an empty room, alone. Worse, on days like today, I feel the dark tendrils of doubt, anger, frustration, and despair creeping in from the margins of my mind to cover the innermost regions of my soul.

This was my experience upon waking today. I have no explanation for it, but it followed me throughout the day, impervious to any distractions, even earnest prayer. It abides still.

And yet, I read a passage like this from Merton, and I am bowled over by its truth and beauty, even though it fails to dispel the darkness.

Days like today call me deeper within myself. Call me to silence, to solitude, to self-reflection. If I can abide in this inner space, and not panic at the darkness and doubt, but simply be with it, offering it to God's divine mercy...it doesn't pass, but something stirs within it, beneath it, a benevolent force that reassures me the whispers of despair are to be tolerated, but not heeded. I am not alone. Far, far from it.

Getting the Point

"I announced your justice in the vast assembly; I did not restrain my lips, as you, O LORD, know."
--Psalm 40:10

My pastor, whom I mention from time to time in this journal, offered yet another powerful bit of wisdom in his homily this past Sunday, a lesson passed down from one of his seminary professors. When reading scripture, he advised, always remember that it is first and foremost about God.

The dramatic human stories of the bible offer us many examples of ordinary people living out great acts of courage and faith. But we can easily be discouraged by some of these stories, as we try to compare our own puny faith to that of the biblical saints. My pastor is advising that before discerning what a passage of scripture is telling us about us, we should first seek to understand what it is telling us about God.

This was particular helpful last Sunday, when the Gospel reading was then transformed from a story about courageous fisherman who abandoned their nets at Jesus' first call into a story of a God who calls very ordinary people to follow him, people with jobs and families and everday lives and, frankly, ordinary faith (as time would prove of the disciples, prior to the Resurrection, anyway).

Today's psalm is more challenging. Here, the psalmist reminds the Lord how unafraid he is to proclaim God's goodness and justice publicly, how he speaks of salvation "in the vast assembly." This all makes me a bit uncomfortable. I am not fond of bold displays of faith in public, at least outside of an explicit religious context. Granted, I write a blog about my spiritual life for all the world to see, but I think it's probably pretty clear how flawed and faltering I am, how doubt and struggle permeates my inner world as much as loud proclamations of faith and rejoicing.

Again, though, my pastor's wisdom prevails. I am making this about me, setting myself up in contrast to the psalmist, about whom I am making many assumptions. What is he telling me about God? The psalmist is reminding me, not about how brave his in speaking up about God, but rather about the Lord's grace, God's faithfulness to us:

I have waited, waited for the LORD,
and he stooped toward me.
And he put a new song into my mouth,
a hymn to our God.

The justice, faithfulness, kindness, truth, and grace of God, in the face of my own puny faith, is the point. God is madly in love with us, and our own resistance and bashfulness does not deter his pursuit of our hearts one bit. "Sacrifice or oblation you wished not," the psalmist writes,

Then said I, "Behold, I come."

This is all that God wants from me.

The "New" Covenant

"Now our high priest has obtained so much more excellent a ministry, as he is our mediator of a better covenant...For I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sins no more."
--Hebrews 8:6, 12

The weekday readings since the end of Christmas have featured many deeply theological passages from the letter to the Hebrews. The author describes Jesus as the high priest of a new covenant between God and humankind. One of the subtleties here is that the new covenant does not replace the old covenant, but actually brings it to complete fulfillment.

In the Abrahamic covenant, God called the Hebrews into special relationship, one based on mutual fidelity. God deepened our understanding of fidelity through the Mosaic covenant, which articulated how people who live in relationship with God ought to conduct themselves in the world. The prophet Jeremiah, quoted in this passage from the letter to the Hebrews, challenged the people to let God not only transform their outward behavior, but their very hearts. The law's purpose is to show us what a life of love looks like in practice. But the point is to fall helplessly in love with God, and by extension, the world and people God has created and redeemed.

Throughout the history of this unfolding covenant, the people kept failing to live real lives of faith. They were often selfish, short-sighted, and even blasphemed God for their own failures. God is depicted as being frustrated, angry...hurt practically...by His people's willfulness and refusal to submit to His love. And yet, He never rejects them (despite some of the rhetoric attributed to God in the Scriptures that He wants to and does). Instead, God relentlessly pursues the people, wooing them again and again back to Himself, and rejoicing in their return, putting aside their sins (see the prophet Hosea for a great metaphorical description of this relationship).

Jesus comes into this story for so many reasons, some probably beyond our understanding and awareness, but it is clear that our failure to live by the covenant is at the center of his purpose. In Jesus, God makes the most dramatic demonstration of His love for all time--He gives Himself completely, taking all of our sins on to Himself. "Here's how much I love you," God says. "I will wipe out your failures, and not just that, I will take on the flesh and nature of your very own human lives, and pour myself out as a human being, for you. You will see a perfect example of the covenant, in the flesh, and I will be one with you once and for all."

I don't pretend to understand how all of this works, or really even what it all means. In my own life, though, I can see myself as a microcosm of salvation history itself: God coming to me in an offer of simple relationship when I was a child; God showing me the way of righteousness through the Law, and my failure to live up to the covenant; God calling me to love and deeper relationship; and ultimately, my complete and utter dependence on God. I have earned and deserve none of the blessings of my life, much less the redemption of my soul and the total devotion and love God pours out into my heart.

When I consider this gift, not just for myself, but for all of humanity for all time, it leaves me humbled, breathless, and filled with the deepest gratitude and wonder.

The Gift of Silence

"After patient waiting, he obtained the promise."

--Hebrews 6:15

The Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani's Plan of Life includes four key elements (prayer, study, work, and conversatio, or "conversion of manners") based on the major charisms of the Cistercian tradition. Conversatio is further broken down into five virtues which represent the fruition of a life dedicated to a transformation of the human spirit in accord with God's will. The first of these virtues is silence.

According to the Plan of Life, "One should make a genuine effort to spend time in silence during the day. The amount of time will vary given one's availability. Silence will allow one to be more centered and to discover one's inner depths." As we know, silence is more than the lack of external noise. It is in inner state of mind, a kind of precondition for the experience of true contemplation.

It seems to me that silence plays three instrumental purposes in predisposing us to contemplation. First, silence clears away or mutes the filter of incessant distraction (both inward and outward) that prevents us from truly perceiving the world as it is. Silence opens our awareness to the wonder, beauty, and truth of nature and everyday experience, which we otherwise miss by our relentless activity and noise-making, and especially to the ideas, words, and needs of others. An attitude of inner silence should be the foundation of every conversation and encounter with others, since we only truly hear another and can effectively respond to another when we set aside the endless babble of our own opinions, prejudices, and desires.

Second, silence prepares us to hear the deep stirrings of our own heart. Much of our outward activity and our inner mental commentary is meant to distract us from the soul's deepest fears, dreams, and desires. Practicing silence means that we honor the full range of our experience, including listening to these oft-ignored or neglected dimensions. By hearing our own heart more clearly, we can identify and address our true needs.

And finally, with an enhanced attitude of listening to others, to the world around us, and to our deepest selves, silence also opens us up to hearing the voice of God, the way God is challenging us, wooing us, drawing us to God's self. Often, it is actually through nature and through the voices of others that we hear God's voice, and so by opening up to one of these instrumental purposes of silence, we open up to them all.

I do work at meeting the challenge of silence by starting my day with time for prayer and quiet reflection. These times are important, but quiet is not always silence. One thing I need to work on is nurturing an attitude of listening during this time. And the bigger challenge is maintaining an open, silent heart as I proceed through my day. This must be St. Paul's call to "pray without ceasing," and probably constitutes the next frontier of God's work within me.

Answering the Call

"When Samuel went to sleep in his place, the Lord came and revealed his presence, calling out as before, 'Samuel, Samuel!' Samuel answered, 'Speak, for your servant is listening.'"
--1 Samuel 3:9-10

"Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, 'What are you looking for?'"
--John 1:38

I spent part of yesterday at the Abbey of Gethsemani for a meeting of the Lay Cistercians, a group of ordinary people who have affiliated themselves with the monastery and seek to live Cistercian values in their everyday lives. Two of the monks joined us for our discussion, and a senior brother who has lived at the Abbey for over 50 years inquired as to why we were drawn to this group and this place.

It's a question I have been pondering seriously since I first inquired about participating in the group last fall, and a question that the Cistercian Order itself has placed upon us also. Last summer representatives from Lay Cistercian groups around the world met with abbots from the order's monasteries at Huerta, Spain, to explore the role and place of lay organizations and our future relationship with the Order. Lay groups were challenged by the abbots to discern, in part, why we specifically want to affiliate with the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (OCSO, the Trappists' formal name), as opposed to some other group or movement.

Each of us at yesterday's meeting offered our own personal answers to this question. The answers were tentative, unsure. The truth is, we don't exactly know why we are there, why we keep coming back, though the common themes have to do with a special, spiritual connection to those men and that place, and how the tradition interacts with our own personal biographies.

Through the discussion, one thing that was revealed to me very clearly, and which I shared with the group, was that we were answering a calling. We are trying, in some way, to respond to a call that none of us fully understand. The anonymous author of the 14th-century spiritual classic, The Cloud of Unknowing, says that not all people are called to a life of contemplation. In a deep sense, we do not choose to become contemplatives, God chooses us. God gives us a disposition and desire for contemplation. We may, of course, ignore this call, but those who come to the Abbey, and abbeys like it, are trying in some way to respond to this inner need that God has placed within us. We don't know why we are there or what God is working out in our lives through the connection we've made to the Cistercians, and perhaps that is okay. We are simply trying to line up in accordance with God's will for us. Perhaps the Holy Spirit itself is bringing us together in this way.

An even deeper question which emerged from our discussion was how is my life being transformed by my encounter with the Cistercian tradition? As our facilitator Michael, a founder of the group, pointed out, we don't come to the Lay Cistercians to do something, but to become something. All of our activities need to be reflected upon through the lens of whether we are indeed encountering God and allowing ourselves to be remade according to God's will.

I am a bit chastened and feel a sense of great awe and humility at the realization that I am not following this path simply because I like it, but because God has called me to it. There is a deep responsibility and sense of wonder embedded in that fact, and it heightens my concern that I am answering the call faithfully and allowing myself to be transformed by it. These are questions I'll ponder deeply, and intentionally, in the days ahead.

Getting Saved

"It is a pity that the beautiful Christian metaphor 'salvation' has come to be so hackneyed and therefore so despised.... The word [in fact] connotes a deep respect for the fundamental metaphysical reality of man. It reflects God's own infinite concern for man...for all that is His own in man, His son. It is not only human nature that is 'saved' by the divine mercy, but above all the human person."
--Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Growing up in the Bible Belt, "getting saved" was an essential moment in one's life. For the churched children like myself, it was a rite of passage of great significance, when one accepted Jesus as one's personal Lord and Savior. For the unchurched, the "lost," it could be a life-changing event, and I heard many a testimony as a child from adults who had repented of licentiousness and drunkeness and a variety of other sins that were, frankly, titillating to my young ears, but here were these nice, seemingly ordinary people who had transcended those wicked ways by God's grace.

And sadly, anyone who was not saved was indeed mortally "lost," bound for the eternal flames of hell. And this included any good people who might be Jewish, Muslim, agnostic or otherwise, none of whom actually lived in my small town or whom we had any dealings with. But the lost were everywhere, because it didn't matter if you were a church person, if you had never really surrendered your heart to Jesus, if your name was not written in the Lamb's Book of Life, you were a goner.

I am not trying to make light of these beliefs. The folks I heard these teachings from were by and large good people. But by my late teens, I had begun to see the world in less stark, less black and white terms. I rejected the notion that one had to abide by some theological formula to be "saved," and I began to have a different idea about what, exactly, we were being saved from.

In New Seeds, Merton tries to rescue the concept of salvation by showing how it is indeed more than an intellectual affirmation of a theological formula, but is nevertheless an experience that all us are called to, regardless of our religious labels, station of life, or circumstances.

"The object of salvation is that which is unique, irreplaceable, incommunicable--that which is myself alone. The true inner self must be drawn up like a jewel from the bottom of the sea, rescued from confusion, from indistinction, from immersion in the common, the nondescript, the trivial, the sordid, the evanescent."

Our normal way of looking at the world is "lost" in the sense that we assume we are an independent reality, cut off from all other people, alone and yet at the center of the universe. Even if we profess religious belief, our tendency is to doubt, to operate as though we are utterly alone. This leaves us with nothing but the mess of our own, self-centered fears and desires. We must give up this false sense of separateness, but to do so means that we give up making our normal sense of "self" the center. God becomes the center, and we have to surrender our whole person to be remade from that new centerpoint. And somehow by giving ourselves up, we find our true self, in all its wholeness.

"The person must be rescued from the individual... The creative and mysterious inner self must be delivered from the wasteful, hedonistic and destructive ego that seeks only to cover itself with disguises."

My forebears' understanding of what it means to "get saved" may have been limited by their own experiences, but that is true of everyone. What they had absolutely right was the understanding that we are all in some way lost, and that only by giving ourselves up completely to God can we discover who we really are.

"To be 'lost' is to be left to the arbitrariness and pretenses of the contingent ego, the smoke-self that must inevitably vanish. To be 'saved' is to return to one's inviolate and eternal reality and to live in God."

Never Alone

"If today you hear God's voice, harden not your hearts."
--Psalm 95:7-8

I got up this morning acutely aware that I have not prayed in a few days. My work has been busy this week and has kept me more distracted than usual. I thought I was behind on some of my political reading and writing, and so I chose to work on those things instead of pray the last couple of mornings.

Today, as I prayed again, reflecting on the last two days, I was actually struck by a strong sense of God's presence, even during that time of my distraction and inattentiveness. God was there, even though I wasn't paying attention, and somehow that was obvious to me, but only in retrospect.

My lukewarm discipleship is not a problem for God, only for myself. God remained faithful to me, and all I missed out on was the joy of the awareness of his presence. And that loss is enough to bring me back to prayer.

Extraordinary Time

Yesterday we celebrated the Baptism of the Lord, and today we begin Ordinary Time (at least until Lent commences a few weeks from now). Fittingly, the observance of Jesus' baptism is followed in the church calendar with readings about Jesus' calling of the apostles. In today's Gospel, he calls the first of them, the fishermen Peter, James, and John.

At his baptism, Jesus becomes the New Adam, the first of a new kind of people. Theologians puzzle over Jesus' baptism because the Church teaches that he was sinless and therefore would have no need of a baptism of repentence. For myself, I think his baptism must be understood in light of the Incarnation. God becomes fully human for a wide variety of reasons, some of which we understand and perhaps many which we don't. But one reason for God to incarnate in the life of a real human person is so that Jesus can show us the way, as a human. In his baptism, he becomes our example, our leader, our commander, our high priest (as the author of Hebrews is going to remind us this Ordinary Time), in this work of discipleship. He is our trailblazer and pioneer in the work of becoming a people renewed, reborn, healed. To be the New Adam, he must be one of us.

And so, yesterday we recognized him as such, and today he begins his work of calling us to follow him, just as his own baptism was followed by his calling of Peter, James, and John.

Notice that the fishermen do not go seeking for Jesus. He calls to them. Perhaps as we begin (again) our commitment to discipleship, the first lesson we need to learn is to listen for our call. Our prayers are so consumed with us talking to God, us beseeching God for this or that. Which is fine, we are told. But first, we must listen for what God is beseeching of us.

As we take our first, stumbling steps into Ordinary Time, following our new High Priest, our New Adam, let's pause long enough from mending our nets to hear his call.

Finding My True Self

Chapter Five of New Seeds comes to its climax with Merton's discussion of the "false self." Earlier, Merton described how human beings are called to express their individuality most fully by co-creating their identities and realities with God. But Merton warns that this is not some kind of Nieztschean "will to power" exaltation of the individual with no reference point beyond oneself. Because of the false self, we are perpetually at risk, not of becoming fully what we are meant to be, but of actually distorting our true identities.

"All sin starts from the assumption that my false self, the self that exists only in my egocentric desires, is the fundamental reality of life to which everything else in the universe is ordered. Thus I use up my life in the desire for pleasures and the thirst for experiences, for power, honor, knowledge and love, to clothe this false self and construct its nothingness into something objectively real."

The false self is not real. It is the identity that we create for ourselves, and that we spend our entire lives trying to protect and preserve, even as all of life and creation reveals that it is an illusion. The false self is our sense that we exist somehow independently and separately from the rest of creation (and from the Creator), and that this identity is somehow the center of the universe. According to Merton, all sin arises from this distorted sense of self, which leads us to engage in all manner of greed, hatred, delusion and a myriad of other, less obvious but equally insidious forms of self-aggrandizement.

So, how do we create ourselves as a real individual, while negotiating the pitfalls of the false self? I suspect Merton will elaborate on this throughout the rest of the book, but he concludes the chapter by saying that our real identiy is "hidden in the love and mercy of God," and only by surrendering ourselves completely to God can we create, with him, the person we are meant to be:

"Ultimately the only way that I can be myself is to become identified with Him in Whom is hidden the reason and fulfillment of my existence. Therefore there is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find Him I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find Him...

The only One Who can teach me to find God is God, Himself, Alone."

Creating Our Identities

"Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny. We are free beings and sons of God. This means to say that we should not passively exist, but actively participate in His creative freedom...To put it better, we are even called to share with God the work of creating the truth of our identity."
--Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

The fifth chapter of New Seeds continues with Merton explaining that, unlike the tree which automatically expresses its full individuality in God, we get to choose our identity, and not as one chooses which shirt to wear today, but rather as an artist who creates an identity through the work of his hands. It is not only our ability to choose freely which makes us in the "image and likeness of God." It's our ability to create, especially to create ourselves. In this sense, we are co-creators with God of our identities and our very realities. What an awesome power and responsibility. No room here for victims. We are fully in command of what we will become.

Of course, because we also carry around the "false self," we often squander this power and create ourselves very poorly. This is the topic of the remainder of chapter five.

The Source of Love

Feast of Blessed Andre Bessette

"In this is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us."
--1 John 4:10

The theme of today's readings focuses on love, God's love for us and how our love for one another emanates from that love.

Even before I read the scriptures for today, as I prayed for the people around me whom I love, I found myself pondering how I can best show them love. And God's response was clear to me: "Love them as I love them, not as you love them."

As full and deep as my love is, it remains partial and often sadly conditional in comparison to God's love. And of course, I cannot simply will myself to love as richly and unconditionally as God. But in this desire to set my love aside and love others as God loves them, in this intent, comes the capacity to love more fully and truly.

A Tree Like No Other

The fifth chapter of New Seeds strikes me as one of the finest expositions of Christian existentialism. Here Merton focuses on the essence of what it means to be a human, and the unique human experience of discovering oneself and one's purpose and meaning in life, a purpose inextricably linked to God.

"A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying Him. It "consents," so to speak, to His creative love...No two created beings are exactly alike. And their individuality is no imperfection...This particular tree will give glory to God by spreading out its roots in the earth and raising its branches into the air and the light in a way that no other tree before or after it ever did or will do."

This passage reminds me of the Islamic concept that all created things besides humans are already "Muslim." That is, they are surrendered to God (for a Muslim is "one who surrenders to God.") I love this idea, that all of creation is already conformed to God's will and purpose and plan, except us humans, of course, though this is also God's ultimate desire for us. A tree is Muslim, then, by being a tree. And not just any tree, according to Merton, but by fulfilling its full capacity as an individual, ordered to God's vision and its place in the universe of created things.

Similarly, we reach the apex of our being, the meaning and purpose of our lives, when we manifest ourselves in our full individuality, co-created with God. I'll write more on this idea tomorrow.

The End of Seeking

Epiphany of the Lord

"We have seen his star at its rising and have come to do him homage."

--Matthew 2:2

I have long been a spiritual "seeker." To this day, I cannot explain exactly what it was I was searching for. Wisdom, insight, peace, are words that come to mind. My spirituality was very "practice" focused, as if I found the right formula, I would get what I was searching for. Not that I thought there was one universal, "right" formula for everybody, but I still thought there must be a formula for me that would work.

God has pretty much done away with all that now. Not that I don't continue to be tempted by the idea that there is one best spiritual practice that I should be pursuing, or that I don't sometimes catch myself feeling guilty that I haven't been disciplined about my prayer life or spiritual reading or meditation or whatever. But it is thoroughly clear to me that this is not what it's all about.

The search is over. God has found me, not the other way around.

I'm not denigrating spiritual practice, just putting it in the proper perspective for me. Once the Christ child has been found, the practice shifts from seeking to being: being in relationship, practicing the presence and intimacy of being together. I have nothing to do anymore but "do him homage."

The Story of Us

The Hobo Journal started many years ago when I got the notion of sharing an edited version of my spiritual diary with friends. I don't know what first gave me the audacity or inclination to do so. I prayed it was divine inspiration, not ego. There certainly seemed to be nothing particularly amazing about what I had written, at least to me. But something about the writer's compulsion to share your insides with the world seemed to motivate me. I e-mailed the journal back in those days, and I got back a few thoughtful responses, which encouraged the compulsion further, but it never was intentionally about how other people would respond to it. This is a mystery I can't explain. I don't write for others, and yet the sharing is somehow essential to the process. When I stopped journaling a couple of years ago to focus almost exclusively on my doctoral dissertation, I missed it, both the personal writing and the sharing.

One dynamic I've always noticed. If I sit down to intentionally write something wise or profound, as I am occasionally tempted to do, it backfires every time. That's when the ego is creeping in, and the Spirit calls me out on it every time. The entry winds up sounding forced, dull, thoroughly uninspired. Conversely, any time I have ever written anything that had the ring of truth to it, I am convinced it did not come from me. I had no idea what idea was going to emerge when I sat down to write it, and when I re-read it, it sounds like it came from someone else's mind.

So I can't explain why I write. It seems to have its own purpose which defies explanation. Clearly, it is a history of my love affair with God (or, perhaps more accurately, the story of God's relentless, passionate pursuit of me).

Gethsemani's Abbot Elias, in his chapter talk this week, spoke similarly of the monk's vocation, which likewise has no readily-identified purpose. It is a life that exists for its own sake:

I sometimes think the idea of going to a monastery to interview monks is about as intelligent as going to a resort to interview people on their honeymoon and ask them why they are there. The comparison is not as silly as it sounds. The heart of Cistercian spirituality has always been the prospect of spousal union between God and the soul. Such union--or even its pursuit--transcends rational explanation.

I cannot explain why God pursues me, or why I need to write about it, but I am grateful nevertheless.

The Christmas Summons

"Sunrise is an event that calls forth solemn music in the very depths of a man's nature, as if one's whole being had to attune itself to the cosmos and praise God for the new day, praise Him in the name of all creatures that ever were or ever will be. I look at the rising sun and feel that now upon me falls the responsibility of seeing what all my ancestors have seen, in the Stone Age and even before it, praising God before me. Whether or not they praised Him then, for themselves, they must praise Him now in me. When the sun rises each one of us is summoned by the living and the dead to praise God."
--Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

Many blessings to all on this sunny Christmas Day!

Merton on ABC

ABC's Nightline recently featured a three-part interview with the Merton Institute's Jonathan Montaldo and Morgan Atkinson, producer of the documentary Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton. Includes lots of great photos of Merton and Gethsemani, and good introductory discussion on Merton's life and work.

Let Your Life Speak

"A saint is capable of loving created things and enjoying the use of them and dealing with them in a perfectly simple, natural manner, making no formal references to God, drawing no attention to his own piety, and acting without any artificial rigidity at all. His gentleness and his sweetness are not pressed through his pores by the crushing restraint of a spiritual straight-jacket. They come from his direct docility to the light of truth and to the will of God. Hence a saint is capable of talking about the world without any explicit reference to God, in such a way that his statement gives greater glory to God and arouses a greater love of God than the observations of someone less holy, who has to strain himself to make an artibrary connection between creatures and God through the medium of hackneyed analogies and metaphors that are so feeble that they make you think there is something the mattter with religion."
--New Seeds of Contemplation

I must confess that I have a judgmental prejudice against people who make an outward show of religion. This is a flaw in me, and I am also vulnerbable to the charge of hypocrisy, given that I write a blog about spirituality. I am acutely aware of this vulnerability, and hope that I write for good reasons, and certainly not because there is some special holiness about me (as those who know me well can attest otherwise).

My point is that I shouldn't feel such glee at reading Merton's words, because I have my own set of flaws, but I can't help but appreciate his point. I live in the so-called "Bible Belt," where trite, bumpersticker theology abounds. I have no doubt that the outward show of religion notwithstanding, folks around here have no corner on the holiness market compared to places where religious expression is a more private matter.

I always felt that the Quakers had the best overall advice for saintliness: "Let your lives speak." And leave it at that.

The Reason for the Season

"Detachment from things does not mean setting up a contradiction between 'things' and 'God' as if God were another 'thing' and as if His creatures were His rivals. We do not detach ourselves from things in order to attach ourselves to God, but rather we become detached from ourselves in order to see and use all things in and for God. This is an entirely new perspective which many sincerely moral and ascetic minds fail utterly to see."

--New Seeds of Contemplation

Today my pastor--one of the best homilists anywhere--noted the now-annual hysteria of people who freak out this time of year because we need to put "Christ" back in Christmas. As if we are a totally pagan nation with no religious reference point for this grantedly commercialized holiday. My pastor went on to say something very striking and profound: "Jesus is not the reason for the season," he said. "We are."

His point was that God intervenes in the experience of human life to redeem and transform it. Christmas is not about God in the clouds or God who transcends the messiness of human experience. On the contrary, Christmas is about the God who descends into our very lives, who meets and encounters us in the very human world of our jobs, our families, and the mundane, boring, broken, and yes, commercialized, securalized, and religiously pluralized world that we live in. God comes for us, in God's mercy and grace and love, so that this messy life of ours might be redeemed. We are the reason for the season.

Merton's point seems to be a similar one. As contemplatives, we do not detach from "things" so that we can know God. We detach from our false, alienated self so that we can encounter God in the things of this life.

Family Matters

“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”
--Matthew 1:1

“Jesus embraced humanity. Mysteriously, the word became flesh and accepted all that came with it, out of love. What about my family tree and all of its baggage? Sometimes I find myself wanting to run from it, excising all of that messiness that courses through my veins. I can’t do that, though. Sure, I’m not fated to anything. I can be transformed, I can take a different turn in the road. But total rejection? Not possible. It’s all a part of who I am. With God’s help I can discern, move forward, and even accept. Out of love—I can accept.”
--Amy Welborn

The older I get, the more I see how I am shaped by the dynamics of my family, my ancestors for generations past, for both good and ill. I work ardently on both the wounds and blessings my family has bestowed on me, and I think I’m making progress sometimes, and then one day I’m startled that I am this old and still dealing with the same family issues I dealt with as a child. I suppose I always will.

I have nothing of the sort of family of origin wounds that some people bear. I have without doubt been more blessed by my family than wounded. And yet, the wounds cut to the core of my personality. Maybe this is yet another way that all humans are united, one of the things in which we differ more by degree than by kind. When we touch on those dimensions of the human experience that unite us, that’s where we also touch on the presence of the Divine. These things that make us essentially human are the places where God redeems us, reveals himself, heals us. This redemption in no way replaces or changes the essence of those experiences, including our family dynamics, but it makes it possible to experience wholeness through our families, not in spite of our families. All things are brought together again in love.

Season of Darkness

“Inexhaustible light, dawning to remove the shadows that surround us,
wake our faith from its slumber.”
—from today’s Universalis Morning Prayer

Winter has nearly reached its greatest depth of darkness. I struggle with the lack of light this time of year. The darkness makes me feel sluggish, withdrawn, cranky. Whatever inner darkness I happen to be dealing with is always amplified by the outer darkness this time of year.

And yet, in a few days the darkness will reach its peak with the winter solstice, and light will start to break. This dawning of greater light coincides with the full ripening of Advent into Christmas, and the promise of Light that will vanquish all darkness in the fullness of time.

Yesterday was “Rejoice” Sunday, the First Sunday of Advent. My pastor gave a good talk on rejoicing in the midst of darkness and turmoil and doubt. His words echoed an article I recently read about the 17th century Carmelite Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, who gave us a wonderful prayer technique called “Practicing the Presence of God,” in which we simply rest perpetually in an awareness of God’s presence, returning our attention and mindfulness again and again to that still place within us where unwavering light shines at all times.

May this season’s darkness prepare our hearts of perpetual Light.

The Writer's Silence

Today is the 40th anniversary of Thomas Merton's death. I have tried to slow down a bit today, observe a little more silence and quiet, in his honor.

Frederick Smock, writing in last Sunday's Courier-Journal, reflected on a constant theme of Merton's life and one which presented a paradox for such a prolific poet/writer as Merton:

Life is a journey toward silence, and not just the silence of death. Youth talks a lot -- is noisy. Old age is reticent. There is so much to consider, after all. Older men tend to hold their tongues. They know the wisdom of forbearance. To have seen many things is to reserve judgment. In this modern era, when news and politics are dominated by endlessly talking heads, silence becomes a precious commodity. The mere absence of speech sounds like silence. But true silence is a presence, not an absence. A fullness. A richness that depends for its worth on the purity of intent, not just the lack of
distractions.

As a writer (or sorts) myself, this wisdom gives me pause. I do babble on sometimes, and to what end? This was a koan Merton lived with all his life. I think what he concluded in the end was that he had to write because he was a writer, it was the way he made meaning of his life and
experience, it was ultimately the way God made him.

A contemplative writer faces the special challenge of responding to this gift/compulsion of writing in a way that is selfless and authentic. Can we be still enough, silent enough, to allow words to arise from a place deeper than the external self that writes for all manner of selfish reasons? Can we listen to the Word itself, and let our own tiny words rise up out of that infinite Source. Our words are always incomplete and partial, but if we rest in silence, we may perhaps offer up something that reflects the enormity and magnitude of the Word Beyond Words.

I think maybe this was and is Merton's prayer for himself, and for us.

The Advent Promise

Feast of St. Nicholas

“He who is your teacher will hide no longer, and you will see your teacher with your own eyes…on the day the Lord dresses the wound of his people and heals the scars of the blows they have received.”
--Isaiah 30:20, 26

I love this image of God gently dressing our wounds. The concept of woundedness and brokenness has become very important to me in recent years. I think I have slowly gotten more in touch with my own existential wounds, and I see them less as a problem and more as a natural by-product of life. We are all wounded and while these wounds will always shape the way we look at the world, they do not have to alienate us from each other, from our deepest selves, from God. In fact, the whole message of the Christian Gospel is that God is recklessly, wildly pursuing us, trying with all his might to make us his. Isaiah reveals the kind of love God will show us when we finally stop our struggle and acquiesce to his embrace. The wounds and scars of life will no longer define us.

The Gift of Contemplation

"The only way to get rid of misconceptions about contemplation is to experience it...For contemplation cannot be taught. I cannot even be cearly explained. It can only be hinted at, suggested, pointed to, symbolized."

--Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

In Chapter 2, Merton goes on at some length discussing "what contemplation is not," first by noting its ineffable character, and then naming numerous things that it specfically is not, such as mental reactions, ideas, emotions, trances or ecstatic spiritual phenomena, or special psychic powers. What complicates matters is that contemplation may sometimes be accompanied by some or all of these things, but that is not contemplation itself.

Merton notes that having a quiet, peaceful disposition may not make one more likely to experience contemplation, as many active, passionate people also have tasted of these things. Even being prayerful or religious doesn't guarantee it, though "they are almost necessary preparations." But he does say that one kind of "active" person is not disposed to contemplation, and those folks should probably not even think about it:

Such people, given to imagination, passion and active conquest, exhaust themselves in trying to attain contemplation as if it were some kind of object, like a material fortune, or a political office, or a professorship, or a prelacy. But contemplation can never be the object of calculated ambition.

And therein lies a lot of the frustration of my own spiritual life. Until very recently, I have strained after spiritual understanding as an object, and found myself frustrated again and again. And I have known many other spiritual "seekers" in that same, self-inflicted predicament.

What has changed for me? I think I will alwasy face that temptation to materialize the spiritual life (and there are worse kinds of materialism, to be sure), but something fundamentally has shifted in recent years. Two books have impacted me deeply: The Sacred Romance and The Shack, but in many ways I was ripening to this new kind of self-understanding for a long time. Grounded in the realization that I cannot attain wisdom through calculated ambition, I began to see my seeking as a kind of frantic effort at control, rooted in a deep existential fear that I was not good enough, that I was fundamentally flawed. And of course, I am fundamentally flawed. I am human. But what I am slowly coming to believe is the Gospel promise that we are loved and complete in spite of our brokenness.

After almost four decades of life, I am finally starting to have a little bit of faith. The freedom that comes with that faith is an overwhelming relief, and it leaves me free to explore spiritual pathways without having to obsess about the final destination. I am free from the burden of awakening, because, as Merton says, "It is not we who choose to awaken ourselves, but God Who chooses to awaken us."

The Question and the Answer

"The life of contemplation implies two levels of awareness: first, awareness of the question, and second, awareness of the answer. Though these are two distinct and enormously different levels, yet they are in fact an awareness of the same thing. The question is, itself, the answer. And we ourselves are both. But we cannot know this until we have moved into the second kind of awareness. We awaken, not to find an answer absolutely distinct from the question, but to realize that the question is its own answer. And all is summed up in one awareness--not a proposition, but an experience, 'I AM.'"--Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

What is Merton talking about here?

How am I the question? My life longs for meaning, clarity, continuity of purpose. I live through all these extended "selves" that I present to the world--in my work, in my roles as husband, son, friend, in my writing, my activities as a citizen, the questions I ask myself and others. There is a kind of fragmentation of the true self in this process, and I long for wholeness, my life in fact begs for it. Living my life as a question is not unique to me. I happen to live "out loud" in a manner and volume different from many people, I suppose, but I think the basic features of my inner life--this sense of fragmentation and longing for unity and completeness--is common to all of humanity. Perhaps many are unable to hear the gentle whisperings of their own hearts, but those quiet stirrings are still there.

How am I the answer? Perhaps because the the true self knows that it is meant for wholeness, can actually apprehend it, can smell the faraway fragrance of joy and wholeness and love, and this is why we experience fragmentation when we live out all of the partial "selves" we present to the world. We ask the question because we already know the answer, though we are terrified to believe--we are meant to be sons and daughters of God.

In this sense, the question and the answer are one. Contemplation is our most natural state, our source and our destination.

The Season of Watching

First Sunday of Advent

"Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come."
--Mark 13: 33

"God is likely to come into our presence at just about any moment, and we do well to be watchful for such moments. God in each person we live and work with. God in each stranger we pass on the street. God in the earth and the cosmos we so often take for granted. God in a crowded theater and in the privacy of your own home. Be watchful, be ready. Cultivate eyes ready to see God in any and all places, any and all circumstances...Overwhelming grace when you least expect it."
--Mitch Finley

Thus begins Advent, the season on watching, of expectation, the season of contemplation.

Infused Faith

"Contemplation is the highest expression of man's intellectual and spiritual life. It is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being...It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent and infinitely abundant Source."
--Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

I recently picked up Merton's New Seeds again to study it thoughtfully. It was one of the first Merton books I read, probably just under 20 years ago. I remember reading it breathlessly then, rapidly, with awe and wonder. It moves me just the same now that I am more mature and weathered in my own faith and understanding, but I resist the urge to plunge through it this time, opting instead to meditate with it one sentence, one paragraph at a time.

Merton begins with an extended reflection on what contemplation is. The definition is extremely important, because as an adjective (as in "contemplative spirituality"), the word describes a particular, unique state of being that is, according to Merton, the summit of all spiritual life, the essence of faith itself lived this side of the grave. According to Merton, contemplation is not an intellectual or emotional experience, though it holds intellect and emotion within itself. In fact, contemplation embraces the totality of human experience, while transcending any particular form of intuition or experience.

Contemplation is awareness of God, and it is something that I speculate all people have experienced, though they might not have had the vocabulary to name it as such. Understanding Merton's meaning of the word, I can say I have been blessed to experience contemplation myself, probably on a regular basis. I emphasize that I am "blessed" with this experience because one of the things Merton emphasizes, along with many other saints, is that contemplation is a grace. It is not something we earn or achieve. It is something that comes to us, though it is not simply available to a chosen few, but is the birthright and destiny of every soul.

Contemplation wraps itself around me in those fleeting moments of human experience when I intuitively feel my own, infinite connection to all other people, when I am suddenly stunned by the tragic beauty of life, the vast interconnection of all things. In those moments, I am keenly aware of my own human brokenness, along with the brokenness of all creation, but I am also aware of a loving Presence, a sense of underlying wholeness and completeness that heals my individual woundedness and the wounds of the entire universe. I experience a kind of unconditional love that embraces all beings and being itself.

The experience is not an emotion, per se, though it is usually accompanied by a host of emotions and thoughts, especially gratitude and humility and compassion. And it usually passes pretty quickly. It is a foretaste of the fulfillment we are destined for in eternity, and it is a consolation offered to all people. It is exquisite, undeserved, and partial enough to leave us filled with a yearning for more. It is God's self embracing us, promising completeness beyond our wildest imagination. When we experience it, we experience infused faith, a confidence of heart that is beyond intellectual assent or emotional response.

While contemplation is not something we can achieve, as the essence of spiritual experience itself, it is worthy of study and observation, and as I understand it, it can sometimes be the fruit of a life well lived. I pray today that my meditations on this book bring more abundant life to myself and others.

The Mystery of Who We Are

"The angel showed me the river of life-giving water, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the street. On either side of the river grew the tree of life...Nothing accursed will be found anymore."
--Rev. 22:1-3

We buried my wife's aunt on the day after Thanksgiving. Like any good funeral, it was a day of both hope and sadness. After the Mass, we processed to the cemetery, a short walk down a country road from the church. The November sky was overcast and the wind was blustery, forcing us to huddle as we walked. I gazed down the road ahead at the long procession of loved ones, lead by the pall bearers gently carrying the departed.

We walked in silence, and I was suddenly struck by the image of all of us walking, not to our aunt's grave, but to our own. The feeling echoed a moment during communion a few minutes before, when I followed brother-in-law and nephews up the aisle to receive the Body of Christ, and I was acutely aware of the mortality of us all, that some day we would bury each other, one by one, until it was my turn, and then my nephews would follow, and every single one of us will pass from this body.

As I watched our collective procession to the grave, a great ocean of emotion stirred within me: sadness, for myself and for everyone else, a sense of loss and grief, but also a great sense of hope. Just as we were walking to the grave together, we had walked to communion together, a family united by God's grace and love. We are one in our brokeness, in our woundedness, and especially in our mortality. But we are also one in God's redemption, one in our love for each other, one in our faith and hope that we are intimately and inextricably connected far beyond the connections of family and social ties. We are the Body of Christ.

Being the Body of Christ does not spare us from the sadness of pain and loss, the surrender of what we want for ourselves. Jesus' own life gives abundant example of this. So we are, without question, walking to the grave together, and the suffering and grief that attends that passage. But we are most surely walking beyond that point--together--into a wholeness, a completeness, a glory and joy far beyond our meager imaginations. That is the mystery of life, the mystery of death, the mystery of Eucharist itself.

The Harvest

Feast of St. Catherine of Alexandria

"Another angel came out of the temple, crying out in a loud voice to the one sitting on the cloud, 'Use your sickle and reap the harvest, for the time to reap has come, because the earth's harvest is fully ripe.'"
--Revelation 14:15

Today's scripture readings are full of apocalyptic imagery. These kinds of passages usually leave me feeling uneasy and skeptical, wondering more about the human authors' agendas in writing such world-shattering visions than on possible legitimate spiritual messages. Lately, however, I have responded to this kind of scripture with interest and awe, and can see the hand of the Spirit reaching out to us through even these difficult readings. I don't know why my heart has changed in this way. Perhaps I am longing for a harvest of some sort.

Yesterday I shared a conversation with a friend who lost her young brother to a car accident recently, followed moments later by the news that a beloved aunt in my wife's family had passed after a short but brutal illness.

The message in scripture seems to be that God did not intend the pain and suffering of this temporal world and that He is rapidly bringing it to fulfillment. These tragedies are not the final word on the human experience. In due time, and by ways far too mysterious for our meager minds, God is restoring us to a wholeness and completeness that was His original intent and our ultimate destiny.

The Gospel of Judas

“Will you lay down your life for me? Amen, amen, I say to you, the cock will not crow before you deny me three times.”
—John 13:38

This scene from the gospel, where Jesus predicts Peter’s denial, comes just paragraphs after he predicts Judas’ betrayal. Judas gets all the attention for his violation of Jesus’ trust. He’s the one whom history has condemned. But Peter, the apostolic hero, the first pope, betrays him too in a particularly dramatic way. Poor Judas was overwhelmed with his guilt and could not find his way to redemption, at least not in this life. Peter did, and went on to walk the hard disciple road. But Judas and Peter were brothers in their betrayal.

And so are all of us. Judas has garnered media attention this Easter with the publication of a book on the apocryphal Gospel of Judas. I have no opinion on the thesis of the book, but I’m glad Judas is finally getting some limelight. For me, Judas is an archetypal figure. We are all Judas. Who among us has not betrayed God, has not betrayed our truest, deepest self? Judas did not carry out his betrayal for the thirty pieces of silver. His frustration with Jesus was because he did not meet his expectations (Judas wanted a revolutionary leader who would drive out the Roman occupiers). Who among us has not lost our way because God or the world did not meet our expectations?

Reading this entire passage from the gospel, you can feel how much Jesus loves Judas, especially in the simple act of sharing the bread with him. It’s almost a communion ritual, as Jesus hands him the morsel and says, in effect, “What are you going to do now?” What, indeed, are we going to do?