The Liminal Christian

I just received a new book (Amazon.com is my downfall!): The Big Book of Christian Mysticism: The Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality by Carl McColman. Too many of my favorite writer-speaker-teachers (Richard Rohr, Caroline Myss, Cynthia Bourgeault, Kenneth Leech) praised it for me to pass it up. 

I flipped through it -- you know how it is when you have a new book, you have to hold it, smooth your thirsty fingers across the cover, and then make the pages go swissshh -- I flipped through it and "landed" on a little section entitled "The Liminal Christian." And I simply have to share some of it here:

"Throughout history, many great mystics lived on the margins of the church -- sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically. The Desert Fathers and Mothers lived on the edge that separated civilization from the wilderness. Many great monastic orders chose remote locations for their homes, settling on the margins between church and society on the one hand, and the untamed forests, mountains, or even swamps on the other. Francis of Assisi rejected a posh life as an affluent merchant's son, choosing instead to live on the fine line that separated respectable religion from a life of poverty.

Julian of Norwich lived literally on the edge -- in a cell where she enjoyed solitude, but attached to a parish church where she participated in communal worship and provided spiritual direction to those who sought her guidance. Simone Weil, a Jewish philosopher who embraced Christian spirituality but refused to be baptized, never even fully entered the church, at least not sacramentally. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, as a paleontologist, inhabited the frontier between religion and science, while Thomas Merton, Bede Griffiths, and Swami Abhishiktananda were all called to live out their faith in the gray area between Christianity and the wisdom traditions of Buddhism or Hinduism . . . .

The fancy, Latin-based word that describes this place of 'inbetweenness' is 'liminal,' which means 'of the threshold.' I believe that the great mystics often lurked on the thresholds between institutional religion and the real (or figurative) wild places of the world. As liminal figures, they were in the best position to drink deeply from the well of Christian tradition, but also to express their relationship with God in a completely authentic way. They respected the sacraments and the graces of the church, but also truly loved and befriended those who, for whatever reason, remained outside the boundaries of organized religion. 

It is not easy to live authentically in these liminal spaces . . . .

Many who feel a profound desire for God and hunger for the gifts of silence and solitude have ambivalent feelings toward the unexciting business of mainstream religion, with its endless committee meetings and pledge drives and cleaning days. Worse yet, they become frustrated with the often profound indifference (or suspicion) that many devout Christians show toward mysticism and contemplation. But these feelings don't release them from their need for a community in which to ground their contemplative journey. The call to contemplation includes an invitation to relate to organized religion in creative and unusual ways. You must discern -- through prayer and conversation with your soul friends or spiritual director -- what that means in your own spiritual life.

Your interest in mysticism and contemplation will not magically make membership in a faith community easier. In fact, it may even be a source of frustration as you try to relate spiritually to those whose religious values seem at odds with your own. For all its challenges and problems, however, the church provides a vital ingredient in the life of Christian mystical spirituality. Find the church that is right for you, and stick with it. Don't be limited by the church, but don't settle for any notion that religion and spirituality must somehow be at odds. Learning to navigate the tension between religion and spirituality, even if only within yourself, can be a crucial element in opening your mind and heart to the splendor of God's grace and presence" (151-153).

I'll share some thoughts on this later, in another post.

Toothbrushing Yoga

(Another Gaia blog oldie) --

Today I cleaned my teeth using a small, soft-bristled traveling toothbrush and Tom's of Maine toothpaste. My "regular" toothbrush needs replacing, as I can see brownish crud forming at the bottom of its bristles - and since my traveling toothbrush is relatively new, it's definitely cleaner.

I concentrate on the back teeth, brushing near the gum line, using circular motions as well as up-and-down and across-the-surface-of the teeth strokes. These are the teeth that will eventually give me the most trouble, the dental hygienist tersely warns me. For the last several years, I have been fighting periodontal disease, and I've been told that I (along with a majority of adults my age) have got problematic "pockets." Pockets occur when the gum itself starts receding from the surface of the tooth, creating a space where bacteria and plaque and tartar can gather and "eat" further away at the gum, thereby deepening the pockets. Pockets that are one or two millimeters deep are normal, threes are okay but need to be watched, fours are in the warning zone, and fives and beyond mean you're heading into a more serious case of gum disease. My front teeth are at the two or three level, but the back teeth have lots of fours and fives. Flossing helps to slow down the progression of the disease, and allegedly, good home care can keep everything at bay.

So what is good home care? Brushing twice a day - for at least four minutes each time - and, of course, flossing. Additional home exercises include using a dental stimulator along the gumline, to prevent plaque from gathering. But seeing as it took me nearly 40 years before I started flossing properly and consistently, the dental stimulator trick will have to wait a while. At the moment I'm concentrating on the consistency of four minutes in the morning and evening, plus flossing.

I've gotten to the point where I need to have a deep cleaning performed by a hygienist every 3 months (most folks need a regular cleaning every 6 months). A deep cleaning includes scaling and root planing - mild forms of torture involving sharp metal pointy instruments digging the bacterial crud away from the bottom of the gum pockets. When I've been neglectful, novocaine will be required for me to be able to tolerate the stabbing of my gums and the scraping of my enamel. But when I've been good, I can get by with just a minor amount of blood and gore and no novocaine.

I always leave the hygienist appointment with the best of intentions. I've got an electric toothbrush that brushes for two minutes at a time, then I do a thorough flossing. I top it all off with two minutes (timed with an egg timer) of brushing with a regular toothbrush, and end it with a fluoride rinse. All of this, twice a day.

For perhaps the first two weeks after the deep cleaning, I'm impeccable about all of this. I tell myself that it's part of my spiritual practice - it's an act of tender loving care for my changing, aging body. By practicing the yoga of brushing twice a day, I enhance my chances for overall health, meaning that I will be more available to help create the conditions that lead to health for others. Loving myself for the benefit of the greater Self: God and neighbor.

But eventually my cleansing enthusiasm begins to wane. I simply start forgetting to do it twice a day - or I begin to have busy days where I feel like I just don't have the time to take 10 minutes out of my life to improve my dental health. I start to rationalize: I have the deep cleanings every three months anyway, right? Certainly those should cover the days when I don't do the twice-daily brushing, or the evenings when I'm too tired to floss. And before I know it, I'm down to brushing my teeth once a day for about two minutes, followed by a rushed flossing.

I'm telling you: this worries me. Do I feel I'm not good enough to take just 10 minutes every day to improve my health? It's such a small act of love, a tiny simple thing to do, a very caring and non-taxing exercise. And doesn't love really manifest itself in repeated actions and in persistent cycles? The turning of the earth, which brings needed sunlight to us daily. The plants that die even as they release seeds, which will sprout and grow and provide beauty or nectar or food for insects, animals, and humans. The mother who consistently answers the child's cries for milk or caresses or warmth. The body's daily surrender to sleep, and the awakening and energy that follows rest. The beating of the heart. The inhalation and the exhalation, each breath necessary, all a part of a cycle that often takes place without our being aware of it. Such is love: the very rhythms of life, the neverending dance, the unstoppable outreaching and stretching and circling of the cosmos.

But love, for humans, also emerges as an act of the will, a choice. And therein lies my problem. I want my toothbrushing to be as seemingly effortless as the rising of the sun and the changing of the seasons. I want it to just "happen," for it to be so embedded in the routines of my day that I don't even have to remind myself to do it. But not everything is as easy and instinctual as breathing. Certain repeated acts require conscious persistence, method, discipline, tiny movements of the will. Over the course of time, they can become relatively automatic, not requiring much effort or self-conscious action. But at the beginning of any choice for love, be it the brushing of teeth, voting, feeding one's family, being present to a downtrodden friend, taking time to pray, visiting the dying - the will must make and act on a certain decision, again and again and again.

Spirit ever patient, strengthen my will. Grant me the grace to keep making that choice for love - even in the smallest and most innocuous routines of my daily life. For I suspect that these miniscule "love exercises" generate spiritual vigor - and eventually enable us to manifest your Love with greater frequency and less hesitation. May the flow of your Love not be blocked by the weakness or laziness of my sluggish will, Eternal One. And as always, lend me patience with my failures! Such is also a lesson in love...

(Oh--and when You have the time and inclination, maybe zing some creative chemist out there with some inspiration towards some wintergreen-flavored fluoride rinse. M'kay? Muchas gracias!)

--December 30, 2006 Gaia blog

Greatest Hits: Getting Lost

As I count down to my 50th birthday [mid-September -- yep, I'm a Virgo], I thought this would be a good time to post some "greatest hits" from a previous blog. To those peeking in here who might be new to my bloggarisms: for a few years I had a blog of sorts at Gaia (formerly Zaadz) -- a website for those yearning to foster spiritually and environmentally conscious community. Between 2005 and 2010, Gaia hosted a network of online discussion forums, and each member of Gaia also had personal blogspace if they so desired. But this past May, Gaiam, the corporation that underwrote Gaia, pulled the plug on all those forum and blog discussions by shutting the website down. I won't go into all the speculations as to why this happened . . . At any rate, the Gaia community now has a new home on the Ning network. But it's just not the same, and the blog set-up there is downright confusing. 

So here I am, in the big wild world of Blogspot.

I wrote the following post in response to one of Gaia's "daily Q & A" threads. This one invited people to answer the question: "When was the last time you got lost? What happened?" 

------------------------------------------------------------

The last time I got lost was when I "lost it."

Lost my cool while driving, that is.

I currently live in southern California, land of hot, howling, horrific traffic. I know that there are places in the world where it is worse -- Tijuana, Mexico, for example, can be a frightening place just to be a pedestrian. I have visited there on occasion, but it's not where I live and drive.

I've actually become rather spoiled now because I work out of my home, with stores and grub and supplies nearby, and don't need to drive that much. Years ago, when I had to be at an office at eight in the morning five days a week, I could never tell how long it would take me to get to work. What was normally a twenty-minute drive (under relatively gridlock-free conditions) could turn into a two-hour journey through hell if it had rained (southern Californians simply cannot handle rainy roads) or if there had been fender-benders. Eventually I took to listening to cassettes and CDs of good music, or lectures, and was able to savor the hours spent in the car that way. And sometimes I would practice a kind of "traffic tonglen," breathing in my own irritation as well as the frustration and anger of my fellow drivers, and "sending out" the warm sunlight on my forearms, the smell of good coffee, the remnants of the previous night's joyful dream, the radiant inner stillness that contemplative practice had allowed me to touch.

I prided myself on how good a driver it made me: ahhh ... so calm and so gentle, so smooth and serene, always giving people the benefit of the doubt, allowing access to my lane, not taking it personally if someone cut me off or tailed me. After all, we Cali drivers were really all in this together, right? The great majority of our highway frustrations were only temporary experiences, nothing to write home about, certainly nothing to remember on our deathbeds.

A couple of months ago, however -- after being spoiled by not having to drive daily, I was returning home from church, of all places, on a late Sunday morning. I was on the freeway, getting ready to pass an onramp. A line of cars was merging onto the freeway. Following the rules of sane and courteous traffic, each freeway driver was letting one person merge in front of them: freeway car, merger, freeway car, merger -- you, then me, then you, then me. It's what fair and proper and decent.

And then a man in a pickup truck decided to break this rule. In front of me, on this pleasant balmy Sunday.

I had done the right thing: let one car merge into the space in front of me. This man in the truck decided he needed to be in front of me too. He wanted to break into the line, when what he was supposed to do was pull in behind me -- where there was actually plenty of space, because there were no cars directly behind me.

And the race was on.

I sped up and moved closer to the car in front of me to block him out. He also sped up, and actually started driving on the shoulder of the freeway, determined to get in front of me. He managed to edge over and so I had to let him in -- unless I planned on letting him sideswipe me. Okay asshole, go ahead, get in there if you goddammed have to.

And then he gave me the finger. And worse, he did that thing that drivers do when they rarin' to seriously piss off the people driving behind them. He slowed down -- way, way down. I watched him as he kept checking his rearview mirror, wanting to get a reaction out of me. I wouldn't stoop to giving him the satisfaction of honking or flipping him a return-bird. Instead I drove with a smooth poker face, right up on his tail, as he continued his slow drive, trying his hardest to piss me off. And I certainly was angry -- but beyond driving about three inches from his tailpipe, I wasn't going to let him see it in my face or in my gestures. Motherfucker, I am in the right, I am better than you and holier than you and cooler than you, and I am going to teach you a lesson. You don't deserve to be driving within a mile of me, you prick. Yeah, shithead, keep on looking in your rearview mirror and swearing. Make my day.

So we drove like this, me right up in his junky-truck ass at about forty miles-per-hour, for the next mile or so, until my exit came up.

What had happened to my traffic tonglen? What had happened to The Peaceful Driver? I really cannot say. She'd "gotten lost," somehow ...

But to honor those wonderful drivers out there who manage to not get lost in irritation over annoying but ultimately inconsequential actions by other drivers, I offer this 1996 song of gratitude by Geggy Tah, entitled "Whoever You Are."

(You were still a jerk, though, Mr.Truckbutt who pushed in front of me. I'm sorry but it's true.)

--May 5, 2007 Gaia blog

Zen and True Love

 One of my "Daily Readers" is a little book by Franciscan Fr. Jude Winkler entitled Daily Meditations with the Holy Spirit.  A couple of days ago, just before heading out to see a movie, I peeked at the day's entry for August 11. It begins with a scrap of scripture from Galatians: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity . . ." Noticing that love was italicized, I went on to read Fr. Jude's reflection:

"True love is a willingness to live and even die for one another. It is not a feeling or an emotion. True love is a choice that will ultimately bring one to the Cross. None of us has the strength to do this on our own. It is the Spirit who gives us the grace we need."

The brief prayer following the reflection was: Spirit of Love, teach me the true meaning of love.

The movie I went to see, with my friend Jane, was Zen. Based on the novel Life of Dogen by Tetsu Otani, this film (here's a good review) is a cinematic hagiography of the founder of the Soto school of Zen in Japan. I later described it to my husband as a kind of Brother Sun Sister Moon of the Zen lineage -- but it's not quite that romantic or cinematographically lavish. While it depicts the central character as committed, deeply compassionate, and unswervingly humble, it's a quieter, more spacious film that opens and blooms more slowly -- simultaneously unassuming and expansive.

There is one scene near the end [spoiler alert] depicting a tense interaction between Dogen and a shogun who is being persistently and disturbingly haunted by the ghosts of dead warriors. Dogen's suggestion that these ghosts are the immaterial products of a tortured imagination enrages the shogun, who threatens to kill Dogen if he does not retract his statement. But Dogen, who had made a special trip to minister to this anguished man, is fully prepared to die. Gathering himself, he sits down in a zazen pose and lowers his hood -- leaving his neck exposed -- as the shogun lifts his sword. The shogun pauses, then, in a powerful moment of clarity and contrition, is overcome. He throws aside his sword, sits down next to Dogen, and joins him in meditation.

Given my background, I could not help but see the similarities between this depiction of Dogen and the biblical Jesus: powerful stories about strong, humble masters who walk the talk of radical nonattachment and profound compassion. The Bodhisattvic and Incarnational Love that is ready to give everything, even its own be-ing, for the awakening and blooming of another.

So I've been letting this synchronicity -- reading Fr. Jude's reflection on true love and then viewing that dramatic moment in Zen -- sink in to my heart.

Am I able to love in this way? I would like to think that if and when the moment presents itself, I would readily die for another (or others), freely offer this ultimate expression of love. But in all honesty -- I am a long way from being so radically kenotic. That's for the best, I suppose. Or else I'd be all too willing to take the credit for this wild gift of the Spirit . . .

Odetta

In one of her last public appearances, Odetta sings "Glory Hallelujah" at Satyagraha: Gandhi's "Truth Force" in the Age of Climate Change, presented by the Garrison Institute on April 13, 2008, at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City. Come lay your burden down in her song.

Imaging God

From a 2007 weekly reflection paper I wrote for an introductory course in spiritual direction --

All of these readings on imaging God were wonderful, but I especially appreciate the Wilkie Au and Noreen Cannon Au selections from The Discerning Heart. Their consideration of how our our images of God affect our entire approach to life, relationships, and the sacred journey, as well as the impact of developmental influences and the need for balance between immanent and transcendent images of God -- really hit home for me.

It is painful to observe the effect that distorted images of God can have. I know quite a few people who have a deep--and quite justified--resentment toward "God" and [panen]theistic religion because they've acquired an image of an angry, vengeful deity who is ready to send people to eternal hell if they are unpleasing to him. I rejected the existence of God in my teens because it did not make sense to me that an all-powerful, "all-loving" Creator would bring humans into being only to damn them to unending torment if they did not accept Jesus as Lord. If this were the case, most of humanity would end up in the place of infinite torment, and the cosmos would be an essentially cruel place. Why create sentient life in the first place if most of it ends up in never-ending torture? I wondered. Is God simply a sadist? [An aside -- Richard Rohr once mused that " ...Most people I know would never torture another human being under any conditions. Yet people believe in a god who not only tortures, but tortures for all eternity. That is bitter vengeance by anyone's definition. Why would anyone want to be alone with such a testy and temperamental god? Why would anyone go on the great mystical journey into divine intimacy with such an unsafe lover? Why would anyone trust such a god to know how to love those who really need it?  I personally know many people who are much more generous and imaginative than this god is. We have ended up being ourselves more loving, or at least trying to be, than the god we profess to believe! Such a religion is in deep trouble - at its core . . ."]

So I concluded that "God" was a human-created myth intended to frighten people into being good, and that there was no true God. In rejecting this distorted image of God, I (for a time, at least), rejected all notions of God, because I assumed that they were pointing to this narrow, vengeful, fire-and-brimstone deity. While I think it's a healthy step to reject distorted images of the Divine, it's also unfortunate when people become alienated from the riches of a tradition because the inoperable God-images got in the way.

Conversely, many people unwittingly cling to a distorted image of God in a way that may keep them "stuck" at a certain level on the spiritual journey. I think of a friend who was raised by abusive parents, and who seems to believe that God is sending her harsh trials and tests that she must "pass" if she wants to avoid punishment. It's painful to see her struggle with this -- I think she recognizes that she is operating out of a skewed view of God, yet she's also unconsciously motivated by that view . . .

In the section  . . . about professed and operative images of God, Au notes that "Sometimes the image we verbally profess is not really the image that holds sway." This gives me plenty to ponder as I examine my own God-images. On the one hand, I profess a kind of multi-perspectival, kaleidoscopic image of God: I relate to God as the ground of being, as the cosmic Source, as a tenderly embracing Mother and Father, as a deeply loving Thou, as the hidden holiness within everything, as the agapic connecting link between all beings, as incarnate love-in-action, merciful and infinitely patient, as great Silence, and as incomprehensible Mystery. Yet when I consider my own early development, I recognize that I am probably still living with some distorted images. If the object relations theorists are correct that "one's God-image, as well as one's image of self and others [is connected] to the infant's earliest interaction with its primary caregiver," then a buried part of me may see God as alternately rejecting and loving--and therefore as somewhat untrustworthy. I was given up at birth, after which I lived in a home for infants for fourteen months prior to my adoption. Such homes no longer exist, as psychologists came to see that many infants did not fare well in institutional settings and that more individualized foster-care situations were the better route. At any rate, I do not know what kind of care I received -- it may have actually been quite good, given the circumstances. But I also may have been impacted by the initial separation from my birth mother, which was followed up a little more than a year later by a separation from the caregivers in the home. Being pre-rational and pre-verbal, there was no way I could have understood the "reason" for these separations, and I probably experienced them as a profound rejection and a loss of security and love, even though none of that was intended. I recognize that there is a part of me that still perceives God as a bit indifferent -- which in turn leads to the thought that I am someone who doesn't really matter much, and that whatever I have to offer -- even my very being itself -- may be rejected or persistently ignored. That may be what under-girds this lingering need to seek "approval" from God and from others, as if I need to earn the love that S/he would never hold back.

--written on October 3, 2007

Faith versus Belief

I deeply dig Rabbi Rami Shapiro. Here's a taste of his recurring column, "Roadside Assistance for the Spiritual Traveler," that appears in the bimonthly Spirituality and Health magazine:

"Question: I know a lot of 'people of faith,' but when I ask them about their faith, they always tell me what they believe. Are faith and belief the same thing?

"Answer: No, they're not. Belief is about knowing; faith is about not knowing. Belief is about content. I believe this and I don't believe that. Faith is an attitude toward reality, a trusting in what is unfolding without knowing just what that is.

"The best faith is fierce: You know that you don't know; you know that you can't know; and yet you embrace the moment boldly, completely, and without hesitation. Fierce faith is cultivated through equally fierce worship. Such worship may be organized or improvised, ecstatic or contemplative. One point that the different kinds of fierce worship have in common is that they do not shore up or confirm your beliefs; rather, they strip you of belief and wrap you in a 'cloud of unknowing.'

"Fierce faith opens body, heart, and mind to a love unbounded by politics and social conditioning; a love that shatters tribalism without eliminating tribes; that burns away imposed differences and celebrates individuality; that consumes conformity, even as it reveals a greater nonduality.

"There is nothing wrong with holding beliefs, just do so lightly. But the deeper work is to release your grip on belief and surrender yourself to faith."

--Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Spirituality & Health, May-June 2010

From the Ground on Which I Sit

This is a prayer-log entry of mine from December 2008, a moment during the Advent season when I was having difficulty being consistent with my twice-a-day practice of centering prayer, a method of apophatic (formless) contemplative prayer. At the time, I was also meeting with a spiritual director who had gently suggested that I not totally abandon daily cataphatic prayer -- a way of praying that incorporates form, words, images, thoughts. With her suggestion in mind, I took up reading Scripture in the mornings -- passages designated for that particular day of the liturgical year -- and engaging in an informal lectio divina.

-----------------------------------------------------

December 3, 2008: After waking – Gospel of the day: Mt. 15: 29-37 (Jesus' healing of the mute, lame and blind, and the feeding of the 4000 with 7 loaves and a few fish).

Lord, I am reminded that I need to come and sit with You in the silence (“he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground”) for healing and nourishment. I have known this to be true in the past and it’s no less true today. Help me to hold this in my awareness.

As I write this there is this double awareness in me: during mental [cataphatic] prayer, I internally speak to God as if there is a Great Invisible Listening Person there, even as I am aware that God (at least God "the Father") is not really a person. On other levels I know that God is the formless All-in-all, boundless and ineffable, always still and eternally flowing, the river of being and consciousness, mystical love-flood, inside of time and beyond time, immanent and transcendent. And yet because I am a limited human who senses, thinks, and relates, I need to find a way to open up to this boundless infinitude – I need to be able to speak to it, be naked before it, to be in relationship with it, respond to it. Although “it” is not the right word, either, of course – "it" feels diminishing, objectifying – and God is not really an “it.” A Person, a subject, has greater depth and dimension than an it, and so this is what I must do: speak to You, the Great Hearer, without embarrassment, with openness and with honesty, humble, just being myself, whoever I am in the moment – and in the end realizing that there is nothing I can do to diminish You anyway, however I am perceiving You, receiving You. You, the Source of existence and depth dimension to all that is, the shimmering Mystery, the Silence, the Emptiness and the Fullness, can “act” as a Person for me too, a "someone" that a limited human can dialogue with, be in relationship with.

I guess I fear squeezing You into a small box framed by my own projections and wishes. I still have fears that I am fooling myself … or just “playing,” whispering in my head with an invisible friend. And yet I know You have poured countless graces into my life. I have felt Your presence, tasted Your sweetness, bathed in Your mercy. Strengthen my memory, Lord, when I start to waver and second-guess blessings such as these. Just keep me talking to You, opening up to You, waiting for You, resting in silence with You. Let me be with You in words and noise and emotion and activity, and bring me back to You in the silence that under-girds all thought and emotion and feeling. Feed me from the ground on which I sit.

Okay. Another thought I have from today’s Scripture : when we allow the Lord to touch us or to bless what we believe are our meager portions, we are healed, and the nourishment can increase so that we actually end up having “left overs,” overflowing bounty that becomes food for others. When we bring ourselves to the Lord in all our woundedness, trusting (even as we greatly doubt!) that we receive what we need, a hidden, subtle expansion occurs. When we least expect it, in a widely needful moment, we might find ourselves healed and sustained beyond what we initially thought was possible.

(An important caveat: Need is different from wanting or yearning. Need is a naked cry for mercy, the abandonment of any illusion about one's ability to change a situation, that interior poverty often difficult to fully perceive or express, a surrendering within one's weakness and sense of hopelessness, standing and trembling wide-eyed at fears and impossibilities as they begin to devour us...)

At the moment I feel “mute” in terms of my own writing. And writing is what I suspect I’m called to do in this world (though I still feel presumptuous saying that!)  So now I am lifting my muteness and muddiness up to the Lord, simply by bringing these concerns to conscious expression while sitting at my computer and holding in my mind that in some way, Divinity is listening. 

I will wait for whatever the Lord brings in terms of healing and nourishment. Wait without expectation for any particular result, nugget of knowledge, feeling, or sensible consolation, but trusting, even within my doubt, that I receive what I most need. 

--from my December 2008 prayer-log

How to Be Alone

 A video on delicious solitude by filmmaker Andrea Dorfman and poet-singer-songwriter Tanya Davis, via a link my friend Gina posted on Facebook.

Honeymoon

Several years ago, on morning five of my first ten-day contemplative retreat, I awoke and sensed that some psychic toxin had been lifted out of me. Days of stillness and long drinks of silence had allowed unseen poisons to rise to the soul-surface and exit my bodymind. This left me feeling exquisitely light and quietly joyful.

Later that afternoon I was sitting alone in my little room, facing the open window and watching trees shimmer in the sunlight. Over the course of perhaps five minutes, I felt and observed my "self" as I subtly shifted into a different state of consciousness. It was as if a psychoactive perfume, a wafting ether, had drifted into the room and entered my nervous system. It also seemed like an invisible radiance had descended into me from above and from all around me, entering me and then "pouring" through me out into my surroundings. Everything became suffused with this incredible radiance - the trees, the grasses, the very air itself "invisibly" glowed! It sent me into bliss, and made me feel so incredibly tender and loving toward everything I saw and everyone I thought of. There was also a sense of unusual alertness and clarity.

I remained in this "illuminated" state for the rest of the day, and for a few days after that -- even as the radiance ebbed -- this state seemed to keep hitting me and tossing me around. I was a buoy afloat in a wildly delicious current. Feelings flowed freely. The slightest movement of a bird could send me into inexplicable laughter. Walking outside one day, I accidentally stepped on a snail and felt a rush of sadness over ending its tiny life. (Ordinarily, I would not feel this degree of regret over snails -- bless the little slimey buggers.) Everything and everyone was so luminously, rapturously, loveable ...

For several days, even after I had returned to my "normal" life, I felt like my soul had been washed clean and set out in the sun to dry. It was marvelous - this transparency, this deep inner calm, this immense gratitude. I also seemed to be free of "agenda," which actually led to some humorous situations while driving in southern California ...

This was a part of my "honeymoon" period spiritually. I thought it would go on forever, that this holy bliss would continue to grace me as long as I continued practicing contemplative prayer. Alas, it didn't last! It never does ...

--from my August 2007 journal

Fresh Assurance

"To Jesus, God breathed through all that is. The sparrow overcome by sudden death in its evening flight; the lily blossoming on the rocky hillside; the grass of the field and the garden path, the clouds light and burdenless or weighted down with unshed water; the madman in chains or wandering among the barren rocks in the wastelands; the little baby in his mother's arms; the strutting arrogance of the Roman Legion; the brazen queries of the craven tax collector; the children at play or the old men quibbling in the market place; the august Sanhedrin fighting for its life amidst the impudences of Empire; the futile whisper of those who had forgotten Jerusalem; the fear-voiced utterance of the prophets who remembered -- to Jesus, God breathed through all that is. To Jesus, God was Creator of life and the living substance; the Living Stream upon which all things moved; the Mind containing time, space, and all their multitudinous offspring. And beyond all these God was Friend and Father.

"The time most precious for him was at close of day. This was the time for the long breath, when all the fragments left by the commonplace, when all the little hurts and the big aches could be absorbed, and the mind could be freed of the immediate demand, when voices that had been quieted by the long day's work could once more be heard, when there could be the deep sharing of the innermost secrets and the laying bare of the heart and mind. Yes, the time most precious for him was at close of day.

"But there were other times he treasured, 'A great while before day,' says the Book. The night had been long and wearisome because the day had been full of nibbling annoyances; the high resolve of some winged moment had frenzied, panicked, no longer sure, no longer free, and then had vanished as if it had never been. There was need, the utter urgency, for some fresh assurance, the healing touch of a healing wing. 'A great while before day' he found his way to the quiet place in the hills. And prayed."

--Howard Thurman, from The Inward Journey