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....

December

Like transparent pearls
strung
along dark branches,
the winter rain
clings
to bare limbs,
stark
denuded of leaves,
but dressed this morning
with tiny baubles
nature's own ornaments
temporary holiday hints
on a rainy day
out of season.

How I love winter now!
My own season,
dusk arriving
sometimes before dinner,
darkness
cozy around me
like extra bedding
in the morning -
evening
of my life.

The Capstone of Holiness

Father Alexander is leaving us.  A famous Oxford-educated scholar and Eastern Orthodox monk, he has had a profound effect on me.  In the form of one of his writings: Liturgy and Mysticism. And in his very Presence. Both together actually. For his writing is of a piece with his Personal Presence.

Archimandrite Alexander Golitzin

He'll leave his Presence with us. And I think every Vespers, every Liturgy will bear a trace of this man, whose Humility is the most powerful image that will always stay with me. This scruffy monk, sitting alone (in prayer) in the back of our very modest worship space. Or serving. For when he moves, he moves as a servant. And he takes the tasks of a servant. Carrying the cross or the censor. Lighting lamps. Setting out bread and wine on the small table for after communion. His sonorous voice praying the words as he serves communicants: The servant of God …. receives the Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ. He has a way of saying that which is so prayerful. Slowly. Meaning each word. Like a Mantra. Like the Jesus Prayer. 

He's going to be consecrated Bishop.  I am very moved by that.  By the thought of this Servant Bishop. 

When I first met him, I already knew him. Was already grateful to him. For his own words had already sunk deep into my heart. Reading his Liturgy and Mysticism had shown me how personal spiritual growth went hand in hand with the Liturgy. Were one and the same. The inner and the outer of a piece. Like the key to a puzzle in my heart.

Maybe you know what a capstone (or keystone) is:

It's the stone at the top of an arch. You erect the two sides of the arch until they almost meet. And then, in the middle, you place a stone whose weight bears down on both sides at once – joining them and making your arch sturdy. So it can't collapse.

Father Alexander, I feel sure, would not want me writing laudatory things about him. Yet I am lauding his lowliness. Not the worldly fame I'm sure he has.

Humility is surely the capstone of the spiritual life. And humility is the characteristic, I think, that most describes Fr. Alexander – soon to be known by a new name as Bishop.   

Taste and See:                                       

Liturgy and Mysticism:

The Experience of God in Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Part I

Liturgy and Mysticism:

The Experience of God in Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Part II   

Addendum (5/6/2012):

Here is Archimandrite Alexander, reflecting on his consecration as Bishop and confirming so well what's already been said in this blog:

... when standing before the holy altar at the anaphora, the bishop images forth the one and unique High Priest, Christ, Who acts through His celebrant. 

... while it is true that our Lord Jesus is true God and true King, it is also true that He did not come to us, His creatures, with the pomp and splendor of the King, attended by the legions of heaven, but rather in humility He emptied Himself and was found in the likeness of a servant. 

They are very different images, the first set revelatory of the splendor of heaven, and the second of the humility, long-suffering, and charity of our Lord’s life and ministry. My first conclusion is that I must keep this difference firmly in mind throughout my life as bishop, by which I mean the glory of the liturgical iconography should have no place in my office and day-to-day demeanor. My actions, my patterns of speech, my service in short, is to be determined by the example given us by God the Word Himself.”

The capstone of holiness indeed!
 

Nothingness ... Transcended

Alan sent me this lovely haunting photo.  It speaks to me of so much.

Spare a Prayer ~ for Alan.

A long time ago, when I was teaching young children, there was a workshop which included the task of deciding what to put on one's tombstone.  Now, actually I don't want a tombstone.  I don't feel a need to live on that way.  I would be content to fade into obscurity.

Till that day,  I really hadn't done much thinking about my own death.  Though I've always liked what I came up with:  She lived nowhere.

I like the word-play in nowhere.  There's no where (as in the Son of Man had "no place" to lay his head ) and now here (which I think of as living in the present moment).  I saw the shifting meanings at once.   That was part of the appeal.

It's fascinating what emerges unbidden from the unconscious.

Alan thought I'd like this photo.   I do!   How wonderful that he caught this moment.   In time.  And out of time. 

Choices are like mirrors.   They hint at what we stand for.   And what we yearn for.   Who we are and who we might become.