i must decrease, you must increase

Those who contemplate on the all-wise, ageless Being,
the ruler of all, subtler than the subtlest, the universal sustainer,
possessing a form beyond human conception,
effulgent like the sun and far beyond the darkness of ignorance,
truly reach the supreme Purusha.
(Bhagavad Gita 8:9)

9 jan, 2010

The first guests have arrived for the Abhishiktananda centenary, actually the conveners themselves--Bettina Baumer and William Skudlarek, OSB. Bettina was a disciple and friend of Abhishiktananda, and if I recall correctly was told by Abhishiktananda to go back to Germany, her homeland, to get her doctorate so that people would take her seriously here in India. I think he was referring specifically to men in a time when the male culture had even more of a stronghold on all things intellectual. So she did and has been here ever since, with her main base in Benares but also a beautiful retreat spot up above Rishikesh. She also worked with the great Hindu-Christian scholar Raimundo Pannikar on his major work on Vedic spirituality, and is mainly focused now on Kashmir Shaivism. Fr William on the other hand is a Benedictine monk from St. John's Abbey in Minnesota whose current work is in Rome as head of the MID--Monastic Inter-religious Dialogue--the group that is organizing this event. I told him last night that he was like a Marine, sent wherever to do whatever is needed: he was stationed in Brazil and Japan, he speaks four or five languages and is also a professional 'cellist. A real erudite man, perfect for the job. He's just coming in from Thailand.

There are two things I hadn't realized about this conference, first of all that it is only open to members of MID (I didn't actually know that I was a member, but please don't tell anyone); and secondly that this is not the major event celebrating Abhishiktananda at Shantivanam! That will take in December on Abhishiktananda's actual birthday. There must be some reason I am here for this one instead of that one, though this one may be a little heady whereas the birthday party sounds like it would be more fun.

So I'm preaching today. It's the last official day of the Christmas-Epiphany season and we hear the story from the Gospel of John of Jesus and his disciples going into the region of Judea and starting to baptise people. John the Baptist's disciples approach John and ask him what he thinks about this, and John at the end says the beautiful phrase, "This is my joy and now it is complete. He must increase, and I must decrease." I just finished reading a book by the famous biblical scholar Jerome Murphy-O'Connor called "Jesus and Paul: Parallel Lives." There's a wonderful section on Jesus and John the Baptist that stuck in my mind and I have been wanting to preach about it, so here is my chance.

In this book Murphy-O'Connor states unequivocally that he believes that Jesus was a disciple-student-follower of John the Baptist. He speculates that Jesus had not gotten adequate answers as to the nature of his vocation from his parents when he was a young boy, and so was impelled to search for answers back at the temple among the elders. He was still unsatisfied as he got older and so joined up with the Baptizer and, Murphy-O'Connor believes, fully bought into John's mission at first, which was to return Israel to strict observance of the covenant, kind of like a young person looking for a sense of identity in this day and age joining a fundamentalist-evangelical church. So, in other words, he suggests that Jesus himself at an early stage of his public life was a bit of a fundamentalist, a zealot for the Law; and certain passages in Scripture are from that period, when Jesus says things as he does in Matthew 5 like, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law... not one letter, not one stroke of a letter will pass from the law...", passages, I might add, that I have done somersaults to try and interpret in the best light in the past. But he suggests that some time around the imprisonment and death of John, Jesus has a kind of conversion experience, a change of heart about the Law, and those more fundamentalist passages about the Law are simply slipped in out of context from the rest of Jesus' gospel, for instance here in the Sermon on the Mount, that comes out of his mature understanding. At some point Jesus completely turns his back on the Law and with it he rejects any notion of punishment or restitution, and of course turns his back on the teaching of John the Baptist. Murphy-O'Connor lays out a pretty convincing argument that this is exactly why Jesus irritates his contemporary Jews. From now on out the one thing necessary is simply to follow him, as is shown in the story of Matthew itself--no punishment is meted out and no restitution is demanded. One simply must now follow Jesus.

I had all that in mind when I read that scene from the Gospel of John, as if this were the moment it was starting to happen. If Murphy-O'Connor is correct, imagine that Jesus has now stepped out on his own, no longer in his cousin's shadow, and there seem to be some questions about ritual purity. You can feel the poignancy of this moment for John, and it makes his words have even more pathos and weight to them. Not only is Jesus beginning to understand his mission, John is coming to understand Jesus' mission and his own, and is graciously bowing out and yielding to what has been ordained from heaven. There could hardly be more powerful words in Scripture nor a better example of how we are to be in our relationship to Christ and his Gospel, as well as in our own interpersonal relationships, especially with those for whom we exercise some kind of leadership as mentor, teacher, superior, parent: This is my joy and now it is complete: You must increase--I must decrease. My love for you, my devotion to you is not about me: it's about you. I don't want you: I want for you. I would give my life for yours. This is the love that presages crucified love.

There's an excitement about this scene too, you can sense that something new is dawning, as John's father Zechariah had sung in the canticle when John was born, "the dawn from high is breaking upon the earth to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadows of death." In our own little world, too. Christmas usually comes and goes pretty quickly, like a sugar high the way we usually celebrate it, and then yields to the deeper implications of the mystery of Incarnation. This year it feels as if we have had a rather long drawn out Christmas season, but today it ends giving way to the beginning of Ordinary time with the great feast of the Baptism of the Lord tomorrow which we will celebrate tomorrow. And how appropriate (I'll assume Bettina planned it this way) that tomorrow, the Baptism of the Lord, would also be the opening of the centenary event of Abhishiktananda's life, since for Abhhishiktananda Jesus' Baptism was the pivotal moment in Jesus' own life and self-understanding. This new dispensation of Jesus, his whole new gospel, comes from this experience, when Jesus discovered, as Abhishiktananda put it, that the I AM of God belonged to himself or, to put it the other way around, (I never tire of quoting this) when "in the brilliant light of his own I AM, Jesus discovers the true, total, and unimaginable meaning of the name of God." But that meaning has nothing to do with punishment, nothing to do with petty human laws or our notions of justice, nothing to do with cultural conditioning or blood lines, nothing to do with the layers of interpretation we put over the experience, nothing to with death. As a matter of fact so far beyond death as to make death merely a vehicle of a greater power, a greater life, not unlike the death John the Baptist is facing in this scene, not just his beheading, but the surrender of his importance, his decreasing so that Christ may increase in him and around him in the world.

This is the death we are called to as well by virtue of our Baptism, if not by our lives of renunciation: Christ increasing and our little selves decreasing 'til we can make the words of St. Paul our own, that beautiful formula for the Christian version of the non-dual experience: it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. Only by this way will we go beyond death to discover resurrection power at work in us. Only this way will we know the dawn from on high that breaks upon those who dwell in the shadow of death. Only this way will we know that Great Person of the sun-like splendor beyond the darkness. There is no other way to go. We must decrease, so that Christ will increase in us and around us.

on the forest of peace

8 january 2010, Shantivanam

Like so many people I have already built up muscle memories of this place. When I go back to New Camaldoli in Big Sur, it's as if my body knows exactly how to be there. And so it has been here at Shantivanam these first two days. The transition in was pretty much seamless--no surprises, no jolts. MC met me at the airport in Trichy in a taxi after the early arrival of my amazingly smooth flight on a Kingfisher twin prop plane down from Chennai, and we drove to back to Shantivanam on the bumpy road out of Trichy in a taxi that George had graciously hired for me for the occasion. I must say, though it would have been awkward with guitar and backpack, I was actually looking forward to a ride on the bus. MC and I picked up in the car as if we had just left off the conversation yesterday, Mary Louise had a late lunch waiting for us at Ananda, and then we trudged the kilometre over to the formation house where we were greeted by George and the three brothers here. Shushila, the housekeeper, had afternoon tea within moments of arrival.

There are five guys staying here at the formation house: George, prior, and John Robert who made solemn vows and was ordained three years ago, two novices named Savio and Elbis whom I had met in '08, and a new postulant with the unique name Dorathich of which he is not even sure the origin except that it might be Greek or Hebrew. Dorathich is a Tamilian in his early thirties from way down on the tip of India where the three bodies of water meet who already has degrees in Aryuvedic medicine and Yogic science from Kerala. I am thrilled that Shantivanam has someone like that around and have asked him some questions about it, though he is a little diffident to speak about it. We may do some asana together today. John Robert was in hospital until yesterday having been diagnosed with a case of the dreaded chicun gunea (I am totally guessing at the spelling of that--it sounds to me as if they are saying "chicken guneeya," but I was assured it has nothing to do with chickens. It is carried by mosquitos and in the air, and you get flu like symptoms, etc.) so he is not very present. The ashram itself is also very sparsely manned at this point: Bro Martin is away giving talks in Auroville, Fr Dominic has taken a leave of absense, even the old lay Bro George is out sick, so that pretty much leaves Paul to lead the midday and evening prayers by himself. Indeed MC and the guests help to carry it often and once already this week had to do it by themselves without any monks. There are a host of old friends here, some staying across the street with Mary Louise: Antonella, Carl, Doreena, Jill Hemmings and of course MC, so that has also made it feel as if I were picking up where I left off. I always enjoy taking advantage of the dynamic between the three places--Shantivanam, the sisters' ashram and the formation house--though I don't think there are many who experience it from that vantage point: George always wants me to stay with him here at the formation house and to "take class" and pray with the young guys, so late nights and early mornings are here in this very quiet place; but we all go for morning prayer and Mass at Shantivanam itself at 6:30; we stay for breakfast but on the way home I stop and have a cuppa with MC et al at Ananda. I never want to presume on Sr Mary Louise since she handles quite a crowd rthere and caters to them scrupulously (and has shown her ire if you add to her burden without being asked...), but the first morning I showed up after I ate, while ther others were eating and announced that I was not coming for breakfast, just to bask in their company. Mary Louise said, "And for a cup of my coffee" which I have declared to be ther best in India. This morning I ported MC's guitar with me and sat in the corner playing while they ate. That led Mary Louise to come up to me, kiss me on the forehead and said, "Why don't come here and eat these days before the conference starts, eh?" Anyway, then I put myself to work, mostly writing, at my desk back at the formation house. (Don't know why it is India brings out the writer in me, but it sure does.) Midday prayer and lunch here at the formation house and then after a long walk along the river in the late afternoon I go up to what MC and I call the Abhishiktananda chapel at Ananda, a long cool second story prayer hall, for some guitar time in that gorgeous acoustic after which MC and I do an hour meditation together before evening prayer and dinner at Shantivanam. Actually there is only going to be two more days of this since the conference begins right away on Sunday. I'm sorry for that; it makes being on the road a lot easier when there are those "muscle memories" of how to be in a place. I suspect it will be so in Tiru as well.

After talking it over with MC, I think I know a little better how the weeks ahead will look: after the retreat conference here we will go to Tiruvanamalai--Sri Ramana Ashram--with the group on Saturday the 16th to continue the retreat-conference there (Bettina has stressed that she wants this to be as much as retreat as a conference), though MC seems to think it will be very informal there in Tiru. Then I will hook up with our friend JP and Agnete from Denmark who is flying in on the 19th in time for the three of us to attend Theophilus' wedding in Chennai. (Theophilus is the one who played tabla for me for the concerts in '07 and '08, and was a student at Gurukul Theological Seminary in Cehennai where I led a retreat day on Ash Wednesday in '08 as well. We have stayed in touch sporadically and he was thrilled to find out that I was going to be here when his wedding was to take place. I'm pretty psyched too.) After that I am in JP's service until the end of the month though I still have no idea what exactly I'll be doing or for whom. Then I plan to go to Bangalore as I am assured that our guys studying there, Pinto and especially George with whom I spent alot of time in '07, are quite excited about me coming to see them. They are studying in seminary there, but live in a boarding house, a hostel of sorts, George says, with plenty of extra guest rooms. I am assured by others who have been there that there would be no problem with me staying for four or five days. I think then that I will skip Indore, since there is actually only one sister there now, not the one I know, and it will be a little difficult to get to. Instead MC thinks I should have our friend Kumar in Tiru find me a cheap flight from there to Delhi where I have a room booked the 6th and 7th and can meet my friends for at least part of the Sufi Urs music festival. From there it is still not clear how I will spend the days from the 8th until the 16th when I fly out of Delhi, but hopefully that will work out. I certainly don't want to stay in Delhi but we will see what my adventurousness level is to spend the week tramping around farther north re-visiting Haridwar and Rishikesh where I will know many folks. Sr Turiya from Jeevandhara Ashram in Rishikesh will be here for the conference, and I think I may just ask her if she has room for me for a few days and spend the time there, perhaps making a short trip over to Haridwar to visit Sri Ram and immerse myself for a moment in the madness of the Kumba Melha which is taking place. there. More on that later.

the lower self

The lower self is like a flame both in its display of beauty and in its hidden potential for destruction; though its color is attractive, it burns.
(Bakharzi)

It's always a negotiation figuring out just what books to bring on a trip like this, the balance of weight (in my back pack) and importance-usefulness. My bible of course (though I almost traded in my beat up RSV with its Florentine cover for a new slim leather bound version), and this time I also brought for Western spiritual reading Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation, which the Sangha is going to be studying over the next few months (so expect copious editorializing directed not very subtly at them); and for the Universal Wisdom I have my cherished now worn-in copy of the Bhagavad Gita, which has the Sanskrit and transliteration and The Essential Sufism from Harper. I've already run into a cool little resonance, about the scopos-the goal.

Recall: I am always arguing that between among traditions we often do disagree on how to describe the end, what John Cassian refers to as the telos in Greek in his Conferences. So Christians and Muslims say that our essential self lives on in relationship with the divine; Hindu advaitins say that our self disappears into the Great Self; Buddhism says there is no abiding self, neither of us nor an ultimate Self. But, I argue, where we do agree is on the goal, the scopos in Greek, the proximate thing we are aiming at. We also agree often on how to achieve that goal. The two examples of the scopos I use are, on a practical ethical level, some form of the Golden Rule and all that stems from that socially and personally; and, at the level of personal spiritual development, a certain "death of self," a going beyond what we regard as "self" to our ultimate self.

Thomas Merton refers often to the "false self." I think this is a phrase attributable mainly to him, and I wonder how much he himself was influenced by his study of Asian spirituality on this. In Chapter 4 he is making an eloquent argument for the holiness of all things, and arguing against considering any created thing as intrinsically unholy or evil, including our own bodies. His argument is that we are not supposed to detach from things (or people) so that we can attach ourselves to God; we are supposed to detach from our false selves, because when we do so we can regard all these things in their proper place. Our false selves accommodate everything--relationships and objects--in regard to how they effect "me," or "I" can use them for "my" own pleasure and an upbuilding of the "separate, external, egoistic will." They are not evil, but the way in which I approach them or use them is destructive and blocks my path to full spiritual development. So he sings: "The only true joy on earth is to escape from the prison of our own false self, and enter by love into union with the Life Who dwells and sings within the essence of every creature and in the core of our souls."

There is also a marevelous resonance with Zen Buddhism here too. I was recalling Alan Watts' description of spontanaiety in Zen as I read some of Merton's criticisms of so-called spirituality that obstructs or frustrated all forms of spontanaiety with cliches, guilt and arbritrary references to GOd.

For a marvelous explanation of what this false self is, turn to Shiekh Frager's introduction to the Chapter entitled "The Lower Self" in The Essential Sufism. This is what is referred to in Islam, and particularly in Sufism, as the nafs, an Arabic word translated variously as "essence" or "breath," or "ego" or "self" in its symbolic meaning. It is directly related to the Hebrew word nephesh, which is also translated in similar ways, and often simply used as the Hebrew version of the word "soul." Frager prefers to translate it as "the lower self." Remember that the Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him!) refers to the conquering of this "lower self" as the great jihad, the jihad al-nafs, and you see we are in the same territory. Here is Frager's beautiful simple explanation:

The lower self is not so much a thing as a process created by the interaction of the soul and the body. Body and soul are pure and blameless in themselves. However, when our soul becomes embodied, we tend to forget our soul-nature; we become attached to this world and develop such qualities as greed, lust and pride.

I'm glad to read that "Body and soul are pure and blameless in themselves." Merton stresses this as well, and in 1961 I would love to know who he had in mind when he wrote that it is equally false to treat either the soul or the body as if either were the whole self: by the first we fall into angelism, by the second "we live below the level assigned by God to human nature." No: the marriage of body and soul is one of the things that make us the image of God: "Soul and body subsist together in the reality of the hidden, inner person." This marriage is also what presents the greatest challenge, negotiating with grace the proper proportion. In some Way I could say that this seems to be the ultimate matter of the practical spiritual life. It would be interesting to see what our Samkhya friends make of this, who tend to speak instead of the separation of the soul nature from the material nature; and yet Yoga as a practical path, embedded in and supported by Samkhya, is a perfect blend of the psycho-somatic realities.

Don't know when I will have access to internet again so I thought I'd get that off right away. I've had a luxurious little stay here at the "Perfect Haven" guesthouse. Now to battle the traffic of Chennai back to the airport, and so excited to be back at Shantivanam this afternoon.

pilgrimage 2010

By consenting to God's will with joy
and doing it with gladness
I have God's love in my heart,
because my will is now the same as God's love
and I am on the way to becoming what God is--Love.
(Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation)

5 january '10, Chennai, India

It was a crr-aa-zzy route getting here to India this time, four flights and a full 36 hours--Seoul, Singapore, Delhi, and finally Chennai where I am now. I'm staying at a pretty nice guest house in Chennai with a big comfy double bed and a hot shower en suite, and a host of friendly Tamilians downstairs quite eager to please. In the morning I head to Trichy, where I hope I will be met by prior George of Shantivanam and my old friend Michael Christian HIghberger, from here out known simply as MC.

The few days before leaving California were a bit of a blur. I had been at New Camaldoli for Christmas with the brothers until last Sunday and then, amidst packing and tying up loose ends, I attended 2 and a half days of the annual new year's Yoga retreat up at Mount Madonna. I have been many times now for class and breakfast on Saturday mornings these past years, but this was to be my fullest immersion in Mount Madonna's yoga. My friend Won-Jae Hur from San Francisco came down for it as well, so we stuck together quite a bit. I must say both the asana and pranayama classes were excellent, top notch, and it was good to get refreshed and stretched in my practice. There was also a Bhagavad Gita class each afternoon with Baba Hari Das in attendance. Those sessions ran very much like the Bhagavad Gita classes in town at the Pacific Cultural Center on Thursdays which I attended frequently this past year, where the text for each verse is chanted in Sanskrit and then carefully translated one word at a time; then Babaji's commentary on that particular verse is read before moving on to the next one. After an hour or so, Babaji fields questions, answering by writing on his white board (he has been silent for over 50 years). Always my two favorite parts of this whole enterprise are these: First of all I like the fact that a lot of it is so dry. I think I still have a tendency to think of Asian philosophy and theology as somehow more exotic and exciting; it's kind of a relief to see it not be so. Just like any relationship, a lot of it is the plain old drugery of mundane details to which we have bring loving devotion. And then I always enjoy the question and answer time--I am fascinated by the questions that people ask (again often comparing this to the context in which I usually find myself) as well as by how Babaji answers. Partly because he is writing his responses instead of apeking them, they tend to be pithy and to the point. It is in this context where the speculative becomes very concrete, advice about daily living and practice.

Each year there is also a bhakti night as part of the retreat. This year our friend Sarojani put together a beautiful presentation called "a tapestry of devotion." The first half of it consisted in songs and readings from various spiritual traditions presented by a small choir and several different soloists, culminating in a group dance for all 175 or so of us from the Sufi Universal Dances of Peace. And I was honored to be have been asked to do music for the second half of the evening. I had Steve with me playing tabla (and frame drum on one piece), and John Marheineke playing and singing as well. I had decided to do all India inspired music with the exception of the new favorite "Bismillah," and had printed up a sheet with lyrics so folks could participate as much as possible, even on pieces that don't usually call for participation. In that rarified group I hoped, and was not disappointed, that some might already know or want to learn many of the Sanskrit chants or kirtans that are the basis of many of the songs. It was great fun and I was delighted, nay, honored, to be asked to do it.

Then the next night was our 6th annual (forgive this long title) New Year's Eve Inter-religious Meditation Vigil for Peace at Holy Cross, sponsored by our Sangha and Pax Christi, organized by Shannon Frediani and a small group of others (the environment conjured up by Sarojani et al was especially warm and welcoming this year) and hosted by me, as each year except once. We had as usual a representatives from Judaism, the Friends and Ba'hai, as well as devotess of Krishna from the Caitanya Saraswat Temple in Aptos and members of the Heart Sangha in the Vietnamese Buddhist lineage of Thich Nhat Hahn. At the last minute our Muslim friends could not come so I got on the phone to our friends from the Pacifica Institute and two guys whisked over the 17 to be with us as well. Sarojani led a session representing Mount Madonna, Shannon for Voices of Angels, and then I led the last half hour with chanting, Scripture and a brief meditation. The two nights' events were similar to each other in character and purpose, though ours was much more subdued in tone. I thought they were both wondedful ways to culminate the old year's work and usher in the spirit of the new year. These events along with involvement in the Universal Songs of Peace with Lori Rivera up at First Congregational earlier this month and all the great events in Denmark earlier in November, sure do seem to be the work that I am called to and want to do the most in these years, helping to foster environments where folks from various traditions can meet in friendship and receptivity, through music and silence. It really does feel as if we are doing something concrete and positive for this crazy world.

Now ahead on this trip to India--first stop is Shantivanam where there will be a conference celebrating the centenary of the birth of Abhishiktananda. I have been asked to give one presentation near the end of that, which I have worked on very hard, choosing to speak on the concepts of the purusha and the guru in the thought of Bede and Abhishiktananda. The conference then moves up to Tiruvanamalai, a place very dear to Abhishiktananda, for five more days. After that I have made myself available for the next ten days to our old friend pastor JP in cahoots with Agnete of Danmission. I don't know exactly what I will be doing for him/them, but probably concerts and conferences-retreat days all centered again around the theme of dialogue and universal wisdom. I'll be staying for the most part there in Tiru at the ashram or in JP's dialogue center, Quo Vadis. After that my itinerary is a little murky. These are the possible things laid out in order: probable visit to one of our young monks studying in Banaglore, possible visit to our new sisters' ashram in Indore, hopefully to Delhi for a Sufi music festival attended also by friends of mine from Santa Cruz, maybe going farther north yet to Rishikesh and Haridwar to visit friends there. Or I may just turn around and head back to Shantivanam or some other quiet place for the last two weeks. I have a plane ticket out of Delhi on the 16th of February to Singapore where I will do two weeks' worth of concerts there and in Malaysia before heading home on the 2nd of March.

It was harder than usual to drag me out of the woods to embark on this journey, I think because I have been on the road so much this past year into the Fall and because I keep falling deeper in love with my simple life in the woods and among my friends in Santa Cruz. But by the time I got to Delhi I was in a good frame of mind and had gathered a sense of the mission that lies ahead. This dialectic between hermit and wanderer--let alone community member--is just as mysterious for me as it is to others who behold it quizzically from the outside, but it sure does seem to be the thing right now.

coming in and going out

See what love the Father has bestowed on us
in letting us be called the children of God.
And so we are.
We are God’s children now;
what we shall be has not yet been revealed.
We do know that when it is revealed
we shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is.
(1 Jn 3)

I’ve been down with the brothers at New Camaldoli these past days for the holidays. It was a good time, albeit a little intense. The community is really feeling its fragility as some of the brothers get older and more frail, as they await a vocation candidate to come and stay (no one has for a long, long time), and especially as they said goodbye to Michael Fish, a dynamic and warm man who is taking a year sabbatical-leave of absence. My last act was to preach on Sunday, car packed, ready to go. It was the feast of the Holy Family. As I looked over the readings there were two saying that came to my mind. The first was this, something a friend of mine had written to me in a note years ago: “Experience tells us we cannot go out until we first come in.”

The simple and mundane truth conveyed in the feast of the Holy Family is that it’s all about relationship. The fact that Jesus was born into a family and submitted to the authority of parents, that it was in that context that he “increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor,” is very important. We human beings are made that way; even Jesus was. Abhishiktananda always pointed to Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan as the hinge moment in his development, the moment when he knew for certain who he was––beloved, chosen, power-filled Son of God. (If you’ve heard me speak before you’ll know this a common theme of mine.) And that knowledge became for Jesus power, power to go into the desert and face temptation, power to give his life in service, power to know that his real self hidden in God could not be annihilated even by the cross. And that is what family, friendships, community and church are meant to be––I’m sure of it––that place where we learn who we are, where we are told who we are, where we can look into the mirror of someone else’s eyes and they give us––us. And if we don’t get that during our formative years, we spend the rest of our lives looking for that mirror, and often in all the wrong places from exactly the people who cannot give it to us, until we find the right relationships, the right communities, the right friends who can do that mirroring for us.

There may be something ironic hearing this from someone vowed to the solitary life, but I’ve learned the hard way that relationship is not vestigial for anyone; it’s not a luxury, and it is still not something that can be done away with. There is some growth that only happens within relatedness. Our own prejudice for celibate chastity over marriage in the Christian tradition and for solitude in the monastic can actually wind up stunting our growth if it becomes an escape from the work of maturity that only takes place in relationship, in those sands of relatedness where our solitude and our prayer and spiritual development get ground fine. I’ve finally been reading John Donohue’s famous book on Celtic spirituality Anam Cara recently; he says that “When we love and allow ourselves to be loved we begin more and more to inhabit the kingdom of the eternal. Fear changes into courage, emptiness into plenitude, and distance becomes intimacy.” Our very image of God teaches us that, since we believe in a God-in-Three-Persons. Donohue writes beautifully about how the Christian concept of the Trinity is a the “most sublime articulation of otherness and intimacy”; he calls it “an eternal interflow of friendship.” That’s what we think God is like, “an eternal interflow of friendship.” Through our friendship with Jesus––through, with and in Christ––we too “enter the tender beauty and affection of the Trinity,” he says; and “In the embrace of this eternal friendship, we dare to be free…”

That last line leads me to my second point. In the embrace of this relatedness, “we dare to be free…” The second saying I kept thinking of was, “If you love someone, set it free.” (Actually I saw this on a bumper sticker attached to the back of a Ford pickup truck with a gun rack in the rear window once at it had a line added: “… and if it doesn’t come back, hunt it down and kill it.”)

There is something ironic but telling about the fact that the two stories we heard on the feast of the Holy Family this year were both about boys––Samuel and Jesus––who from the moment of their births somehow don’t belong to their families, who from the moment of their births are destined to leave their families behind almost as if they never existed. In the reading from the first book of Samuel we hear about Hannah consecrating the prophet Samuel and giving him over to the Eli as soon as he was weaned. The gospel story we read was about Jesus in the temple with the elders, having stayed behind when his parents were heading home and he gives Mary a little lip when he says, “Did you not know I had to be in my Father’s house, about my Father’s business” I always wonder how Joseph felt about that. It’s hard not to remember Jesus saying that you shouldn’t even stop to bury your father if the call to follow the Lord comes, too; or that he hasn’t come to bring peace but that his message would set son against father, daughter against mother, etc.; or that his own real family was those who followed the Word of God rather than his blood relatives.

There are these moments (I know this as a son not as a father) when parents get that look in their eyes as if to say, “Who the heck are you? Where did you come from?” when they suddenly realize that the child to whom they have given birth and hearth and home, and whom they have reared is now a separate person, a surprise, a miracle of sorts, maybe greater than the sum of his or her parts. Both the going forth and letting go are difficult for everyone. And that was the death that both Hannah and Mary and Joseph underwent very early on.

I’m fascinated by theory about the chakras in Yoga, the seven psycho-somatic energy points in the person. There’s one teaching about the chakras that has been the particularly important to me: We start out low in the muddy depths of the inconscient, and then rise up to the level of generativity and creativity in our primary relationships. The fourth chakra, anahata–heart chakra, the place of selfless giving, is up in the chest where we would expect it to be, but we can’t reach it without going through the gut, through the belly. And that belly chakra––the manipura, which literally means the “city of the jewel”––is the place of courage, autonomy, standing on our own two feet, cutting the apron strings. Some traditions think that this is where the real enlightenment takes place, the hara of Japanese Buddhism, for instance. I like to think of it as the desert chakra, the place where we stoke the heat of in the fire tapas–discipline, the John the Baptist chakra. If we haven’t both accessed that lower energy in us and brought it up to the place of courage and daring to be free, then we can’t healthily reach the heart chakra, the place of selfless giving, what even some yogis refer to as agape. Without that courage and psycho-sexual maturity what we think of as our love might actually be mere dependence or co-dependence; what we think of as charity might actually be what C. S. Lewis calls the “passion of pity”––Mother Teresa was particularly hard on this; what we think of as our giving, our generosity, can actually be taking, our own need to be needed.

The conundrum of course is that we can’t have that solidity to go forth unless and until we have had that place to stand, the firm place that has given us to ourselves, a mirroring of who we are from a solid other. We’re not going to be able to go out healthily unless we’ve first come in, first gained our strength in relatedness. But once we find that place to stand, once we have looked into that mirror of who we are, it becomes our power to stand on our own two feet, to face the deserts of our lives, to dare to be free. However, our solitary path–whether it be in the cell or on the road––is not an end either; it too is a means toward greater love. That phase is going to end too, in a place where we learn how to love even more, with more purity, selfless, crucified love.

There’s something beautiful about St. Romuald’s suppleness that I was remembering here, too, the founder of our congregation of monks. It seems that he was a little reluctant to let some of his disciples go off to the hostile missionary lands (the origin of what we call the third good after solitude and community). But then he did let them go, and then he wanted to go himself. I didn’t mention it there at the hermitage but I was thinking too of all the men who have come and gone from there, how many times we have had to say goodbye. More than one person has commented on how the rotunda of our chapel is like a womb, and you know what wombs are supposed to do––give birth! We’ll never know how formative the time there was for someone, how much the community and that life formed and shaped and gave birth to something else. In the same way we never know what effect we have had on people who slip in and out of our lives: maybe we’ve helped to birth something/someone that we might not even recognize anymore, like parents say goodbye to their children, like teachers watch their students graduate, like mentors move to the sidelines while their disciples do even greater things than the master. Another inner strength is called for on the part of the one left behind, the strength of Mary, who treasured all these things––even the sorrows––in her heart; the strength of Joseph who remained in the silence into which he ultimately disappeared without a word or a trace, but for the lasting impact he had on the life and ministry of his ward, Jesus.

Both sides of these things apply to each of us in some way. We need to belong; we also need to provide belonging. Sometimes we need to go; and sometimes we need to let go. And all of this is somehow our poverty––the poverty of surrendering our autonomy to a greater belonging; the poverty and self-denial of putting someone else’s needs ahead of ours in communal life; the poverty of walking on water and taking risks to branch out on one’s own; and the poverty of watching a loved one walk away to his or her own life that may or may not immediately involve us any longer. That’s why we look to the Holy Family, to Jesus who walked through the desert and on the water, to Mary who treasured all these things in her heart, and to strong and silent Joseph, that we may have the courage to go when it is time to go, and the serenity to let go when it is time to let go; that we may be nurtured in our families and communities, and that we may in turn nurture each other in all our relationships, friendships, communities.

the arc of history

There is a creative force in the universe
working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil,
a power that is able to make a way out of no way
and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.
Let us realize that the arc of the moral universe is long
but it tends toward justice.
(Rev Martin Luther King)

There’s something sober about the season of Advent. That’s one of the reasons I am such a Grinch about Christmas decorations and music and shopping right after Thanksgiving––they take away from the sobriety of Advent. I tend to think liturgically, and liturgically we are not in the Christmas season yet. We are in the season of Advent. The weather this week has been perfect for it. It has been so chilly and foggy and overcast. Out in the woods my main source of heat is the fireplace, so I have had many perfect long Advent mornings with the weather keeping me indoors, a fire crackling all morning and part of the afternoon, inviting me to go inward as well. I’ve also been listening to the new Christmas album by Sting (forgive the commercial), which someone kindly bought for me. I’ve been describing it as “brooding,” and that is kind of what Advent is to me, a brooding season. It’s not somber in the penitential way Lent is; it’s a season of making quiet interior preparations. Just like at Mass during this season: the readings in the early weeks are a little dour, and the music is a little more low-keyed; we don’t sing the Glory to God, for example.

But then there is this third Sunday of Advent that is a little taste of sweetness and light ahead. It’s called Gaudete Sunday because the first word of the entrance antiphon in Latin is taken from the same reading from the letter to the Philippians that we hear today: Gaudete in Domino semper––Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice! Priests are invited today to wear, not pink, mind you, but rose-colored vestments. It’s almost as if we are also invited to look at the world through rose-colored glasses today. We hear so much from the prophet Isaiah in this season, but today we switch to Zephaniah, and this marvelous optimistic passage filled with hope and promise.

Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!
Sing joyfully, O Israel!
Be glad and exult with all your heart!
Fear not, O Sion, be not discouraged!
The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
you have no further misfortune to fear.

This is a specifically Judeo-Christian thing, this hope and promise. We are built on it. I often like to say that compared with other spiritual traditions that believe that time goes round and round in circles going nowhere until we escape, the Abrahamic religions––Judaism, Christianity and Islam––are built on this marvelously optimistic sense of time, a sense of time as a sacrament, a belief that time is going somewhere, and somewhere good at that. It’s going to the reign of God, to a time when God will be all in all in Christ.

President Obama often references a phrase of Martin Luther King Jr. during his speeches, and did so again this week when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, and that same reference stuck with me as I was pondering the scripture readings this week. The line of Dr. King’s is this: “The arc of history is long and it bends toward justice.” In an earlier speech he said it another way: “The arc of the moral universe is long but it tends toward justice.” This is an optimism rooted firmly in the Bible, in prophecy, and is somehow the core of what Advent is supposed to inspire in us again.

It’s not always easy to believe that though, is it? In this day and age, when many people are still facing the dire circumstances of the economic crisis; when we are involved in two wars; when we see violence and terror all around us: it’s not easy to believe that we are going somewhere good, or that the arc of history is tending and bending toward anything good.

The command we hear today is to rejoice. It’s in the imperative mood. Rejoice! That’s an order, because in some way it’s a choice. And rejoicing, choosing to rejoice, will be our strength. We don’t rejoice because we are strong; faith tells us that in our rejoicing we are made strong; in our hoping we are given hope; in our loving we are filled with love. And you know other than that, the weird thing is the demands are not that lofty: what does John the Baptist tell his followers? Simple things: take care of the hungry and the naked; he tells tax collectors simply to stop cheating. He doesn’t even tell soldiers to stop fighting; he just says, don’t extort, don’t lie, and be satisfied with your wages. Paul is even simpler: The Lord is near: be kind! Rejoice, and be kind. It’s as simple and quiet and boring as a seed falling into the ground, so is the Word of God that comes to us wanting to take root in our humble broken silent available hearts.

Advent is not only about being optimistic concerning the world in general. It’s also optimism also about ourselves, our personal development and our own growth toward God, the arc of our lives. I had a friend who told me he used to get up every day and say, “Is today the day Lord? Is today the day you’re going to shatter my blindness? Break through my deafness? Is today the day I’m going to finally give myself to you?” That’s why there’s something good about the quietness of Advent. Alongside all the images that we hear in the Christmas carols later about Jesus being born in the stillness of the night––that same stillness is what we are supposed to be cultivating inside of ourselves. That’s our poverty, that’s our virginity, our chastity, this inner quiet that is a tapping into the stillness and peace, the quiet darkness that is the essence of our being, that’s where the strength and the hope come from that are the root of our rejoicing. It is that inner stillness––our inner stillness––that will save and transform us, and thus transform the world, as opposed to the power of evil, which is so gaudy and noisy. I think we are often more cognizant of evil in the world specifically for that reason; it’s more apparent because it makes so much noise. While Satan is knocking down big buildings, we will be blazing thousands of well-worn paths between humble cottages.

“Rejoice! You have no more evil to fear.” Let me quote the whole section of Dr. King in this context:

Let this affirmation be our ringing cry. It will give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in the universe working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize that the arc of the moral universe is long but it tends toward justice.
(MLK, August 16, 1967)

I don’t think that Dr King would mind if I do my own riff on his theme and say, let us realize that the arc of history is long––but it tends toward Christ and all that Christ is. That’s what Advent is about. The arc of history is long, and it tends toward our transformation and union with God.

christ in evolution

From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth into human minds.
Let Light descend on Earth.

From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into human hearts.
May the Coming One return to Earth.

From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide all little human wills -
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.

From the centre which we call the human race
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.
(Alice Bailey)

28 november, 2009, back home

After I left Denmark, I spent a week in England working with three of the other composers who make up the collective known as The Collegeville Composers Group. We've been working for about eight years now on a project called Psallite (pronounced “Sal-lee-tay.”) It's a corpus of liturgical chant. By “chant” I mean (as I have probably said hundreds of times now) music that is essentially vocal--it might be harmonized, rhythmic and accompanied, but is not dependent on any of those things. Thus, we have not adopted any one style of chant but have drawn liberally from the many sources and influences that make up our corporate deposit. By “liturgical,” I mean it is essentially ritual music, meant to accompany the Christian sacramental rites, and therefore it usually winds up being almost totally scriptural as well.

I do little work in liturgy and/or liturgical music anymore, though that was my first and for years main discipline; the work in the Universal Call both in teaching and music has taken over. But I have stayed with the project, not only out of a sense of duty to see it through to its proximate conclusion, but because it is still a fascinating process. We actually compose as an ensemble, around a table piled high with Scriptures, liturgical books and music resources, one computer (the intrepid English composer Paul Inwood inputting directly to Finale files), and a candle. We “massage” a text until we find a rhythm and a form that suggest themselves, and then start testing bits of melody on each other. One piece of music may have a melodic contribution from all four of us. And then if there is to be harmony we sing and sing and sing it until that reveals itself as well.

Two of the composers (Paul and his wife Catherine) live in England, and so a few times in the past few years when I have had other reason to go to Europe, we arrange to have a session there instead of them always having to make the trek to us. Every time but one, the other Californian (Carol Browning) has made the trip over to meet them and me as well. It’s probably hardest on her, since she has little reason to come except for this work, so she leaves her work in California, barely gets over the jet lag, and then flies back home to work again. The other founding member of the group, who first convened us, Paul Ford, has never been persuaded to join us “across the Pond.”

As in past sessions, we housed together this time. I think all of our favorite sessions were the ones we held in Santa Cruz during the times I was filling in for Mark at Holy Cross and turned the rectory into Hotel Cipriano. But this session will stand out for me too. Paul arranged for us to stay at St John's Convent, in the village of Green Kiln, west of London about halfway to Reading, and not far at all from Windsor Castle. (Actually we went to Windsor for tea on Friday afternoon--not to the castle itself, mind you, though Her Majesty's standard was waving that day, as I'm told she is there every Thursday evening and Friday possible). St John’s is run by the Sisters of Pity, whose specific charism is caring for elderly and infirm priests. The property and housing are both ample, so they also offer retreat space and guest housing both in the large main house and in an assortment of flats and bungalows around the property. Carol and I were alone on the top floor of the main house. The sisters seem to delight in catering to their guests’ every need, and they spoiled the stuffing out of us: we were overfed; the beds were so comfortable that I slept painfully deep every single night; when I asked to use the clothes washer Sr Antonia insisted on washing and ironing all my clothes for me; a single mention of anything brought the desired item. There was a long stretch of a narrow road across the main highway from their street and so I had a beautiful jog every morning out into the countryside. Aside from our outing on Friday and our customary festive dinner at the end of the session--at the venerable Crown and Bray Pub, exactly what you might hope a pub to be on a rainy English night: generous portions, lager on tap, fires burning in every room, and laughter ringing ‘round the rafters--we never left from Tuesday through Sunday, working 9:30 ‘til 12:30, 2:30 ‘til 5:30 or 6. It may not sound much like work, but it is intense and tedious, so the spoiling was much appreciated.

While I was there I, as is my wont, rummaged through the books available to the guests. Among the many old volumes that our bibliophile friend Michael Doherty would have been tempted to slip into his backpack, there was a history of the Reformation by one Philip Hughes. It was perfect bedtime reading for me, especially having just come from eminently Lutheran Denmark and presently staying in the motherland of the Anglican Communion. (Interesting also to watch the BBC’s, and read the Daily Mail’s, report about the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ visit with the Pope in Rome this past week.) So I poured through Hughes’ portrayal of Luther, Zwingli and Calvin. While a Catholic--an English Catholic to boot--and writing before the Second Vatican Council as well, when one could assume there could be more bias and counter-Reformation rhetoric afoot, Rev Hughes did seem to be even-handed.

I had the same two reactions this time as when I have studied that era in the past. First, if history is to be believed, I am appalled at the corruption, mediocrity and fatuousness of the Roman church at that time. I had the same reaction when I read the biography of Michelangelo, mind you, and other historical biographies and novels about Rennaissance Italy. One can understand why Luther would be believed when he taught that “Catholicism itself... (was) now considered to be a corruption of the Gospel of Christ.” I found this phrase of Hughes’ interesting particularly, that the origins of Luther’s convictions lie not just in his own “discovery of the true meaning of the religion of Christ,” which according to him was divinely guided, but also and maybe especially “in his own personal experience of the ineffectiveness and the mischievousness of Catholicism as a solution offered him for his spiritual troubles.”

On the other side, the second thing that struck me, as usual, was this: while I sympathize with the rancor at the Roman church for whatever that corruption was and the desire to return to a pristine articulation and practice of religion, and aside from the external changes that the Reformers inaugurated, I just can’t go where they go theologically, and anthropologically. Because they were so disgusted with faith by works––which was really faith by magic formulas, Deus ex machina, buying one’s way to heaven especially through the practice of selling indulgences––the formula salvation by faith alone is based on the premise that there is no natural goodness in the human person. Human nature is totally corrupt (according to Calvin, for instance), and we are utterly powerless to do good. Even if an act is good in itself there is still sinfulness in it, so it is impossible to fulfill God’s commands. The “righteousness” that Luther taught “is no more than a righteousness cast around [us] by God, imparted to us.” But behind that righteousness “the sinner remains as he was before the divine acceptance.” At one point Luther talks about grace functioning like “snow over a dung heap.” It follows of course that “even the most virtuous of philosophers of the old pagan world were necessarily damned.” And so, one could assume, so were even the most virtuous sages of other traditions, never mind “seeds of the Word,” unless they expressly know and confess their belief in Jesus Christ.

I hasten to add, I mean this with no disrespect to Lutherans or other Protestants. I have no idea how operative this mentality is in peoples’ minds, though I know it is the foundational argument I have had with many Christians of the more evangelical persuasion. But it does become the philosophical garden out of which all one’s opinions are grown. I remember debating with a Contemporary Christian musician once about chant, basing my remarks on the fact a vocal form of sacred music developed in most of the world’s spiritual traditions. He countered by saying, “Yes, but they were pagans and that was music written before they knew Jesus,” and therefore it had to be replaced by “Christian” music. The same thing happened with Catholic missionaries all over the world up until Vatican II, mind you, replaying the “native genius” with Roman ritual and poorly executed Gregorian chant. Sigh. And that of course brings us back to the Psallite project I mentioned above, why I stress that “chant” does not mean “Gregorian chant,” and why we can draw from the native genius of other traditions. (Side note: we were working with the new translations of the Roman rite, not released yet. From the stilted language used in them and the whole trajectory of the “reform the reform” afoot, I fear we are heading back there.)

To counteract that, I was also finishing up Ilia Delio’s book, “Christ in Evolution.” In tracing the theology of Teilhard de Chardin, Raimundo Pannikar, Thomas Merton and Bede Griffiths, along with contemporary, mostly Franciscan, authors such as Ewert Cousins, Zachary Hayes and John Haught, Sr Ilia pushes forward two things. First the understanding that “Christ” cannot be limited to the historical Jesus of Nazareth. (This is theological thin ice for some, so tread carefully.) Before Jesus was born there was still the Second Person of the Trinity, the Word, associated with the Greek Logos, as well as, by some, the Tao of Chinese philosophy. After the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, the Christ is the whole Body: first of all understood as the church, which is understood primarily as “his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (as St Paul says in the letter to the Ephesians; and must include, as Ilia points out numerous times, all of creation which “is groaning and in agony as we await the redemption of our bodies” (as St Paul writes in the letter to the Romans).

Put those two things together and suddenly we see that Christ is now located at the heart of the whole evolutionary process, as a matter of fact what we call Christ is the whole evolutionary trajectory; or vice verse: the whole evolutionary energy of the universe is what/who we name Christ; Christians resolutely claim that the center of the universe is “personal and personalizing.” Christ is spirit wedding itself to matter, and matter then empowered to tend toward spirit. (Remember again here Sri Aurobindo: “Matter will reveal spirit’s face.”) Among the many paragraphs that I entirely underlined is this one:

We can now locate Christ at the heart of the whole evolutionary process: from cosmic evolution to biological evolution to evolution of human consciousness and culture. Within the evolution of human consciousness, Jesus emerges as the Christ, the fullness of God’s self-communication in history and the absolute expression of that self-communication in love… Christ is the dynamic life of the world. Christ symbolizes the fullness of life in God… Jesus is the symbol of every person and creature intended to rise from the dead and share in the glory of God… the realization of what we hope for in the universe: union and transformation in God.

Now this is a counterpart to the snow over the dung heap, because instead of starting with the corruption of human nature and the necessity for someone to come and redeem us from that corruption, this Christology starts out with the assumption that the Incarnation was not an after thought, but that this fullness of divinity dwelling bodily in human flesh was the design all along, the whole point of creation, the Omega point: “the realization of what we hope for in the universe: union and transformation in God.” (Ilia writes a line similar to that many times throughout the book and each time I underlined it.) And each person––here she quotes Panikkar––“Each person bears the mystery of Christ within.” And so “the first task of every creature, therefore, is to complete and perfect his or her icon of reality.”

The optimism of this view spills over. Why we would be in dialogue with other traditions is because any actions that are directed toward the good of the cosmos––the good, the true, the beautiful, the whole trajectory of evolution consciousness, and the evolution of matter to spirit––fall under the impulse of grace; their actions have eternal value, they are Christ inspired, because whether or not one explicitly knows Jesus, what we call “Christ” is the mysterious energy that is at the core of human life and life in the universe. To be a Christian then is to recognize a specific kind of mysticism of action as well as contemplation: to enter into dialogue with persons of other religions and cultures in which this Christ energy is making itself manifest; it is to plunge ourselves into the world, “getting involved with the tribes of humanity, earth’s people and the earth itself.”

I couldn’t help but think of Fr Bede and Abhishiktananda’s love for the concept of Purusa, the Great Person, as I read the closing lines of Ilia’s book, which also seem very poignant on this first Sunday of Advent, as we begin the great holy waiting:

We can look forward to a time when there will be one cosmic person uniting all persons, one cosmic humanity uniting all humanity, one Christ in whom God will be all in all.

When I was doing the presentation with Soren at the Center of Living Wisdom in Aahus, they ended the evening with a beautiful prayer. I later found out it was very famous, written by Alice Bailey of the Theosophical Society, and used by folks of many traditions who believe in a universal teacher who will come in some form––the second coming of Christ, the Lord Maitreya, the Imam Mahdi, the Messiah. I couldn’t find anything in it that was problematic. So, if you don’t know it, I leave it with you here as a great Advent prayer for anyone of any tradition, who is looking forward to the unfolding of the evolutionary process of matter and consciousness for the good of the cosmos, through Beauty, Truth and Goodness, seeds of the Word wherever they may fall.

From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth into human minds.
Let Light descend on Earth.

From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into human hearts.
May the Coming One return to Earth.

From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide all little human wills -
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.

From the centre which we call the human race
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.