Category Archives: mindfulness

“…Through a Glass Darkly.”

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Spiritual life involves a mystery. It is a mystery. This is because it is about the very heart of our existence and our existence is a mystery. Modern science is bearing this out. The Bible and other holy writ have long said as much.

This mystery can be apprehended…and I use the term loosely…by faith. For, “Faith is the evidence of things unseen and the …..” We lay hold to eternal truth only by faith and as we “lay hold” on this truth we are deeply aware of the flimsy nature of this grasp, intensely aware that the object of our faith always eludes our cognitive grasp which serves the purpose of keeping us humble. “We see through a glass darkly” and “we hold this treasure in earthen vessels.”

When we are teased with the notion, “Oh, I have arrived” a discerning spirit will let us know, “Oh, no. You are just en route!” To borrow from the astute judgment of Karl Barthes (I think!), “We are in love with the object which recedes from the knowledge of it.”

T. S. Eliot put it this way in The Four Quartets:

And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfilment.

And then I’d like to share from wisdom attributed (falsely) to Oscar Romero, the actual author being Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw, Michigan:

A Future Not Our Own
It helps now and then to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of
saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession
brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives include everything.
This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one
day will grow. We water the seeds already planted
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realizing this.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s
grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not
messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

(This quotation from the Bishop comes from a blog by Blue Eyed Ennis on wordpress.com. This blog is always a treasure trove of spiritual wisdom.)

Hopi Prayer on Death

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HOPI PRAYER OF THE SOUL’S GRADUATION

Do not stand at my gave and weep
I am not there,
I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight
On the ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn’s rain.

When you awaken in the morning hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush

of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there.
I did not die.

My Spirit is still alive…

 

Flat Earthers Live Today!

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Plato observed, “Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed by the masses.” And I agree whole heartedly though I might qualify what he meant by “shadows and lies.” Most people take reality to be merely what it appears to be, they take it as it was and is presented to them, and never deign to look beneath the surface. And, yes, one well might call this “shadows and lies” for at times it is not innocent, especially to those who bear the weight of this collective deception.

Adrienne Rich said something relevant, “Until we see the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot begin to know our self.” These “assumptions” are powerful and they are palpable, but only to the discerning eye. Asking someone to see them is like asking a fish to see water. For example, can’t you imagine how difficult it was for those men and women centuries ago who dared to posit the notion that the earth was not flat? Everyone knew the world was flat!

We have our own version of Flat Earthers today.

And Leonardo da Vinci had a thought which is relevant:

O cities of the sea, I behold in you your citizens, women as well as men tightly bound with stout bonds around their arms and legs by folk who will not understand your language; and you will only be able to give vent to your griefs and sense of loss of liberty by making tearful complaints, and sighs, and lamentations one to another; for those who bind you will not understand your language nor will you understand them. Leonardo da Vinci, from “Of Children in Swaddling Clothes”.

 

Lessons from the School Yard

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It was a crisp October Monday morning in 1961 in Magnet Cove, Arkansas. The mighty Magnet Cove Panthers had fallen ignominiously (again) the previous Friday night en route to another 2-8 season, Orval Faubus was championing our racist raison d’etre each day, and that damn Catholic John F. Kennedy was in the White House. But, it was morning recess time and the BMOC (Big Man on Campus) in the 3rd grade announced to the boys on the playground, “Everybody with high top boots run with me and let’s chase the girls.” Oh, was I so proud! I had high top boots and they were pretty new! Now, I was not used to being in the “in crowd” due in part to my own alienation, certainly not irrelevant to my perception that I was from an impoverished family. But, on this autumn morning, by damn, I HAD HIGH TOP BOOTS! And for a couple of weeks this social agenda predominated in that class of 27 kids and I had the delight of belonging! (By the way, the girls were meeting secretly at the same moment nearby and answering the question, “What are we gonna do today” with, “Well, let’s go out there and be cute and let the guys chase us! You are right. Nothing has changed in fifty years.)

Well, in the following years, the BMOC’s would change, usually with a bloodless coup d’etat, and the agenda would change and even mature with age. But the pattern was set. We boys and girls learned the importance of determining which category we belonged in, where the power lay in the social contract, and hooking our wagons to the one that seemed most palatable and which one was most likely to predominate.

Today I belong to several group (even though I’m still alienated as hell!) For example, I am a Democrat, I’m a heterosexual male, I’m a licensed counselor, and I’m an Episcopalian…to name just a few. But, I’m far removed from the playground and my affiliation has gone far beyond the “high top boots” phenomena. My identity supersedes these superfluous labels. Each of them are important to me, but there is something (might I say Something, or even “Someone”) more important—we are all “one flesh” and…if I might segue…, as Rodney King said, “Why can’t we all get along?” The categories are so ephemeral.

Casting an “affirming flame” on election day!

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A Mennonite pastor has organized a nation-wide communion service on election day. I enclose the CNN on-line link to the article about this effort and its rationale: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/03/my-take-on-election-day-proclaiming-my-loyalty-to-jesus/?hpt=hp_c1

I’m very impressed. An event like this helps us to remember that “this is not about us”, at least not in an exclusive sense. There is an “otherness” present in the world that we often forget about in our day to day life and certainly in the intensity of political debate. The event is a simple, brief bowing of our heads (literally or figuratively) and recognizing this “otherness” (Otherness). It is a simple shift of focus for a moment and recognition that we are finite creatures in a complex world and that a Mystery that is beyond our comprehension is present in our life, individually and collectively. A refrain of mine is, “Mental illness is a reference problem.” In ceremonies such as this we offer a momentary deference to an external reference point that is sorely lacking in our world consciousness.

I want to share a poem by W. H. Auden that is relevant to gestures like this:

Defenseless under the night,
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
ironic points of light
Flash out whever the Just
Exchange their messages.
May I,composed like them
of Eros and Dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

May we each day, in word and deed, show an affirming flame.  It is so easy to do otherwise.

W. H. Auden “Sept 1, 1939”

“We Rattle the World for our Babies”

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I love the image created by this poet…and I think it was Edgar Simmons. I recall in my youth in the early sixties shaking a piggy bank and hoping to come up with six cents to get a “soda pop” down at the local mom and pop store in central Arkansas. Those coins were precious.

And so are our babies. I have deep appreciation for the beauty of nature…for birds, flowers, butterflies, deer, and certainly for doggies, being the devoted father of two lovely dachshunds. I gaze upon them, or look into their eyes, and I see the glory of God holding forth. But none of these can offer the glory of God that I see when I encounter one of God’s little children. They are our hope, our future. They represent millions of men and women voting with their feet…or some other part of their anatomy!…that life is worth living. Children represent the will of the species expressing itself.

In my retirement years, I have returned to work as a substitute teacher and I am deliberately focusing on early grade school and special needs children. They are teaching me so much about myself and about human nature. They are so fragile, so needy, and I’m so aware that even in my temporary role in their life I am part of our collective effort to “care” for them. And I’m so proud to see that even in Arkansas…always near the bottom of the education spectrum in our country…we provide such quality education and care. Some of these children would not have a chance in some countries. They would not be considered of any value at all and at one point in some cultures would have been left in the forest for nature to dispose of. But we value human life. That is a powerful decision that our culture has made. And it costs immensely but it is money well spent.

Ultimately, spirituality is about our values. What do we value? And, yes, our country is very suspect in many respects; we are so immersed in consumerism, for example. There is so much tawdry in our culture. But we do have our strong points one of which is our value of human life.

(And this is not even addressing the abortion issue! I don’t have the temerity to get into that yet.)

 

Judgment vs. “Judgmentalism”

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There are two incidents in the life of Jesus which I would like to juxtapose. In one incident, he upbraids the money-lenders in the temple, fashioning a scourge and driving them into the streets. In another incident, he is with the “woman at the well” who has been caught in adultery. He merely tells her to “go and sin no more.”

That does not make sense. Anyone knows that sex is “dirtier” than financial shenanigans (wink, wink) and why would Jesus be so lenient on this woman and so harsh with the “job creators” of the day?

I think Jesus was demonstrating judgment. He could have come down harshly with either matter; or, he could have been lenient with either. It was his choice. He was demonstrating that judgment can involve being very harsh or disapproving; but it can also be very forgiving. But in either instance, “judgment” is exercised.

You cannot be human without exercising judgment. For example, you are exercising this faculty even as you read this—you can choose to continue reading this or you can stop! You can respond with lavish praise or you can send hate mail! Yes, instead of praise, you could send money…and if you do so, please send tons of it! These are choices you are making.

And Jesus was demonstrating that there is no hard fast rule you can follow about many matters. For example, if you try to make the Bible into a rule book you will find yourself mired in the “letter of the law” and will soon be a very unlikeable, “judgmental” chap…or chappette! From day to day you have to make choices about when to speak up, to take action, and when to merely let something pass or when to actively forgive someone for some offense. Remember, “Judge not that ye be not judged.”

 

A Lesson from St. Francis

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When I was a graduate student in history, a professor introduced me to St. Francis of Assisi. I’ll never forget when she shared an anecdote re his kindness toward “brother worm”, stopping on the path and picking the worm up and moving him to the side of the path lest someone step on him. I rolled my eyes and grimaced. “What a nut job!” I thought.

Well, as you might suspect, forty years later I realize that the “nut job” was I! I now understand St. Francis’ appreciation of the unity of all God’s creatures, the presence of God in the whole of his creation. Now, I must admit I would not stop on a path and move a worm to the side though I sure would take pains to not step on it. I would have done the same back then. I feel so strongly about this Unity that I wish I could find the Grace to become a vegetarian. This wish is greatly intensified by living in Northwest Arkansas and often finding myself driving behind a Tyson chicken truck, packed with chickens who have never known a “free range” and will shortly be in a freezer at Wal-Mart.

But this unity of all things is most important in the human realm. I am you, you are me, we are all one. To “work out my own salvation with fear and trembling” will influence those around me, especially those who are nearest and dearest to me. For who I am, who I choose to “be”, makes a difference in the world.

Of course, I am talking boundaries here. And to live in this realm of “no boundaries” is very risky for it makes it imperative that we have a strong sense of identity, that we do know limits, and know that we cannot be all things to all people. We have to have…to speak clinically for a moment…”ego integrity.”

Mature boundaries are porous. But they do exist; they can “filter out” in the interest of this aforementioned “ego integrity.” But they are not concrete barricades behind which we cringe, hiding from the world as we hide from our own self and from our Source.

 

THE ART OF BROTHER KEEPING

by Edgar Simmons

 

the instant you can

accept the colon

you are christenened

in the right compromise

that no things are alike

but are related.

the greatest

the necessary

the most powerful leap of metaphor

is when I decide

I am you

the result is

a birth

a

metaphysical differentiation

carried out and on

not in flesh but in spirit–

prophetic fact in time

more than children of our flesh.

 

 

Bonheoffer, the Fall, & Time/Space Continuum

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(I posted this yesteday but forgot to include a title!)

 

Several days ago I discoursed re the time/space continuum and the human dilemma of being trapped (i.e. “lost”) therein. This is a very abstract notion and I recognize it probably sounds like a lot of non-sense to some. But I’d like to refer you to the work of Dietrich Bonheoffer who was one of the noted theologians of the 20th century; I think I could even safely place him in the evangelical pantheon of that era. In his book, Creation and Fall, he interpreted Genesis 1-3 and explained the extent of “the fall” in a similar vein to how I did in the aforementioned posting.

He posited the notion that the fall left mankind in this “time-space continuum” and that reason is itself a reflection of this fall and is intrinsically tainted by the experience. But mankind thinks he can “think” his way out of this existential predicament, not realizing that ultimately faith and hope have to have a role in the process if his rational quest is to have any ultimate meaning. Here Bonheoffer describes the circular reasoning that is the essence of this narcissistic endeavor:

…the thinking of fallen man has no beginning because it is a circle. We think in a circle. We feel and will in a circle. We exist in a circle. We might then say that in that case there is a beginning everywhere. We could equally say that there is no beginning at all; the decisive point is that thinking takes this circle for the infinite and original reality and entangles itself in a vicious circle. For where thinking directs itself upon itself as the original reality it sets itself up as an object, as an object of itself, and therefore withdraws itself behind this object again and again—or rather, thinking is antecedent to the object which it sets up.

Now I know this is convoluted. Let me try to interpret what he is saying. Bonheoffer is is echoing the words of Paul Tillich who said that “A religion within the bounds of reason is a mutilated religion.” And neither of them was disavowing reason (thinking); they were merely emphasizing its limitations. As long as mankind can keep his experience “reasonable” then he is safe in his illusion that he is in control. Spiritual teachers over the centuries have taught us that the experience of being “out of control”…momentarily, at least…is redemptive as it is in those moments that we can find an Anchor that transcends the mundane which is paradoxically immanent therein. But it/He is found only when we relinquish control and to the degree that we have done so.

And it is this “out of control” moment that teaches us the presence of a Beyond which graces the whole of our day to day life, a Beyond that gives meaning to all facets of human experience, including reason! Without this knowledge…and experience of this Beyond…we are reminded of the words of Goethe in Faust, “They call it Reason, using light celestial; just to outdo the beasts in being bestial.”

And again I am brought to a perfect object lesson in my country, the United States, and its current political impasse. We have so much confidence in “reason”, in “common sense”, in our political, military, and economic might. But we don’t pay any attention to this “Beyond” to which I make reference. If our leaders would pay the faintest attention to this Ultimate, they would at least be able to cooperate with each other well enough to address our issues like mature adults and not like two school-yard groups of thugs. Ultimately, our national issues…just like our personal issues…are resolved in the realm of the Spirit.

Is there “No Exit”?

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We are lost. Yes, just as the Christians teach us, we are “lost” though I differ with them on what that means. We have “fallen” into a world of contingency, the domain of cause and effect (time and space), and we are often at our wits end. We don’t know what to do. To cope with this tremendous anxiety, the vulnerability that comes from being a mere mortal, we have created culture (including myths) and we cling desperately to this culture to hide our nakedness. Yes, we cling to our fig leaves.

In the following poem Jessica Goodfellow so beautifully and elegantly describes this dilemma that we are in. We are always tempted by the hope of a “beginninglessness” or its counterpart, an “endlessness.” But either extreme is perilous. For, reality is merely that we are here, we are in the “in-between”; we are caught in this parenthesis of time and space. As Sartre noted, there is “No exit.” This realization is the point at which we can opt for faith, the belief (hope) that something Wonderful is underway in this void that we live in and that we are part of it.

Navigating by the Light of a Minor Planet

The trouble with belief in endlessness is
it requires a belief in beginninglessness.
Consider friction, entropy, perpetual motion.
And the trouble with holding to both is that
belief in endlessness requires a certain hope
while belief in beginninglessness ends in the absence of hope.
Or maybe it’s vice versa. Luckily,
belief in a thing is not the thing itself.
We can have the concept of origin, but no origin.
Here we are then: in a world where logic doesn’t function,
or else emotions can’t be trusted. Maybe both.
All known tools of navigation require an origin.
Otherwise, there is only endless relativity and then
what’s the point of navigation, in a space where
it’s hard to be lost, and even harder not to be?
Saying “I don’t want to be here” is not the same
as saying “I want to not be here.” It rains
and it rains and it rains the things I haven’t said.