May 192016
 

Like other spiritual traditions, mystical and otherwise, Christian mysticism is chock full of highly prescriptive goal-oriented approaches to spiritual development. Whether we are speaking of purification, sanctification, illumination, holiness, righteousness, or what have you, one very common thread is to begin with a fairly detailed vision of what we presumably can and should become; in other words, we establish specific goals for how we intend to think, behave, and appear to others. Typically this vision is largely defined by religious doctrines about right beliefs and virtuous behaviors, and is usually illustrated by reference to certain historical figures as exemplars.  Even those in rebellion against tradition may simply work up a kind of anti-traditionalist vision to idolize. In any case, once the vision is crafted, we then strive to manifest it in ourselves.  Even most teachers and preachers who claim that only God actually creates the changes in our lives nonetheless challenge us to constantly work at fulfilling specific goals.  The work may take many forms, including every kind of spiritual discipline – prayer, scriptural study, fasting, almsgiving, confession and penance, worship, abstaining from sins and vices, and so on.  Such approaches have value, and the present intention is not to categorically denounce them, but rather to consider why and how we might also take another path in spiritual development.

One of the reasons for taking another path is that an approach based on attaining specific character outcomes can too easily become about reworking the persona, changing the mask of public identity each of us wears, rather than actually transforming the soul at deeper levels.  In other words, the energy we give to our spiritual disciplines is essentially devoted to pretending as much as possible that we are the vision we have idolized.  One danger here is simply in misrepresenting the truth of ourselves to others, encouraging others to believe we are more pure, holy, illuminated, etc., than we actually are. We might even secretly enjoy the deception and the esteem and favor of others we gain by it. In the worst cases, we may slip into psychological denial of our whole humanity and fool ourselves into believing we have become the idol, all the while struggling to conceal a host of vices, including false humility, spiritual pride, and spiritual materialism. There should be no need to go further into how unwise such circumstances are, and the unhealthy effects they can have on our souls, other people, and the world around us. Sooner or later, these idols, these masks, are bound to crack and reveal the ordinary human soul within. The guilt and shame in inevitably realizing our deceptions and our failures to live up to such visions can be miserable and counterproductive. On the other hand, and speaking from personal experience, sometimes the toppling of these towers of illusion can be among the most transformative and truly illuminating experiences of our lives, despite how painful they are. To some extent, such moments of disillusionment may be unavoidable for most of us.  Even so, there are other ways of spiritual development that can be less fraught with these particular challenges, and it may well be worthwhile to engage them.

Taking a less goal-oriented approach to spiritual development doesn’t mean forgoing spiritual practices or disciplines; the difference is in the mental framework by which we engage them. We can begin by reminding ourselves that the self, our whole being, is more than our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and that there are aspects of us beyond the awareness and control of our conscious minds. Furthermore, as mystical Christians we believe there are mysterious dimensions of the soul that are superior to our conscious minds in some ways. It therefore follows that we must acknowledge the conscious mind’s inability to micromanage our spiritual development. The conscious mind isn’t fully equipped to predetermine what all our outcomes should actually be, let alone precisely how we should attain them. At this point we may once again see the real value of an unassuming faith and hope, and leaning upon them we can begin giving up some of our presumptions about the changes in our being that might result from a practice or discipline.  In this way we can take an experimental approach to spiritual practice, like a scientist performing an operation to observe what happens and learn from it. There obviously still is a goal, which is simply to learn, yet it isn’t prescriptive of specific results that we might fool ourselves into believing have happened when they haven’t.

It may be worthwhile to consider the prayer of silence as a practice especially fitting to a less goal-oriented path of spiritual development.  In the prayer of silence we aren’t asking anything from God, or telling God anything, we are simply sitting as quietly as possible in openness to the presence of God. We also let go, as best we can, of any expectations for how God is or might be present to us. Similarly, we are open to the immediate actuality of ourselves, neither trying to filter out what we deem undesirable nor attaching our minds to thoughts of who or what we desire to be. We simply abide in acceptance of the present moment as it actually is, faithful that we are communing with God in ways beyond our awareness, understanding, and control. We do not even assume that any effects of such communion will be noticeable to us or anyone else, let alone that they will conform to preconceived notions of what spiritual development should produce. The prayer of silence is thus a very deep practice of accepting the presence of God, ourselves, and everything else; it is an act of all-embracing unconditional love.

Christ be with you

Maranatha

Agape

Dec 212015
 

This series presents, in no particular order, what I regard as the scriptural teachings most essential to Christian mysticism. It draws attention to key words and phrases, and poses some questions about them that I simply leave for interested readers to address as they see fit.  Part 1 was on the Great Commandments. You are welcome to respond in the comments section.

Teaching 2: The Farewell Prayer of Jesus

Christ_Taking_Leave_of_the_Apostles

My prayer is not for them [my chosen disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them. (John 17:20-26)

Key Words & Phrases

“I pray also for those who will believe in me….”

Jesus’ farewell prayer begins by expressing his hopes for everyone who believes in him. In contemporary Christian life, we often take the word “belief” only its connotation of agreement, consent, or submission to a doctrine. But deeper than this intellectual position is the attitude of trust, and so Jesus is saying that his prayer is for those who trust him, who have enough confidence in his claim of oneness with God.

“…that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”

The end of this sentence suggests that the belief, the trust and confidence, he has spoken of is not an end in itself, but that it is a step that opens us to the possibility of existing in oneness, to “be one,” experiencing and knowing it, “just as” he does.

“you are in me and I am in you,” “May they also be in us,” “I in them and you in me,”

Note the interchangeability of subject and object in those statements:  God in Jesus, Jesus in God, us in God and Jesus, Jesus in us, God in Jesus, and thereby God in us.  This interchangeability communicates oneness as well as can be done in dualistic terms.

“complete unity”

In John’s Gospel, the Greek for “complete” is teleioo, and like our English word it speaks of something finally accomplished, in a state of fullness, and perfected.  The Greek for “unity” is the same as that used for “one” in this passage. Thus “complete unity” speaks of being fully one.  In the state of complete oneness, there is no longer two or any other number of things, only the one.  The subject and object dichotomy becomes meaningless, and all these statements are, in effect, simply different ways of saying the One is one.

“I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

Here, at the very end of his prayer, Jesus says that all the ways in which he has made and will make God known to us are for the purpose of having us come to experience the same love (agape) that God has for Jesus, and thus he will be one with us.

Questions for Meditation

  1. How does your meditation from Part 1 on the oneness of God inform the way you think about the meaning of oneness or unity in Jesus’s prayer?
  2. In mystically loving God, what is the role of belief and how does it relate to the Great Commandments?
  3. How does belief in someone or something differ from knowing someone or something? How does believing in something differ from being in it?
  4. What does this prayer say to you about possible outcomes of following Jesus, ones that he greatly desires for us?
  5. How might your life change if you were to ever know oneness with God so completely, even for just a single second, that it no longer made sense to speak of you and God as separate from each other?
  6. What would be the implications of such oneness for your relationships with other humans beings, the world, and all of existence?
  7. What relationship is there between being loving and knowing oneness?

 

Christ be with you!

Maranatha

Agape

Jul 212015
 

There is some folly in presuming to offer explanations, guidance, or suggestions about mysticism. To begin with, the very nature of the subject leads us toward, if not into, realizations about matters well beyond the abilities of human consciousness to fully grasp. Next, there is a crucial experiential (for lack of a better term) dimension of mysticism that can only be pointed toward or perhaps facilitated, but never actually communicated from one mind to another. As has been noted by many mystics and philosophers, that dimension is enigmatic and even paradoxical when viewed from an ordinary rational perspective. And of course there are the very ordinary and natural limitations that arise from trying to speak about anything without chasing down and working through every possible implication or misunderstanding. One can make statements in one context that seem contradictory with those made in another. For example, even if you were to carefully read everything I’ve ever posted on this blog, there would still be plenty of room for drawing inaccurate conclusions about what I mean.  None of these challenges are anyone’s fault, they are simply facts that we may try to integrate into our understanding of mysticism and how we communicate with each other about it.  With these points in mind, this series presents, in no particular order, what I regard as the scriptural teachings most essential to Christian mysticism. It draws attention to key words and phrases, and poses some questions about them that I simply leave for interested readers to address as they see fit. You are welcome to respond in the comments section.

 Teaching 1: The Great Commandments

Les pharisiens et les saducéens viennent pour tenter Jésus

One of the teachers of the law came and heard the Sadducees arguing. He noticed that Jesus had given the Sadducees a good answer. So he asked him, “Which is the most important of all the commandments?”

Jesus answered, “Here is the most important one. Moses said, ‘Israel, listen to me. The Lord is our God. The Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Love him with all your mind and with all your strength.’ And here is the second one. ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ There is no commandment more important than these.” (Mark 12:28-31)

The first commandment is taken by Jesus directly from Deuteronomy 6:4-5:

Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

The second is taken from Leviticus 19:18:

Do not try to get even. Do not hold anything against any of your people. Instead, love your neighbor as you love yourself. I am the Lord.

Key Words & Phrases

“The Lord is one.”

In the Gospel of Mark, the English ‘one’ is from the Greek heis, which has connotations of first in rank or importance, something unique, and something singular, whole, or unified.  In Deuteronomy, the Hebrew word is achad, which has similar connotations.

“Love the Lord…. Love your neighbor….”

In Mark, the Greek for love in both cases is agapaō, and in Hebrew it is ahab. Both of these words communicate love in the sense of an affectionate, intimate, caring relationship, and even a romantic one in the original Hebrew.

“all”

The Greek is holos, and the Hebrew kol. The connotations of both are the same as for the English ‘all,’ which means everything, the whole, the entirety and each of its parts.

“heart”

In Greek, kardia, and in Hebrew, lebab. These words speak of the innermost part of the human being, the seat of our thoughts, emotions, affections, desires, intentions, and will.

“soul”

In Greek, psyche, and in Hebrew, nefesh. Here the scriptures are addressing everything we regard as the personal self, and especially the very essence of our lives as creatures in this world. Furthermore, both words are directly connected with the concept of breath, and thus the literal and figurative meanings we give to the English phrase, “with every breath,” may also be found in “with all your soul.”

“mind”

In Greek, dianoia.  This is a word that the author of Mark has Jesus adding to the faculties listed in Deuteronomy. While it has the same broad possibilities as the English, ‘mind,’ also like the English word it has the more specific connotations of rational, analytical, technical, theoretical, and imaginative thinking.

“strength” or “might”

In Greek, ischus, and in Hebrew, mehod. In both cases, as with the English words, the reference is to power and force.

“neighbor”

In Greek, plēsion, in Hebrew, rea.  These terms certainly address people physically nearby, yet are also used in general reference to anyone other than oneself.

Questions for Meditation

  1. What is mystically significant about beginning with an affirmation that God is one?
  2. In telling us how to love God, why might there be so much redundancy in referencing all the different faculties of our being and all of each one?
  3. For each faculty listed by Jesus – heart, soul, mind, and strength – what are its more specific implications for how we can love God?
  4. When asked for the most important of all commandments, why might Jesus have provided not only the first but also the second?
  5. In the version of this story given in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus even says the second is “like the first.” What might he mean by that?
  6. What are all the possible ways to love another person as yourself?
  7. Christian mysticism, similar to the mysticism of other religions, has two broad categories.  One is the Via Negativa, or apophatic mysticism, where the approach to God is through letting go of all our thoughts and feelings about God to simply abide with God in stillness and silence. It tends to emphasize God’s incomprehensible transcendence.  The other way, the Via Postiva, or cataphatic mysticism, approaches God through affirming and adoring the attributes of God as we experience them manifested in our lives. It tends to emphasize God’s immanent presence.  How might the Great Commandments have relevance to both of these ways?

 Click here to continue to Part 2

Christ be with you!

Maranatha

Agape

Jun 042015
 

Recently, I got very ill for a few days. I lost over 6 pounds in 3 days! I was in such pain with fever one night that I was in tears. That has happened once before in my adult life, and the previous experience actually Opnamedatum:  2011-04-29facilitated an epiphany.  In the depths of misery, I realized there are many people in this world who would willingly take some or all of that pain on themselves to give me relief. Just the knowledge that someone would be willing produced a feeling of gratitude that was immensely powerful, and relieving in its own way. I found that this willingness to give up some of one’s own comfort to relieve the suffering of others is part of how I understand the presence of Christ in the souls of all people. I know prayer for others is part of living with awareness of this presence in our own souls. Jesus was constantly uttering prayers for others, and he also knew what it was like to desperately pray to be spared from suffering. So, as I reconnected with these memories in my recent suffering, I thought of the times others have prayed for me, and my gratitude was magnified. When I hear or say, “Christ be with you,” it means, in part, that I hope you know the beauty of both giving and receiving from such willingness.

There is another connection here, which is my awareness of people’s misery in feeling distant from The One we call “God.”  I have felt that misery, and the memory of it is part of whatilluminor drives me to serve those who feel it.  My prayer is that the words I write may in some way comfort others with hope and by knowing that they aren’t alone, at the very least. But it is also my prayer that what I write helps facilitate the realization that, no matter how lost anyone feels, we are all already intimately connected with God right now, no matter what we are thinking, feeling, or doing, no matter how distant God seems.  In this sense, when I say “Christ be with you,” it is an expression of my hope that you know the mystical truth that Christ is with you.

Christ be with you.

Maranatha

Agape

Mar 032015
 

This piece is dedicated to my dear friends and brothers, Justin Glosson and Matt Smithey, and to all others who, like them, are musicians on the way of the heart.

Practice is another one of those words that gets used a lot when describing the mystical or contemplative life. It makes no sense to speak of “achieving” the contemplative life, let alone “completing” it. The contemplative life is like an art, something that we craft, that we experiment with, practicing and practicing, and thus becoming more skillful and having it flow more naturally. Yet we never get to a place where something has been attained so that we no longer need to practice, but how we practice may change significantly. In fact, a genuine music lover is simply driven to some form of practice as part of enjoying both the experience and the expression of music. In the process, one naturally refines the ability to let the music flow, and to flow with it, as freely and beautifully as possible. For contemplatives, the “music” we love is the ever flowing presence of Being Itself, of Love Itself, in all Its diversified unity. Our practices are therefore quite diverse, and so it is that there are at least as many different means and styles of practicing the way of the heart as there are means and styles of enjoying music. Just as every music lover must love music as one is most moved to do so – whether playing an instrument, writing music, singing, dancing, or simply listening deeply – so must each of us on the way of the heart practice somewhat uniquely. However, just as all ways of enjoying music have some things in common, so do all forms of contemplative practice.

St. Cecilia with Two Angels

The way of the heart, like music, urges us toward wholeness in the moment, to be willing to give ourselves over to it, fully present, deeply attentive and alive with a harmony of both focus and fluidity, of both intentionality and spontaneity. It requires awareness and acceptance of the moment just as it is, most importantly including ourselves, just as we are, with all our talent and skill, as well as our apparent lack of talent and skill; with all our knowledge and understanding, as well as our apparent lack of knowledge and understanding; with all our patience and perseverance, as well as our apparent lack of patience and perseverance; with all our peace and joy, as well as our apparent lack of peace of joy; with all our awareness and acceptance, as well as our apparent lack of awareness and acceptance. When we play, or dance, or sing along with music in this spirit, with this attitude, we become aware of mysterious depths in which we intuitively realize our oneness with the music. This unity inspires and informs the unique experience and expression of it in the moment, and therefore even what might have been regarded as a mistake can be experienced as a delightful quirk, if not the creative spark of some entirely new expression of music. So it is with the contemplative way of the heart in lovingly realizing, experiencing, and expressing our oneness with the One and All. Finally, just as the love of music has both solitary and interpersonal dimensions, so does contemplative practice. In music and the contemplative life, greater development and enjoyment of one’s potentials comes through practice in private as well as in companionship with others. Both dimensions are part of the whole love we are experiencing and expressing.

Agape

Feb 232015
 

Christianity, like other religions, has its share of believers who insist that the most virtuous life is only achieved through self-denial, extreme emotional, physical, and social austerities, self-loathing, and even actual self-flagellation. In fact, it seems that most Christians share in this belief to some extent, having been conditioned to do so by our churches, families, and much of society at large. For many of us, myself certainly included, that conditioning manifests as a nagging and belittling of ourselves for our shortcomings and mistakes, and an often harsh critique and minimization of our talents and successes. In this reflection we’ll examine some of the foundations and effects of this kind of religion, and then we’ll consider the alternative of self-love.

Is Violence against the Self Virtuous?

We must acknowledge that many respected Christian leaders seem to have spoken of self-love as a vice.  For example, St. Ignatius of Loyola said:

Experience proves that in this life peace and satisfaction are had, not by the listless but by those who are fervent in God’s service. And rightly so. For in their effort to overcome themselves and to rid themselves of self-love, they rid themselves of the roots of all passion and unrest.

Statements like this are, in part, based upon the truthful realization that we are shortsighted, ignorant creatures who are often our own worst enemies. Yet it is a sad irony that this truth is often interwoven with the belief that we must do something cruel and combative with ourselves in order to serve God better or to be more acceptable to God. So it is that many of us think, feel, and act as if we must be our own judge, prison guard, and torturer, demonstrating to God how terribly aware we are of our unworthiness (as if God wouldn’t otherwise know!), and exacting from ourselves some degree of the retribution we fear we might otherwise suffer.

There are noteworthy problems with this kind of religion. First of all, it fails to acknowledge the pure grace of God’s mercy, instead making God’s forgiveness and salvation a prize to be won by effort. It also reveals another irony in our assumption, and perhaps hubris, that we have the power to make ourselves holier through violence against our own souls. In short, it is more a denial of Jesus’ teachings about meekness, peacemaking, and loving at all costs than it is a denial of ourselves.

There are not only theological problems with this practice, but it also has unhealthy consequences on our psyches. To begin with, any attempt by the self to restrain or attack anything within the self is by necessity an act of self-assertion. There can thus be no self-denial in any complete sense, but only denial of one part of the self by another. It is simply delusional to convince ourselves that we are overcoming the self by our own will and effort, for it is the self that initiates and sustains that very effort. This loss of contact with reality then becomes fertile ground for further self-deceptions, and the more we deceive ourselves the more likely we are to do harm to ourselves in other ways.  Unfortunately, these ills cannot simply be contained within ourselves, because the more we succumb to self-deception and self-harm, the less able we are to be the fervent servants of God in this world that St. Ignatius would have us be. In the end, the self-neglect and self-abuse that are the denial of self-love position us to contribute more to the ills of the world. There is very little about any of this that can rightly be called virtuous.

The Virtue of Self-Love

In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas expressed the essential wisdom of self-love very simply and directly:

Well-ordered self-love, whereby man desires a fitting good for himself, is right and natural.

The Anglican theologian, clergyman, and mystical poet of the 17th century, Thomas Traherne, unfolds this wisdom further by saying:

Had we not loved ourselves at all, we could never have been obliged to love anything. So that self-love is the basis of all love.

If, as St. Ignatius alludes, our highest calling is to serve God, and if the highest form of service is love, as Jesus teaches, then Traherne’s comment begs us to remember that the place most immediately present and constantly available for such service is within oneself, and likewise the most immediately present and constantly available person one can serve is oneself. Furthermore, if we also believe the scriptures and many mystics claiming that God is love, and that to love is to know God, then the most immediately present and constantly available way of knowing God must be through loving oneself. We should also recall the second of Jesus’ Great Commandments, where he urges us to love our neighbors as ourselves. This statement reveals that self-love is not only recommended, but is also understood by Jesus, as is later explained by Traherne, to be central to our ability to love others.

The ways we do and do not love ourselves shape the ways that we do and do not love others; to a significant degree, we cannot help but love others as we love ourselves. This view is more than a theologically sound appreciation of self-love; it draws attention to the deep psychological dynamics by which one’s social and moral character in the world is formed.  By analogy, consider that people who starve the body of food and water eventually become compromised in their ability to serve others food and water. So, for example, our refusal to be forgiving of our own shortcomings and mistakes leads us to be more hostile towards those of others, despite any pretense of forbearance we might offer.  Likewise, if we are in the habit of harshly criticizing and minimizing our own talents and successes, then we will habitually do the same to other people, though we might try hiding our negativity behind feigned appreciation and admiration. In the extreme, violence to our own souls can even produce an attitude of justification in exacting unmerciful and vengeful violence on others. Thankfully these dynamics also produce positive results and thus reveal the virtue of self-love — the more we practice genuine acceptance, intimacy, compassion, understanding, forgiveness, and care for ourselves, the more freely we offer them to others.

Self-Love in Contemplative Practice

The hallmark of contemplative practice in Christianity is silent prayer, the practice of being still and quietly attentive to the present moment.  Silent contemplative prayer is practiced with faith that the Holy Spirit is revealing God to us in and through this very moment just as it is, including not merely what is apparent to us through our physical senses, but also, and more importantly, though what is occurring within our hearts and minds.  In other words, God, as Truth, is always immediately present to us in the truth about ourselves, a truth that we encounter most clearly and fully when we are simply attentive to and accepting of the natural flow of our thoughts and feelings.  We simply practice being as consciously present as possible to the truth of ourselves without judgment, neither condoning nor rejecting, but just being honestly aware of our bared souls. It is a way of being that, while often wordless, may be approximated with words like these:

Ah, yes, there is pain. Ah, yes, there is pleasure.
Ah, yes, there is anger. Ah, yes, there is peace.
Ah, yes, there is sadness. Ah, yes, there is joy.
Ah, yes, there is confusion. Ah, yes, there is clarity.
Ah, yes, there is doubt. Ah, yes, there is certainty.
Ah, yes, there is gluttony. Ah, yes, there is temperance.
Ah, yes, there is greed. Ah, yes, there is generosity.
Ah, yes, there is arrogance. Ah, yes, there is humility.
Ah, yes, there is distrust. Ah, yes, there is faith.
Ah, yes, there is despair. Ah, yes, there is hope.
Ah, yes, there is love, always love, in and around all of this.

It might not be immediately apparent that this way of being is actually the cornerstone of self-love, but it becomes apparent when we consider what we most desire in giving and receiving love with others.  Underlying all the wonderful experiences and expressions of love between human beings, and between us and God, what we most need is to know we are intimately welcomed, unconditionally accepted, and compassionately understood, just as we are, without hiding or pretending in any way.

Self-Love in Extension

As we have already seen, how we love ourselves determines our character in this world. So it is that the contemplative practice of silent prayer leads us into greater awareness, acceptance, and compassionate understanding of the world as it really is and of other people as they actually are. This is the kind of love that Jesus revealed God freely offers us, and which he urges us to let flow through us for ourselves and others. Indeed, this kind of love can mystically reveal to us that the self is not actually an entity separate from others. It can awaken us to the reality that each individualized self, with all its limitations, is nonetheless a precious expression of the one infinite Spirit lovingly breathed into all of humanity, the one Self that is God’s living presence in all of us.

This mystical realization has a number of additional benefits. At a very personal level, it frees us to develop, express, and enjoy our uniqueness as gifts of God to this world. There is no need to crush our spirits with false humility, excessive guilt, toxic shame and other forms of self-abuse. It further enables us to embrace and celebrate the same freedom for other people, letting go of expectations for everyone to conform to the mores and customs of a particular culture, the specific beliefs of a single religion, or the attitudes and behavioral patterns of a particular personality type. In welcoming ourselves and others as we are, and knowing God’s love is always abundantly present within us and through our spiritual interconnectedness, we are less likely to regard relationships, other people, rights, and liberties as personal possessions we must jealously keep to ourselves. It isn’t hard to see how such significant shifts in attitudes would result in less psychological and physical suffering in this world, and more peace, harmony, and healthy creativity.

A Closing Observation

While there is so much to be gained in the practice of self-love, we should avoid assuming that it automatically results in nothing but rainbows and butterflies. There are constant temptations to fall back into our self-deceptions and vacillations between self-aggrandizement and self-condemnation, and we are surrounded by other human beings with similar struggles. Contemplatives also invariably become more sensitive to the suffering in this world. A huge portion of the work of loving self and others is therefore persevering in our intentions to practice non-judgmental awareness, acceptance, and compassionate understanding when it seems most difficult and least rewarding to do so.  Of course, this also means returning to patience and understanding with ourselves when those intentions have been temporarily lost. It certainly helps to keep a sense of humor!

 Agape

Jan 052015
 

Recently, a friend asked about how to “grow in the love of Jesus.”  It’s an interesting question, because “the love of Jesus” can mean either (1) love directed at Jesus or (2) the kind of love Jesus gave.  I think 2 is the best way to 1, but I also think it’s helpful to meditate in a way that is similar to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.

It seems to me that it’s especially helpful to first become familiar with Jesus as he is actually presented in the gospels, rather than relying solely on what theologians and preachers have said about Jesus. As one studies Jesus and the way he behaves in the gospels, seeing how very human he was, one can meditate on what it would be like to sit and talk with him, to dine with him, to walk and work with him as his contemporaries did.  These sorts of meditations can be done as a merely analytical observer, but one can also respond emotionally as one would in actuality.  Who wouldn’t feel great compassion and sorrow for the agony Jesus felt in Gethsamane and on the cross? Who wouldn’t speak to him with those feelings, trying to comfort him with a gentle touch and let him know he is not as alone as his sleeping disciples would make it seem?  Beyond these scripture-based meditations, we can also imagine him with us in moments of our own lives, supporting us, counseling us, having compassion for us.  In meditating upon Jesus in this way, we cannot continue to regard him as some angelic judge far removed from humanity, but increasingly he becomes known as a real human being who understands what it’s like to be tempted, to doubt, to distrust, to fear, to falter, and to forgive.   We better understand the love he gave to others, and we feel kinship with him and a more immediate sense of his presence in our lives.  All of these things contribute to growing in the love of Jesus in every sense.

Meditations on being present with Jesus in this way have influenced some of my posts on this blog, including this series: Alone in the Wilderness, parts 1, 2, and 3.

 

Maranatha

Agape

Apr 242014
 

As a topic of interest, mysticism includes thinking about theology and other spiritual subjects, and states or events of consciousness are certainly among them.  In fact, it seems to me that those of us who are fascinated by mysticism spend a lot of our time thinking and talking about these things.  To people just beginning to scratch the surface of mysticism, it could even look like that kind of thinking and talking is pretty much all mysticism is about!  But mysticism isn’t just a topic of interest, or even a way of thinking.  Mysticism is a way of life, and this article will join others in this blog by trying to offer an approach to its practical dimension.  Said another way, today I’m inviting us to consider how to bring mysticism into our everyday ordinary experience and action, and more specifically by considering the practice of empathy.

What is Empathy?

Here is a definition of empathy provided by Merriam-Webster:

the [capacity or] action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner

Let’s note that empathy can be in thought or in feeling, and in both at the same time.  This is an important point, because most of us lean more toward either thinking or feeling in our way of connecting with and understanding others, some of us are at one of the extremes of this polarity, and all of us can find one or the other more challenging at at times.  Therefore, as it is defined here, empathy is possible for anyone to practice at anytime, although each of us will vary somewhat in exactly how that practice comes most naturally in the moment.

How can Empathy be Mystical?

Mysticism is about the faith and hope in, and the pursuit of or opening to, realizing direct, unmediated, union with the Divine One.  The essential mystical experience is thus a complete loss of any subject-object duality between self and God, and involves a dissolution of all concepts, feelings, and perceptions of any “other,” even if it seems to have been only for a brief flashing moment when reflected upon from ordinary consciousness.  Yet empathy actually requires the subject-object duality of perceiving another entity with its own inner experiences.  So how can it be mystical?

Many mystics who claim to who have had the essential mystical experience have realized in its aftermath that at the deepest levels of their being they were already intimately connected with God.  In fact, Genesis 2:7 makes it clear that the Nishmat Hayyim (nishmat = breath, spirit, or soul; hayyim = of life) that animates Adam is God’s own breath or spirit, which in Christianity we call the Holy Spirit.  This breath is obviously not literally the air we breathe, so the analogy informs us that the Nishmat Hayyim is just as necessary and universally present to all human beings, both around us and within us, as the oxygen that is essential to our physical existence.

Those mystics who have received and realized the essential mystical experience can know this truth as immediately as we each know our own existence – we are all children of the Divine One, each of us always in direct communion with the Holy Spirit, and thus we are always in communion with each other in our deepest or highest dimension of being.

For example, the Book of Acts records the Apostle Paul  as preaching this:

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth … he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. … ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

In her Revelations of Divine Love, the great mystic St. Julian of Norwich similarly says:

Our soul is so fully united to God of His own Goodness that absolutely nothing comes between God and our soul.  …  It is more worshipful to behold God in all than in any special thing.

And this is also the greatest significance of  words Jesus Christ speaks in prayer according to the Gospel of John:

I have given them [my followers] the glory you [God] gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am.

And yet, it isn’t possible to be fully present to our individualized places in creation, and thus in dualistic interactions with others, while simultaneously having our awareness completely dissolved in the Divine One without the faintest hint of subject-object duality.  It is possible, however, to be mindful that our individual beings are occurring in and of the One, just as the more or less distinct thoughts of a mind are nonetheless each expressions of and united with the mind that thinks them – their essence is one.  In fact, just as the words prayed by Jesus suggest, the fully realized mystic can be immediately aware of union with and in the Divine One that both encompasses and flows through all our dualistic perceptions of self and others.

Sacred-heart-of-jesus-ibarraranBecause each human being is one with God at heart, it follows that empathy, the capacity or act of seeking deeper understanding and communion with another human being, leads us into deeper and more complete communion with the Divine One.  The scriptures teach us not only to love God with all that we are, but also to love others as ourselves, because both are necessary for the most complete experience and expression of the unity Jesus prayed for us to know.  This is also the deepest understanding of Christianity’s tradition of regarding an encounter with a stranger as a potential visitation from Christ.   To practice empathy with this understanding is therefore to engage it as a mystical practice.

How do we Practice Empathy?

As noted before, there are two primary categories of empathic experience – thinking and feeling.  While we may find ourselves spontaneously experiencing either or both, to actually practice empathy requires us to intentionally engage these potentials.  In other words, the practice of empathy is the conscious choice to try understanding and/or feeling what another person thinks and/or feels.  It’s that simple!  Yet, as simple as the explanation is, the application can be more complicated, and it has a number of dimensions that can be attended to and refined.  Rather than go into a more lengthy examination of those dimensions, for now I prefer to offer some steps to actually develop our abilities to empathize.  We’re going to focus primarily on empathy for the feelings of others, because most of us get much less training and practice with this in Western culture than we do with paying attention to and understanding the thoughts of others.

Step One: Perception and Identification

This step requires that we turn our attention toward the experience of another person with the intention of identifying the thoughts and feelings the person is having.  This requires not only listening to what the person says, but also paying attention to facial expressions, gestures, posture, and other non-verbals or “body language.”  At this point, the aim is not to analyze, critique, or judge the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the person, but to try recognizing them as clearly as if they were our own.  Such recognition in thinking includes the ability to accurately restate the other person’s thoughts, but in our own words.   It also includes the ability to understand how one idea connects with another in that person’s chain of thoughts.  In feeling, empathic recognition includes the ability to actually experience some degree of the sensations or emotions of the other person.  Empathic thought and feeling begin to combine when we not only share in the feelings of another, but we are also able to name those feelings and understand how they are related to the other’s thoughts.

Step Two: Enhancing Perception and Identification

For this step, I suggest you try an experiment, and that you repeat it often.  During your ordinary daily activities, find times to carefully observe another human being.  The person might be someone you live with, a stranger out in public somewhere, or, as a last resort, someone in a movie or some other video medium.  As you observe the person, pay attention at a physical level and try to recall or imagine what it physically feels like to do whatever it is the person is physically doing. If the person is walking, call up the feeling of your feet impacting the floor or ground, the movement of your legs and arms, and so on.  If the person is talking on a phone, feel the phone in your hand, pressed to your ear, etc.  Is the person drinking a cup of coffee?  Feel all the sensations of holding the cup, smelling the coffee, and sipping the warm liquid into your mouth and swallowing it.

Once you have conducted this experiment several times, start to bring in the emotional dimension.  Listen to and watch people having emotional experiences.  As they do so, make an effort to share in those feelings to a manageable extent.  If the person is laughing, recall not only the physical sensations of laughter, but the happiness that goes with it.  When people laugh at themselves, feel the added emotional “flavor” of that experience. (We all know what that’s like!)   Similarly, seeing an angry person, imagine what that anger actually feels like.

Step Three: More Fully Integrating Empathic Thinking & Feeling

A useful tool in identifying emotions, and thus to integrating empathic feeling with empathic thinking, is building a vocabulary rich enough to distinguish subtle differences in the intensity and combinations of emotions.  There are many models and resources available for anyone interested in developing a vocabulary and understanding of emotions, each with its own appeal, but I’d like to offer Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions as a good starting point. (This model doesn’t entirely suit me, even though I find it immensely useful.  For instance, I prefer the word “affection” where Plutchik shows “love.”  I don’t agree with labeling an emotion as “love,” because love isn’t simply a function of emotion, yet it can be experienced and expressed in any emotional state.)

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Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions
(Click for Expanded Image)

As you study the wheel, try to recall how each emotion actually feels, and how it affects your thinking, behavior, speech, and so on.  It may help to remember specific moments in your life when you felt each emotion.  Then, as you practice perceiving the feelings of others, use your growing vocabulary and understanding to more fully connect with their personal experiences.

Empathic thinking can be even further integrated by trying to identify what the feelings seem to be about.  What is it that’s so funny or angering?  Why is it so?  How can this feeling affect the way a person thinks and behaves?  What has it been like for me to feel and manage this emotion in my own experiences?

In working with that last question, and with the previous recommendation of recalling similar experiences of our own, we are engaging the aspect of empathy that we commonly call relating.  Relating to others can be a very helpful aspect of empathy, but it can also distract from empathy when we allow it to lead us into hasty assumptions about what others are experiencing.  It’s therefore important to be mindful that relating may offer us clues to deeper understanding of another person, but we cannot take this for granted; there is much room for error.

Step Four: Communicating Empathy

At this point, we are no longer merely observing and empathizing with another from some distance, but reflecting back to the person our effort to accurately feel and/or understand their experience.  Perhaps the most basic way of doing this is to simply state an awareness that the other person is experiencing some feeling or feelings, and ask them to speak about it.  Just these two very basic acts of empathy — (1) recognizing the fact that another is experiencing something, and then (2) opening to share in that experience — can be immensely powerful!  On the one hand, they demonstrate to the other person that we are loving them in one of the most fundamental and unconditional of ways.  On the other hand, these acts also welcome the honor of a clearer connection and deeper understanding of the other person’s experience with less potential for distortion and misunderstanding from our own assumptions.

Once an experience has been communicated to us by other persons, we then have the opportunity to test and refine our empathy for the experience.  We do this by reflecting upon it with our own words, summarizing and paraphrasing what they have said, appropriately expressing relevant emotions through our own non-verbals, and perhaps also offering some insight about the experience’s meaning in one way or another.  As they receive the reflection, they can indicate to us where our empathy is or is not accurate and helpful, and we can then work with them to gain clarity.   In this process, we may use the practice of relating their experience to our own not only to more adequately feel and understand their experience, but to reveal to them and ourselves that we have these things in common.  In other words, accurate empathic relating is a very intimate and profound way of communing, of realizing union, with other human beings.  It is one of the most beautiful ways of loving others as ourselves, and thereby more completely loving God.

Conclusion

While the practice of Christian mysticism is commonly understood to include thinking about theology and other spiritual subjects, it also has a practical dimension without which it is only a topic of academic interest, at best.  Certainly there are many forms of ritual, prayer, and meditation that come to mind for mystical practice.  Yet we should also realize that mysticism as a way of life is incomplete if it isn’t integrated into the social dimension of our everyday experiences.  The practice of empathy is one of the most meaningful ways we actualize the mystical life.

No one has ever seen God. But if we love one another, God lives in us. God’s love is made complete in us.We know that we belong to God and God belongs to us. God has given us the Holy Spirit.  1 John 4:12-13

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Agape

 

Apr 142014
 

During Holy Week, it isn’t uncommon for Christians to take time in reading, meditation, prayer, or dialogue to reflect on the themes of the coming Easter celebration.  For most Christians, Easter is a time to celebrate the physical resurrection of Jesus as proof of God’s love for humanity.  We often speak of everything that led up to it — all the betrayal, physical suffering, and emotional anguish suffered by Jesus — as if those things are just necessary plot elements in an elaborate melodrama written by God.  It’s as if they merely point to that one moment when the laws of nature seem to be overruled so that Jesus can rise from the dead, all with the single purpose of bolstering our hope that we don’t have to fear death.

Excuse me, please, but I find this perspective on Holy Week to be a little vain.  To me, it is heavily interwoven with our desires to hold onto our own self-concepts, to avoid the reality that all things must pass, and thus try to maintain the many illusions that we create for own comfort.  In other words, we can too easily focus on the Resurrection because what we really want from God is a promise of a glorious immortality.   We hope to be delivered into some idealized state of perfection in which we will never have to experience radical change again, and then we can spend all eternity feeling completely satisfied with ourselves.

So, let’s consider an alternative to this way of thinking about the Passion of Jesus.  Let’s deeply consider two moments that many of us find powerfully compelling and hard to reconcile with the notion that the Passion is merely prelude to the Resurrection.  The first is the time Jesus spent in Gethsemane, so desperately fearful about what was ahead of him that Luke says an angel came to give him courage!  Even after the angel appeared, Jesus was still so distraught that he was sweating blood as he prayed.  Does this sound like the behavior of someone who knew it was all going to conclude in a glorious supernatural event?!  Even the miracle of an angelic appearance didn’t snap Jesus out of his horrible dread.  The second moment of this nature is when he was crying out on the cross, feeling abandoned by God.  Once again, we should stop to seriously and prayerfully reflect upon whether or not this is something that would be said by a human being so thoroughly united with God that he knew all things.  No, Jesus obviously doesn’t have complete confidence that he will be resurrected to a life after death the way it is later portrayed by some of the gospel writers.  These moments show us that Jesus was far more like us than many of us want to believe.  He was a human being confronting the facts of his suffering and death, and he was miserable and afraid because of it.

Of what benefit is this view of the Passion?  The short answer is that the story of Jesus is thus an even more meaningful example to us of acceptance, faith, and love.  It wasn’t foreknowledge of his resurrection that carried Jesus through his ordeal, but rather it was his commitment to what he felt in his heart was worthy of sacrificing everything, including his own existence.  What was it that was so worthy of such sacrifice (literally meaning “to make sacred”)?  This is a question we will revisit.

It may well be that the author of the earliest gospel, Mark, recognized that this story of willing self-sacrifice was not only an important part of the story, but that it was the most important.  After all, the original version of Mark ends with 16:1-8, and thus all we have is an empty tomb, a young man only claiming that Jesus will appear again, and the three women running away in fear.  We are left with a lot of unanswered questions, and Mark therefore evokes both our instinctive fear of the unknown as well as our equally deep-rooted hope.  How fitting this is!  And it is especially fitting for those of us who, like the three women, don’t have the benefit of actually seeing Jesus risen in the flesh.

This is where we can return to that question about self-sacrifice.   For you, what is worth the sacrifice of everything, even your own life, with no promise at all that there would be anything but oblivion afterward?  Surely there are many answers people might offer, but consider for a moment the possibility that they all come down to love in some form — love of family, of friends, of country, of humanity, of freedom, of truth, or, perhaps ultimately, of love itself.

Let’s follow that question with these:  How am I willing and unwilling to make such sacrifices?  How am I avoiding or entering into the darkest unknowns love points toward?  More specifically, how am I letting go of my treasured notions about myself in order to be more completely and wholly devoted to love?  How am I putting a narrow love of self above a more expansive and inclusive love?

If you’re like me, you encounter lots of different “voices” in yourself when you turn within to meditate and pray with such questions.  One voice is critical, judgmental, and unforgiving.  Another voice is accepting, comforting, and encouraging.  Another is defensive, fragile, and desperate. Still another is disinterested, apathetic, and indifferent.  Yet another is tempting, seductive, and self-indulgent.  And there may be others.  From what I can tell, this is all very ordinarily human, and we are all challenged to deal with a complex reality of mixed and muddied attitudes, motives, and intentions.  Penetrating just a little behind these veils reveals that we are mysteries to ourselves, and thus brings into question our pretense of certainty and deep conviction about many things, not the least being our religious beliefs.  Just this little bit of honest self-awareness can be terribly uncomfortable, at least at first, and so it can be seen as a significant step in taking up the cross of Jesus and beginning the work of sacrificing our illusions.

Embracing the mysteries of life, both those within and without, leads back to the very questions that have driven many of us into religion, even if we weren’t fully aware of them.  This can be frightening because it forces us into some degree of confrontation with the truth that we don’t really know everything that we want to know, or even think we should know.  It forces us to, in some way, admit that we have uncertainties and doubts about many things that we would rather be able to take for granted.  In fact, many of us have been raised with religious admonitions that such uncertainties and doubts are unacceptable, even evil.  But Jesus himself experienced them!  Unless we are willing to say part of Jesus was unacceptable and evil, then we have to rethink the notion that uncertainties and doubts have no place in our faith.

Logically, faith cannot exist without uncertainty and doubt.  Where there is complete and undeniable certainty, there is no room left for faith.  Faith is therefore not the opposite of doubt, not the cessation of uncertainty, but rather it is an ongoing response to doubt and uncertainty.   Yet faith isn’t merely the choice of one possible answer among many, but is instead a deep conviction about and commitment to something that we feel in our hearts is worthy of our devotion even in the face of the most threatening uncertainties, like those suffered by Jesus, and worse.  The aim of penetrating into our doubts and uncertainties is therefore not to abandon faith, but to refine it, making it increasingly focused upon the one thing that is most worthy of devotion.

Suppose I speak in the languages of human beings and of angels. If I don’t have love, I am only a loud gong or a noisy cymbal.  Suppose I have the gift of prophecy. Suppose I can understand all the secret things of God and know everything about him. And suppose I have enough faith to move mountains. If I don’t have love, I am nothing at all.  Suppose I give everything I have to poor people. And suppose I give my body to be burned. If I don’t have love, I get nothing at all. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

Now we see only a dim likeness of things. It is as if we were seeing them in a mirror. But someday we will see clearly. We will see face to face. What I know now is not complete. But someday I will know completely, just as God knows me completely.  The three most important things to have are faith, hope and love. But the greatest of them is love.  1 Corinthians 13:12-13

Despite what many preachers would have us believe, we don’t need to be obsessed with the promise of resurrection in order to live our faith well.  In actuality, if our faith is like that of Jesus, we love more freely simply because how we express love right here and right now is what matters most to us.  This isn’t a path of works alone, doing good things because that’s what is expected of us.  It is a path in which unconditional love increasingly becomes the driving force of our lives, shaping our faith, hopes, and our works in its own way.

O Mysterious One we know as Love Itself, help us in every moment to willingly give all for love, to make every moment sacred with love, to greet our doubts and uncertainties with faith in love, to seek the changes love begets as the continual rebirth we most desire. Amen.

Agape

Dec 122013
 

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As many readers of this post already know, 2013 has been a year of exceptional experiences, both pleasant and hard.  Now, as the nights grow longer and colder, and the inevitable turn of the calendar approaches, I find myself especially moved to share some of my reflections. In this particular moment, the reflections welling up within me come out of a Skype call with my dear friend, Drew Drummond, whom I first met by Skype in January of this year.

Drew and I met because I was fortunate enough to be invited by Carol Clyde, then Director of the TCU Leadership Center, to go along with a group of its students on a trip to Scotland in March.  That trip was done in partnership with Drummond International and  Columba 1400, both of which are rooted in the Drummond family’s warm, generous, insightful, and encouraging spirit.  In its own ways, each of these organizations serves an approach to leadership that understands and promotes the centrality of humanitarian ideals.  In short, I would say they facilitate the emergence of leaders guided by love.  That sounds like a very simple concept, and in many ways it is, but only a little thought reveals there are many skills required of such leaders, and such skills must actually be exemplified by those who would teach them.  In this way of leadership you have to practice what your preach if you expect to be taken seriously for very long.  Drew and his colleagues — like Hilary Black, Don Ledingham, Guy Matthews, Jackie Gillies, and many others — certainly do that, and I want to share some specific memories from my experience with them that gave rise to this post’s title.

1497578_10100483102854984_1350236294_nOur visit in Scotland began in Edinburgh.  We were invited into the Drummond family home and a delicious dinner, made for us (about 30 people!) by Elizabeth Drummond herself, became the hub of a wonderful evening. We all shared in discussion that was both cheerful and deeply meaningful, highlighted by the talks on leadership and values given by Drew’s father, Norman, and Don Ledingham.  Norman also gave copies of his splendid book, The Power of Three, to everyone in our group. He even took the time to personally autograph each one.

When the hour grew late and the students began to make their way back to our hostel, the Drummonds kindly invited Carol and me to stay for awhile longer.  Norman and I took the opportunity to dive deeper into some attitudes and ideas we shared, and it was then that I began to feel a stronger sense of connection with him and his family.  (As an aside, Norman is a great admirer of Nelson Mandela, and I’m sure he is now grieving the loss of Mandela as well as celebrating his life.) In particular, Norman and I reflected on these questions:  What does one do after witnessing the ugliness of humanity, and especially after having awakened to it within oneself?  What does one do in response to one’s own suffering?  We agreed that the people we most admire are those who have become even more committed to, and infused with, faith, hope, and love.  I was so moved by our resonance that I actually performed one of my poems on these themes, which is something I had very rarely done for such a new acquaintance.  He received the poem graciously, and before I left he gave me an additional gift.  Norman, a Presbyterian minister, gave me a book that has been a constant source of insight and inspiration for him and his family, The Greatest Thing in the World.  It is a book that begs us to seriously consider what it means to realize that love is “the greatest of these,” as Paul wrote in 1st Corinthians 13.

554982_10100242012322349_11264296_nThe next morning, our group was to participate in community service.  We were scheduled to give our time and effort to a charitable organization, the Cyrenians, working most of the day on the new gardens of the Midlothian Community Hospital.  The weather had turned to snow the night before, but we were hopeful of it clearing.  Still, the snow continued and our coach bus was slipping and sliding as we crept into the hospital entryway.  Much of what had been planned was rapidly becoming impossible, and so we had to quickly regroup and figure out a way to accomplish something useful to the hospital.  Thankfully, our hosts had lots of options, and in no time we had devised a plan to split up our group and take shifts between working out in the cold and warming up inside with hot chocolate, coffee, and tea. This arrangement didn’t last, however, because our students soon decided that what they really wanted was to keep warm through the work (and a little horseplay!), and get as much done for our hosts as possible.  I was very proud of the whole bunch!  It was wet and chilly, and the work could be hard, but there was no whining and complaining and we all simply focused on making the best of the situation.

Following that day, we had a wonderful drive through the Scottish countryside on our way to Columba 1400’s training center at Staffin on the Isle of Skye near Drew’s childhood 988397_10100483087939874_65911300_nhome.  We were treated to countless amazing views of mountains, glens, lochs, castles, and farms.  Along the way, Drew and Hilary had worked out a very special treat for me, the fulfillment of a lifelong dream with a quick visit to the town of Dunning  out in the countryside near Perth.  We stopped for a brief walk through the cemetery at the edge of town, which also permitted us a good look at a strawberry farm and the town’s picturesque golf course.  I felt like a kid being granted the wish of visiting a storybook kingdom!

We had many more miles to travel that day, so we didn’t linger there, although I will do so as soon as I can get back.  Instead, we were soon back on the road, with me feeling eager to call my mom as soon as it wasn’t too early in the morning back home in Haltom City, Texas.  At our next stop, I couldn’t wait any longer, and so I called to tell her and my sister of where I’d been and what I’d seen.  It meant a great deal to me to share that moment with my mom, a widely respected genealogist and the leading authority on the Dunning family in America.  I didn’t know then how much more meaningful it would become; less than 3 months later she was gone.

1468743_10100483089786174_91679446_nLater that night, our group arrived at Staffin, and we settled in for our stay over the next few days.  There were so many of us, that several roomed just down the road at Quiraing Lodge, including Hilary, Drew, and me.  It is a beautifully remodeled house that sits at the mouth of the Stenscholl River and overlooks Flodigarry Island.  The dining room has a nice window that looks out over the bay toward the island, and I have warm memories of sitting at the table there with Drew  and Hilary at various times, getting to know each other better over tea and biscuits.  Of course, by then we had spoken with each other several times by Skype, and had already developed a professional friendship, but it was in those moments that I realized there was more than that growing between us.  We began to talk more freely of our histories, hopes, and dreams, of the beliefs and values that guide our lives, of our families and our roles in them, and soon we even shared what we were sensing, thinking, and feeling about each other.  We were discovering kinship.

Especially precious to me now are those moments when Hilary and Drew listened to me speak of my mother, her love for Dunning history, and my relationship with her as she carried on after the death of my father and through the ups and downs of her emotional and physical wellbeing.  They also spoke of their beloved elders and the changes in their relationships that time necessitates.  That comfortable room, with its big solid wooden table and view of the cold gray sea, was a wonderful setting in which to experience the warmth of shared laughter, heartfelt mutual understandings, and the misty silence of bittersweet feelings that cannot be spoken.

The last experience I want to recount for you is our group’s trek up to the Old Man of Storr.  The Storr is a very rocky hill on the Isle of Skye that overlooks the Sound of Raasay.  1461052_10100483092071594_609280839_nThe Old Man is a 50-meter tall spire of rock that stands with others in an area called the Sanctuary at the base of the Storr’s cliffs.  It is a striking place that actually deserves the adjective “awesome” in every sense. It’s been used as a location for many movies and photo-shoots.  As part of the experiential aspect of our leadership training, we made the climb all the way from the trailhead at the base of the hill.  It’s a steep 5-mile hike that includes stunning views of the islands, the sound, other peaks, and high mountain lochs.  However, looking up from the base, the length and difficulty of the trail is hard to appreciate in such a big and dramatic space.  In hindsight, I recognize that it was yet another example of how the ability to grasp an accurate perspective of a landscape is often impossible until after you have actually crossed it.

Anyone who has hiked in mountains knows how this goes.  You look up and see what seems to be a fairly easy trail, but not long after you are into it you find that it takes unexpected twists and turns, and that it has unforeseen places that are especially rough, slippery, or steep.  Furthermore, you come to unmarked forks and must choose which one to take, even though it’s not clear which will be the best way to get where you want to go, or even what “best” might mean at that moment.  If you are with a group, everything becomes more complicated by differing levels of fitness and hiking experience, differing ideas about what makes for a good hike, and differing opinions about which path is best from any fork.  Now add to that a few significant weather changes (yes, it went from clear and sunny to dark and snowy, and back again), and what had seemed like a casual stroll to see some cool rocks can turn into a true odyssey! I’m pleased to report that we worked together very well, and it led to a wonderful gathering at the base of the Old Man.  Watching and feeling the magical waves of snow and sunlight wash over us, we celebrated the unity and harmony that had grown amongst us, and each person’s unique contribution to the spirit of our little community.

Again, I was so moved by the moment that I asked to read a poem for the group. It was one that I had written many years before, yet it expressed so much of what that very moment meant to me, and of what I hoped I might help them know in their own lives. As I look back on it now, the imagery of this poem fits the Scottish landscape with its wooded lowlands and rugged snow-capped peaks.

Tree and Mountain

The tree meditates
and its leaves grow
youthfully green,
dance in summer winds,
age in noble red and gold,
and then fall
to leave the silvery limbs
outstretched in prayer.

And so may this meditation be
the chant,
the song,
the liturgy,
the ecstatic act of living,
of life flowering through me,
of being lived.

The mountain meditates
and gathers snow,
pours down streams
of tears of joy,
reveals veins
of precious beauty,
and opens it dark eyes
of timeless depths.

And so may this meditation be
the breath,
the silence,
the stillness,
the wonderful fact of mystery,
of mystery flowing through me,
of being mystified.

O mysterious Life,
O living Mystery,
Let me be Thy meditation.

In the recent talk with Drew about that trek to the Old Man of Storr, I began to see how my experiences in Scotland could be taken as metaphors for my overall experience of 2013.  There have been many unforeseen changes in the path and the weather of my life over the last 12 months, and many unexpected opportunities to meet and connect with new friends.  Along the way, I have been frequently reminded of the significance of practicing mindfulness, of being as present and aware as possible in the moment.  As part of that, I’ve constantly gained deeper appreciation for the profound wisdom of simply accepting the present reality as it is, an acceptance that includes our intentions, which are vital to that reality.  There is an amazing stability of heart in this practice of mindful awareness, acceptance, and intention, one that neither denies nor gets lost in the twists, turns, ups, and downs of our full humanity.  Likewise, the value of practicing reflection as a compliment to mindfulness has been repeatedly reinforced, for it is often only in reflection that we draw out the deeper meanings of our experiences, meanings that then shape the intentions we carry with us into the next part of our journeys.  While such reflection is important to do within the chambers of one’s own heart and mind, the events of 2013 have also reaffirmed for me the blessings that happen when people open those chambers to each other. In doing so, we encounter the very soul of others, and we see the image of our own reflected in each others eyes, hear its voice echoing from each others mouths, and feel it reaching back to us in each others embrace.  All of these things are the essential lessons life keeps offering about living it well, and sometimes whispering, sometimes shouting, but always offering if I will only listen.

Agape

(Click here to see more pictures from the Scotland trip)

Note: This was first published on my Facebook page, here.