Category Archives: mindfulness

Hell on Earth

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Shakespeare’s sonnets might be his finest work. He could put into just a few words volumes of knowledge of the human spirit. In the following sonnet he grasped the essence of hell, that waste land of desire of desire, hunger for hunger, that endless quest for the “lost object” (if I might speak Freudian!) I’m not for sure where this quote came from but someone described this person as “pursuing the object which recedes from the knowledge of it.” This person is portrayed in mythology as the ouroborous, the snake swallowing its own tail.

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.

All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

And I conclude with the quote from the Ibsen play which I used just days ago about the self-intoxicated self:

Its here that men are most themselves, themselves and nothing but themselves sailing with outspread sails of self. Each shuts himself in a cask of self, the cask stopped with the bung of self and seasoned in a well of self. None has a tear for others woes or cares what any other thinks….Now surely you’ll say that he’s himself. He’s full of himself and nothing else, himself in every word he says himself when he is beside himself…Long live the Emperor of Self.  (Ibsen, Peer Gynt)

And yet, we are so wont to pontificate about the horrors of hell in the hereafter when if we were honest enough, discerning enough, we would recognize that this hell abounds in our day to day life. Perhaps we should seek salvation from this hell.

Silence is Golden

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Aeschylus once said, “The gods create tragedy so that men will have something to talk about.”  Well, I want to update his observation and append the following,  “And then cable tv news was created so that the chatter could go on endlessly.”  Actually, I’m hoping that in about ten thousand years, this wisdom will be,  “The gods originally created tragedy so that men would have something to talk about. And then sometime later they created cable tv news so that the chatter would be non-stop”  and that the wisdom will then be attributed to “Literarylew.”  You know, Aeschylus could be forgotten as will ultimately be the case with all of us, small fry or large fry!

Seriously, I’m so conscious of how much my mind is filled with chatter.  This is so very apparent since I started to seriously attempt to meditate and discovered the Buddhist “monkey mind” always chattering away; a blog-o-sphere friend recently posted re “the rush of a thousand voices”.

We are so afraid of silence even though it is only in silence that we find our Source.

We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken a lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great paradox.
Nicholas Spark, The Notebook
―

Pithy, annoying truth

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I want to share two short, pithy poems this morning.   Poets are so adept at stinging us with truth, sometimes very sharply and sometimes just annoyingly.  It was one of the ancient Greek luminaries, Socrates I think, who likened his role to that of a gadfly who would befuddle and annoy the populace.

Here are two such offerings from the past century:

QUERY
By E. L. Mayo

I died and three lemons
Arranged assymetrically
Took my place. Just why
Did you select that moment to comment on
The sweetness of my disposition?

 

A MAN SAID TO THE UNIVERSE
By Stephen Crane

A man said to the universe:
Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”

Failure is More Important than Success

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“Failure is more important than success because it brings intelligence to light the bony structure of the universe.” (E. L. Mayo)

I’ve always been captivated by this poem though I’m not for sure I understand it.  I just intuitively know that it conveys great wisdom and wisdom is always complicated, paradoxical, and convoluted.

Failure is necessary as it counters our obsession with “success.”  Oh, we need success and our species has been very “successful” in so many respects.  We have created so much stuff and have made our life so much easier, perhaps too easy in ways.  Auden noted, “We have made our lives safer than we can bear.”  But it is the failures that humble us and teach us that there is more to life than “stuff”.  These “failures” can show us a qualitative intelligence that allows us to see the graciousness of life and without this insight the “structure of the universe” is quite “bony.”

More about Getting Un-stuck

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So, precisely how do we get “unstuck”?  How do we extricate ourselves from that morass of unconsciousness, that residue of poor decisions that has left our life unmanageable?

There are easy maneuvers such as psychotropic medications.  Sometimes simply being tweaked biochemically can create enough personal space for us to get out of ourselves and get beyond our impasse.  And simple psychotherapy can be very effective.  On that note, it is very important that the therapist must avoid the temptation to “fix” the client, allowing  that client to stew in his/her own juices for a while, to “work out his own salvation with fear and trembling.”  Karl Jung contended that the therapeutic frame was a crucible and if the process worked correctly, the client would “heat-up” to a boiling point and a break through could be achieved.

But, as noted yesterday with the Shakespeare quotation, ultimately we are all alone with our spiritual battles and must wrestle in solitude with our demons.  However, I feel very strongly that therapists, counselors, pastors, and certainly friends must be present to facilitate the catharsis.  I think the most important step in alleviating the “stuck-ness” is for the individual to have the humility to admit that he/she is “stuck”;  and, I don’t mean some glib conciliation to the concept of being stuck.  I mean, for example, the old-fashioned fundamentalist paradigm, “I am a lost sinner” or the 12-step “I am powerless before my addiction” or “out of control” schemata.  It is necessary to realize and feel that one is out of control and that all of the rational, ego-based perambulations one can muster up will not suffice.  It is not a matter of “figuring out” anything.  It is a matter of trusting someone…and ultimately trusting a Source, or a Higher Power, or God or, in the words of Nikos Kazantzakis, “Surrendering to a rhythm not our own.”  It is a matter of humility.  And humility comes hard to the ego.   I think “stuck-ness” like all other human spiritual maladies is an issue of the ego.

A caveat is necessary.  I don’t think getting un-stuck is a simple one-time and your done phenomena.  I think we get through one episode of “stuck-ness” and later run into another one, and another one, and another one.  That has certainly been the case with me. I think there is a sense in which we always find ourselves “stuck”…in reality, with all its limitations.  The issue is discerning which of these limitations we can live with and which ones we must wrestle with and get beyond to some degree.

I have one very readable book to recommend on the subject, How People Change by Allen Wheelis.

Richard Rohr on Humility

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I quote Richard Rohr more than any contemporary spiritual leader. Once again I strongly recommend that you subscribe to his free daily blog as it is always very insightful and very encouraging. He says everything I could ever say and says it much better and much more succinctly.

In his book, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, he noted, “I have prayed for years for one good humiliation a day, and then I must watch my reaction to it. In my position, I have no other way of spotting both my well-denied shadow self and my idealized persona.”

Rohr is very attuned to the pernicious presence of the ego in all spiritually-inclined people and is forthright about wrestling with his own ego daily. I think that his daily prayer for “one good humiliation a day” is his way of asking for his eyes to be opened daily to his own frailty and egotism. For, it is often very humiliating when this happens to someone, especially one who holds himself/herself forth as a “spiritual person.”

I do not think he is calling for us to deliberately go out and humiliate ourselves each day. He is merely asking us to pay attention, to be honest with ourselves, to practice “mindfulness” and be prepared to embrace the subjective experience of a sudden illumination about our own “flesh” being hard at work in our spiritual practice. This might be merely being taken aback, or given pause, or embarrassed, or yes it might be occasionally humiliating. It might even be as simple as a “Rick Perry moment” when we have to say “oops” to some obviously self-serving spiritual enterprise.

T. S. Eliot noted in The Four Quartets:

Oh the shame of motives late revealed,
And the awareness of things ill done
And done to others’ harm
Which once you took for exercise of virtue.

The sin of bibliolatry

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I really like the Bible.  Now able to approach it as an adult, I find that it offers profound wisdom about the human experience and has practical direction for day-to-day life.  But, I don’t feel you have to view it the same way and if you don’t…even should you burn it…I WILL NOT BE TRYING TO KILL YOU!

This recent “trouble” in Afghanistan re the accidental burning of the Koran reflects one of the problems that comes with being a “people of the book”, particularly those who are extreme literalists. I would never harm or deface the Bible; even if it was quite tattered and worn and I did not want to keep it, I would take it somewhere and leave it for someone else to make use of.  Yes, I am so traditional that I will always treat the Bible with reverence.  BUT IF YOU DO OTHERWISE, I WILL NOT BE ATTEMPTING TO KILL YOU!

The problem with this fanaticism is that the “holy writ” is taken to be sacred in itself, not being merely “words” that point one in the direction of the truth.  The literal words themselves are taken to be sacred.  The admonishment of the Buddha is not taken into account, “the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.”  Or, to use the words of Gabriel Marcel, “Words have meaning only when they ‘burgeon forth’ into a region beyond themselves.”  Therefore the word, for example, “G-o-d”, is not “God” but merely a sign/symbol that makes reference to that Ultimate Experience that we all hunger for and many of us find in some faint tenuous fashion from time to time in our life.  The “word is not the thing.”

Now this is relevant to personal identity and this issue itself is relevant to personal and collective identity.  For example, my name is Lewis but “L-e-w-i-s” is not “Lewis” as a name is only a sound that we have learned to respond to.  But if I am guilty of the sin of misplaced concreteness, I might venture to the extreme in which I would take my personal identity to be only memories of those subjective experiences that are evoked when I hear the sound “L-e-w-i-s”; or when I ruminate about myself.  And, if I have ventured to that point even  the sound “G-o-d” could come to mean the experience of “God” and I might have to kill you if you believed differently than myself!

Now actually, I’ve said all of that not to address the problem with other religions.  In our culture, and in the Christian tradition, there is the same tendency to be guilty of the sin of “bibliolatry.”  We definitely have extremes in our culture but thankfully we channel our anger and violence in such a way…that is, we “sublimate” it… that rarely is anyone in danger of being killed because of believing differently than ourselves.  But, beneath the surface the same arrogance, contempt and scorn are usually present.

Jacques Ellul addressed this issue in The Ethics of Freedom:

For we have to realize that Satan can use God’s truth itself to tempt man.  He even uses holy scripture…Thus obedience to the letter of scripture can be obedience to Satan if the text serves to bring about isolation and independence in relation to the one who has inspired it.  It can be a means of self-affirmation over against God in in repression of his truth and his will.  The biblical text, and obedience to it, do not guarantee anything.  They may be the best means of not hearing God speak.  (Ellul here points out that the Pharisees were) authentic believers, faithful adherents of scripture, and rich in good works and piety.  In reality everything depends on our attitude to the text of the scripture.  If I seize it, use it, and exploit it to my own ends...then I am obeying Satan under the cover of what the Bible says.  (Or, as Shakespeare noted, “With devotions visage and pious action we do sugar o’er the devil himself.”)

ADHD and “the pauser reason”

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Th’ expedition of my violent love
Outrun the pauser, reason.

In Macbeth, Shakespeare wrote, “The expedition of my violent love, outrun the pauser, reason.” I would like to translate that into, “The exercise of my fierce passion outruns ‘the pauser’ reason.” Though Shakespeare did not have modern neurophysiology to outline the role of the forebrain in handling impulsivity, he knew that a basic human issue was human emotion, or feeling, run amok. In Hamlet, he noted re the title character, “He cannot buckle his distempered cause within the belt of rule.”

With the “pauser reason” we can introduce what Deepak Chopra calls “the gap” into our experience. We are at times consumed with passion, but if things work out right we will have learned to “pause” briefly and consider the possible outcome of our behavior and/or words.

Years ago I had as a client a 16 year old male who had been diagnosed with ADHD. And he could have been a “poster boy” for that diagnosis, being unable to control himself in the classroom and at home. He was very intelligent and could articulate quite well regarding his subjective experience, even those times when he was totally out of control. And when he finally relented and followed his MD’s recommendation and took a stimulant medication, it had a remarkable impact on him. He noted to me one day, “Now, I have a choice. I have the same urges to “trash talk” and be “difficult” to my teachers, but now I have the choice of whether or not I want to follow through with my urges.” He had obtained “the pauser reason” (aka “an observing ego”) psychopharmacologically.

Unfortunately, he got tired of this restraint and began to balk about compliance with the stimulant medication. Soon thereafter his family moved and his treatment with me ended. But months later there was a sad ending to this anecdote. Apparently having stopped taking his medication, he was driving his ATV crazily across the countryside one afternoon. Something went awry, he wrecked, and was killed.

I was so sad and am very sad now as I relate the anecdote. He was such a handsome, intelligent, passionate, and insightful young lad. But as one of his teachers noted to me, “He simply could not live inside his own skin.”

Faith and adversity

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Faith is easy when we are in our glory days.  But it is often more of a challenge when adversity sets in.  Please read the following article about a former evangelical pastor who is battling a losing battle against ALS.  (You will have to “cut and paste” as I have even yet to figure out how to import a link to this blog.)

Facing death, a top pastor rethinks what it means to be Christian

Faith is so easy when we can bask in the “sizz, boom, bah” of carefully orchestrated, entertainment-oriented religion.  It used to be so comforting to know that I belonged to a “happenin'” mega-church.  We were sooo cool.  God, what a false reality!.  I do not think that God had in mind creating a false reality when he sent Jesus into the world.  I think he had in mind a meaningful faith in which life’s difficulties were embraced, not covered up with sham, canned religion.

Aspirin and contraception

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Foster Freiss, the Rick Santorum’s designated“millionaire” really stuck his foot in his mouth yesterday with his decades old joke about aspirin as a contraceptive. Later, Santorum tried to cover for him, dismissing him as a jokester whose jokes are sometimes not funny. He continued, “He told a bad, off-color joke and he shouldn’t have done it, but that’s his business.”

Well, first of all the “off-color’ note reflects Santorum’s prudery. When I first heard the joke 40 years ago, I too was quite the prude and was taken aback when I heard it—-my late-teens sister had been told the joke by her dentist. But Santorum does not grasp the issue here. The issue is horrible judgment on Freiss’s part as he trotted out a lame, ages-old joke in the midst of a very intense debate about a very personal matter for females. One would think that Freiss would have had the presence of mind, or to allude to a recent blog posting, an “observing ego”, and would have not trotted that inanity out there.

It is kind of relevant to Gingrich’s recent proposal of a moon colony “by the end of my second administration.” At that time he was being hit hard by critics about his narcissism and grandiosity. His “observing ego” should have given him pause and let him know, “Oh, wow, I can’t say that. It sounds very grandiose.” But he is “meta-cognitively challenged.”

(Oh, back to the Freiss joke. Here is how I heard it. And, it was designed to be told by an older male to a virginal young lady for maximal shock value. Question from the dentist to my sister, “Hey, did you know that aspirin can prevent pregnancy?” Taken aback and curious, my sister responded, “Well, no. How can that be.? Answer, “When you go on a date, put an aspirin between your knees and don’t open your legs.”)