onehouse

Be here.

I can't remember where I got this from. Ah well...

Where shall I look for enlightenment?" the disciple asked.

"Here," the elder said.

"When will it happen?" the disciple asked.

"It is happening right now," the elder answered.

"Then why don't I experience it?" the disciple persisted.

"Because you do not look," the elder said.

"But what should I look for?" the disciple continued.

"Nothing. Just look," the elder said.

"But at what?" the disciple asked again.

"At anything your eyes alight upon," the elder answered.

"But must I look in a special kind of way?" the disciple went on.

"No, the ordinary way will do," the elder said.

"But don't I always look in the ordinary way?" the disciple said.

"No, you don't," the elder said.

"But why ever not?" the disciple asked.

"To look you must be here. You are mostly somewhere else," the elder said.

Emmylou.

It's a quiet day. The city is exhausted after an unexpected run at the Stanley Cup that ended one goal and one game shy of victory. I have been playing Emmylou Harris' Stumble into Grace for much of the afternoon letting it slowly seep into tired bone and mind.

I highly recommend owning this CD. Right now I am singing along with the first song Here I Am:

I am standing by the river
I will be standing here forever
Tho you're on the other side
My face you still can see
Why won't you look at me
Here l am

I am searching thru the canyon
It is your name that I am calling
Tho you're so far away
I know you hear my plea
Why won't you answer me
Here I am

I am in the blood of your heart
The breath of your lung
Why do you run for cover
You are from the dirt of the earth
And the kiss of my mouth
I have always been your lover
Here I am

I am the promise never broken
And my arms are ever open
In this harbor calm and still
I will wait until
Until you come to me
Here I am

Emmylou says of this song:

I'm not a particularly religious person. But I thought, "What must God be feeling when people just completely ignore Him?" It's as though this is about unrequited love on the part of God: "I'm right here. I'm everything you need. Why won't you heed me?" Julie Miller had been reading this book that contained the phrase, "You are from the dirt of the earth, the kiss of my mouth," so we put that in there. I wanted to put her on this as my co-writer, but she would have none of it. She did bear witness to it. I still didn't have it finished when we were setting up in the studio. I went, "Well, what am I trying to say?" And I just went, "Well, here I am."

Do your little contemplative self a favor and get yourself some Emmylou Harris.

Preaching to the converted.

I also posted this at the Beyond blog. It's just too brilliant. Thank you to Darren at Long Pauses for bringing this Tony Kushner quote to our attention:

Since I started doing interviews, I’ve answered the "preaching to the converted" question more than any other. It seems to me predicated on an unthinking use of the terms "preaching" and "converted." It’s not as if all preachers, including for instance John Donne, were merely dispensers of predigested, soundbite rhetoric and cliche; good preachers are gifted articulators of the thorniest, juiciest, most dangerous, most contradictory problems, dilemmas, controversies.

It’s not as if the "converted" are always only Moonies lacking any sort of spiritual liveliness or freedom of thought. Quite the contrary. The converted, the congregation, united by certain beliefs, share amongst themselves bewilderment, despair, hope needing amplification, confusion needing examination and elucidation, and avenues of interesting and productive inquiry. Lockstep congregations are a sure sign of a moribund faith, of the absence of anything Divine. A good preacher rattles her congregants’ smugness and complacency, and congregants to do the same for the preacher. Good preachers are exhilarating to listen to, and the converted have a lot to think about. So this "preaching to the converted" question doesn’t address all religious practice, or all theater — just crummy religion and inept theater.

From 10 Questions for Tony Kushner

Flames.

No, not some kind of refiner's fire or some such thing. Calgary Flames. Tomato vespers started in earnest today but my heart is still pounding after an overtime win so I have to go calm down and write about vespers at some other time. Whew.

Via negativa.

I received a copy of Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek the other day. It's hard to believe that I have never owned this book. I read it about six years ago and it's time to read it again. This is a 25th anniversary edition and has an afterword by Dillard where she describes the process of writing this Pulitzer Prize winning book at the age of 27.

Running the story through a year's seasons was conventional, so I resisted it, but since each of the dozen alternative structures I proposed injured, usually fatally, the already frail narrative, I was stuck with it. The book's other two-part structure interested me more. Neoplatonic Christianity described two routes to God: the via positiva and the via negativa. Philosophers on the via positiva assert that God is omnipotent, omniscient, etc; that God possesses all positives atrributes. I found the via negativa more congenial. Its seasoned travelers (Gregory of Nyssa in the fourth century and Pseudo-Dionysisus in the sixth) stresssed God's unknowability. Anything we may say of God is untrue, as we can know only creaturely attributes, which do not apply to God. Thinkers on the via negativa jettisoned everything that was not God; they hoped that what was left would be only the divine dark.

One flower.

Henri Nouwen in Genesee Diary:

I wonder if I really have listened carefully enough to the God of history, the God of my history, and have recognized him when he called me by name, broke the bread, or asked me to cast out my nets after a fruitless day? Maybe I have been living much too fast, too restlessly, too feverishly, forgetting to pay attention to what is happening here and now, right under my nose. Just as a whole world of beauty can be discovered in one flower, so the grace of God can be tasted in one small moment. Just as no great travels are necessary to see the beauty of creation, so no great ecstasies are needed to discover the love of God. But you have to be still and wait and realize that God is not in the earthquake, the storm, or the lightening, but in the gentle breeze with which he touches your back.

Mouth of Babes.

Conversation snippet from the weekend. My brother and 11 year old niece stopped by the largest church in Calgary for a few moments on Sunday morning. The church has recently razed several blocks in the middle of an industrial site near my home. They have constructed a giant of a building, unfortunate in its generic architecture, that is referred to as a "factory for people" situated as it is on cheap land surrounded by autobody shops and warehouses. Most of the land is parking lot.

My brother: Do you think you would like to go to church here?

My niece: No way.

My brother: Why not?

My niece: This doesn't feel like church. This feels like a mall.

In any instant...

I spent part of the day helping someone move. It is something that I always try to be ready for. It is a very simple thing. You will never find yourself short on people who need walls and windows washed because they are running out time. I find it is one of the best things I can do for someone and it always ends up being good for me. I'm not sure why. It's like three oranges. It's just good.

From Deegy's blog. Annie Dillard writes in For the Time Being:

There were no formerly heroic times, and there was no formerly pure generation. There is no one here but us chickens, and so it has always been: a people busy and powerful, knowledgable, ambivalent, important, fearful, and self-aware; a people who scheme, promote, deceive, and conquer; who pray fro their loved ones, and long to flee misery and skip death. It is a weakening and discoloring idea, that rustic people knew God personally once upon a time - or even knew selflessness or courage or literature - but that it is too late for us. In fact, the absolute is available to everyone in very age. There never was a more holy age than ours, and never a less.

There is no less holiness at this time - as you are reading this - than there was the day the Red Sea parted, or that day in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as Ezekiel was a captive by the river Chebar, when the heavens opened and he saw visions of God. There is no whit less enlightenment under the tree by your street than there was under the Bhudda's bo tree. There is no whit less might in heaven or on earth than there was the day Jesus said 'Maid arise' to the centurion's daughter, or the day Peter walked on water, or the night Mohammed flew to heaven on a horse. In any instant the sacred may wipe you with its finger. In any instant the bush may flare, your feet may rise, or you may see a bunch of souls in a tree. In any instant you may avail yourself of the power to love your enemies; to accept failure, slander, or the grief of loss; or to endure torture.

My Climb out of Darkness.

Traffic at this site went up. I must have used the word "church". This is the only time hits go up. Practices -no. AIDS and Africa - no. Gospel - no. Something-something church -yes. Strange. I think the point of the previous quote is not church structures, but a return to the question, "Who is my neighbor?"

I have finished Karen Armstrong's The Spiral Staircase: My Climb out of Darkness and loved how it drew me to such conflicting emotions. I had to practice some deep listening. She is writing about her life, not some science experiment, so I could leave my always overly analytical thought processes in low gear.

This is the kind of book that I probably would have thrown aside ten years ago. But now, I find great joy and hope in the fact that there are millions of ways to live a life. Armstrong's life is a mix of biology, psychology, good and bad experience, emotion, intellect, chance, intention and grace. Wonderful stuff. Her path and her writing is so different from Anne Lamott or Dorothy Day or Kathleen Norris or Annie Dillard. What beautiful variety.

One of the reasons I liked this book is that it is not so much about finding as losing. It is not about arriving some place. It is about leaving many places in order to get health and in order to listen to voices far away from the crowds. Sometimes the greatest thing we can do for someone is allow them to go and to give them a blessing on their way as well as continued support for the journey. Our neighbors are not just those who live life in the same way we choose to live it.

The great myths show that when you follow somebody else's path you go astray. The hero has set off by himself, leaving the old world and the old ways behind. He must venture into the darkness of the unknown, where there is no map and no clear route. He must fight his own monsters, not somebody else's, explore his own labyrinth, and endure his own ordeal before he can find what is missing in his life. Thus transfigured, he (or she) can bring something of value to the world that has been left behind. But if the knight fins himself riding along on an already established track, he is simply following in somebody else's footsteps and will not have an adventure. In the words of the Old French text of The Quest for the Holy Grail, if he wants to succeed, he must enter the forest "at a point that he, himself, had chosen, where it was darkest and there was no path." The wasteland in the Grail legend is a place where people live inauthentic lives, blindly following the norms of their society and doing only what other people expect.

- Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase

Oh, who are the people in your...

Alan Roxburgh wrote this in 1993. It takes a long time to learn how to listen:

We need a movement of God's people into neighborhoods, to live out and be the new future of Christ. It must be a movement that demonstrates how the people of God have a vision and the power to transform our world. This is not the same as current attempts to grow bigger and bigger churches that act like vacuum cleaners, sucking people out of their neighborhoods into a sort of Christian supermarket. Our culture does not need any more churches run like corporations; it needs local communities empowered by the gospel vision of a transforming Christ who addresses the needs of the context and changes the polis into a place of hope and wholeness. The corporation churches we are cloning across the land cannot birth this transformational vision, because they have no investment in context or place; they are centers of expressive individualism with a truncated gospel of personal salvation and little else.

Our penchant for bigness and numerical success as the sign of God's blessing ony discourages and deflects attempts to root communities of God's people deeply into neighborhoods. And until we build transformed communities there is no hope for a broken earth."

Tower of Babel

Nouwen writes about hauling rocks at the monastery in Genesee Diary:

Sometimes our ambitions got out of hand and we tried to move unmovable rocks. There is a fine distinction between building a church and building a new tower of Babel. I think that there is a permanent temptation to forget the difference.

Conversation between blogs.

Deegy at One Room has some more thoughts on hospitality:

I also think of an illustrative story by Vincent Van Gogh, in Henri Nouwen's book The Way of the Heart. The story relates ourselves to that of a house along the way for pilgrims to stop by. He stresses the importance of closed doors, with only smoke from a chimney telling of a fire inside. Nouwen uses the illustration of closed doors to point out the importance of silence in our spiritual life, in order that the fire inside of use does not die - but I think it can be used in a general sense, that we need to tend and guard our inner life, and not share ourselves with everyone.

Steps before steps.

I forgot to say that this whole contemplative journey really started when I told myself I would stop and learn to listen. I would stop trying to talk about what God was saying and see if I could hear it. So I decided to start paying attention. That was the first step.

I love Jesus, who said to us:
Heaven and earth will pass away.
When heaven and earth have passed away,
my word will remain.
What was your word, Jesus?
Love? Affection? Forgiveness?
All your words were
one word: Wakeup.

Antonio Machado (Spanish poet)

Steps.

Somone asked me this weekend, what had helped me move along in my exploration of the contemplative life. I answered with a few little bits but the question got me thinking:

1. Meeting with people and stumbling along - it doesn't have to be a big group but even staring at each other and being quiet and being mad helps at the beginning of something. If you can't meet live, the next best thing is online.

2. Finding a rhythm - for me it has been exploring the church calendar which was not a part of my upbringing. I do know people that have had to dump the calendar for a while because it was part of an oppressive experience so they do other things. Like dancing to Gloria Estefan. No, I don't know. It's just that "Rhythm of the Night" just entered my head so now I have passed that on to you. Don't thank me. Just spend a bit more time in grocery stores and you're bound to pick up all the lyrics.

3. Study - we're living in a time of transition. Churches are greying or many of them are full of "youth" - this doesn't necessarily mean young people. It means living in a certain faith stage that makes everyone talk the same and try to be the same. So it's really hard to find good teachers. The greying kind are tired and if they hold any wisdom, their plates are full. The "youth" leaders that want everyone to stay in a controllable place don't practice this stuff. They may talk about it, read books about it but they don't practice it.

I felt good and sorry for myself for a long time over my place in history. And it helped a lot. Because self pity got me nowhere and at some point, you have to say to yourself (if you have the energy), "Self, you have to get some teaching." And then you realize, you have to stop calling yourself "Self." because you sound like The-Artist-formerly-Known-as-Prince who is now Prince again and it's getting to a weird place. Anyway, I found out that there are a lot of books and tapes and even free online resources. I only study a few minutes a day because if it is good teaching, that's enough.

4. And Study leads to - putting into practice what you read/listen/experience/draw/watch. Not all at once. I've found it easiest to think on something like hospitality or beauty or silence and focus on it for a while. Otherwise I'm spinning. And if I spin too much, I may start calling myself "Self." again.

5. Practice some more.

6. Forget to practice.

7. Practice some more.

8. Use your body - the background I had was about mind and into the 80's and 90's, it was about feelings. How do you feel about that? How do you feel about God? Do you feel far from God today? How did that song make you feel? Ack.

It was very little about the body. Oh except for the innumerable sex talks which made you think about sex even more than you were already thinking about sex.

I have found that taking Tai Chi, going for bike rides, meditating on nature in the outdoors (or if you are Canadian, from behind a warm window), walking, and gardening all help. These too are all about rhythm, seasons, and a different kind of studying.

9. Blogging - to organize my thoughts and remind me what I have learned and what others are saying.

10. Laughing at myself. The Simpsons help with this. Anytime you are taking yourself and your place in the world too seriously, it's time to watch a little Simpsons. There is a temptation to become very intense and start speaking in a Reverend Lovejoy voice about this stuff. There's a lot to laugh about. As the church sign in Springfield says, ""No Shoes, No Shirt, No Salvation."

10. Not doing any of the above. Just being still.

I'm missing a *lot* of things but so far, these things have helped and I"m grateful.

Three oranges.

The online forum is introducing themselves and it got me thinking about why I am interested in the contemplative life. There is no one thing and there was a path to get here and reading Karen Armstrong, maybe there will be a different path later. For now, Henri Nouwen's entry in Genesee Diary summed it up for me:

"If I see three oranges, I have to juggle. And if I see two towers, I have to walk." These remarkable words were spoken by the tightrope-walker, Philippe Petit, in answer to the question of the police as to why he had walked (at 7:50 A.M.) on a rope shot with a crossbow from one tower of the New York World Trade Center to the other. When Philippe had seen the two spires of the Notre Dame in Paris, he had done the same. "L'Art our l'Art" is this highwire artist's philosophy.

I have been thinking today, off and on, about this beautiful man Philippe Petit. His answer to the police is priceless and deserves long meditation. We always want answers to impossible questions. Why do you love her? Any answer to such a question is usually ridiculous. Becuase she is beautiful? Because she is intelligent? Because she has a funny pimple on her nose? Nothing makes much sense. Why did you become a priest? Because you love God? Because you like to preach? Because you don't like women? Why did you become a monk? Because you like to pray? Because you like silence? Because you like to bake bread wihout being bothered? There are no answers to those questions.

When they asked Philippe Petit why he wanted to walk on a slender wire strung between the two tallest towers of New York City, everyone thought he did it for money, for publicity, for fame. But he said, "If I see three oranges, I have to juggle. And if I see two towers, I have to walk."

We don't believe the most meaningful answer. We think that this man must be insane. In fact, they took Philippe to a city hospital for psychiatric examination but soon found out that Philippe was as healthy as could be. "Sane and ebullient," says the newspaper.

His is the true answer. Why do you love her? When I saw her, I loved her. Why are you a priest? Because I must be a priest? Why do you pray? Because when I see God, I must pray. There is an inner must, an inner urge, or inner call that answers all those questions which are beyond explanation. Never does anyone who asks a monk why he became a monk receive a satisfying answer. Nor do children give us an explanation when we ask them, "Why do you play ball?" They know that there is no answer except, "When I see a ball, I have to play with it."

The police who arrested Philippe Petit seemed to understand this because they dropped the orginal charge of trespassing and disorderly conduct in exchange for Philippe's promise to perform aerial feats for the children in Central Park. That at least brought some real humanity back into the picture. Meanwhile, I keep saying to myself, "If I see three oranges, I have to juggle. And if I see two towers, I have to walk."

Spiral staircases.

I got the wasp - midair with a copy of Beyond magazine. I was hoping to shoo it outside but it wasn't cooperating so alas, it has gone on to some big hive in another dimension.

I have two books going right now, Genesee Diary, Henri Nouwen's seven month stay at a Trappist Monastery and The Spiral Staircase: My Climb out of Darkness, Karen Armstrong's spiritual quest which begins with her leaving her life as a nun.

Because I am at the beginning of The Spiral Staircase, there is much contrast between the two books. Nouwen is putting his career on hold to better understand his life as a whole. Armstrong, is leaving a a calling and a career as well as a place similar to what Nouwen as chosen to enter, in order to better understand her life.

I am fascinated by this. I love biography and reflective writing for this reason. It contradicts my often simplistic search for "the right path", my tendencies towards comparison. Perhaps there are not too many places on the planet we are to call home. This makes it much easier for us to move on. It keeps us light and listening. It is like that famous CS Lewis quote:

The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment, He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not our hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home. (The Problem of Pain, ch. 7)

It could be this wandering that shapes us. One of my favorite quotes that I return to again and again:

The Celtic saints of earlier centuries made much of the idea of peregrinatio, a difficult-to-translate word that suggests an open-ended journey. It was not uncommon for medieval Irish monks to set out with no destination; they left with only the simple impulse to go and seek... the idea was to learn to live as travelers, pilgrims, "guests of the world," as sixth-century Irishman Saint Columbanus put it. There was to be a creative openness, even if that meant living in a kind of exile so as not to hold too tightly to one's ambitions and spiritual itinerary. The idea was to leave behind the known and safe to find a truer basis for security.

Timothy Jones: A Place for God, 46-47

Naming Evil: An Interfaith Dialogue

Trinity Institute’s 35th National Conference
May 2-4, 2004
Presented Via Live Webcast
Naming Evil: An Interfaith Dialogue

In a climate of terror, our public rhetoric reflects our anxiety and fear. We lose our capacity for reasoned and reflection and begin to ascribe "evil" to perceived enemies discrimately. The reality of evil is not in doubt. It is built the very fabric of our natural and social existence. Not only are we subject to the randomness of nature and chance, but we also unspeakable horrors upon one another. So, every generation has to come terms with the insidious persistence of evil in our world. And the time has come to engage the subject through responsible interfaith dialogue. We have two basic goals in this conference. First, to name the evils that afflict us today. Second, to seek to understand their origin and to withstand their power.

For those of us who cannot travel often and are short on funds for resources, access to these kinds of events are invaluable. Last year, I listened and watched leaning towards the computer screen as Kathleen Norris and Joan Chittister spoke during Trinity Church's Shaping Holy Lives: Benedictine Spirituality in a Contemporary World. The addresses are still available online and I recommend fixing a hot cup of something and following the first word of Benedict's Rule, "Listen."

Not in control.

I sat down to blog my thoughts from the last few days as I have been thinking about Nouwen's Genesee Diary. I hit "New Post" only to be chased away from the computer by a giant wasp that must be smelling the snow in the wind and decided to head here. We chased each other for a little bit and now he's disappeared. I'm blogging while listening for his voice and looking up at the ceiling to see if he returns.

What is a Contemplative?

A little primer before the online discussion begins:

What Does "Contemplative" Mean?

The word "contemplative" has many meanings today. It comes from the Latin roots cum (with) and templum (temple), connoting a sense of the sacred. Stated simply, the classical tradition understands contemplation as a loving quality of presence in which one is open to things just as they are in the present moment. In Christianity and other traditions that understand God to be present everywhere, contemplation includes a reverence for the Divine Mystery, "finding God in all things," or "being open to God's presence, however it may appear." When referring to prayer or other spiritual practices, contemplation is classically distinguished from meditation. Generally this means that meditation seems like something we "do" by means of our own effort and intention, while contemplation always seems to come as a gift. Further, the reverence for mystery implies an openness to unknowing, a willingness to be led and guided by God without having to comprehend what is happening.

In this understanding, contemplation is in no way opposed to action. In fact, our sense is that truly effective, responsive action in the world needs to be undergirded and informed by contemplative awareness. Also, although silence and solitude play a role in the contemplative life, contemplation does not mean withdrawing from the world. On the contrary, it is a responsive, participative presence in and with God, oneself, one's neighbors, and all creation.

www.shalem.org

O happy day.

To my surprise, a few of you have sent email saying you would like to be part of an online forum with a contemplative and spiritual mutt emphasis. I'm very glad. To be honest, I thought I'd try it but I know most of us are just busy living our own lives in our little corners and already have so many things we're involved in, I didn't have much hope.

This idea was made clear when I read Henri Nouwen quoting Dorotheus of Gaza "Nothing is more harmful than self-direction, nothing more fatal..."

I am often tempted to go back to the world of "shoulda, coulda, woulda" where I constantly talk about how things should be and don't do what is in front of me. I am confronted by my own lack of resources as far as gathering people or gathering funds (I make a "living" publishing a no-ads arts magazine. Good luck to me...) to visit monasteries, attend seminars, or pay for books. I must believe that despite a lack of resources, God will still lead and guide and that the exploration of the contemplative life will be available to those who do not have the ability to spend months in a monastery and to those who do not have the funds to gather signifigant resources. We do what we can and this is what I can do for now.

If you'd like to join the forum, email misseenie at mailblocks dot com.