Gyrovagues

Mark at the Jesus Manifesto has a dead-on critique of our gyrovague culture. This is something which I noticed a long time ago, even before becoming a Benedictine. And, in fact, was the very reason for leaving my Community! A quick recap: my Community was a rather unique organization in that while we were (are) Benedictines, we were non-cloistered, or at least some of us were not. We were out in the world, help 'normal' jobs and so on. The question which drove the founder of my Community to develop this model was in observing both the reality of the comings-and-goings in a normal monastery (monks are always traveling, going to meetings, helping in churches, teaching, etc) AND the deeper question of what are the "walls of a monastery" in this era of internet etc. In olden times, of course, the walls were physical, but also cultural/informational. For anything, any news, any gossip (!) to come to the community it would have to be literally brought in person and pass through the walls. But with the internet, and almost all monasteries that I know have computers, internet access and the monks (and nuns) are in regular email contact with a variety of people outside. This means there is not a lot of separation between monastic life and the world anymore. So the question remains - where are the walls? What constitutes and delineates a monastery. The answer, to the founder, was "our hearts". Thus the concept of a "monastery of the heart" came into being.

I left, one of the reasons anyway, was because I saw that one more piece was needed for my walk. Yes the monastery was in the heart, of course, with Christ at the center of it. But more - the monastery, the "walls" which outlined the monastery were my relationships in my right-here community - the people I meet at church, at the grocery store, at the office. The very roads I travel which are paid for with my taxes, are in a very real sense "monastery roads". So my monastery is where my heart is touched by people and things. It is not simply a spiritual thing. It is a concrete thing, outlined by ZIP code almost.

This is the commitment I had to make to really embody presence and permanence and stability - to say - I will not go anywhere else outside my neighborhood to find my monastery. This is where I live, these are people I will engage with, eat with, worry with, rejoice with.

How long can I stay put? As long as God wants me there. No plans, just a commitment to be here, for this my community - my neighborhood.

Markings

"It is not sufficient to place yourself daily under God. What really matters is to be only under God: the slightest division of allegiance opens the door to daydreaming, petty conversation, petty boasting, petty malice - all the petty satellites of the death-instinct.'But how, then, am I to love God?' 'You must love Him as if He were a non-God, a non-Spirit, a non-Person, a non-Substance: love Him simply as the One, the pure and absolute Unity in which is no trace of Duality. And into this One, we must let ourselves fall continually from being into non-being. God helps us to do this.'" (Dag Hammarskjold in Markings)

This moment now

Do not be misled by those who claim there is no purpose [in life].

They may know life, but not the bowels of its fountain.

They may know darkness, but not its meaning.

They may have wisdom, but they cannot reach higher, to a place beyond wisdom from which all wisdom began.

They may reach so high until the very source from which all rivers flow. To the place where all known things converge, where all knowledge is one. But they have not touched the Essence.

At the Essence there is nothing–-no light, no darkness, no knowledge, no convergence, no wisdom–-nothing but the burning purpose of this moment now.

Matt. 5-7 Wordle

Unity

Here's a list of "Human Universals" compiled by Donald E. Brown (Brown, D.E. 1991. Human universals. New York: McGraw-Hill) and published in The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker.

Interestingly I do not see a "zero" as an universal. And I note that the author joins "belief in the supernatural" with "religion", but "magic" gets its own term, as well as a variety of magics (health, prosperity etc).

Anaerobic v. aerobic focus

Good article on driving and distractions.

4 types of distractions:
* Visual distractions (e.g., focusing on something other than the road)
* Audible distractions (e.g., someone talking)
* Physical distractions (e.g., eating)
* Cognitive distractions (e.g., something that requires you to think about something other than driving)

This applies well to lectio. In fact anything that requires attention will be vulnerable to all of the above. But specifically in prayer and lectio we can see the following:

1) Visual
Not only the obvious visual distractions of the location where we do lectio, but also the internal visual distractions too - where we follow images to a different place than where the text is. While thinking of the Transfiguration, if I close my eyes I might end up thinking of my car, simply because I see a car image.

2) Audible
Again location, location, location. If I am not able to find a quiet spot...But again, how about internal dialog? That is even more distracting.

3) Physical
This should be easy to minimize - don't eat-n-lectio! : ) But also don't drive-n-lectio either LOL. More importantly, try to keep focused on the text. But how about those people who can meditate while doing yoga? Or even, God bless you if you can, lectio while jogging?! The point is that some physical activity (and sitting is a physical activity!) can actually help focus, while others cannot, and we just have to experiment.

4) Cognitive
Yep and here's the "big one". But I wonder? Are not the three distractions above really forms of cognitive distraction? I close my eyes and see something other than Christ and I am off chasing images. I may look out of the window and see my neighbor mowing the lawn and off I go. If by cognitive distractions we mean the narrow set of "other thoughts" than this is important too - after all the stopping errant thoughts is 75% of the work of lectio and meditation. How long can I go without losing focus? 5 seconds? But it is more than that - how often and how quickly can I bring myself back into focus when I do get distracted.

The first type of focus I call anaerobic - anaerobic exercise is something that requires strength. The will power is what keeps me focused. Just like muscle raw power this has limited endurance - think of 100 meters dash - lots of power for 10 seconds. The other type of focus is aerobic - this is the endurance type of thing, where you can hold your intent to focus for 30, 40, 60 minutes. The intention becomes much more important than the performance.

Finally we develop a knack for returning over and over 24/7 - ceaseless prayer. Constant breathing in breathing out. The day goes like this: prayer action conversation breath prayer driving breath eating TV breath prayer prayer sleep breath dream prayer awake breakfast and so on.

Dominant Intelligence

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well. An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly. You are also good at remembering information and convincing someone of your point of view. A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

101 words

And this is about as short as it gets! Nice! (http://www.ommatidia.org/2008/06/12/the-legionnaire/)

From 'Intuition' by Buckminster Fuller

Worth reading a couple of times:

While one percent of society
has superficial awareness
of the existence of mathematical regularities
synergetically displayed by mass attraction
and supersynergetically displayed as precession,
no scientist has the slightest idea
what mass attraction is
nor why
synergy, precession, or radiation
exists or acts as they do.

Nobel laureate physicists,
in self-conscious defense
of this abruptly discovered ignorance
in regard to such cosmically important matters
(understanding knowledge of which
society has accredited them with possessing)
shrug off the necessity to explain
by saying “Here we will have to assume
some angels to be pushing things around.”
Though popularly unrealized,
it is in experimental evidence
that the origins of science
are inherently immersed
in an a priori mystery.