One of the books which I always keep promising myself I will read but somehow never do is Therese of Liseaux's Story of a Soul. I have, though, read endless commentaries and studies about her Little Way. In brief her Little Way is a surrender to God moment-by-moment. Sounds simple, and it is. In her time it was a strong critique against extra-pious medieval pietism. In our own age it is an equally strong rejoinder against our Sundays-only, 7-and-a-half-minute sermons, coffee-shop, diluted Christianism - a movement which permeates all we do.
There are now Bibles with only the words of Jesus in them. At first this is an attractive proposition: remove the "extra stuff", and you are left with the direct wisdom of Jesus Himself. But Jesus is not Buddha or Mohammed to speak in aphorisms and wisdom-teachings. Plus the Gospels are not a collection of sagely teachings. Rather they are the very heart, soul, flesh and bones amd marrow or the Church, the Body of Christ. To remove the "extra" makes as much sense as removing your eyelids so your eyes can see unimpeded.
There are few practices which are as demanding as being a Christian minute-by-minute all blessed day long! Everyone can moderately behave for an hour or so. Everyone can muster enough attention for 15 minutes or so. Everyone can be tolerant and bask in the glow of warm friendliness towards others when safely ensconsed in a back pew for 45 minutes. But how many of us can keep up the effort throughout the day? How much energy is required to be vigilant? how much sheer endurance is called for to smile and turn the other cheek at both real and imagined insults (most especially the imagined ones).
Therese seems to consider it an act of ascetic discipline to be nice to everyone all the time. I can tell from personal experience as well as from personal inclination that being nice and curteous and gentle and meek and humble and all other virtues is well nigh impossible. The quick quip, the witty put-down, the pissy growl, the angry shout, the foreboding frown - these occur often, most especially when we are dealing with others.
I have slowly changed my own perspective on the issue of spiritual discipline. First I had this idea of heroic efforts done mostly alone. Now I am beginning to see as more of a creative ensemble work - where I keep tryign to be in tune and sync with the Main Note. As I try to respond to the Note, I am playing with others who may or may not be in tune with the same Song. But through some creative playing, what at first seems like a cacophony can become something much more concerted.
Little things are not so little, since each is like a little finger pressing a key in the piano, or a finger plucking a string of the guitar. All these little acts of kindness during the day, all these regular turnings to God in the Jesus Prayer, or the renewing of intentions to be loving and kind and patient, or simply to not respond no matter how tempting, all these things add up in volume.
One of the first thigns I learned when sitting in Benedictine choirs to chant the psalms is that this work is almost the exact opposite of what we think of singing. When you are in a normal choir the choirmaster will work very hard to get you to be as clear with your voice as possible. If you listen carefully to a good choir you can hear each voice quite clearly. Together, of course, they make a joyful sound. But chanting the psalms in monastic practice does the reverse. You try really hard not to be heard. Your voice should only be loud enough so that you can still clearly hear the voices of those next to you. It feels unnatural to sing this way. But the sheer volume of low voices can be quite well voluminous.
If I take the sum total of all these small acts during my day, driving, brushing teeth, eating, office conversations, telephone calls, trips to the supermarket. All of these small acts each whispering a song. "Anger anger" says one. "Greed greed" says another. "Glutton glutton" says a third. "Lust lust" adds a chorus. This is the diabolical choir of my life which ceaselessly intones "Me mine more". But if through the day I begin here and there working in changing the song, so that instead of "anger anger" I make a concerted effort to sing "patience patience". Instead of "lust lust" I try "charity charity".
The psalmist tells us to sing a new song to Yahweh. But anyone who has tried to "change their tune" will know how nearly impossible a task this is! It requires dilligence, concerted effort and most of all a great big helping of good humor to be able to dislodge the old tunes stuck in our heads and hearts.
I still think that periods of serious practice, say 30 minutes every day in a removed place, are very beneficial. But if that is all you do it is hard to see how much progress will be made. Some, for sure, and some is better than none. But the wonderful thing about our hearts is that they are an instrument which can be practiced at all the time - everywhere. In fact I am coming to see the heart as that which only comes into existence when I deliberately practice compassion, self-emptying and justice - until I exercise those traits I do not have a living heart at all!
Sing a new song to Yahweh!
Monday, October 5, 2009
Stuck is bad
I know that most people seem to think that stuck is bad. But is it? One of the blogs I occasionally drop by to read is Trunk's Brazen Careerist. There is no value to it for myself - I am neither a careerist nor much into people who are brazen. But I do appreacite honesty and she is nothing if not honest. If you follow her posts regarding her boyfriend you will know what I mean. I am not altogether sure how I would conduct a relationship with someone who Tweets, and especially one who tweets about me - but that's another story. The point here is a quote in one of her blog entries which says "you start not being able to get out of your transition (my problem) then you are stuck. And stuck is bad. I'm stuck eating to procrastinate changing tasks because changing is hard and eating makes it easier....It's a discomfort being between things." This is an especially insightful, for me, post. The phrase "Stuck is bad" links to many things at the same time but two main things come from it: the concept of stuckiness, the implication of the alternative.
What are some forms of stuckiness? Could we say that a dark night of the soul is stuckiness? How about depression is that stuckiness? Most critically, and implied in the post, what is the opposite of stuckiness? Progress? Should we always be improving, changing, growing? This vegetable metaphor seems very popular. Is a human being called to always grow? Is there some sort of Moore's Law of self-help?
All these questions seem relatively benign until you realize that this idolatry of progress leads to some serious amount of guilt and fear and of course failure. I cannot tell how many people have told me that Christianity is too full guilt where after some soul searching questioning came to realize that it was Positivism at church which led to guilt. The Christian message, per se, in it's toe-tripping reality is the very vaccine against guilt.
Positivism is an interesting social philosophy. It first came to life at the end of the 17th century - a time when the human race unleashed the powers of rationality in a shockwave from which we are still recovering. I am not by any means an irrationalist, but I am terribly concerned with idolatry. Any philosophy which holds to a monotone theory of knowledge, be it through inspiration only or through reason only, is bound to be idolatrous. Most especially, as a Christian, any belief which rabidly defends that only natural, physical, and material approaches to knowledge are valid is bound to be found wanting when faced with the slippery nature of reality. But still the shades or shadows of Positivism linger.
Another point to keep in mind when looking at stuckiness is a distinction between people's fantasies about utopia. I first ran across this distinction when studying some Chinese philosophy. The Chinese (and many others) believed that the past was better. This BTW is also found in Christianity, especially up to and through the Middle Ages. The Rule of Benedict says: "For those monastics show themselves too lazy in the service to which they are vowed, who chant less than the Psalter with the customary canticles in the course of a week, whereas we read that our holy Fathers strenuously fulfilled that task in a single day. May we, lukewarm that we are, perform it at least in a whole week!" (Chapter 18). In fact, the idea that we are worse off than the olden days was a common belief until the Enlightenment. At that point we started, collectivelly, positing a better future, and the mem of progress firmly implanted itself in the human race, certainly in the West.
Some things need to be addressed here, but not too much because I reallyw ant to go back in be stuck on stuckiness. But at least one question comes to mind: are the obvious advances in quality of life through technology the same thing as progress? One more question: does progress advance at an equal rate across all areas of knowledge? Is there an inexorable march forward, or are we more like spilt milk - parts of it running forward from where the glass fell on the floor, but others, frustratingly, retreat to the safety of the area under the oven? Are thing getting better all the time? At the same rate?
Spirituality is a wisdom of living between things, of finding oneself being in-between. Spirituality becomes an unbrella term for a set of tools which help us broker peace between ideals and realities. Further, spirituality is a stepping into, and perhaps a stubborness to leave, liminal spaces. Anyone who's had an experience of being in a sacred space will know how it is both exhilirating and infuriating at the same time. This is the nature of the in-between spaces. This is what countless churches, synagogues and mosques aim to create with their architecture. In fact, architecture itself is a constant work of framing and delineating liminal spaces.
What makes liminal spaces so energizing is also what makes them dangerous, confusing. It is not that these spaces are themselves dangerous and confusing, bu trather that the view from there is of such a different angle that thigns which were solid certaintites before become a lot less solid and much more undertain. Spending time in liminal spaces allows us the opportunity to move from the as-if world into the what-if world. A world where we are not 100% certain of intentions behind acts. The world is no longer black and white.
One more thing happens to those who frequent liminal spaces regularly: we are constantly bumping into the 'adult world' - all those large unwieldy pieces of ethical furniture which are shaped so as to always stub your toe. We have a few of those (literal) items in my house. Very frustrating. I am sure that someone with a better industrial design eye would be able to explain exactly why everyone trips on the legs of the very large coffee table in the living room. I mean it is a hulking thing. But yet sooner or later someone slams their foot against it. Why? Something about its design, I am convinced. The lines in the upper part of the body of the table suggest that the lower less visible part should be different than it really is. And that is the perfect metaphor for ethical dilemas: something in the outward shape of the situation suggests a different inner dynamic than what is there in reality.
And here we go again with the reality thing. It is funny how hard it is to avoid reality. it just keeps tripping me up. No matter how much I wish it was a different shape, it is the shape it is.
It takes much courage to look at reality long enough to see its real shape. Only then can we begin to make some meaningful changes.
What are some forms of stuckiness? Could we say that a dark night of the soul is stuckiness? How about depression is that stuckiness? Most critically, and implied in the post, what is the opposite of stuckiness? Progress? Should we always be improving, changing, growing? This vegetable metaphor seems very popular. Is a human being called to always grow? Is there some sort of Moore's Law of self-help?
All these questions seem relatively benign until you realize that this idolatry of progress leads to some serious amount of guilt and fear and of course failure. I cannot tell how many people have told me that Christianity is too full guilt where after some soul searching questioning came to realize that it was Positivism at church which led to guilt. The Christian message, per se, in it's toe-tripping reality is the very vaccine against guilt.
Positivism is an interesting social philosophy. It first came to life at the end of the 17th century - a time when the human race unleashed the powers of rationality in a shockwave from which we are still recovering. I am not by any means an irrationalist, but I am terribly concerned with idolatry. Any philosophy which holds to a monotone theory of knowledge, be it through inspiration only or through reason only, is bound to be idolatrous. Most especially, as a Christian, any belief which rabidly defends that only natural, physical, and material approaches to knowledge are valid is bound to be found wanting when faced with the slippery nature of reality. But still the shades or shadows of Positivism linger.
Another point to keep in mind when looking at stuckiness is a distinction between people's fantasies about utopia. I first ran across this distinction when studying some Chinese philosophy. The Chinese (and many others) believed that the past was better. This BTW is also found in Christianity, especially up to and through the Middle Ages. The Rule of Benedict says: "For those monastics show themselves too lazy in the service to which they are vowed, who chant less than the Psalter with the customary canticles in the course of a week, whereas we read that our holy Fathers strenuously fulfilled that task in a single day. May we, lukewarm that we are, perform it at least in a whole week!" (Chapter 18). In fact, the idea that we are worse off than the olden days was a common belief until the Enlightenment. At that point we started, collectivelly, positing a better future, and the mem of progress firmly implanted itself in the human race, certainly in the West.
Some things need to be addressed here, but not too much because I reallyw ant to go back in be stuck on stuckiness. But at least one question comes to mind: are the obvious advances in quality of life through technology the same thing as progress? One more question: does progress advance at an equal rate across all areas of knowledge? Is there an inexorable march forward, or are we more like spilt milk - parts of it running forward from where the glass fell on the floor, but others, frustratingly, retreat to the safety of the area under the oven? Are thing getting better all the time? At the same rate?
Spirituality is a wisdom of living between things, of finding oneself being in-between. Spirituality becomes an unbrella term for a set of tools which help us broker peace between ideals and realities. Further, spirituality is a stepping into, and perhaps a stubborness to leave, liminal spaces. Anyone who's had an experience of being in a sacred space will know how it is both exhilirating and infuriating at the same time. This is the nature of the in-between spaces. This is what countless churches, synagogues and mosques aim to create with their architecture. In fact, architecture itself is a constant work of framing and delineating liminal spaces.
What makes liminal spaces so energizing is also what makes them dangerous, confusing. It is not that these spaces are themselves dangerous and confusing, bu trather that the view from there is of such a different angle that thigns which were solid certaintites before become a lot less solid and much more undertain. Spending time in liminal spaces allows us the opportunity to move from the as-if world into the what-if world. A world where we are not 100% certain of intentions behind acts. The world is no longer black and white.
One more thing happens to those who frequent liminal spaces regularly: we are constantly bumping into the 'adult world' - all those large unwieldy pieces of ethical furniture which are shaped so as to always stub your toe. We have a few of those (literal) items in my house. Very frustrating. I am sure that someone with a better industrial design eye would be able to explain exactly why everyone trips on the legs of the very large coffee table in the living room. I mean it is a hulking thing. But yet sooner or later someone slams their foot against it. Why? Something about its design, I am convinced. The lines in the upper part of the body of the table suggest that the lower less visible part should be different than it really is. And that is the perfect metaphor for ethical dilemas: something in the outward shape of the situation suggests a different inner dynamic than what is there in reality.
And here we go again with the reality thing. It is funny how hard it is to avoid reality. it just keeps tripping me up. No matter how much I wish it was a different shape, it is the shape it is.
It takes much courage to look at reality long enough to see its real shape. Only then can we begin to make some meaningful changes.
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