Living is a Sacred Act

“Days are scrolls: write on them what you want to be remembered.”

Bachya ben Joseph ibn Paquda, 

from Hovot HaLevavot (Duties of the Heart)

William Zinsser, the author of On Writing Well, states, “If writing seems hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things people do.” My wife, Allison, who is a wonderful writer, describes the process of writing as “pure hell and torture…until it works.” For her it is a journey through doubt and insecurity to a place of flow, self-assurance, and a satisfaction rivaling orgasm. In my case, writing involves a long battle with myself. It is a battle in which my task-oriented ego resists being overpowered by the creative impulse. Before sitting down to write, I pace back and forth in front of my computer like a caged animal, sometimes for several days, until my ego finally concedes defeat. When that happens and words begin to appear on the page, I am filled with a feeling that can only be described as gratitude.

The quote above from the Hovot HaLevavot, an 11th century text on the ethical teachings of Judaism, is not just an exhortation to “seize the day.” It is a reminder that life is holy and living is a sacred act. To say “days are scrolls” is to invoke the image of a Sefer Torah, a ritual scroll read during Jewish services. Each day is to be treated as a sacred thing, and our lives—the writing on the scroll—as a revelation of the Holy One.

My own experience, however, is that, like writing, sacred living is “one of the hardest things people do.”

Writing is a way of paying attention to the world. But more than this, it is method of discovering what is of value, of extracting some small bit of truth from the chaos of life’s events. A great deal of material has to be cut out, tossed away, and edited before what is truly of value is revealed. It is, as William Blake said, a corrosive method, “melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid.” Not everything that happens to us is significant, not everything we do is meaningful. Not, that is, until the hidden infinite in what we do is revealed.

“Days are scrolls: write on them what you want to be remembered.” Is it possible that the art of writing offers some clues about the art of sacred living? The writer, Luis Alberto Urrea, believes it does. In his essay for the NPR series, This I Believe, he describes the ground of being as an essentially literary energy. “I believe God is a poet,” he writes. For Urrea, what counts is the act of paying attention:

“I learned that if I went into the world and paid attention (in Spanish, you “lend attention,” presta atencion), the world would notice and respond. I would have demonstrated my worthiness to receive the world's gifts. It’s a kind of library where you lend attention and receive a story. Or God will toss off a limerick for your pleasure.”

I don’t believe that sacred living means only doing overtly spiritual or pious things and avoiding so-called ‘profane’ activities. I have spent many dry and unsatisfactory moments in prayer and meditation, and I’ve experienced grace sitting in a booth in McDonald’s. I do believe that what is essential is the quality of attention we give to our lives and to the world. The way we pay attention to our lives will determine the quality of what we find. I know that when I look for the worst, I find it. When I look for the good, I find that, too.

Taking this further, I believe that the sacred in our lives is revealed by taking a sacred attitude, by treating our lives as a sacrament. In a sense, God is a lens through which we look in order to find God. Not that we invent God in our imaginations and “project” the divine into the world. I do not believe God is an invention of the human mind. I see the situation more as one of needing God in order to be able to find God. (Incidentally, I believe this to be true of love, as well—we need love in order to experience love.)

What do I want to be remembered? What do I want to have written on the scrolls of my days? I don’t think the answer to this question is a list of events or experiences. I think the answer is whatever makes those events and experiences worthwhile. I’m not wise enough to be able to give a complete answer to this question, but this is the one I’ve come up with so far: Love and Gratitude.

Love and gratitude are like the inhaling and exhaling of breath. Love goes out, gratitude comes in. Love gives. Gratitude receives. They are paths beyond the ego and means of remembering the Other (“write on them what you want to be remembered”).  I believe that if, in any given moment, I can connect to the possibility of love and gratitude, I can experience the holy. And until that happens, all I’m really doing is pacing back and forth in front of reality like a caged animal, waiting to be overpowered by the Divine.

Gethsemane

“They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I pray.’ He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,’ he said to them. ‘Stay here and keep watch.’ Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. ‘Abba, Father,’ he said, ‘everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.’” (Mark 14:32-42)


Easter Sunday is the day on the Christian calendar that celebrates the joy and mystery Christ’s resurrection. That is preceded, however, by a week-long remembrance of Jesus’ suffering and death, known as Holy Week. Before the promise of new life as pictured in the resurrection, and ritually commemorated by many—mostly unconsciously—with Easter egg hunts and bunnies and baby chicks, there is an extended meditation on the fact of suffering and death in human life. This juxtaposition is essential. One cannot fully experience the meaning of the resurrection until they have experienced the full impact of sorrow and loss.

The story of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane is, for me, one of the most poignant and moving of the whole of the gospel. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” It tells the story of a man who not only suffered physically, but was in emotional agony as well. Jesus prays in words every human being has spoken or thought at some point: “Please, don’t make me have to go through this. Spare me from this.” If there is truth in the Christian message, it is here in this story that teaches that God gets it. God knows the suffering and the sorrows that are a part of every human existence because he has felt them deeply himself.

My four year old daughter recently learned the Easter story and has begun to ask about dying. “But nobody in our family is ever going to die!,” she pleaded with me through tears. “Father, take this cup from me.” Every day as I watch my children grow up, my heart breaks a little. Every time they learn something new, some sweet, earlier version of them is gone forever. I glory in their growth, but I’m sad at the loss of little things, like the mispronunciation of a word—‘waboo’ becomes ‘water’ and all of sudden my little girl is no longer a baby. When my daughter asked about death, I felt I'd never be able to put my heart back together again.

I cannot save my daughter from the reality of death, as much as I wish I could. All I can do is hold her close, tell her I love her, and pray that my love is a reality that will outlast my body, that will cling close to her and to all the people that I love, long after I am gone. And I cannot save myself from the reality of death. Too soon (it’s always too soon), people that I love will die. It is a thought that is, at times, more than I can bear. “Abba, Father, take this cup from me.”

When things are more than I can bear, I turn to poems and stories. The stories that the Great Religions tell I have found to be helpful, like the one of Jesus in Gethsemane. Here is a poem by Mary Oliver that, I believe, gets it exactly right:


In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

What's On Your Mind?

“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.”
(from The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha)


I would be embarrassed to admit to a majority of the things that I am aware of passing through my mind. Little petty thoughts, jealousies and judgments, far too much trivia. The thoughts I like are fleeting and hard to hold and, by far, the greater portion of what goes on in my mind runs automatically, without any real awareness on my part at all. If, as the Buddha teaches, “we are what we think,” then a large percentage of the time I am a reflection of my baser nature.

I think this saying of the Buddha reflects a fundamental principle of religious understanding--that our subjective reality within us matters as much as the objective reality around us. But more than that, I think it presents a challenge to the idea, championed by Freud, that religion is an infantile wish fulfillment of a longing for protection by a strong and benevolent father. Religion, this line of thinking goes, is a way of taking refuge in a comforting illusion, never growing up, staying a kind of dependent child.

But, far from suggesting dependence, the Buddha’s words are an encouragement to independence and responsibility. “With our thoughts we make the world.” We are, in large part, responsible for the kind of world in which we find ourselves. The religious attitude is not one of resting in the comfort of an illusion. Rather, it is the difficult work of seeking truth by examining the way that we see and understand the world.

I don’t believe that “with our thoughts we make the world,” means that we are responsible for things like disease or natural disasters. I think it means that we are responsible for how we respond to the events of our lives. Do we deepen and grow, becoming more compassionate with others and ourselves? Or do we shrink and atrophy through bitterness and resentment, refusing to give up the role of victim? Personally, I know that my own victimhood is never far from my consciousness.

For me the saying, “we are what we think” is a call to vigilance. When I read this line I feel a heavy weight of responsibility. To me it is a saying that demands our attention to and participation with the world. The way that we see the world is a major factor in determining the quality of the world in which we live.

A similar thought is expressed by Jesus when he says: “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath.” (Matt. 13:12) At first glance, this seems a harsh thing to say. Why should the person with more get more and the person with less get less? It seems more like a parody of present-day economic disparity than deep, spiritual wisdom.

But the point is that what we bring to our encounter with life is important. The quality of our consciousness matters. It is the abundance or scarcity in our own hearts that is the essential thing. In my own experience, I remember things like the awe I’ve felt at the beauty of a simple sunset, or the amazement of feeling truly seen as I gazed silently into a loved one’s eyes. And I have known, in those moments, that I am rich beyond measure. This is the part of me in which abundance and gratitude are active. But there is another part of me in which a kind of narcissistic entitlement reigns. At these moments everything I do have counts as nothing because I am always hungry for more, usually for something like love and attention, admiration and praise.

I know in which of these two worlds I’d rather live. If I could just hold on to that thought.

What's Your Story?

“Religious, or anti-religious, questions…cannot be settled by logical demonstration, for the essence of what is at issue is whether it makes better overall sense of experience to believe that there is a divine mind and will behind it all or not to believe that. We can give motivations for our answer, one way or the other, but we cannot simply settle it by argument alone. In the end we have to commit ourselves to a chosen point of view.” ~ John Polkinghorne


It has always seemed to me that the idea of choosing what one believes is problematic. My own experience tells me that I find myself in a particular belief, rather than make a conscious decision that I will believe one thing over another. I tend to assume that this is true for others as well, and, consequently, I have never been one to have much enthusiasm for trying to convince someone else of my beliefs. Nor do I assume that my belief could possibly be universally true. Occasionally, I have been so convinced by the power stemming from my way of experiencing the world that I have felt others would, of course, benefit from seeing things as I do, too. But any proselytizing on my part has been decidedly unsatisfying. In my more sober moments I try to hold a believe-and-let-believe attitude.

Ever since I was a child, it seemed obvious to me that if God created everything that is, He must also have created all the religions as different avenues by which the divine mystery could be experienced. Different people need different stories. I still find this idea convincing. I believe that we are all born into a particular story. Our task is to recognize our story and grow within it.

The story in which we live is the way we make sense of experience, as the quote above from John Polkinghorne would have it. Or, to say it another way, based on my individual experiences, I find that one story makes better sense than others. For me, the God story works. That is, I feel more alive and engaged in the world when I consider that “there is a divine mind and will behind it.”

Polkinghorne is a theoretical physicist turned Anglican priest. For him there is no conflict between the story that science tells about the world and the story religion tells. For Polkinghorne, they are both avenues toward truth. His writing makes it clear (as do the writings of many scientific or religious writers) that there is no conflict between science and religion. Any conflict that exists is between fundamentalist science and fundamentalist religion. The fundamentalists in religion sticks rigidly to the literal reading of their story, while the fundamentalists in science abandon their story to assert a metaphysical belief for which there is no proof (i.e., there is no God).

What if we were to let everyone live their own story? What if we got curious—rather than defensive—and chose to listen to each other’s stories instead of trying to shout each other down with our own beliefs. This world, this life, is so immeasurably rich and wonderful. We need all the different viewpoints to even begin to comprehend the whole in its physical, psychological, emotional, intellectual, relational, spiritual, and mysterious complexity. We might find ourselves enriched by the differences and surprised by the similarities.

Where the religious story might ask, “Do I serve God or do I serve sin?,” the humanist question might be, “Do I choose to love or to hate?” For the scientist it could take this form: “Do I serve understanding or ignorance?” The artist, “The beautiful or the ugly?” There are differences, to be sure, and important ones. But couldn’t it also be that there is enough similarity for each to be open to the other?

Perhaps the idea of everyone getting along is naïve of me. After all, as Polkinghorne states, we have to “commit ourselves to a chosen point of view.” If we don’t necessarily choose our beliefs, as I asserted before, we do need, apparently, to choose to commit to our beliefs. Just as a marriage, for example, cannot hold together without commitment, neither will any path yield all of its available truth without commitment. It takes long, specialized training to get to the point where one might discover something new in science. It takes long, specialized training to be consistently open to the muse for an artist. It takes long, specialized training for the religious person to reach enlightenment. All paths require us to commit. And maybe it’s this need for commitment that makes us view each other suspiciously. I might have to believe my way is the only true way in order to realize that complete commitment.

Maybe, then, we might never get to the point where we all get along, but I guess that’s interesting, too. Maybe the best any of us can do is say: “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”

What I Don't Know

Different, indeed, is it from the known,
and also it is above the unknown.
Thus have we heard from the ancients who explained it to us.

That which is not expressed by speech,
but that by which speech is expressed:
know that to be God, not what people here adore.

That which is not thought by the mind,
but that by which the mind thinks:
know that to be God, not what people here adore.

That which is not seen by the eye,
but that by which the eye sees:
know that to be God, not what people here adore.

That which is not heard by the ear,
but that by which the ear hears:
know that to be God, not what people here adore.

That which is not breathed by the breath,
but that by which the breath breathes:
know that to be God, not what people here adore.
~Excerpt from the Kena Upanishad



When I was in elementary school, I had a teacher who used to complain that I never asked any questions. She would say that asking questions was a sign of intelligence. But for various reasons—some temperamental, some environmental—I experienced not knowing as dangerous. To me asking questions was a sign, not of intelligence, but of ignorance. The world, with all of its unknowns, was threatening and because I did not feel I could engage it or inquire about it, I became isolated from it.

Passages like the one above from the Kena Upanishad help me to remember that not knowing is an essential part of the experience of God, and, by extension, the world. The passage is a warning against literalism, certainly, but it is also an invitation into mystery. It is a call to ask questions, to inquire, to wonder, to play.

If I cannot hold an attitude of openness or wonder or inquiry, I become isolated from God. To put it another way, the moment I become attached to my ideas about God, or about anything at all, I have lost my connection to the Divine Mystery and the sacredness of living.

In Jungian analysis, the goal is to get the conscious mind (the part of us that we know) to dialogue with the unconscious mind (the part of us that we don’t know) and thereby be enriched and changed.

Not knowing is difficult. It requires humility and (at least for me) courage. It requires the willingness to examine and, perhaps, let go of some of our most cherished notions. My fear of not knowing is the fear of looking foolish or making a mistake. It is a fear that somehow if I don’t know, if I’m not in control, I might cease to exist, as if my being is made up solely of the bits of information I have been able to acquire. It’s as if I’m afraid my encounter with the Divine Mystery would be annihilating instead of transforming.

The lesson from the Kena Upanishad, though, is that the ineffable reality of God is also an essential part of our own being. And since God is "That which is not thought by the mind, but that by which the mind thinks," our being is ultimately rooted not in what we know but in our coming to know, that is, our openness to life and the world. Not knowing, therefore, is not a ceasing to exist, but a coming to be.

Perhaps, then, the willingness to make mistakes, to look foolish, to be surprised, to be changed is a truly sacred attitude. And maybe asking a question is really a form of prayer.

What Each Soul Contributes

In The Soul of Christianity, Huston Smith describes what he calls the “corporate view” of the Eastern Orthodox Church:

“Each Christian is working out his or her salvation in conjunction with the rest of the church, not individually to save a separate soul. ‘One can be damned alone, but saved only with others’ is a familiar adage in the Russian Church. . . . Orthodoxy brings the entire universe into the economy of salvation. Not only is the destiny of each individual bound up with the entire church; the church is responsible for helping to sanctify the entire world of nature and history. The welfare of everything in creation is affected to some degree by what each individual soul contributes to or detracts from it.”

As an introvert, I am very partial to this idea that my private actions have something like global effects. I am by no means unaware of the need to care for the actual, worldly concerns of others – I work in human services, after all – but what exactly am I doing in my private moments of prayer and meditation? Am I merely working out my own individual salvation, striving for my own enlightenment? And if I arrive at my goal, what does that mean in terms of my personal relationships with others – family, friends, the world at large?

What would happen in the (very unlikely) event that I achieved some kind of spiritual perfection in this lifetime? Would I ascend into heaven while watching other less perfected souls fall into hell or get suspended in purgatory? Or would I step off into Nirvana, while the souls of my wife and kids, for example, were sucked back into the round of death and rebirth? Wouldn’t that be a kind of abandonment?

I suppose I could exhort those that I love to take on my beliefs, so that they too could be saved. And if they resisted I could try to force them for their own good. Of course, down that path lies religious persecution and the countless acts of violence that religion has shown it can all too easily perpetrate.

What is a guy who is drawn to all things contemplative to do?

The view of the Orthodox Church stated above – “The welfare of everything in creation is affected to some degree by what each individual soul contributes to or detracts from it” – provides a different way to think about this problem.

All religions give some recognition to the importance of attending to both the divine realm and the workaday world. Buddhism, for example, developed the figure of the Bodhisattva, the being who has attained enlightenment, but out of compassion for creation, refuses entry into Nirvana until all beings are freed from Samsara, the world of birth, death, and suffering. This is a wonderful and inspiring image. It suggests that Nirvana is not Nirvana unless all beings partake of it.

What I like about the perspective of the Eastern Church, though, is the suggestion that attention to the divine realm is, at the same time, caring for the world. Further, it teaches that one person’s spiritual development has a positive effect on the spiritual development of all people. In the private of my own room, I am not only working on my own behalf, but on behalf of the whole world. I am not leaving anybody behind so much as bringing them along with me. At the very least, if I think about it this way, it can help me to divest my contemplation of a measure of ego, which is surely one of it’s goals.

Maybe a raising of our own individual consciousness, however slight, raises the overall level of consciousness in the world. I think it must. And there is some scientific and psychological evidence for this. Neuroscientists have discovered what they call “mirror neurons” which have the effect making our minds resonate with that of another. A mother soothing her crying child is making use of these neurons to understand her babies cries and to alter his or her emotional state. And, thereby, alter his or her consciousness. Surely everyone has had the experience of feeling sad when with a friend who is sad, and joyful with a loved one who is joyful. Our emotions are changed just by being with each other. This is part of the premise on which psychotherapy, at least from a depth perspective, is founded. Jung often warned of this effect from the negative point of view, speaking of psychic epidemics and “mass psychology.” It seems to follow that someone with a higher level of consciousness might just have a kind of magnetic effect on the ordinary consciousness of the rest of us.

I have met many people around whom I feel more centered, to whom I am drawn to hear and to learn from. These are the people I have experienced as being more enlightened, in some way, from whom I imagine I might gain some benefit just from being in their presence. Joseph Campbell explains that the Buddha knows “that his value derives from his power to radiate consciousness—as the value of a light-bulb derives from its power to radiate light” [Myths to Live By]. I want always to be around those lights that give off a warm, enlivening, and steady glow. And, if I am granted by the Spirit of the Universe some ability to do so, I want to contribute what I can to improve the quality of light in the human community.

So, I guess I’ll just go in my room, close my door, lift up my heart in prayer, and send a little love into the world.

The Spirit and the Flesh

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would. But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. (Gal. 5: 16-23)


When I read a passage from one of the scriptures of the great traditions, or the writings of the poets, mystics or saints, I start with the assumption that what I am reading is true. I assume that these writings have been preserved for thousands of years and continue to exert such powerful effects on millions of people because they do, in fact, contain power. The wisdom traditions house great wisdom. I try as much as possible to approach these texts with the mindset that they are truly revealed. This is particularly important when I encounter a difficult passage, one that challenges my preferences and prejudices.

I'm distrustful of translations of texts that are really "versions," that smooth the rough edges and make a text more palatable and pleasing. I try to remember when reading something I don't like right away that if the scriptures only said things I agreed with, then they couldn't truly be wisdom texts because, really, I'm just not that wise. I try to appreciate being challenged, upset, confused, turned off. There, perhaps, is something I can learn.

I find the passage above from St. Paul's letter to the Galatians difficult. The opposition of Spirit to flesh is troubling to me. At first reading, I thought, "Oh, here it is. The Christian contempt for sex and the body. No need to really pay attention to this nonsense." The whole thing seems to set up a dichotomy between spirit and body that feels untenable, each excluded from the other. On one side is the body, on the other is the spirit, and never the twain shall meet.

But that is my prejudice about Christianity, that it is somehow hostile to the body and to sex. That may or may not be true. I am not qualified to make any kind of definitive statement about that. But a closer reading shows that that's not what this passage is about. The "works of the flesh," it's true, include "fornication," but they also include "idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit [translated elsewhere as 'factions'], envy, and drunkenness." These latter qualities are more psychological or emotional than bodily or physical. "Flesh," then, must refer to a state of consciousness rather than the literal body. It is a state of consciousness that is somehow opposed to that other state of consciousness called "Spirit."

Reflecting on these two states of consciousness, I have come to think of "flesh consciousness" as a kind of cramped, greedy, unreflective, reflexive mindset. Spirit, by contrast, is open, inclusive, generous. Flesh is only about me. Spirit reaches out and includes all things (which means the body, too) and all people.

Other traditions also draw a contrast between a kind of body consciousness and a more spiritual awareness. The Tao Te Ching, for instance, states "misfortune comes from having a body." The translators point out in their notes that it is not possible to understand such a natural philosophy as being hostile to the body and that, therefore, body must refer to a state of consciousness like ego or persona. The remedy for the misfortune that comes from the body is to "treat the whole world as your self." In other words, to "walk by the Spirit." Flesh consciousness, therefore, takes the self (the ego or body) as the center of the world, while Spirit consciousness sees the whole world as the true self.

What I find interesting here is how my own prejudice had me interpreting these verses before I'd even read them. I was sure I knew where they were going and what they were about. They were going to confirm what I already knew about the dark side of Christianity. In other words, I was in a state of "flesh consciousness" (enmity, anger, selfishness) on my first reading and I almost missed "the fruit of the Spirit."

Only The Lonely

Sunset
by Rainer Maria Rilke

Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you,
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth,

leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs—

leaving you (it impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.
(translated by Robert Bly)


When I read the lines, “one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth, / leaving you, not really belonging to either,” I experienced a deep loneliness. But it is a loneliness in which I feel I am most at home in myself. A sadness full of longing that makes me happy. My wife likes to tease me about being an archetypally lonely man given to roaming the deserted beach in winter at night lost in my melancholy. There is some truth to this. But I want to say a word in defense of loneliness.

Loneliness is not alienation. In loneliness the Other exists. In alienation, it does not. In loneliness there is longing, in alienation, isolation. In depression or alienation the missing factor is meaning, or a sense of purpose, or contact with the invisible realms of existence. Rilke’s “not belonging” to either heaven or earth is really an affirmation of both. For it seems to me that it is the feeling of separateness that awakens consciousness of the other, that establishes, I believe, the reality of the other. And it is in separateness, in distinctness from one another that love becomes possible. And so, in some sense, loneliness is the soil in which love grows.

The great teachers of the value of loneliness are the Sufis. Rumi says, “the grief you cry out from / draws you toward union.” Hafiz, in his poem, My Eyes So Soft, is even more emphatic:

Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly.
Let it cut more deep.
Let it ferment and season you
As few human
or even divine ingredients can.
Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft
My voice so tender,
My need of God
Absolutely clear.

One of my other teachers in this is Frank Sinatra, when he sings, “the songs I know, only the lonely know.” Loneliness teaches a secret knowledge – the value of love. The whole torch song tradition speaks to the truth that, sometimes, love is intensified through the experience of separation. It is more present in its absence. All of a sudden we become aware of the depth of our love when it’s object is gone. “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

In Rilke’s poem, the awareness of the two worlds we inhabit, heaven and earth, begins with the recognition of our separateness from both. I think he is saying that we don’t really know either until we know both. But knowing both means belonging to neither. Earth without heaven, says Rilke, is “hopelessly dark.” And without the activity, the variety, the transience of time-bound existence, heaven is “unswerving,” changeless, eternal monotony.

Suspended between these two great powers, says Rilke, all we can do is turn to ourselves, our own little lives, “timid and standing high and growing.” And it is there, perhaps, that we might discover we are not separate after all. “One moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.” The two worlds exist in our own hearts. “The Kingdom of Heaven is inside you.”

I think of all the ways I avoid or distract myself from my feelings of loneliness – of longing, of loving, of “my need of God.” – watching TV, surfing the web, shopping for little electronic gadgets, even reading. I need to spend more time at the beach.

Whole-hearted acceptance -- variations on a theme

I've been reflecting some more on the quote from Jean Pierre de Caussade that I referred to in a previous post. Here it is again:

"The Treasure is everywhere. It is offered to us at every moment and wherever we find ourselves. All creatures, friends or enemies, pour it out abundantly, and it courses through every fiber of our body and soul until it reaches the very core of our being. If we open our mouths they will be filled. God's activity runs through the entire universe. . . . We could not choose to become good in a better, more miraculous, and yet easier way than by the simple use of the means offered us by God; the whole-hearted acceptance of everything that comes to us at every moment of our lives." ~ Jean Pierre de Caussade

I am conscious of the fact that truly understanding the writings of the mystics is not possible, as they are writing from the core of their experiences -- experiences that I have not shared. It is not just theory with them. They are trying to reflect in their words something of their actual lived experiences. Therefore, a merely intellectual approach to their writings will always fall short. So I try to listen to these writings as I would listen to a psychotherapy client. That is, I try to get an empathic understanding of the other's experience. Empathy is the process of trying to understand another by imagining yourself into their experience, by feeling yourself into their story.

I said in the previous post that I do not know what the Treasure is that Caussade talks about. That's true. After writing that, I thought some more about this. I tried to put myself in the position of someone who could accept "everything that comes to us at every moment of our lives" whole-heartedly. It was then that I got that rush that feels like insight. I had the thought, "I know what the Treasure is!" It occurred to me that the key is when Caussade says "God's activity runs through the entire universe." Perhaps the Treasure that is offered to the one who can open his or her heart to every moment is the awareness and the experience of the presence of God in each moment. The felt sense that God is active in each and every moment of our lives, waiting, as it were, for us to take notice. I don't know if that's true, but I have to admit that when I consider that thought, I feel something like resonance or excitement that has for me a convincing power.

Here are some others who say something similar to Caussade:

"When one does the next and most necessary thing without fuss and with conviction, one always does what is meaningful and intended by fate." ~ C.G. Jung

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

~ Rumi


"My formula for greatness in man is amor fati: that a man should wish to have nothing altered, either in the future, the past, or for all eternity. Not only must he endure necessity, and on no account conceal it--all idealism is falsehood in the face of necessity--but he must love it. . . . " ~ Nietzsche


"Don't demand or expect that events happen as you would wish them to. Accept events as they actually happen. That way peace is possible." ~ Epictetus


"[The] Christian worldview compressed . . . into a sentence: the world is perfect, and the human opportunity is to see that and conform to that fact."
~ Huston Smith

What if the Mightiest Word is Love

From "Praise Song for the Day: A Poem for Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration" :

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,
praise song for walking forward in that light.


Text of the benediction by Rev. Joseph Lowery during President Barack Obama's inauguration, as transcribed by CQ Transcriptions:

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou, who has brought us thus far along the way, thou, who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.

Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand true to thee, oh God, and true to our native land.

We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we've shared this day.

We pray now, oh Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration.

He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national, and indeed the global, fiscal climate. But because we know you got the whole world in your hands, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations.

Our faith does not shrink though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.

For we know that, Lord, you are able and you're willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds, and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor, of the least of these, and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.

We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that yes we can work together to achieve a more perfect union.

And while we have sown the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.

And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.

And as we leave this mountain top, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.

Bless President Barack, First Lady Michelle. Look over our little angelic Sasha and Malia.

We go now to walk together as children, pledging that we won't get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone.

With your hands of power and your heart of love, help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nations shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid, when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. Let all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.

The Whole-hearted Acceptance of Everything

"The Treasure is everywhere. It is offered to us at every moment and wherever we find ourselves. All creatures, friends or enemies, pour it out abundantly, and it courses through every fiber of our body and soul until it reaches the very core of our being. If we open our mouths they will be filled. God's activity runs through the entire universe. . . . We could not choose to become good in a better, more miraculous, and yet easier way than by the simple use of the means offered us by God; the whole-hearted acceptance of everything that comes to us at every moment of our lives."

~ Jean Pierre de Caussade (quoted in The Teachings of the Christian Mystics, edited by Andrew Harvey)



The above quote continues the theme of suffering begun in my previous post. For though it does not deal with the subject explicitly, it seems to me that Caussade's "whole-hearted acceptance of everything that comes to us at every moment of our lives," necessarily includes the experience of suffering.

In the first place, if I think of accepting those things that I know or want or like, it hardly seems to be an issue, so that the real problem comes when I am confronted with the unknown, the unwanted, the despised. And if I am honest, the unknown, unwanted and despised thing is as likely to be love or happiness as it is conflict or illness. And if love or happiness, then it is a question of growing beyond myself, of letting go a tiny piece of my narcissism and allowing myself to be affected and changed by the world. The ego suffering itself to be changed.

In the second place, "everything that comes to us" includes such things as illness and death. Two people that I love more than I can measure are currently suffering through their own individual ordeals. My wife is battling breast cancer and enduring the punishing effects of chemotherapy, which are assaulting her body and mind. My sister has ALS and is witnessing the too-rapid deterioration of her body (though not her spirit, which is as bright as it ever was). My mother and father, my in-laws, my nephew, family and friends, and myself -- we are all suffering for them and from our collective inability to prevent any of this from happening.

It is hard in the face of this to experience this as "The Treasure" that Caussade describes.

The Treasure is "offered to us at every moment" by God and our task is to accept whatever happens to us in those moments "whole-heartedly," states Caussade. I don't know what the Treasure is. I am nowhere near being able to achieve whole-hearted acceptance of everything. I am sure of this much: The Treasure is not that which is happening in each moment. It has something to do with understanding that it is God who is offering us each and every experience. In other words, that whatever happens to us is not just random and purposeless, but filled with meaning through and through. Perhaps it is only through a courageous kind of acceptance that we can begin to recognize and experience that meaning.

I'm not sure. Like I said, I don't know what the Treasure is. I hope I can learn to gracefully accept the gifts God offers.

However, this quote from my sister's blog, in which she writes about her experience of living with ALS, I believe, gives some hint of what might be experienced when the Treasure is encountered:

I am blessed at every turn. Do I sound full of shit when I say that? I hope not because it’s really true. ALS has torn my heart wide open and there are unimaginable gifts in this disease.

The Road Which All Must Tread

"None can come to the sublime heights of the divinity," said the Eternal Wisdom, "or taste its ineffable sweetness, if first they have not experienced the bitterness and lowliness of my humanity. The higher they climb without passing by my humanity, the lower afterward shall be their fall. My humanity is the road which all must tread who would come to that which you seek: my sufferings are the door by which all must come in."

~Heinrich Suso (Teachings of the Christian Mystics, edited by A. Harvey)


What to do about the problem of suffering?

I don't presume to think that I can come to any conclusion regarding this difficult question, but it's an unavoidable one and, what the hell, I might as well jump into the deep end with this blog.

Buddhism teaches that life is suffering and that release from suffering is possible. It prescribes its Eightfold Path as the means for achieving that release. The cause of suffering is said to be attachment. Now, there is much that I admire and am drawn to in Buddhism, but I have always had some trouble with the idea of detachment. Don't get me wrong, there are many things for which I find detachment a wise and healthy and helpful teaching. I try (though I do not succeed) not to cling to material things, or self-aggrandizing states of the ego, or even to my hopes and plans for future, both near and far. However, there are attachments from which I have no desire to be released, no matter what suffering they may cause.

My wife, my two children, my sister, my family and friends -- these are people that I love, for whom I have experienced both joy and grief. Because to love is to suffer. Loving someone means becoming vulnerable, getting hurt, being afraid they'll get hurt, fearing you'll lose them, almost losing them, and inevitably losing them.

The quote above from the Christian mystic, Heinrich Suso, does not teach the avoidance of suffering, but states instead that suffering is the door to sharing in the divinity of the Eternal Wisdom, of Christ. It is through our humanity -- not avoiding or escaping it, but through it -- that we reach to the divine. Our humanity, says the Eternal Wisdom, is composed of bitterness and lowliness, as if it were our task as human beings to learn something about suffering, in particular, the suffering of love ("For God so loved the world . . .").

The night my wife was taken in for emergency surgery, I spent a terrified few hours thinking she would die, desperate at the thought that I would never speak with her, caress her, or kiss her again. I tried to avoid the scene in my head in which I had to tell my kids they would never see their mommy again. I have never experienced such profound desperation. She came through it, thank God, and if there were any way I could go back to avoid that night for both my wife and I, I would do it. And yet, there is something else that is left to me from that night that is harder to describe.

To be able to suffer that way for the love of another human being means something. It's painful, but it's good at the same time. To know that I have the kind of love that could cause me that depth of suffering gives my life a meaning, I believe, that it would not have in any other way. And as I think about it, as I write this, I want more of that kind of dangerous love in my life, not less. It makes me wonder if the Buddhist formula about attachment isn't backwards, at least in respect to the kind of attachment called human love. That is, I do not think, as I said above, that to love is to suffer. Rather, it is suffering that lets us know that we have truly loved.

I want more of that kind of pain.

Circling Around God

I live my life in growing orbits
which move out over the things of this world.
Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
but that will be my attempt.

I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
and I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
or a great song.

~Rainer Maria Rilke (trans. R. Bly)


This is where I begin. This is where I am going.

I don't intend to make this a very personal blog. I am not interested in confession or memoir or exhibition. Making the personal meaningful is hard and one needs considerably more talent -- and far less ego -- than I possess to make it work.

What I love is the way the Soul speaks, the images with which it cloaks itself, and the magnetic force with which it draws us to that mysterious center which is both our self and the world. I love the infinite ways that God manifests in the world and the many forms of worship and praise that humans have devised that attest to God's presence and power. Mostly, I love those God-drunk lovers who, like Rilke, keep circling around God until they break into song.

This blog is about listening to that song. It is not about anything that I have to say, which would not be very interesting, anyway, given the relatively few years of experience I have acquired as against the Soul's thousands of years. No, I would rather hear from that great Other -- call it God, the Soul, Love, what have you -- and try to simply and humbly respond.

I don't believe that it is the essential thing that we finally come to know whether we are "a falcon, or a storm, or a great song." It's not as important what we are transformed into, but that we become transformable, that our fixed notions of ourselves dissolve, become more fluid, more flowing. It is not important on this journey -- if it is even possible -- that we ever arrive. It's the circling that counts, spiraling wider and wider out "over the things of this world." And that is my hope and intention for this blog, to keep circling until I can more clearly hear that great song that the mystics call the Beloved and peoples everywhere have always called God.

And maybe sing along.