It Was Never About Religion

[Repost - Originally posted on the Saturday after NY voted to approve gay marriage.]

“I apologize for those who feel offended,” Mr. Grisanti said, adding, “I cannot deny a person, a human being, a taxpayer, a worker, the people of my district and across this state, the State of New York, and those people who make this the great state that it is the same rights that I have with my wife."

                        [Republican NYState Senator, conservative, married 46 years]               

Look, do Muslims expect all of us to fast on Ramadan?  No!  Do Jews expect everybody to keep Kosher? No!  Do Mormons expect us all to wear magic underwear?  No!  Did Jesus say a word about gay people?  No!  

This was not about whether to solemnize a relationship in church or synagogue or mosque or temple.   It was not about who would officiate.  Nobody's religious rights have been infringed.  

This is about love and commitment.  About family rights and responsibilities.  About children being able to say their parents are married.   It's like citizenship for an immigrant.  Full stature in society.  I mean, who wants to be viewed as an alien?

“Their love is worth the same as your love,” Mr. Cuomo said [to lawmakers]. “Their partnership is worth the same as your partnership. And they are equal in your eyes to you. That is the driving issue.” 

Sure I can talk about all that in a spiritual way.  And I have.  On numerous occasions. 

Today is a day for rejoicing!  The Sabbath.  Even if I'm not Jewish. 

Dear God... Almighty!

Folks, I have better things to do...  So do you.   But, for whatever reason... the Holy Spirit has put such a burr under the saddles of the self-important RCC hierarchs!  And is encouraging them to make such fools of themselves.  That the toppling of the structure is going to look like the biggest slapstick comedy EVER!

The Holy Spirit is Grieved...

But Her sense of humor is my saving grace.

The Mystery of Being

Alan calls this Ripples

We need a new language.

A language for what we
       consider to be
 The Holy in our Midst.
  
       So close to us 
we can hardly articulate
    what that might be.

  So Transcendent we are
in awe of the bending low 
to be 
              with us.


A language for all of us, 

the great chain of being

Water in a Fountain (1/4000 Sec) via Alan

  of which we are a part,

which transcends space and time - binding all humanity 

in some kind of Life 

we hold eternally.

The Whole Earth is Our Hospital

You can ponder scripture.   

Or you can ponder the events of daily life. 

It's all the same...

I am reminded of words spoken to a retreat director, by an elderly nun, who simply told him – after a long, long silence - during which he sensed that something really profound was being pondered:  “Father," she insisted, "Everything leads to God.   Everything.   Everything.   Everything.”

Now it's nice when that “everything” is a sunny morning in Spring.  A cloudless sky, intense blue hovering over dewy grass that hasn't yet been mowed.  Plants springing up, everything budding, unless already leafed out.  Like this morning.  How easy it is to let that lead you to God!

But that's not what this post is about.

I have another quote in mind, related to the spiritual path being “not about self-improvement but about self-abandonment.” But what does that mean?  And how does it relate to the quiet certainty of an elderly nun? How does it relate to something I read this morning about “temperament” in a sport one generally connects with politeness, green grass and the beauty of nature?  And what benefit can we glean from this?

Consider these interesting thoughts from a sports writer:

All golfers understand intuitively the pursuit of that blend of Zen calm and athletic aggressiveness that goes hand-in-hand with the best performance.

[Versus] … a perfectionist’s torment, dropping clubs, closing his eyes in disgust, his whole body deflating as he missed putts.

You glimpse how mercilessly golf waits for your serenity, your sense of self or skill or dignity, to alter or deteriorate, or simply change in any way, so that it can drive you deeper into your private perditions — all while you perform in public.  

Under pressure, his current temperament … [coming] precariously close to disintegrating.

Elite-level golf, where every act takes place as you stand isolated, demands more of us than many religions and offers less support. Are we forgiving of ourselves? Do we feel persecuted or unlucky? Any lack of self-esteem reveals itself. Are we jealous of those who are more gifted or getting good breaks? Do we look for excuses or ways to shift blame? Can we be satisfied with our best effort, or is a successful result essential? Are we forgiving of ourselves?

What especially caught my eye was this: “the pursuit of that blend of Zen calm and athletic aggressiveness” .... [which] “demands more of us than many religions and offers less support.”   Um... no.  I beg to differ!

To paraphrase the elderly nun:  Everything points us in the direction of Holy Mystery.   Everything asks of us self-abandonment.  Selflessness.  Letting go of efforts to force things, to control them.  Even while practicing one's craft.  Be it prayer.  Be it work.  Be it play.

There are many Zen stories and Sufi stories, stories of religious saints of whatever persuasion where you find that it is the gardener or the cook or the servant who has attained that blend of “Zen calm” and transformed “aggression” - which is the mark of a true saint.  A person of total compassion and ego-emptiness, a person of pin-point being in the moment, able to speak or act true to the moment.  That's the nothingness I keep circling in post after post.  The emptiness which is a kind of readiness based on long experience with just the very kind of difficulties described by the writer above.   But instead of “golf” let us substitute “life”:

You glimpse how mercilessly [life] waits for your serenity, your sense of self or skill or dignity, to alter or deteriorate, or simply change in any way, so that it can drive you deeper into your private perditions — all while you perform in public.

Now, you're probably thinking that what “drive[s] you deeper into your private perditions” isn't necessarily a public act. But maybe you can agree with the rest of it.

I think the key problem is letting go of “performing”. Letting go of performance.  That's where self or ego become problematic.  That's when we aren't really being in the moment but instead have become spectators of our own performance.   Evaluators!

So any person who seeks anything at all bumps up against this struggle.  This need to practice while simultaneously letting go of attainment, letting go of self-consciousness.   It's the same whether we're discussing meditation or Tai-Chi or chopping vegetables for stir-fry.  It all starts with desire to achieve.   With the mustering of effort – which means an aspect of “aggression” enters in.  The “drive” to achieve relates to aggression.  Aggression can be our friend.   And aggression can be our enemy.

And I wonder if one's whole (spiritual) life is nothing more than this wresting match – I'm thinking of Jacob wrestling all night with the angel.   And I'm thinking of a line from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets:

The whole earth is our hospital

Endowed by the ruined millionaire,

Wherein, if we do well, we shall

Die of the absolute paternal care

That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

And remember, the wrestling match ended with Jacob being given a new name, but only after his hip socket has been dislocated (permanently!) “because you have contended with the divine and have prevailed.”  Prevailed?  Not exactly, I'd say.  Not in the sense of achieving.   Only in the sense of personal transformation – through struggle – and at a price.  The loss of one's former self.  A kind of death.  In exchange for a new perspective:  A graced gift.

Secret of the Soul

The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart opens on the front flyleaf - in white lettering - on stark, black paper:

In the midst of silence

  there was spoken within me

       a secret word.

But where is the silence,

  and where is the place

     where

         the word is spoken?

It is in

   the purest thing

     that the soul is capable of,

       in the noblest part,

          the ground.

Indeed, in the very

   essence of the soul, 

     which is the 

        soul's most secret part.

Which rings of Merton's words on nothingness: 

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness, which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point, a spark, which belongs entirely to God.

It's like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven.  It is in everybody!

I have no program to seize this.  It is only given.   But the Gate of Heaven is everywhere!

There is nothing more to say.

The Paradox of Repentance

Lest I lose readers simply due to the title, I'll get right to the point:  If you've ever had an experience, I mean truly had an experience of God's tender care for you personally... you may find yourself left with two competing feelings (well... at least two).  One is a sense of awe, wonder, amazement, maybe even verging on disbelief or doubt.  On the other hand, you've likely had a sense of how tiny you are in the vast scheme of things, a speck in a vast universe, as well as a conviction of unworthiness, perhaps even a sense of dread.

Dust and Ashes and Transfiguration

Biblical stories seem to become increasingly our own stories.  If we pay attention and ponder.

For us, the Burning Bush. 

For us, the Call. 

The sacred struggle.

Burning coal touched to unclean lips.

For us, the handwriting on the wall. 

The Fall.

Exile....  And merciful homecoming.

Immense Gratitude!  For undeserved Mercy. 

Healing.   Spiritual anointing.

Becoming the Blessing one Receives.

Many saints - across the centuries - have testified to such experiences, infused wisdom - which actually befriends us we are told.  Arriving out of the blue.  Or at times of utter extremity or holy visitation - when Holy Mystery and one's intense yearning meet - Divine Mercy answering wordless supplication, stretching forth from every fiber of one's being.  Sort of like a cosmic SOS.  Sent out.  And answered - at a time not of our choosing.  Out of the blue.  Indeed, I think it could happen due to someone else.  Even someone unknown to us - sending out an SOS-prayer into the cosmos -  today, long ago, or even in the future.  For time, as we know it, has no bearing on this unreserved and undeserved redemption - which greets us like a Holy WHAM!

I've noticed that the greatest saints were among the greatest sinners.  Indeed, if you ever meet this wisdom WHAM, you instantly know that for a fact; I find that comforting actually.  (St. Mary of Egypt is one of the few women of this type, no matter how much of a legend is her "history" as conveyed by St. Sophronius.)  Yes!  There is comfort and wisdom for us all here.  That and the Mercy of this tender creative Mystery - so Transcendent and yet so compassionately, personally Intimate.

I think passion is the key for why great sinners become great saints.  Passionate Gratitude.  Passion humbled; no longer dissipated.  Passion honed to a fine point, as if to the finest knife edge of oneself.  Passionate stretching out in awareness of our utter emptiness / nothingness - after we come smash (!) into our own limitations and we know the utter depth of our need.  When that need reaches down to our roots.  And our yearning is stretched tight - striving to reach that last distance - totally aware that we can never make it further on our own.  (That all our efforts to wing it ourselves have failed.)  That we require Divine Assistance.

At that moment we live the cry of the Psalmist:

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
Lord, hear my prayer.

With a pinpoint willingness for risk-taking - to make a leap of faith and yield to the Mercy held out to us.  A Passionate Mercy, too, I might add - arriving in a totally unexpected way - at a totally unexpected moment.

A Personally-Attuned, Sacred Moment.

A moment of Pure Choice!  Of meeting and transformation.  Transfiguration.  A moment which, if seized, seizes you at the same time.  A kind of life-and-death moment.   Even in the ultimate one of the those moments, which we term death, we die into it.  Into transformation, transfiguration.  Nothing to fear...

Now, it may seem that I have written about this before.  But I have never really understood it this way before.  I may have experienced it.  I may have read about it.  Or stretched my deepest self in such a direction (consciously or unconsciously).  But for whatever reason it's only "fallen together" for me over the last few days.  It's still falling together...  Partly because of things I've read or pondered.  Partly the time of year.  Partly because of deep concern on behalf of the suffering, even dying, of others. And how to assist someone Godward, one might say.  Which is just about as much of a stretch as trying to make that leap oneself.  For each one's journey is unique.  As one of the saints has written (in my phrasing):  "The road toward Intimacy with Holy Mystery is the very path The Holy One has already beaten in our direction."   Ponder that one!

A two-way street.  Unique for each of us.  For which the saints are willing to be called MAD - having staked everything to set out into the biblical darkness and the desert. 

Have you ever seen the desert in bloom?  A rare event - I once felt its personal Presence.  Yearned to see it "for real."  Amazingly, it was granted to me.  By chance (is anything ever really by chance?) the very Spring we set out on a month's journey to the southwest was a Spring of rains in the desert.  So we arrived to find Joshua Tree National Park in resplendent beauty -  just behind our campsite, in addition to the drives we took.

What I'm getting at here....  the saints try to convey this.  A few dare to describe mystical experiences.  It all sounds so tantalizing, yet esoteric.  So impossible for normal humans to pursue.

And yes, there is a training part to it.  Once I anticipated a 10 day intensive meditation retreat for a whole year.  Training for it - as one trains for a marathon, so to speak.  Did it in the dead of winter.  In the mountains. 

Structure may be of assistance, to be sure.  But the sacred moment of God's choosing can also occur within one's everyday - to use Rahner's vocabulary.  Sister Wendy is a prime example.  Though I warn you, that "moment" (those moments...) will turn your life inside-out and upside-down.  (I actually think these moments are far more available than we could ever imagine - if we just paid more attention, were poised and ready, our lamps trimmed, just waiting to be set alight.)

But this is not just something for the saints.  This is God's great Invitation to us all.   The banquet we're all invited to:  Come to Me.  When Me is also THREE.  And hospitality is at its uttermost.  Bread and Wine being its Common Meal we partake in - to celebrate the Great and Holy Mystery held out to us.  Ever knocking on our hearts.  If we just grant a moment's supreme attention and risk the Divine Embrace.

As again and again we too set out across the desert or up the mountain.  Experience anointing.  Follow a call.  Fall.  Wander astray from the route.  Come across it again.  As God makes straight our zig-zag twists and turns.

Have a little sympathy for Holy Mystery.  Whose search for us poor blighted, error-prone humans is so sorely tried!  And who, daily, hourly, moment by moment, stands ready to run and meet us - holding out two holy hands - Son and Spirit - to surround us prodigals in the Divine Embrace, inviting us to dance - at the banquet commissioned in our honor.

As we "turn" - in a state of utter extremity, utter depth - to the Unknown ~ Holy Mystery, at a moment, in a manner, we may least expect it.  And take the risk held out to us.

There's no "one experience" for this.  It could be we find ourselves resonating to a sound we seem to hear both inside and outside - our whole being in tune with the Beyond within.  It could be like an indwelling which also surrounds us at the same time.  Or like an upwelling from within or through us.  Or a flame that leaps up and surrounds or lies within.  Or like a gushing inner well, spilling over into tears.  But... do we grasp the moment?  Do we turn and meet it?  Do we leap and take the risky invitation?  Sell all for the pearl of great price?  Stake our very lives upon it?

Your mystery and my mystery.  Unique.  Death, as I've mentioned, is the "ultimate" in this regard.  But it's the same Mystery - which, each time, bids us leap, as one might leap from a burning building -  seeing appear beneath us (to our stunned eyes!) our very own "personal safety squad/God" - holding out that waiting "net" to catch us.


Ash Wednesday, in my 67th year....