Creativity and Living the Metaphor

{The following essay was first published in November of 2018 under the title, "On Spiritual Practice, Poetry, and the Inadequacy of Language"


I am currently reading one of the most exciting books I have read in a long time, Sophia: The Hidden Christ of Thomas Merton  by Christopher Pramuk. I found out about the book while I was reading Merton's poem, "Hagia Sophia." The book touches upon many of my own interests. I could try to tell you about it but instead I will refer you to a review of the book by Catholic priest and peace/environmental advocate, John Dear in an article for the National Catholic Reporter, "Living our theology with Merton's feminine image of God." 

The Witness of Abraham Heschel

I recently read a passage in Sophia: The Hidden Christ of Thomas Merton in which the author is quoting Rabbi Abraham Heschel. I found Heschel’s words to ring true from my experience as they may to some of you who are involved in a spiritual practice. The writing is dated in that he uses “man” where current writers would use “humans,” or “humanity,” but he captures very well the moments in prayer when words fail to convey experience. While that concept is nothing new, Heschel takes that experience itself, that state which the spiritual practitioner finds unutterable, and reveals how it can further nurture our being as “the nursery of our soul, the cradle of all our ideas.” 

“In no other act does man experience so often the disparity between the desire for expression and the means of expression as in prayer. The inadequacy of the means at our disposal appears so tangible, so tragic, that one feels it a grace to be able to give oneself up to music, to a tone, to a song, to a chant. The wave of a song carries the soul to heights which utterable meanings can never reach. Such abandonment is no escape, nor an act of being unfaithful to the mind. For the world of unutterable meanings is the nursery of the soul, the cradle of all our ideas. It is not an escape but a return to one’s origins.

“What the word can no longer yield, man achieves through the fullness of his powerlessness. The deeper the need in which one is placed through this powerlessness, the more does man reveal himself in his essence, and himself becomes expression. Prayer is more than communication, and man is more than the word. Should we feel ashamed by our inability to utter what we bear in our hearts? God loves what is left over at the bottom of the heart and cannot be expressed in words…The unutterable surplus of what we feel, the sentiments that we are unable to put into words are our payment in kind to God.”

(From Man’s Quest for God by Abraham Heschel)

The Witness of John Keats 

Along a parallel vein, and somewhat related, I serendipitously came across an essay that speaks of how the poetic imagination can attempt to convey those higher aspects of reality that might otherwise defy description due to the inadequacy of language. The article, “John Keats and the Need for a New Renaissance in Poetry,” addresses trends in poetry and brings to the forefront the difference in Keats’ approach to poetry compared to other Romantic poets such as William Wordsworth.

Wordsworth, for example, was intent upon describing the world that is known through the five senses. He admittedly avoided the abstract. His purpose was to bring the reader into an experience of the beauty of the world, to allow a full appreciation of the experience of being alive. Keats, on the other hand, saw how inadequate mere descriptions of the physical world are, no matter how beautiful the words, in conveying an experience of higher awareness.

Keats’ contribution to poetry was the creative use of metaphor to bring the reader close to those ineffable moments of awareness – those incidents in which we seem to know that something absolutely marvelous is happening around us and to us and with us. He truly brought English poetry to a higher level in his day.

“John Keats and the Need for a New Renaissance in Poetry,” is calling upon modern poets to take a cue from Keats rather than focusing on mere descriptions of life as it is lived. It speaks to the use of language, the limits of language, and how the creative use of language can point the reader to what would otherwise be considered inexpressible higher aspects of reality.

Near the end of the article we find the following passage:

“The most profound creativity emerges from an intense and impassioned feeling that longs to communicate something located deep within one’s soul. It is beyond anything that can be grasped directly through the senses. The process of digging deep into one’s soul, and struggling to bring these passions into this world, to 'name' them, is arguably one of the most difficult challenges any mortal can face. It also parallels the process of discovery any great scientist must go through in order to develop a hypothesis, which the universe will accept.

“For Keats, the imagination was not the mere fancy of a Romantic, and the material world of sense perception was not the defining basis of his poetry. Rather than being concerned with a precise description of the 'real' world, the agency of the creative imagination was the hallowed realm in which a greater Truth about the nature of man and the universe could be captured…”

For those interested in reading this fascinating essay in full, you can find it at https://www.thechainedmuse.com/single-post/2018/10/29/John-Keats-and-the-Need-for-a-New-Renaissance-in-Poetry

Living the Metaphor

If I may make one more attempt to tie these two pieces of writing together, what Heschel is doing in his passage on prayer is that he is making the experience itself a metaphor by which we can lay hold of an intangible experience so that it becomes a means for a higher purpose. Keats demonstrates how the use of metaphor can allow us to find higher meaning in our everyday experience.

In Sophia, Pramuk is using the writings of rabbinical scholar and poet Abraham Heschel, along with the work of poet and Anglican priest John Henry Newman*, to illustrate the path taken by Thomas Merton who was a Trappist monk, scholar, and poet. He explains that these spiritual practitioners, unlike the typical western theologians, make use of poetics to describe a relational spirituality. Pramuk speaks of how poets have made use of metaphor to expand the efficacy of language and thus demonstrates how theology, when taking the poetic approach, can more effectively speak to the ineffable experience.

I would add that Heschel has shown us how the person who gives oneself over to the practice of prayer/meditation can actually become the metaphor that enlightens and enlivens.


__________________

*John Henry Newman was an Anglican priest who later became a Catholic priest and cardinal. In his earlier days as an Anglican priest, he was one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement which sought to restore Catholic liturgy and ritual to the Church of England. Those efforts are still seen today in Anglo-Catholic parishes. He became one of the most important theologians of the 19th century, but may be best remembered by students of literature for his role as poet. 



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The Spiritual Journey

The following essay was first posted on August 13, 20014 under the title,  "Lead All Souls to Heaven."

Depiction of St. Brenden the Navigator

In a talk that he gave to the novices at Gethsemani Abby, Thomas Merton once compared spirituality to a journey down the river. He talked about the Irish monks who took off in a boat, going where God led them. He said that the image of embarking on a boat and letting the river carry us is a metaphor for how we can abandon ourselves to the guidance of God. It is not an image of being in control, but rather of resting in the boat and trusting the river. Merton speaks of that journey being one of progressive insight that is ultimately fulfilled upon the spiritual pilgrim’s death with full realization in heaven. He went on to say that “journey” is symbolic of our state on earth – we are all going somewhere.*

Spiritual Journey

I like the imagery of embarking upon the river when speaking of the spiritual life. My own view of spirituality is not one that is centered upon life in heaven after death.  I don’t think Thomas Merton made the afterlife his focus either. He referred to heaven in traditional terms as the ultimate destination of the faithful soul after death, but his focus was on how we live in our present life on earth. In my view, we are all on a journey and we can make that journey as spiritual as we want to. By “spiritual,” I refer to that act of understanding the true value and meaning of our existence. That understanding may be enhanced by seeing the work of an artist in a gallery, listening to music in a concert hall, or watching a sunset and realizing that we are connected to creation.

To find our spiritual path, we need not take traditional imagery literally. For example, when I hear or read traditionally religious terms like salvation, heaven, hell, paradise, etc. I find that if I think of these things symbolically rather than as actual places in some afterlife, then that imagery begins to inform my life and to expand my appreciation of what Life has in store. In other words, spirituality is not about life after death, it is about life in the here-and-now. When we begin to see that, then we can let the imagery of traditional religious language inform our journey as we embark upon the river of life.

I wrote in Spirit Work, Soul Work, “True spirituality integrates and connects. In order for spiritual practice to be more than just an opiate or a distraction, it must take into account the whole of life. Work place, family, hobbies and social life each represent opportunities for the implementation of spirituality. Every religious tradition offers methods for spiritual practice, the goal being to eliminate distractions and to pay attention.”

A Universal Hope

We have some powerful archetypes to inform us along our journey. I have an appreciation for Marian spirituality, and I am fascinated by stories of Marian visitations. From a purely psychological standpoint, these stories can be very illuminating in regard to the role of the feminine archetype in our lives (see A Jungian Appreciation of Mary). The reported visions at Fatima in 1917 are most intriguing. There have been books written about the phenomena that occurred there in Portugal, and there was even a movie made about it, “The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima.”

There is a prayer, supposedly requested by the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima, that is now traditionally recited while praying the rosary: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who have most need of your mercy.”

Lead all souls to heaven, especially those who have most need of your mercy! I love finding concepts of universalism in faith practices. When I first began to learn to pray the rosary As a Catholic convert, I was already familiar with the story of Fatima, and I was also drawn to the idea of universalism. It was a true joy to find this prayer for all to find their way to heaven, even those we might consider to be far from God’s grace.

The Gate of Heaven Is Everywhere

Thomas Merton

What do we mean when we speak of heaven? What is this universal hope, and how is it apprehended? What does it mean to you? For some, it may be a metaphor for union with the divine, for others it could refer to personal fulfillment or psychological wholeness When the Gospel of Matthew speaks of the kingdom heaven, sometimes it is not referring to life after death but rather the imminent reign of God on earth. The book of Matthew was written for a Jewish community of people who would not have spoken the name of God. The term, “Kingdom of heaven,” was used rather than Kingdom of God. Unfortunately, many readers of the New Testament text today see heaven only in terms of the afterlife.

We can turn again to Thomas Merton for an image of how we might understand heaven. There is a famous passage in his Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander** in which he describes an epiphany that occurred on a rare trip from Gethsemani Abbey to Louisville, Kentucky:

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream.

Merton wrote of how the people he saw on that street corner were just and much a part of God as he and his monastic brothers were. The only difference was that “We just happen to be conscious of it” but that that did not mean he was any better than the rest of the world. As he continued to discuss his epiphany, Merton declared:

It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: yet, with all that, God Himself gloried in becoming a member of the human race. A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake.

…It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody…I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.

So while that Marian prayer from Our Lady of Fatima is to lead all souls to heaven, Thomas Merton affirms that the gate of heaven is everywhere, if only we will become conscious of it. That is all the more reason to set our craft upon the water, and trust the waters to take us to that destination that we seek on our spiritual journey.

Irish currach

___________________
References:
* "The Spiritual Journey," lecture given by Thomas Merton on January 16, 1963; from Thomas Merton on Contemplation, audio recordings from the archives of The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University, Louisville, Kentucky, under the copyright of Know You Know Media.

** Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, by Thomas Merton, 1966, Doubleday, Garden City, NY.

Images: 
St. Brendan from "Irish Monks and the voyage of St. Brenden"
Thomas Merton from Dover Beach blogsite
Irish currach from Kelticos 


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On Spiritual Practice, Poetry, and the Inadequacy of Language

I am currently reading one of the most exciting books I have read in a long time, Sophia: The Hidden Christ of Thomas Merton  by Christopher Pramuk. I found out about the book while I was reading Merton's poem, "Hagia Sophia." The book touches upon many of my own interests. I could try to tell you about it but instead I will refer you to a review of the book by Catholic priest and peace/environmental advocate, John Dear in an article for the National Catholic Reporter, "Living our theology with Merton's feminine image of God." 

The Witness of Abraham Heschel

I recently read a passage in Sophia: The Hidden Christ of Thomas Merton in which the author is quoting Rabbi Abraham Heschel. I found Heschel’s words to ring true from my experience as they may to some of you who are involved in a spiritual practice. The writing is dated in that he uses “man” where current writers would use “humans,” or “humanity,” but he captures very well the moments in prayer when words fail to convey experience. While that concept is nothing new, Heschel takes that experience itself, that state which the spiritual practitioner finds unutterable, and reveals how it can further nurture our being as “the nursery of our soul, the cradle of all our ideas.” 

“In no other act does man experience so often the disparity between the desire for expression and the means of expression as in prayer. The inadequacy of the means at our disposal appears so tangible, so tragic, that one feels it a grace to be able to give oneself up to music, to a tone, to a song, to a chant. The wave of a song carries the soul to heights which utterable meanings can never reach. Such abandonment is no escape, nor an act of being unfaithful to the mind. For the world of unutterable meanings is the nursery of the soul, the cradle of all our ideas. It is not an escape but a return to one’s origins.

“What the word can no longer yield, man achieves through the fullness of his powerlessness. The deeper the need in which one is placed through this powerlessness, the more does man reveal himself in his essence, and himself becomes expression. Prayer is more than communication, and man is more than the word. Should we feel ashamed by our inability to utter what we bear in our hearts? God loves what is left over at the bottom of the heart and cannot be expressed in words…The unutterable surplus of what we feel, the sentiments that we are unable to put into words are our payment in kind to God.”

(From Man’s Quest for God by Abraham Heschel)

The Witness of John Keats 

Along a parallel vein, and somewhat related, I serendipitously came across an essay that speaks of how the poetic imagination can attempt to convey those higher aspects of reality that might otherwise defy description due to the inadequacy of language. The article, “John Keats and the Need for a New Renaissance in Poetry,” addresses trends in poetry and brings to the forefront the difference in Keats’ approach to poetry compared to other Romantic poets such as William Wordsworth.

Wordsworth, for example, was intent upon describing the world that is known through the five senses. He admittedly avoided the abstract. His purpose was to bring the reader into an experience of the beauty of the world, to allow a full appreciation of the experience of being alive. Keats, on the other hand, saw how inadequate mere descriptions of the physical world are, no matter how beautiful the words, in conveying an experience of higher awareness.

Keats’ contribution to poetry was the creative use of metaphor to bring the reader close to those ineffable moments of awareness – those incidents in which we seem to know that something absolutely marvelous is happening around us and to us and with us. He truly brought English poetry to a higher level in his day.

“John Keats and the Need for a New Renaissance in Poetry,” is calling upon modern poets to take a cue from Keats rather than focusing on mere descriptions of life as it is lived. It speaks to the use of language, the limits of language, and how the creative use of language can point the reader to what would otherwise be considered inexpressible higher aspects of reality.

Near the end of the article we find the following passage:

“The most profound creativity emerges from an intense and impassioned feeling that longs to communicate something located deep within one’s soul. It is beyond anything that can be grasped directly through the senses. The process of digging deep into one’s soul, and struggling to bring these passions into this world, to 'name' them, is arguably one of the most difficult challenges any mortal can face. It also parallels the process of discovery any great scientist must go through in order to develop a hypothesis, which the universe will accept.

“For Keats, the imagination was not the mere fancy of a Romantic, and the material world of sense perception was not the defining basis of his poetry. Rather than being concerned with a precise description of the 'real' world, the agency of the creative imagination was the hallowed realm in which a greater Truth about the nature of man and the universe could be captured…”

For those interested in reading this fascinating essay in full, you can find it at https://www.thechainedmuse.com/single-post/2018/10/29/John-Keats-and-the-Need-for-a-New-Renaissance-in-Poetry

Living the Metaphor

If I may make one more attempt to tie these two pieces of writing together, what Heschel is doing in his passage on prayer is that he is making the experience itself a metaphor by which we can lay hold of an intangible experience so that it becomes a means for a higher purpose. Keats demonstrates how the use of metaphor can allow us to find higher meaning in our everyday experience.

In Sophia, Pramuk is using the writings of rabbinical scholar and poet Abraham Heschel, along with the work of poet and Anglican priest John Henry Newman*, to illustrate the path taken by Thomas Merton who was a Trappist monk, scholar, and poet. He explains that these spiritual practitioners, unlike the typical western theologians, make use of poetics to describe a relational spirituality. Pramuk speaks of how poets have made use of metaphor to expand the efficacy of language and thus demonstrates how theology, when taking the poetic approach, can more effectively speak to the ineffable experience.

I would add that Heschel has shown us how the person who gives oneself over to the practice of prayer/meditation can actually become the metaphor that enlightens and enlivens.


__________________

*John Henry Newman was an Anglican priest who later became a Catholic priest and cardinal. In his earlier days as an Anglican priest, he was one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement which sought to restore Catholic liturgy and ritual to the Church of England. Those efforts are still seen today in Anglo-Catholic parishes. He became one of the most important theologians of the 19th century, but may be best remembered by students of literature for his role as poet. 



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Monday Music: Seven Story Mountain

Thomas Merton wrote an early autobiography titled, The Seven Story Mountain. The title refers to Mount Purgatory in Dante's Divine Comedy. I don't know if Railroad Earth's song, "Seven Story Mountain," was inspired by Dante or Thomas Merton, but it is nevertheless a rich presentation, both lyrically and musically. I like to imagine it a Dante-inspired bluegrass number.

Railroad Earth, a "new grass"/Americana/roots music group was a happy discovery for me. They took their name from the title of a short story by Jack Kerouac, "October in the Railroad Earth."

Seven Story Mountain

Oh lord, to see a light, but fail in strength to follow,
Sometimes it's hard to let it go.

Oh lord, to fail in heart, and each day grow more hollow,
Sometimes I just don't wanna know.

But the road that led me here, it's begun to disappear.
Sometimes I wonder where I am.

Oh lord, to hear a voice, but let it fade and wallow,
Sometimes it's hard to let it to.

Oh lord, to find the words, but keep them in and swallow,
One day the top is gonna blow.

But the road that left me here, it's begun to disappear.
Sometimes I wonder who I am.

Oh lord, to stumble blind, for years without knowing,
Sunrise has burned my eyes again.

Oh lord, to crumble quiet, watching from the silence
Sunrise has burned my eyes again.

It's a seven-story mountain. It's a long, long life we live.
Got to find a light and fill my heart again.

It's a seven-story mountain. It's a long, long life ahead.
Got to find a voice and fill my throat again



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The "Leaving Church" Phenomenon

[The following is my response to “Dear Church, Here’s Why People Are Really Leaving You,” by John Pavlovitz.]

Thomas Merton, in Contemplation in a World of Action, speculated that many people experience varying degrees of mystical experience in their ordinary lives. Those “mystical encounters” can lend a personal reality and validity to those things we talk about in church. All of us who seek a spiritual life will find ourselves putting together a practice that fits with our worldview and personal experience. There will inevitably be some conflict – even perhaps some “love-hate relationship” as we sort out our connection with the established church.

A friend recently posted on Facebook the article by John Pavlovitz cited above about why people are leaving church. She invited people to read the article and share their responses. Today’s blog post arose from my initial response to Pavlovitz’ article. (You can read the article here)

Which Church?

Pavlovitz' description of the church that people are leaving seems to be the "contemporary worship" model of bands, TV screens, and shopping mall era entertainment.  I left the Baptists at the time when such Willow Creek style entertainments were coming into vogue. As I saw it at the time, all of those “new forms of worship” were part of the suburban emptiness of which I wanted no part. While I left THAT church before the entertainment lights even went up, I have never left THE church.

Moreover, what he speaks of is the difference between church and Christianity, the difference between an institution and a lifestyle based upon following Jesus. The truth is that no matter what "church" you belong to, "Christianity" cannot be done in an hour on Sunday morning. Even if you break away from your old church to form a group of true committed believers, Jesus cannot be adequately confined to an hour's worship service. No revamping of forms in order to attract people (or to keep them from leaving) will, in my view, be the end-all of authentic faith.

It is not uncommon for someone who is interested in a spiritual path to at some point find his or her inherited religious structures to be inadequate. For my part, I converted to the Catholic Church, which is also losing members* like all other churches, but I have found the ancient liturgy to be a wonderful respite from the religious hype and madness seen on much of the American religious landscape. I have also found it to be wonderfully ironic that at the heart of the Roman Catholic Church is the very Christ whose words would bring all of its wealth and form to a crashing halt if truly heard – yet the words and the tradition lie there waiting, readily available for whoever has ears to hear.

The Mystical Element**
 

How does one handle those tensions that are to be found between staid established religious institutions and personal spiritual experience? Baron Fredrich von Hugel had some helpful things to say in his classic work, The Mystical Element of Religion. He outlined three stages of religious expression after studying the life of St. Catherine of Genoa. These stages, or elements, are often in tension with one another and sometimes difficult to reconcile:

1. The historical/institutional element
2. The scientific/intellectual element 
3. The mystical/experiential element

The historical/institutional element is how most people come to religion. It is the structural support, the conveyer of the tradition.

The scientific/intellectual element is a stage of inquiry to explore the meaning and validity of the received faith. In my Baptist experience, this was often seen as threatening. Some people thought higher intellectual pursuits would “ruin” the faith of a Christian believer.

The mystical/experiential is that poetic, immediate recognition of the spiritual validity of faith. Many who cling to the historical/institutional element see the mystical as dangerous and ungrounded. Those of intellectual bent often see the mystical as too emotional, not feeling comfortable with the non-rational aspects of faith.

Keeping It Real

We live today in a world in which we can build our own theology and seek out the practice that is most meaningful to us. Some will find help in traditional churches; some will seek out other avenues. Most of us, I suspect, will find ourselves grounded in one basic practice while augmenting that with insights from others.  In addition to traditional Christian practice, I have found enrichment in spiritual writings from a number of sources.  Some of the more influential  include Quaker writers Douglass Steere, Thomas Kelly, and Rufus Jones;  Catholic authors Thomas Merton and Pierre Teillhard de Chardin; and Buddhist practitioners Thich Naht Hanh and Jack Kornfield. In fact, Kornfield's book,  A Path with Heart,  greatly affirmed my own Christian path of meditation.  Insights from the Gospel of Thomas have also added to my spiritual practice. Here are three of my favorite passages from that work:

(3) Jesus said: If those who lead you say to you: See, the kingdom is in heaven, then the birds of the heaven will go before you; if they say to you: It is in the sea, then the fish will go before you. But the kingdom is within you, and it is outside of you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will know that you are the sons of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you are in poverty, and you are poverty.

(70) Jesus said, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

(113) His disciples said to Him, "When will the Kingdom come?" <Jesus said,> "It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying 'Here it is' or 'There it is.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it."

Regardless if how we come by our religious and spiritual truths, we as a society tend to build institutions as a repository for those truths. Carrying it forward from one generation to the next can be a challenge.  A friend told me recently about a large suburban church that spent a weekend strategizing about how to keep people coming. There are, indeed, different reasons why people want to keep their churches alive. Some have had genuine spiritual encounters that were life-changing, and they want to figure out how to convey that reality to other people. Some see the church as an important institution, and they want to keep it viable. Others want to be able to pass on to their children those things that they themselves have found to be meaningful (that's a hard one!).

 One thing we must realize is that every organization that exists – whether corporate, religious, or non-profit – has a back story and an underbelly. Realizing this fact is part of what it means to be an adult. We have to move with what we have while ever striving to make things better. Within that process we will always have people who are coming and people who are leaving; people who are innovative and people who are working to maintain the status quo.  Some will want the church to be a spiritual exercise while others will want it to be an activist organization. There will also be those who find more hope and meaning by making their way in the margins (some of our true prophets and guides have been marginal people moving against the grain).  

My guess is that we will continue to create more up-to-date churches and institutions which will serve us for a time before becoming obsolete themselves (you may want to see my earlier blog post, “ Living Between the Times,” for another commentary on the subject). 

I often remind myself of that quote from the Gospel of Thomas, “the Kingdom is spread out upon the earth” – it is just that real and just that present – yet our awareness of that presence is often lacking. Those of us on the spiritual path are all about finding that awareness.  The way I go about that will not be the way you go about it. We are all on a continuum of faith experience, each of us at a different point, and each of us coming from our own particular life experience. We can take courage from one another and learn from one another, without feeling that we must be on the same exact path. Whether you are leaving church, arriving at church, or moving to new vistas we can all benefit from listening to fellow travelers and pilgrims.

_______________________

* “Losing members” may depend upon how you view statistics. One the one hand, it has been said that if “former Catholics” were a denomination, it would be the second largest in the country. On the other hand, new figures show that last year the number of Catholics in the world increased worldwide across every continent (see http://americamagazine.org/issue/catholic-numbers-rise). The “Francis Effect,” perhaps?

** The concepts outlined by von Hugel were included in a previous blog post, “More for the Spiritual but Not Religious” 

*    *    *

Addendum: A brief recommended reading list

Here are some of the writings that I have found to be particularly helpful on my journey:

• Thoughts in Solitude, by Thomas Merton
• Contemplation in a World of Action, by Thomas Merton
• On Listening to Another, By Douglass Steere
• A Testament of Devotion, By Thomas Kelly
• The Divine Milieu, by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
• The Jew in the Lotus, by Roger Kamenetz
• As a Leaf Driven, by Milton Steinberg
• Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis
• Mysticism, by Evelyn Underhill
• A Path with Heart, by Jack Kornfield
• Peace Is Every Step: the Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life, by Thich Naht Hanh

__________________________________
Photo: Church Ruins
Credit: Lesley
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons



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“Lead All Souls to Heaven”

Depiction of St. Brenden the Navigator

In a talk that he gave to the novices at Gethsemani Abby, Thomas Merton once compared spirituality to a journey down the river. He talked about the Irish monks who took off in a boat, going where God led them. He said that the image of embarking on a boat and letting the river carry us is a metaphor for how we can abandon ourselves to the guidance of God. It is not an image of being in control, but rather of resting in the boat and trusting the river. Merton speaks of that journey being one of progressive insight that is ultimately fulfilled upon the spiritual pilgrim’s death with full realization in heaven. He went on to say that “journey” is symbolic of our state on earth – we are all going somewhere.*

Spiritual Journey

I like the imagery of embarking upon the river when speaking of the spiritual life. My own view of spirituality is not one that is centered upon life in heaven after death.  I don’t think Thomas Merton made the afterlife his focus either. He referred to heaven in traditional terms as the ultimate destination of the faithful soul after death, but his focus was on how we live in our present life on earth. In my view, we are all on a journey and we can make that journey as spiritual as we want to. By “spiritual,” I refer to that act of understanding the true value and meaning of our existence. That understanding may be enhanced by seeing the work of an artist in a gallery, listening to music in a concert hall, or watching a sunset and realizing that we are connected to creation.

To find our spiritual path, we need not take traditional imagery literally. For example, when I hear or read traditionally religious terms like salvation, heaven, hell, paradise, etc. I find that if I think of these things symbolically rather than as actual places in some afterlife, then that imagery begins to inform my life and to expand my appreciation of what Life has in store. In other words, spirituality is not about life after death, it is about life in the here-and-now. When we begin to see that, then we can let the imagery of traditional religious language inform our journey as we embark upon the river of life.

I wrote in Spirit Work, Soul Work, “True spirituality integrates and connects. In order for spiritual practice to be more than just an opiate or a distraction, it must take into account the whole of life. Work place, family, hobbies and social life each represent opportunities for the implementation of spirituality. Every religious tradition offers methods for spiritual practice, the goal being to eliminate distractions and to pay attention.”

A Universal Hope

We have some powerful archetypes to inform us along our journey. I have an appreciation for Marian spirituality, and I am fascinated by stories of Marian visitations. From a purely psychological standpoint, these stories can be very illuminating in regard to the role of the feminine archetype in our lives (see A Jungian Appreciation of Mary). The reported visions at Fatima in 1917 are most intriguing. There have been books written about the phenomena that occurred there in Portugal, and there was even a movie made about it, “The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima.”

There is a prayer, supposedly requested by the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima, that is now traditionally recited while praying the rosary: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who have most need of your mercy.”

Lead all souls to heaven, especially those who have most need of your mercy! I love finding concepts of universalism in faith practices. When I first began to learn to pray the rosary As a Catholic convert, I was already familiar with the story of Fatima, and I was also drawn to the idea of universalism. It was a true joy to find this prayer for all to find their way to heaven, even those we might consider to be far from God’s grace.

The Gate of Heaven Is Everywhere

Thomas Merton

What do we mean when we speak of heaven? What is this universal hope, and how is it apprehended? What does it mean to you? For some, it may be a metaphor for union with the divine, for others it could refer to personal fulfillment or psychological wholeness When the Gospel of Matthew speaks of the kingdom heaven, sometimes it is not referring to life after death but rather the imminent reign of God on earth. The book of Matthew was written for a Jewish community of people who would not have spoken the name of God. The term, “Kingdom of heaven,” was used rather than Kingdom of God. Unfortunately, many readers of the New Testament text today see heaven only in terms of the afterlife.

We can turn again to Thomas Merton for an image of how we might understand heaven. There is a famous passage in his Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander** in which he describes an epiphany that occurred on a rare trip from Gethsemani Abbey to Louisville, Kentucky:

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream.

Merton wrote of how the people he saw on that street corner were just and much a part of God as he and his monastic brothers were. The only difference was that “We just happen to be conscious of it” but that that did not mean he was any better than the rest of the world. As he continued to discuss his epiphany, Merton declared:

It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: yet, with all that, God Himself gloried in becoming a member of the human race. A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake.

…It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody…I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.

So while that Marian prayer from Our Lady of Fatima is to lead all souls to heaven, Thomas Merton affirms that the gate of heaven is everywhere, if only we will become conscious of it. That is all the more reason to set our craft upon the water, and trust the waters to take us to that destination that we seek on our spiritual journey.

Irish currach

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References:
* "The Spiritual Journey," lecture given by Thomas Merton on January 16, 1963; from Thomas Merton on Contemplation, audio recordings from the archives of The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University, Louisville, Kentucky, under the copyright of Know You Know Media.

** Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, by Thomas Merton, 1966, Doubleday, Garden City, NY.

Photos: 
St. Brendan from "Irish Monks and the voyage of St. Brenden"
Thomas Merton from Dover Beach blogsite
Irish currach from Kelticos 


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Two Monks Planting Seeds of Hope for a Better World

Last month Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, wrote an op ed piece for The New York Times making a case for the possibility of harmony among religions ("Many Faiths, One Truth," May 24, 2010). While acknowledging the fact that intolerance and exclusivity are hallmarks of religion, he argues that one can stay true to one’s own faith tradition and still have respect and admiration for other faith traditions. Indeed, the Dalai Lama argues that with the world and its different cultures becoming more and more interconnected, finding a way for peaceful coexistence is all the more imperative (see the full op ed piece by clicking here).

I was particularly heartened to see the Dalai Lama give credit to Thomas Merton for his own enlightenment regarding other faiths:

“An early eye-opener for me was my meeting with the Trappist monk Thomas Merton in India shortly before his untimely death in 1968. Merton told me he could be perfectly faithful to Christianity, yet learn in depth from other religions like Buddhism. The same is true for me as an ardent Buddhist learning from the world’s other great religions. A main point in my discussion with Merton was how central compassion was to the message of both Christianity and Buddhism.”

Thomas Merton had looked forward to that meeting with the Dalai Lama with anticipation during his trip through Asia. His trip took him through India, Ceylon, and culminated in Bangkok, Thailand where he addressed a gathering of Asian monastic leaders before his unfortunate death. Merton kept a journal of his travels and encounters along the way which was published posthumously as, The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton.

The famous Trappist monk had three meetings with the Dalai Lama while he was in India. Merton was impressed with the depths of the Tibetan leader's intellect as well as his spirituality. The two monks discussed with one another their own traditions, each one having important questions for the other regarding faith and practice.

After the final visit with the Dalai Lama, Merton wrote: “It was a very warm and cordial discussion and at the end I felt we had become very good friends and were somehow quite close to one another. I feel a great respect and fondness for him as a person and believe, too, that there is a real spiritual bond between us. He remarked that I was a “Catholic geshe,” which, Harold said, was the highest possible praise from a Geluga, like an honorary doctorate!” (The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton, p. 125)

May we look to the example of these two monks, one Christian, one Tibetan Buddhist, who have sought to bridge the gap between East and West; both of them standing for authenticity of living in a world marked by struggle, division, love, and beauty.

[The photograph above is from The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton, p. 101]



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Remembering Those Who Have Gone Before Us (Part 1)

In my previous blog post, I mentioned Thomas Merton in passing. Since then, yet another older poem has come to mind. I wrote the following poem to express how important a life can be even when mortality separates life from life to leave an empty space. There are many ways that I am aware of a certain "communion of saints" in which I continue to learn from friends and family who have departed this life. I hope to write more about that in the future. For now, I give you this tribute brought to mind by thoughts of Gethsemani Abbey.



To Thomas Merton

"Father Louis has died."
I meet the words with disbelief.
He accepted my nature and encouraged my vocation.
It feels as though he should still be here,
So news of his death brings a sense of loss.

But it happened in 1968
When the events of a Thousand Years took place.
I was a boy, awakened by violence -
hope slipping away,
And the one who would be my guide to peace
Lay among the dead
transported in a war plane.

"Father Louis has died."
I meet the words with disbelief.
Did he not tell me about solitude
and of the richness found within?
I think I saw him planting an oak,
but that was long ago.

But wait - I know he directed me to the East
And he affirmed my contemplative stirrings...
On second thought, that was after the fact -
it was all after the fact.
Everything happened after the message,
"Father Louis has died."

I meet the words with disbelief.
He is much too present for me to remember
That he is dead.
Sometimes I find myself in a realm
Where Thomas Merton and I are contemporaries
Comparing experiences and hopes.
I learn from his insights;
I am at home with him.
But then comes the disturbing news,
"Father Louis has died."



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Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday. Traditionally, it is a time to remember our mortality as we enter the penitential season of Lent in preparation for Easter. For me, it serves as a natural marker, a seasonal event to remind me to take stock of my life. Perhaps it is natural that I should now think back to a time of introspection some 25 years ago.

It was around my 30th birthday that I decided to spend a few days at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky. Gethsemani is the trappist monastery best know as the place where Thomas Merton lived after taking vows in the order. Mine was a personal, unstructured retreat. I prayed the hours with the monks, hiked in the Kentucky woodlands, and ate the simple fare offered at the monastery. At the end of my stay, I stopped by the gift shop and left with some excellent cheese and fruitcake (crafted by the monks there), and at least one insight which I wrote down in the poem that follows.




A Small Brown Bird, a Red Bandanna, and a Fat Man Coughing
(Day One at a Trappist Monastery)

I'm not sure I know what a distraction is.

Today I spent a couple of hours walking through
the autumn woods near Gethsemani Abbey.
A small brown bird caught my attention as he
chirped and flitted among the bushes
down by a pond.

During afternoon prayer
a monk pulled out a red bandanna
and blew his nose.
It was just like the bandannas Dad gave
my brother and me when we were children.
We loved our bandannas, and we used them
to wipe sweat, to be cowboys, to be hobos,
and to carry Mom's oatmeal cookies.

By one small act, this monk
brought a part of my childhood
before God.

There was a fat man in the guesthouse.
I kept seeing him there.
He chain-smoked cigarettes and coughed every fifteen
seconds.
I drank a cup of coffee in the next room.
I kept hearing that fat man cough.
I read about Julian of Norwich in the library.
I heard the hacking cough - like a carpenter's saw
every fifteen seconds.

Did the bird make me forget the autumn woods?
Did the bandanna interrupt my prayer?
Did the fat man's cough disturb my inner silence,
or did it punctuate my inner noise?

I'm not sure I know what a distraction is.



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