who do you think you are?

There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that
other people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest
the GLORY of GOD that is within us.
It is not just in some of us;
it is in EVERYONE.

And as we let our own LIGHT shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence
automatically
liberates
others.
(Nelson Mandela,
quoting Marianne Williamson in his 1994 Inaugural Speech)

This week we read the story from the Gospel of Mark (6:1-3) about Jesus coming to his to his hometown, and his disciples followed him where he taught in the synagogue on the Sabbath, “and many who heard him were astounded. They said, ‘Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands!’ And they took offense at him.” It’s where we get the classic phrase when Jesus says, “Prophets are not without honor except in their own native place.”

That story reminded me of a similar story in the Gospel of Matthew (8:28), when Jesus was in the country of the Gadarenes. There were two demoniacs and Jesus cured them by sending the demons into a herd of swine. And when the people of the town heard about it, they came out and begged him to leave. What makes this even worse is that this is his hometown, Nazareth of Galilee. They were scandalised by him! They took offense at him here in his native place. The scandal of the Gospel is just how near God comes to us, in our very nature, in our homes, that such authority, such wisdom and power can have been given to a human being. They call him Emmanuel, God-with-us. In the midst of you, John says, is one you do not know. Indeed, in the midst of us, among us, within us, is someone and something we do not recognize.

I think we usually prefer to keep God as far away as possible, distant, behind glass and altar rails, in “some heaven light years away.” When God comes close, when we realize that the divine is close––does the Qur’an say, “closer than your jugular vein”?––it's annoying, because it's so challenging. In a song on U2s new album Bono sings that we treat God “like an old lady who needs help crossing the street.” But when the real power of God comes close it forces us out of our complacency and mediocrity.

It’s as if they were saying to Jesus, “Who do you think you are?” We actually hear that a lot from each other. “Who do you think you are to to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?” And we believe it. That voice gets into our head. This is another version of the “glass ceiling.” “The long-stemmed roses are the first to get trimmed,” was a popular saying during my religious formation. Well, Nelson Mandela says instead, “Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God! Your playing small does not serve the world! There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the Glory of God that is within us.” That’s what a real prophet is: someone who makes known the glory of God that is among us, within us. That’s why the say about Jesus in other places: a great prophet has risen among us; God has visited his people.” And that is what we are meant to be for each other. As St Irenaeus says, “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.” Jesus says, “that my joy may be in you, that your joy may be complete,” and “I came that you may have life, and have it to the fullest.”

Our playing small does not serve the world!

This is the part of Christianity that's so hard for folks to grasp, realize, access, live out: the love of God has been poured directly into our hearts–consciousness of our participation in the divine nature. We carry the glory of God within us, in our very bodies. St Paul tells us and St Peter confirms it: we are temples, we are tabernacles, living breathing walking around tabernacles, vessels of the Holy Spirit. Just as Jesus was prophet, priest and king, so by virtue of our Baptism, we are priests, royalty, prophets, grafted onto the vine that is Christ.

This is not arrogance, mind you. St. Paul offers a corrective to any hubris we might be tempted to. He reminds us that we carry this treasure in earthen vessels: it would blow us apart if we weren’t careful with it, if we tried to claim it as our own. This is the sad case of Michael Jackson. There was a grace in him: when he was a little boy he already sang like with the maturity of someone twice is age; and Fred Astaire called him the greatest dancer alive. His talent, many people say it, made manifest the glory of God. But what a fragile vessel! What thorns in the flesh! These little things serve as reminders that we unaided can’t do it. Like Jesus, we cannot deem godliness something to grasped at; we empty ourselves and Spirit fills us. This is what this means that our strength is made perfect in weakness. And this, too, is the beginning of worship, to merely recognize that God is God, that there is a power greater than me––it may flow through me and indeed it does––that there is a Source beyond me, and I am not the Source! Aurobindo says, “Within there is a soul and above there is Grace. That’s all you know and that’s all you need to know.” I am only a vehicle, a vessel. When we recognize that we start to grow from within.

And the amazing thing is that, the Nelson Mandela quote continues, “as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” We don't have to do anything: we are prophets. Our very way of life is a sign, our presence is a sacrament, a light set on a high place. As Mahatma Gandhi said: My life is my message.

But we must be prepared for the cross. The world does not like to be challenged out of its mediocrity and complacency anymore than we ourselves do. This is why prophets are always persecuted, especially among people who know them well, who know their fragile vessels well, who are scandalizes that Divine power, that Grace who actually flow through such a seemingly unworthy vessel and vehicle. We always have to remember that we are prophets not out of arrogance, not because we hate the world. We become prophets when we look around us and see that others are glowing too. We see others carrying the treasure within them, and we call it out of them as we call it out of ourselves. We start to see with God’s eyes and call the deepest truest part out of each other and challenge each other to live the promise. And we look out at the world around us and we do not condemn it, just as Jesus did not come to condemn it. Instead we see the glory of God being made manifest in sight and sound and smell; and we remind the world, that God so loved, of its origin and its end to participate in divinity.

Then they will know that a prophet has arisen among them!

the inner meaning

The drink sent down by unseen hands.
We drank our share, alhamdullilah!
The table set to welcome the guest,
has fed us too, alhamdulillah!
La ilaha illa-Allah, Allah! La ilaha illa-Allah!
Kabir Helminski

During this time of year when there are so many of our rites of passage taking place––weddings, graduations, ordinations (even birthdays)––it’s interesting to take a look at the purpose of ritual. Anthropologically speaking, a ritual is a way of expressing and passing on our understanding of reality or of an experience to someone else. So, for instance, a graduation is not about a piece of paper and a cap and gown: it’s weightier, it’s heavy; that’s why tears flow from the eyes of parents as they see their child graduate or get married. The ritual is trying to carry all those memories and meanings, and summarize them in a single gesture: an exchange of rings, the laying on of hands, a birthday card, an embrace, throwing a shovelful of dirt on a coffin: all these rituals mean more than they mean, they carry an almost indescribable load of treasures.

In the Roman rite we celebrate the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ this week, and it’s safe to ask what Jesus was trying to convey to his disciples when he performed this rather odd ritual––not just breaking the bread and passing out the cup, but claiming that it was his very self. What exactly was he asking them to remember when they did it over and over again? I thought of five things, which certainly don’t exhaust the list of possible meanings.

1. First of all, this gesture looks backward and forward at Jesus’own life. Backward in that Jesus’ whole life had been spent being broken and passed out; his whole life had been dedicated to feeding those around him: taking care of their bodily needs through healing and feeding; and also feeding and healing them in a real way with the Wisdom of God, this incredible good news of God’s undying boundless care for every single hair on the head of very single human being from the greatest to––especially––the least. This ritual also looked ahead to the next day when Jesus allowed his body to be broken like bread and his blood poured out like wine––to say that it’s alright: you can survive even this, your real self cannot be annihilated, but like a seed that falls into the earth and dies it will yield a rich harvest of resurrection life.

2. This ritual symbolized––again what Jesus’ whole life symbolized––that Divine Love gives itself to humanity––that’s what God is like! The Divine is present, really present: divine love is offering itself to the world in this ritual meal.

3. This ritual also conveyed (and conveys) that this Divine Mystery is present everywhere, in creation, “in the earth and its produce.” Unfortunately the kind of hosts we use and our ornate chalices can actually hide the fact that this is actually wheat and grapes, real food: “which earth had given,” as we say, “fruit of the earth.” I think that this conveys that all matter is meant to be brought into right relationship with God, and that all matter can reveal and be a vehicle for the Grace of God. St Irenaeus wrote

“This is why he took a part of creation, gave thanks and said: This is my body. In the same way he declared that the cup, an element of the same creation as ourselves, was his blood: he taught them that this was the new sacrifice of the new covenant.” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies)

But we add a line to the prayer over the gifts: it’s not just what ”the earth has given,” or “the fruit of the earth”; it’s also the work of human hands. There is a beautiful prayer of Teihard de Chardin:

I, your priest, will make the whole earth my altar––
And on it I will offer you all the labors and sufferings of the world…
I will place on the paten the harvest to be won by labor. . .
Into my chalice I will pour all the sap which is to be pressed out this day from the Earth’s fruits.

So, the fruit of the earth and the work of our hands all become vehicles for God’s grace, all is meant to be brought into right relationship with God.

4. This ritual is also meant to convey to us that God wants us to participate in the work of creation, and in divinity itself. That’s why we pray that incredible prayer, “by the mystery of the water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who came to share in our humanity.”

5. And how do we participate? Well, that’s the last thing I want to mention that this ritual is trying to convey (though we could go on and on): it conveys that this divine mystery is especially present whenever and wherever human beings meet and share together, that God is present in every gesture of unselfish love, in every occasion of someone laying down their life for another. That’s why we read the story of the washing of the feet before we celebrate the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday.

The Hebrews didn’t need another ritual, another sacrifice; we don’t need another ritual; and God certainly didn’t and doesn’t either. The prophets leading up to Jesus kept telling the people how God was sick of their sacrifices and rituals! Jesus himself quotes the prophet Hosea twice saying: “Go and learn the meaning of these words, ‘It is love that I desire, not sacrifice. Knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.’”

The church, and this ritual, has no other purpose but to communicate and convey and reveal that––the love and knowledge of God that is hidden in the heart of creation and poured into the center of every human being as our very source and our ground. This is what we will be judged on as a church, as individuals, as communities and as a whole: not the forms of our rituals and doctrines, but by the reality of the love and knowledge of God that we manifest.

Bede Griffiths wrote that: “All myth and ritual, all doctrine and sacrament, is but a means to awaken our souls to this hidden mystery, to allow the divine presence to make itself known.”

So: as we participate in this ritual, as we receive the Body and Blood of Christ, and/or when we gaze at the reserved Blessed Sacrament in the Tabernacle or in a monstrance, let’s remember how weighty it is, how much it carries and conveys. And let’s especially pray that it would awaken us to the mystery of the knowledge of God, and the love of God that is poured into our hearts, so that we might make it manifest in our world, so that we might be the body and blood of Christ––that we might be broken and poured out for the sake of the world as Jesus was.

the lotus and the continual ascension

The goal of evolution may have been determined,––
it is, let us concede,
the return of the Infinite upon Itself through the cycle of manifestation…
(Sri Aurobindo, “The Philosophy of the Upanishads”)

I was privy to a very interesting conversation the other day. Some people were speaking about Eastern philosophy and the image of the lotus flower came up. If you’ve ever seen a lotus pool you know that the lotus is a very beautiful, delicate flower that seems to just float on the top of the water. But of course all we see is the delicate beautiful flower: we don’t see its roots, which are in the mud below the water. Because of this, in Hinduism the lotus comes to represent non-attachment because though it is rooted in the mud it floats on the water without becoming wet. And thus should we live in the world, without attachments. In Buddhism too the lotus symbolizes being free from ignorance and attaining enlightenment. This person who was speaking perhaps took the metaphor too far when she said, “The lotus has nothing to do with the water or the mud.” I thought to myself that that of course was kind of absurd, but it caused me to take the symbol to its logical extreme, and suddenly the lotus became for me a symbol for the exact opposite. How could a flower have nothing to do with the mud where its roots are? Who could possibly trace where the thinnest microscopic tentacle of the root ends and the mud begins? How could you possibly say that the lotus flower has nothing to do with the water in which it floats, the water that courses through its veins, saturates it and sustains its delicate beauty? Just because we can’t see the mud or feel the water doesn’t make them any less real. And not only that, but somehow the mud and the water too are brought to their fullest glory by the petals of the lotus flower opening to the sun in all its simple majesty.

My favorite image for the feast of the Ascension comes from a French liturgist named Jean Corbon when he speaks about the “continual ascension.” I must have used this phrase hundreds of times so far. What does this mean? Well, it simply means that we should not think of the Ascension as just one static moment in history. If we take St. Paul’s image of the Body of Christ literally––the church is the fullness of him who fills everything––then Jesus is the head of this body, and his fullness is in the church, in humanity and all creation. I have a quite literal image in my mind of this. Humanity is in a very real sense one body. The head of the body––Jesus––is there, but for all of history that head––Jesus––will be dragging, sometimes kicking and screaming, the rest of the body behind him, to follow him, to be with him, at the right hand of the throne of God in glory. Us, his body! We are the work of this continual ascension, and with us all of creation that is groaning and in agony while we await the redemption of our bodies, because our high priest Jesus is there, drawing us to himself.

I also have the image of the tides and the moon in mind: it’s like the same water that was in Jesus is in us, that is, the waters of baptism which is none other than the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. And like the moon draws the waters of the tides to itself, even more so we are being drawn to Jesus, drawn to God through with and in Jesus, drawn to glory, even in our very flesh.

I have still another image in my mind: the Body of Christ is like a lotus, with its roots in the mud––all of creation––, extending through the waters of the pond––all of humanity––with its face drinking in the glory of the sun––Jesus, the head of the body experiencing what we call the beatific vision, which is not, by the way, us gazing at Jesus, but us with Jesus gazing at the glory of God.

I have one more image in mind that could serve as the other bookend of this story. At the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus plunged into the River Jordan, and in doing so, we say, he made all the waters of the world holy. But this is really a symbol of the Divine inserting itself into creation and history and the messiness of humanity. In other words, Jesus plunged into the mud of our lotus pool. And his glory is not just the glory of the lotus flower, it is the glory of the mud and the water, the stem and the roots too.

This is Christian mystical theology at its most sublime.

Lucien Deiss calls the Ascension “the triumph of humanity in Jesus,” not just the triumph of Jesus’ humanity, but the triumph of humanity in general, and with it flesh and all creation. If we really believe that Jesus was truly human as well as truly divine, then in Jesus our very humanity (and with it all flesh and all creation) is brought to the throne of God, to the right hand of the Father. The prayers in our tradition are replete with this notion today, saying that the ascension is our hope of glory, and that in Christ, “human nature is already near to you.” Human nature itself has been brought to the right hand of the throne of God. Henceforth there is no gap to be bridged between the Divine and the human, between the Creator and Creation. We only need to realize the union achieved for us by the Christ event.

Jesus became a human being so that we might become children of God. Actually St. Augustine uses even stronger language: “God became a human being so that the human being might become God.” If it is true that Jesus is the vine and we are the branches, if it is true that he went so as to prepare a place for us, if it is true that Jesus wants to share with us the glory that the Father gave him, then the Ascension is a dynamic event, the ascension of Jesus is the first movement of a progressive event, as Paul says in those incredible words (Eph 4:13) until all of us come to maturity, until all of us come to the measure of the full stature of Christ. This movement of the ascension will only be complete when all the members of the Body of Christ and all of creation––“world without end, Amen!”––have been drawn to the Father.

Our non-attachment, our non-clinging to things of this world, and ambition and riches and comforts, is like the lotus flower that floats above the pool of water. But that doesn’t work if we apply it to the Divine, to God. The heart of Judeo-Christianity spirituality, what we add to Greek thought and other spiritualities, is that God is attached to the mud by the roots. And ever since Jesus jumped into our lotus pool, the mud and the water and our humanity and this whole world that God loves so much, is holy too, and brought into communion with God through, with and in Christ who is the first movement in our continual ascension.

baqa

Deafened by the voice of desire
you are unaware the Beloved
lives in the core of your heart.
Stop the noise,
and you will hear His voice in the silence.

Imitating others,
I failed to find myself.
I looked inside and discovered
I only knew my name.
When I stepped outside
I found my real Self.
(Rumi, Rubaiyat #181, 77)

In my work and study I often run into some broad sweeping criticisms of Western Christianity. (And I must admit, I’m getting a little tired of it, always being the one to defend Western Christianity!) One of the criticisms is that Western Christians are too focused on our “cult of the dark night” and all our Sturm und Drang, as opposed to other mystical traditions that seem to be bursting with light and serenity. I’ve even read criticism of a master of the spiritual life such as Gregory the Great for dwelling too much on the pain and effort of the approach to God, and focusing too much on how the soul has to fight its way out of the darkness that is its natural element. Maybe that’s true––historically we have often fallen into the trap of getting caught up in Good Friday and forgetting about Easter Sunday––but only up to a point. We have to remember, for instance, that St John of the Cross wrote his mystical verses about the dark night while he was trapped in a prison cell, and put there by his own brothers; and that Gregory the Great was forced into the papacy while the Roman Empire was collapsing, the Emperor had abdicated, Rome was infected with famine and pestilence, floods and earthquakes, Greeks and the barbarians were invading, and he had to take over, when all he wanted to do was be a simple monk. There actually was a lot of “storm and stress.” The amazing thing is that either of them continued to hope at all. So we could also say the opposite is true too in our modern era, as I’ve heard it said, that the dark side of modern popular spirituality is that there is no dark side to modern popular spirituality. It’s easy for us to talk about light and serenity while we sit sleek and well fed in hot tubs and air-conditioning, when the lot of many in our world is great darkness, innocent, unmerited suffering and abject poverty.

Even without tremendous suffering (if anyone can possibly avoid it), still in the course of our lives, in the course of the evolution of our consciousness, in the course of our coming forth from God like a word shouted across the span of the sky, we accumulate layer upon layer of persona, layer upon layer of habit, layer upon layer of compulsion and enslavements, not to mention layer upon layer of innocent cultural conditioning. And all those things can, and often do, hide our real self. At some point it all has to go, whether we are Buddhist, Hindu or shamans; every tradition teaches this. This is the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies. If there is a perennial philosophy, a sanatana dharma, then surely this is one of Jesus’ contributions to it. That if that grain falls into the ground and dies, if the husk of our being is shucked off, it will yield a rich harvest, something new will be born, our real self hidden in God. Jesus’ story impels us to believe that our fundamental being, our real self cannot be annihilated, even if the husk is shucked off by abject suffering or by the subtler but no less profound progressive stripping that is the invitation of the spiritual life.

Maybe we can see this in a different light when viewed through the prism of another tradition. There is this mysterious concept in Sufism known as ‘fana, usually translated as “annihilation,” annihilation of the self or of the ego, though some argue that that is too strong of a word. Even though the Sufis always maintain a distinction between the Creator and the Creature, still they teach that the goal of the spiritual life is a loss of a sense of a separate self in the union with God. This is a great theme of the poet Rumi, and––talk about Sturm und Drang!––what anguish he went through at the loss of his beloved friend Shams that led to Rumi’s own dissolution of self before his real enlightenment. But, equally important, it doesn’t end there in that ‘fana. Because ‘fana is followed by baqa–revival, a re-vivification, a return to the self, but a return to an enhanced self. To our surprise, union with God and the so-called annihilation does not destroy our natural capacities, but fulfills them! When the obscuring egoism has been stripped away, we discover the divine presence at the heart of our own being, and from this we experience greater self-realization and greater self-control. In this baqa-revival, we come bounding back from the ‘fana–annihilation more fully human, the ideal human-ness that God intended all along. Karen Armstrong suggests that what Sufis are describing is the same state that the Greek Christians call “deification.”

And I am suggesting Jesus’ resurrection as the ultimate baqa, surviving the abject suffering of his body, his physical being; and surviving also the stripping of all the layers of his psyche, everything he held dear, anything he could have possibly held on to as a self-identity; and even of his spiritual being, his own sense of union with God. He comes bounding back, the Song of Songs says, Leaping the mountains, bounding the hills.

I keep threatening that I’m going to write a book and call it: “Nothing Gets Left Behind.” Pedro Arrupe in a reading we heard the other day referred to “humanity’s integral salvation.” Our natural capacities not destroyed but fulfilled, our humanity enhanced. In other words, nothing gets left behind. And that begins already now. Don Arrupe says, “The destination of humankind [is] to the joint participation in the future salvation,” but it “starts right now here on earth,” and so it “has to be put into practice here and now in every dimension of our human existence.” This is what it means to be an Easter people. We get it all back enhanced, but we only get it back after we’ve let it all go, risked its annihilation, after the dark night. And so John of the Cross says, “Now that I no longer desire them, I have them all without desire.”

Perhaps this is what we haven’t accented enough, the baqa–the revival of our vivified enhanced humanity, even in this life. As hard as it is, we simply must believe that there is a freedom here in this way, this stripping away of all that obscures our real self, this kenosis of Jesus, in this discovery of divine presence–– the love of God at the heart of our own being. When we stray off the path, or when we are tempted to despair of our progress even after many years of struggling, when we are feeling as if we have made little progress, Easter reminds us that we simply must believe that in following the way of Jesus, this is where we are led, to our own hearts, to our own enhanced humanity, to this truth, the truth of who we truly are––and that is the truth that can set us free, the real moksha, the real liberation from the cycle of life and death, and that would lead to our baqa–revival, and we come bounding back re-vivified, a return to the self, the enhanced, deified self that God intended all along.

We have to do it at some point in our lives––at the final moment perhaps––, stand naked and poor before Ultimate Reality, and face the god of death. So we may as well do it now. Because of Jesus, the god of death doesn’t have to be named “Satan,” anymore; he’s no longer the tempter, because Jesus’ story tells us Death no longer has the victory, Death doesn’t really have any sting, because our real self hidden in God cannot be annihilated. So Death becomes Yama instead, as the Katha Upanishad calls him, our teacher, who tells us that the death we have to undergo in this life is learning to choose the good over the merely pleasurable (2:1), and tells us that…

…by the yoga of the study of the self,
the wise will come to know that which is hard to see,
that which is deeply hidden,
that which lies in a cave of the heart and rests in the depths,
the ancient deity––and pass beyond joy and sorrow.” (2:12)

And that would be the ultimate baqa, the final liberation.

sweet surrender

Have you ever heard of a sea which flows from fire?
Have you ever seen a fox become a lion?
The sun can transmute a pebble,
which even the hand of nature can never change,
into a gem.

I am that precious stone,
my Sun is the one by whose rays
this tenebrous world is filled with light.
(Nasiri al-Khusraw)

28 march 09, Singapore

I’m back safely tucked away at St Mary’s Singapore, taking the long way home. John Wong is so kind and funny: I said to him yesterday how anxious I was to get home and he said, “Cyprian, how many times do I have to tell you? You are home!” Indeed when I arrived back here the other night he greeted me with, “Welcome home.” And I am awfully comfortable here.

The few days in Sydney were good fun. I stayed with Martin Low, another Franciscan friend of Leonard et al here in Singapore. He and old Brother George live at the Asian Center in Ashfield, just east of town, a neighborhood that was quite ethnically mixed as evidenced by both the folks walking around and the markets and restaurants: Asian and Indian, Bangaladeshi, Korean, and even a Polish market on one corner. George and Martin installed me in my room, acquainted me briefly with the trains, gave me a map of the city and left me to my own devices. I wandered around all day Tuesday, arriving at the Circular Quay, which is right on the harbor and gives an immediate view of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, two of the most famous landmarks of this beautiful city. Then I wandered up into the City Centre, found St Mary’s Cathedral, to which I returned three more times, dozens of cafés and fruit stands, besides all the marvelous architecture. I also took the Manly Ferry north out of the harbor, about a half an hour ride. From there it is a quick walk across the Corso, a wide mall filled with shops and restaurants, and then to Ocean Surf Beach, which may as well have been the coast of California with all the volleyball nets and surfers. Wednesday I wandered back downtown again, mainly to meet an old acquaintance, a Jesuit named Richard Leonard, for lunch at a place under the harbor bridge. He is the superior of the Jesuit house there in north Sydney and also well known for his work in cinema. As a matter of fact he does reviews for the Australian Bishops Conference and for the Jesuit-run America magazine. We did talk about films a bit, mainly comparing note on “Slumdog Millionaire,” which I treated myself to in the theatre some time ago and “Doubt,” which I saw on the plane. He has reviewed both of them recently. As President Reagan said about his encounter with Pope John Paul: “We met and exchanged ideas, and his, obviously, were much better than mine.”

Wednesday night was my event for the Asian center back in Ashfield. We had gone back and forth trying to decide what for me to do there and wound up listing it as something like “Liturgical Spirituality and Meditation-Spirit, Soul and Body: The Universal Call to Contemplation,” but Martin really wanted me to do liturgical music with them. Basically what I did is write out a list of mostly liturgical songs that have substantial theology behind them and therefore possibly (probably) long introductions. As a matter of fact, I have been wondering what to do with my talk for NPM this summer, and now I have figured it out. For example, the introduction to “Streams of Living Water,” once I talk about John 7:37, Ezekiel 34, John 2, and Romans 5, usually takes upwards of five minutes; the introduction to “Lead My From Death,” even longer. It worked out well, a nice crowd and they bought up every CD I had brought down with me.

Thursday before leaving I took one more trip into the City Centre, another visit to the dancing light of St Mary’s, and a tour of The Rocks, the area right on the harbour that was first settled by the white settlers in the late 18th century, and was saved by environmentalists etc. from destruction some years back. And then off to the airport. It had never occurred to me (distances are terribly relative by now) that the flight from Sydney to here in Singapore would be almost eight hours! I’m definitely taking the long way home.

Yesterday morning, as arranged, I had a good long session with Nawaz Mirajkar (check out his website: www.nawaztabla.com) at the Temple of Fine Arts, which is basically a school of Indian music and dance. When I was passing through between Bangkok and Jakarta earlier this month, (on Ash Wednesday, as a matter of fact) Leonard and I had lunch with Farid at a well known vegetarian chain restaurant named Anna Lakshmi. Next door to it was this school and Farid was keen for us to visit it. We met the director and she gave us a tour of the various studios and introduced us to different teachers. One of them was this Nawaz, who almost immediately upon meeting me said, “I want to make music with you!” He is excited about the idea of mixing tabla and guitar; we both mentioned Zakir Hussein’s album “Making Music” with John McGloughlin and others as being our favorite album ever. And so we set this meeting up via e-mail. We had a great session together; he, like out friend Steve Robertson, studied with Zakir himself, and he is as good a musician as any one I have met. I got to try a few new pieces out with him. I was a little tired, and the swollen hand thing that always happens in Singapore was operative, and the Collings was rebelling in a new environment, etc, etc, and yet, somehow I managed to drop into the moment and we had some pretty exciting selfless moments going places together musically. At one point I wasn’t able to sing because I was laughing with delight at what he was playing, a kind of a fluttering Persian technique on the low drum (bhaya). We talked about doing something either live or in the studio together, even the possibility of something in September back here in Singapore, but it is a long way between here and California, so we’ll let it go for now and see what the Universe has in store. I definitely know what I want to do with this new album now.

Then we visited Farid’s wife who is in the hospital with a good case of denghy fever, a mosquito born illness more common now than malaria. Leonard also treated me to a session with his chiropractor. Then last night we had a nice gathering at a very hip restaurant called “Raw,” run by a guy named Xavier from Puerto Rico and his partner, near St Mary’s. It’s a low key artsy co-operative kind of place. When John asked him about vegetarian offerings, he simply told us that he would take care of us, so Leonard just asked him to bring us whatever he thought. So he did. It was much more like a party at someone’s house than eating out. About 16 of us gathered, folks I have met and spent the most time with here. It was a nice way to end my time rather than trying to greet them all separately.

And I fly out this afternoon. I admitted to the oblates when I was giving them my presentations that I actually don’t end things well. I was referring to talks––that they usually end with dot-dot-dot… rather than, “And so…” I think it’s better that way, resisting the tendency to wrap things up and tie them in little bows, like a raga. John Main writes about his visit to Gethsemane in 1976, at which time he gave a series of talks to the monks there about meditation, but even more importantly, it was then that he discerned that he was to spend the rest of his life leading people in meditation. This trip has been interesting for me, work-wise, because I had a similar moment in 2004-2005, as I finished my tenure filling in for Mark at Holy Cross, knowing that from then on out I wanted to concentrate on this: Universal Wisdom and the Universal Call to Contemplation, through music and meditation. I have been resistant and reluctant even doing any work in liturgy or liturgical music because of this, that I want to keep my energy focused there. There are only so many hours in the day, days in a week, weeks in a year, years in a life––and we should make the best use of them. Already there are concerts and recordings, besides composing and practicing, retreats and conferences besides studying and writing, and all of that aside from the hours needed to devote to spiritual practice itself. All that to say that, I think that on this trip the work has stayed close to that center, and I can feel it sinking deeper roots as I gather broader experiences. I still am mystified as to where it all is leading, how long to continue to travel and work in this way, but I feel good, and I feel even more plugged into the anima mundi, the soul of the world. Certainly it will be good to have a little of the other kind of stability now, the solidity of the cell both in the woods of the Santa Cruz mountains and with the brothers in Big Sur.

… There’s nothing that binds me and nothing that ties me to something that might have been true yesterday. Tomorrow is open and right now it seems to be more than enough just to be here today. I don’t know what the future is holding in store. I don’t know where I’m going and I’m not sure where I’ve been. There’s a spirit that guides me, a light that shines for me. My life is worth the living, and I don’t need to see the end.

You’ll have to figure out where that comes from.

dot-dot-dot. . .

some sydney sites

Not much to report from Sydney except that I am well rested and making my way slowly back. I got here on Monday night, had all day Tuesday to go touristing shamelessly. I try to go incognito as much as possible. Here is one of my outfits...

* * *

Here are my most favorite sites (if obvious). The Sydney Harbour Bridge (for $150 or so you can actually climb to the top and cross it).

____________________________________

And of course from every angle I couldn't get enough of the Opera House, with its buoyant sails opening up to the world.

________________

These were taken on a ferry ride around the harbour all the way to Manly Beach where I hung out for a few hours at the Corso and the Ocean Surf Beach.

__________________

And I was so taken with St Mary's Cathedral
that I went back four different times.
I found the shadows and light of the place comforting in a way I needed for some reason.
It was like being in London and Florence at the same time.

* * * *

Leaving Australia today for Singapore. And God-willing home on Saturday.

empty yourself completely

Sit in your cell as in paradise.
Put the whole world behind you
and forget it.
Empty yourself completely
and sit waiting,
content with the grace of God
(St Romuald)





Tasmania, continued… After the visit to Mount Wellington, it was onto Mary Knoll Retreat Center, which is located on a peninsula south of the bustling city of Hobart. Again, since Paul had pointed this general location out to me from Mount Wellington, I was expecting us to be in the middle of nowhere, and apparently at one time this place was pretty isolated. But now it is surrounded on three sides by a comfortable bedroom community with all kinds of normal middle class things all around it. But it is that fourth side that really gives this place it’s charm––a steep hill leading down to the beach, Derwent Beach. You can hear the waves crashing all day long, especially now in the early morning as I type this with my patio door cracked open. It’s a humble little retreat center, much used and homey, run by one solitary elderly Presentation sister. Drasko has arranged for me to have one of the three self-contained “hermit” units. I had pretty much all day yesterday to myself again before the oblates arrived last night, and spent a good part of the day reconnoitering the area––I’ve been three times to the beach already and had a leisurely exploratory run along the cliffs.

A quick summary of the first night of oblate retreat… For those of you reading who don’t know what an oblate is: an oblate is someone with a special bond of friendship with a monastic community who tries to live the monastic charism in a way modified to go with life in the world. Our congregation, the Camaldolese Benedictines, is a bit unique in that we have hundreds of oblates, of various religious affiliations, scattered all over the world, including a substantial number here in Australia. These oblates have the reputation for being a particularly intense lot, with two different groups of them setting up something like intentional communities, one led here in Tasmania by the same Drasko with another ex-Camaldolese named Christopher who is now a priest of the Paulist congregation, and another led by a colorful jovial priest named Michael Mifsud of Queensland, Victoria, who has taken canonical hermit status under his bishop, and whom I have met several ties in the States and in Italy.

I have prepared two pretty substantial presentations, one on the life of Saint Romuald himself, and the other on the three fold good (solitude-community-missionary martyrdom) by way of some of the early Camaldolese personalities––the five holy martyrs, Andrew and Benedict and Saint Peter-Damian. But I had an intuition to start with something I do very rarely. I checked with Drasko first to see what he thought and he agreed. Since many of them were curious about who I was (as a matter of fact I was being flooded with questions already during dinner), and since so much of what I have to say about Camaldolese spirituality depends on my own experience of it, I spent the first session last night telling them my vocation story. I touched just briefly on my early years in seminary and the experience with the Franciscans in uptown Chicago, “squandering” my twenties on music and confusion, but mainly concentrating on the years since my entry into New Camaldoli in 1992, meeting Fr Bede, the simultaneous immersion in Western and Eastern spirituality, first trips to India, the ten years at New Camaldoli, and then the whole story of these past six years. I really have nothing else to offer of any value but who I really am and what I really do, and, as I said, my own take on our charism is going to be shaded by all that.

I kept asking along the way as I was telling my story, “Is this too much detail?” but they kept saying, “No,” and listened very attentively. It wound up being a good move, and many of them related to my own quest for a “new way to do this whole thing.” Also a surprising number of them are students of the writing of Fr Bede, about which I was delighted; as a matter of fact more than one already said to me that Fr Bede and our involvement in east-west dialogue was their main attraction to being a Camaldolese oblate. So, I’m where I am supposed to be. One of the attendees is a young Anglican priest from Denmark, named Hans, who is a reasonable look alike for my friend Stefano in Florence, and like Stefano is a real student of the East. He and I already spent all of dinnertime last night immersed in conversation. So I am looking forward to the days ahead.

Without repeating my whole story here, let me just share with you how I ended, with three statements that would not have made sense without the biographical detail, but hopefully have set the stage for the conversations that will follow:
• First, in 2002, when I was with Don Emanuele, our prior general at the time, finalizing my decision to take an exclaustration in his office at Camaldoli, I said to him rather broken-heartedly, “I’m sorry, Don Emanuele. I hoped that monasticism would be a big enough container for me.” And he said to me, “Ma Cipriano, monachesimo non è un contenitore; è un’energia! Monasticism isn’t a container; it’s an energy.”
• Second, when I was writing a series of letters to Don Bernardino before he was elected as prior general (though expecting he would be), he wrote to me two things: “Once you have gathered the strands of your monastic life, which will be few, you will seek to remain faithful to them. Stability will reveal to you and to others your monastic being”; and he also wrote, concerning the institution, “The tie with the institution then comes last, because it will come to you and you will have to recognize it when it draws near…”
• And last, when we had renegotiated my status in the congregation to simple “leave with permission” that allowed me to continue living and working as I was indefinitely, Bernardino gave me a stiff talking to and told me to continue living exactly as I was, not to change anything, not to try to start anything new, to watch my balance between work and solitude, being alone and being with others, and––these were the wise prophetic words that so moved me––“this will be your stability now.”

Somewhere between the energy of monasticism and the stability that we have chosen and committed ourselves to lies that creative tension of monasticism. The tendency, or at least my tendency, is always to want to resolve the tension. But it seems as if staying in that tension, like riding a wave, is where we are all called to be.

* * *

tues, 24 march 09, Sydney

I flew here to Sydney last night, after the oblate retreat finished at lunchtime yesterday. I must say I think it was a great success. I had some doubts, as we were going into it, about the expense and energy it had taken to get me there to the remotest corner of Western civilization, hoping that it was going to be worth all our whiles––it was, as a matter of fact, all things being equal and with due reverence to all the other wonderful work and ministry I have been involved in these past seven weeks, it was the highlight of my trip. I only realized after a few hours how relaxed I was, in the way I am relaxed at Big Sur, laughing and joking and friendly in a way that doesn’t come out of me naturally in other environments. I really felt as if I was among family. It was also very nice to celebrate the Liturgy of the Hours and Eucharist, and have good long periods of silent meditation with others.

I had a major presentation each morning Saturday and Sunday, the first on Romuald and the second on the three-fold good. I kept referring back to the lessons that I drew from my own story the night before, first of all, not to try to resolve the tension of Romuald, who was so insistent on putting everyone else under the yoke of obedience and yet he himself, as Bruno of Querfurt says, was “always a wanderer, now here, now there...” Peter Damian explains it this way: “Romuald could not bear to remain sterile. He felt a deep anxiety and a longing to bear fruit for souls, and kept searching for a place where he could do so. . . he was never satisfied with anything he did. While he was busy with one project, he was already planning the next.” Like what Shirley du Boulay says of Abhishiktananda: “a very busy hermit.” Instead of putting Romuald into a box or a pigeon-hole, I suggested that we see him in a constellation of other monks––the various types of hermits, wanderers, “clouds and water monks,” and sannyasis in the firmament, but also assume that he himself had a rule of life that he stuck to as well throughout. I think we can safely say that Romuald recognized the need for everyone to be yoked in obedience to someone––something other than oneself: as he really wanted to yoke himself to the Rule when he was in the monastery and all the other monks were lax; as did yoke himself to Marino; and I think we can safely assume that he was by then yoked to his own rule of life. For the ordinary monk it takes a rule and a master; an abbot and way of life. This is why the early Camaldolese were known as the “sensible hermits who live under the Rule.” That great formula of Aurobindo really spoke to them too, I think: that an ordinary person needs four things: the Sruti or recorded revelation (in other words, Scripture), the Sacred Teacher, the practice (he says, “of Yoga,” which of course is all encompassing of sadhana), and, of course, Grace. Scripture, a teacher, a disciplined practice and grace.

Then as far as the three-fold good is concerned, I kept focusing on the fact that it was first of all, as Robert used to say, not just sipping tea with the Anglicans in the drawing room, but that it is some kind of wild card, some kind of total abandonment of our self to the Spirit, total availability. And secondly, it is not something we can grasp or grab at or claim for ourselves. As is even taught about martyrdom and every other charism, it is a gift, something given to us. I think that they have been all been looking for something a little more solid in our tradition to hold on to, and they resonated with my story (they kept telling me over and over again) and these two things like cats in front of a saucer of milk. I did find it kind of ironic and humbling to be the one speaking for the Camaldolese charism, and even got pretty emotional when I was giving them a blessing at the end of the retreat “in the name of Don Bernardino and Prior Raniero,” but articulating it all for them was a good reminder and confirmation to me of how closely I am tied to our charism, and what my own particular yoke of obedience is as well.

In the meantime I had wonderful walks and talks, especially with the above mentioned Hans, with Michael Mifsud, long time student of Fr Bede and oblate chaplain here in Australia, and a young man named Michael who was visiting Drasko and Christopher exploring the possibility of joining their fledgling community. This latter was staying in the hermitage next to mine and we wound up spending lots of time together over tea and meals, tripping over each other going from one topic to another. I never realized how much this theme that Bernardino gave to me would serve others: gather the strands of your life, commit yourself to them, and your dedication to that commitment will reveal your monastic being, and this will be your stability. And so we can put together yogi, artist, nutritionist and student in a unique curry: but commit to it, and that commitment will reveal your stability.

After the retreat was over Drasko and Christopher took me back to their place, and told me more about their hopes for the future. Drasko has specifically been mandated by the diocese to found a place for young people to be able to have a monastic experience, a type of temporary monasticism. He has the possibility of a few locations, a parish center in north Tasmania, the house in Hobart down south where he and Christopher are living their common life of work and prayer now, and a rural property 50 km. outside of town where they hope to build a rural hermitage. They both spent nearly two years in formation at New Camaldoli, and still base their lives around our charism. As far as I can see in every way as much Camaldolese monks as I am. We had a great time together, talking, praying and meditating in their beautiful simple little chapel, then having a thali at an Indian restaurant around the corner before they took me to the airport. We too could have talked on for hours. They are both so well read, and Drasko is a fine and articulate theologian, so I was picking their brains about some thorny issues I have been running into that are a little out of my depth. (Mostly coming from finally reading Karen Armstrong’s “History of God.” I am loving her scholarship as always, but am so annoyed at her blatant blind spot about Western Christianity. She never misses an opportunity to give a passing pot shot or elbow in the ribs, and seems to assume as facts only views from the far left of Christian scholarship. Anyway, that’s another story… and Drasko was much more a match for her than I am.)

I am making my way home now. I’m here in Sydney until Thursday with only a small presentation to do tomorrow night and the rest of the time for sightseeing. (I’m under direct orders to do so from Master Ong.)