The Particular is Unavoidable

One common question: why belong to one particular religion or follow any specific path? With all the corruptions and abuses that occur within institutional religion, wouldn’t it be better to divorce oneself from such systemic sickness and simply cull what is of value from these lineages, or, better yet, rely on one’s own inner resources and guides? If the tree has produced some wonderful fruit but has also become diseased, isn’t it a healthier choice to savor the good fruit and abandon the tree? Let that old tree die and start afresh?

There is wonderfully sound logic in this. With that good fruit, there will be healthy seeds which might be used to plant new trees in a new time and place. With what we know now, we might eventually produce a more disease-resistant tree, or have in place various early warning systems to stop any pathology before it spreads. Or perhaps choose to live far from trees, and enjoy the openness and expansiveness of the savannah, the desert, the tundra, the ocean. I love such wild and wide fields myself. But then: wouldn’t this choice still be a choice for something specific, something particular? The decision to avoid the old paths and particulars is itself a new path and particular. Pathlessness is a path. Treelessness is a specific geography.

(Brief related tangent: If, as one scholar-friend puts it, religion/spirituality is more widely defined as individual and communal “meaning-generative pursuit,” there really is no way to avoid “religion” if we embrace our creaturely drives to yearn and seek and struggle and deepen. Thus, even atheism and agnosticism – when understood as meaning-generative pursuits – are religions.)

The particular is unavoidable. We are born of a certain mother, in a particular place and time, in specific circumstances. The kind of nutrition, care, and experiences that befall us affect how we grow and who we will become. And this brings me closer to the heart of the original question: isn’t a healthy desert a better “particularity” than a sick tree?

For many people: yes, absolutely! Some people have been forced to eat toxic fruit and need to purge themselves of its poisons. Others have developed debilitating allergies to the tree’s pollens, and need to situate themselves far away from forests and wooded lands. Still others have had to escape rotted-out branches full of decay, fungi, and parasites in order to simply survive. To flee from wooded territories is to live and to thrive. 

And then, of course, there are those who are native to the desert.

But for some of us, there is still great value in a venerable-yet-ailing-and-dying tree…

Perhaps I find myself most “at home” near a border of sorts, basking at the edges of lush tree-shade while perusing the fields and wilderness just beyond it. I know that the tree is both both diseased and healthy, both dying and rising. I recognize that some diseased and decaying branches must, and are, being pruned away in a process that frequently feels too slow for me and for many. But in this life that I have been given, I seem to have been called to tend to this particular tree. The open fields beyond this tree – as well as other trees in the vicinity -- are beautiful and I am welcome to visit them and savor their beauty and nourishment. But my path is to always return to the tree that sheltered and sustained me before my first inklings of awareness about the nature of trees and woods and fields. I ponder the mystery of the surrounding savannahs, streams, star-fields and silences as I sit under this particular tree that has been given to me.

And ultimately, this tree is not a static, stable entity anyway, but rather a series of creative turns and movements, a flow-ering, a cosmic dying-birthing-changing process involving elements and energies seen and unseen. As I tend to this tree and as I value the beauty of other trees and other geographies, I participate in a great current, a shimmering forth, of Being. I recognize myself, along with all others, as that which blooms and dies and transforms.

But this I do from a particular place: this moment that I have been given, this spot near the edge of the shade of one branch of one tree, with a view of fields and sky.

Synchronicity, Sweet and Spooky

My arrival at St. Anthony’s in the Sierra Nevada foothills coincides with a powerful July heatwave. It is 106 F in the breeze, according to my car thermometer. Just carting my luggage from my car to the lobby -- across blacktop pavement -- melts about a quarter-inch off the soles of my sandals.

My simple room, thank the graces that be, is strongly, deliciously, air-conditioned. Summer is the off-season here; and I relish the quiet, which is made more palpable, somehow, by the constant hum of the cooling unit. I am here for three days to pray, read, and write in semi-solitude. There will definitely be no hiking. A few others are gathered on this hot mountain for different varieties of retreats: a Mexican nun, a guitar-playing mom and liturgist, and about two dozen Hindus for communal bhakti yoga practice. (Since the majority of the retreatants are vegetarian bhaktas, our meals include basmati rice, delectable curries, kefir, nuts, and fresh fruits and vegetables. Every bite is exquisite—who could have guessed that the best Indian food in the Sierra is served at a Catholic retreat center?)

I spend most of my time in my room – leaving it mainly for morning mass and for meals in the dining hall. But one afternoon, having discovered how to operate the air conditioning in the Friar’s Chapel, I trek there for a solitary hour of silent prayer. This chapel, situated at the far end of a hall of meeting rooms, is adjacent to the large space where the bhaktas gather for afternoon presentations and teachings. As I tip-toe past the shoes they have left outside of the open room, I glance discreetly at their gathering. They are all sitting on the floor listening intently to a teacher, a clear-voiced man speaking Hindi. After entering the chapel, I quietly close its thick wooden door, which blocks out most sounds. Still, though, I continue to hear the voice of the teacher. I have come to the chapel to enjoy a lovely peaceful space for prayer, and for a brief moment I consider returning at a later time, thinking that the sounds from next door might be too distracting. However, the bhakta’s voice – muted somewhat by the sound of the air conditioner – is no disruption. I find, as I settle in to my seat and open myself to the spaciousness and stillness of the chapel, a subtly comforting loveliness in the rising and falling of the teacher’s voice. I have no idea what he is saying and no notion of the specifics of his presentation. I allow myself to settle in to the richness of this moment, and even though I am “alone” in the chapel, I am also “accompanied” -- gathered alongside a community of devotees whose presence is, apparently, bringing forth an unexpected tenderness and gratitude in my heart. As I remain sitting in silence, letting go and opening and surrendering to a current of prayer, a quiet radiance blossoms and spreads. A field of blessing is here. 

*   *   *   *

Later, in the dark heat of the evening, about fifteen of us gather outside under the stars, lining up next to the statue of St. Anthony. Fr. John has invited everyone to gaze through his telescope. The bright, clear views of Saturn’s rings elicits several oohs and ahhs. I am struck by how large and near the planet seems after viewing it through the telescope. Then, as I look with unaided eyes at other parts of the sky, the unimaginable vastness of the cosmos feels – somehow -- close, touchable, within reach. “Look over there,” I say to the people next to me, pointing to one of the celestial lights just above our horizon. “That’s Venus, right?” “Yes it is,” someone answers. “Bright as the full moon at this time of year.”
            A turbaned man turns to Fr. John. “What is it that you say,” he muses, chuckling, “…the kingdom of heaven is at hand?”

*   *   *   *

On my final evening of my stay, I sit in my room, browsing through a small booklet I found at the St. Anthony gift shop: “The Appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary.”  It is pious, straightforward, sentimental – not my usual fare when it comes to reading about religion and spirituality. I am drawn to it, though, for several reasons. One: I had a childhood fear of (and fascination with) Marian apparitions – spurred in part by multiple viewings of movies like The Song of Bernadette; Two: I am writing a work that spends some time narrating and exploring those early fears; and three: the booklet includes accounts of apparitions from around the world, including ones that I had not encountered before, such as Our Lady of Akita (Japan), Our Lady of Kibeho (Rwanda), and Our Lady of Soufanieh (Syria). Flipping through the booklet, I also notice and appreciate a caveat in its first few pages: “We must keep in mind that apparitions are adapted to those who receive them and that visionaries perceive them according to their own capacity.”

I glance up to ponder this point, and outside the window there is a sunset so stunning that it makes me gasp. Talk about an apparition, I say to myself, laughing and shaking my head. I grab my cell phone and head outside. Here’s one vision that will be captured by phone-camera, at least.

The face of my phone lights up to reveal a text-message. It is from my sister in the Midwest: “Prayed for you at church today. Love you. Hope you felt the presence of the Holy Spirit around 7 p.m. CT. Hugz.”

Now, this is wild and strange and uncanny. First of all: My sister does not know I am on a short retreat, and she has never texted me before in such a clearly time-specific way about prayer. Secondly: The time she indicates (7 p.m. CT) reveals that her prayer occurred while I was praying the previous day, in that field of blessing with the bhaktas. Thirdly: St. Anthony’s Retreat Center is in an area serviced solely by AT&T, and I do not have AT&T as my cell-phone carrier. I even checked, on the first day of my retreat, noticing that my phone indicated “no service.” I should not have received her message until much, much later, until after I had driven back down from the mountains. (I also immediately tried to send a text-message back to her in response, and my phone simply said “unable to send message.”)

My rational mind wants to find logical explanations for incidents like this, and I know that plenty of folks could probably uncover something commonsensically explicable about synchronicities and mysterious confluences and spooky-action-at-a-distance blessings. But to my heart, this little series of events at St. Anthony’s feels like a wink and a kiss and a nudge from God. And a reminder to pray always, as Mary apparently keeps asking of us, because the field of blessing is both close and boundless. 

Pax Christi: Embracing the Future with Confidence and Hope

The Catholic peace organization Pax Christi  just wrapped up its fortieth national conference in Atlanta, Georgia. I did not attend, but received updates, audio files, and photos from each day of the event. I was glad to see that Bryan Massingale was one of the keynote speakers, and I wanted to share the outline/ highlights of his talk: 

1. If Pax-Christi USA is to remain relevant and on the frontier of 
    peace-making with justice
    ....It must become proactively and intentionally 
    multicultural. 


2. If PC USA is to remain relevant and on the frontier of peace-making with justice . . . 
     It must not only claim that it is anti-racist, but must also cultivate cross-racial solidarity.

     -->THE BOTTOM LINE:  If PC USA is to have a future in a browning nation and Church,
             It must not only claim that it is anti-racist, but must also cultivate 
             cross-racial solidarity... and confront and lament its unconscious 
             racial malformation.

3.  If PC USA is to remain relevant and on the frontier of peace-making with justice . . . 
     It must be perceived not just as anti-war, but also make explicit linkages 
     between peacemaking, consumerism, and ecological justice. 

4.  If PC USA is to remain relevant and on the frontier of peace-making with justice . . . 
     It must intentionally welcome people of all gender identities and sexual 
     orientations.

5. If PC USA is to remain relevant and on the frontier of peace-making with justice . . . 
     It must embrace a comprehensive justice vision, one that the Bible 
     describes as "Shalom."

6. If PC USA is to remain relevant and on the frontier of peace-making with justice . . . 
    Its members (both organizationally and individually) will have to develop 
    contemplative stances and practices.
   

Book Spine Blessing

I entered this into the National Library Week Book Spine Poetry Contest a few weeks back. It's a fun way to toy with found art. Below are the lines I intended for the poem (there is a book's subtitle that I would want to leave out) --

Blessed are thou

on the road

naked

immediate as air

somewhere in advance of nowhere

tattoos on the heart

writing down the bones

how much is enough?

--when the heart waits

everything belongs.

Peace in Time of the Storm

Not much time to check in here lately with a work deadline looming! But I want to share some Easter joy with this gorgeous a-cappella rendition of a gospel favorite of mine, Richard Smallwood's "Total Praise." Alleluia and amen!

Here is the YouTube link in case the above video 

does not play.

Papa Francesco Could Surprise Us

You just never know. There is always so much more to a book than its cover.

I'm not much of a papist. But I was blown away when I first heard the new pope was a Jesuit, and that he had chosen the name of Francis in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscans, lover of the poor, and patron saint of the environment. Pope Francis's advocacy for the poor and preference for a humble, no-frills lifestyle is already well-known. In the homily during his inaugural Mass, he spoke again of the call to love and serve the poor, address global economic privations, protect creation (aka the environment), and to "not be afraid of tenderness, of goodness." He also addressed non-Catholics, non-Christians, and non-religious people with warmth and respect, believing everyone to be a child of God. (Read the full text of his homily here.) 

So, for me, his past strong admonitions against gay marriage and gay adoptions stand out in stark and painful contrast to everything else about him that appears humble, gentle, self-effacing, and welcoming. Likening gay marriage to "a destructive attack on God's plan" and gay adoption to "discrimination" against children is about the harshest sentiment I've seen on this issue among the hierarchy. I realize that high-level Catholic church leaders are not likely to change their tune on sexuality-related issues anytime soon. And of course, greed and world poverty are HUGE problems that demand more immediate attention. But the condemnation -- particularly of gay adoption -- stings. As an adoptee and as a friend to gay parents with adopted children, his stern disapproval feels unloving and un-Christian.

This article in the New York Times, however, paints a different picture. While still archbishop of Buenos Aires, Pope Francis actually proposed that the church support civil unions for gay couples, an idea that inflamed a gathering of bishops in 2010 -- who, of course, rejected his proposal. Afterwards, in more public arenas, he staunchly opposed gay marriage, which was eventually legalized in Argentina.

"Faced with the near-certain passage of the gay-marriage bill," says biographer Sergio Rubin, as quoted in the New York Times, "[then] Cardinal Bergoglio offered the civil-union compromise as 'the lesser of two evils.' He wagered on a position of greater dialogue with society."

This suggests that Pope Francis may have more flexibility than either of the previous two popes on these issues. While I'm not really expecting him to make any huge breaks with church tradition, the fact that he is open to measured compromise and "dialogue with society" leaves me feeling more hope about what might be ahead for our scarred and tattered church. If Pope Francis is genuinely humble, the combination of Jesuit discernment and Franciscan compassion could open up new terrain for us.

Click here to read the rest of the NYT article "On Gay Unions, a Pragmatist Before He Was Pope."

Scandal and Grace

How much I criticize you, my church, and yet how much I love you!

You have made me suffer more than anyone and yet I owe more to you than anyone.

I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence.

You have given me much scandal and yet you alone have made me understand holiness.

Never in this world have I seen anything more compromised, more false, yet never have I touched anything more pure, more generous, or more beautiful.

Countless times I have felt like slamming the door of my soul in your face -- and yet every night, I have prayed that I might die in your sure arms!

No, I cannot be free of you, for I am one with you, even if not completely you.

Then too -- where would I go?

To build another church?

But I could not build one without the same defects, for they are my defects. And again, if I were to build another church, it would be my church, not Christ's church.

No. I am old enough. I know better!


--Carlo Carretto, paraphrased by Ronald Rolheiser in his book The Holy Longing.
This is from the closing section of Carlo Carretto's book, I Sought and I Found. Carretto (1910 - 1988) led an Italian youth movement, Catholic Action, which aimed to promote the social message of the church. Later, he became a member of the Little Brothers of Jesus, a community of Saharan desert contemplatives. Eventually Carretto settled in Spello, Italy, (near Assisi) where he lived the rest of his days writing and leading retreats. NCR contributor Jerry Ryan notes that Carretto "had harsh words for many of the externals of the church but was fiercely in love with its inner mystery."