Practical Asceticism: Lose the Whip

Following up on this post, I want to start off with this first, fundamental precept: stop beating yourself up. Self-flagellation is really no fun! But more important: it does not work. Think about it: when you screw up, which you inevitably do because you are human, does self-recrimination actually keep you from screwing up the next time? Not only doesn't it help, by breaking down your self-confidence it actually makes it harder to change. 

You may ask, isn't beating yourself up a venerable old monastic tradition? Well, no, actually, it's not. It might be a medieval monastic tradition, but if you go farther back, to St. Benedict and back before him to the old Egyptian desert monasteries, it really is not the way. St. Benedict says that during Lent, each monk may freely offer some extra penitential sacrifice, of his own free will -- but only with the approval of the Abbot, because "anything done without the permission of the spiritual father will be imputed to presumption and vainglory and will merit no reward." The desert fathers and mothers would have said the same thing. 

In my personal experience, what St. Benedict says is absolutely true: self-imposed penitence is more likely a sign of pride than humility. Why? Because getting all worked up over doing something wrong kind of implies that I expected myself to do everything right! Other people may be miserably imperfect, but if I slip up it's worthy of all kinds of drama and wailing and wringing of hands. Not! I'm human, and I share a whole set of very common weaknesses with all the rest of the human race. I'm also as unique as every human being, and therefore I am more likely than average to slip in some ways, less in others. I'm not a monster, and neither am I such a paragon of virtue that any little screw-up deserves sackcloth and ashes. 

On the other hand, I'm not suggesting brushing off my bad behavior as if it didn't matter. Examination of conscience, confession, and making amends are very fundamental to the good life. But "contrition" is not "conversion." Acknowledging that we've done wrong is a necessary step in changing, but it's only the very first step, and getting stuck in it doesn't help. If what we want is to change a bad habit, then we have to do something more than just be sorry about it.

What does help is to approach self-examination with a spirit of curiosity instead of blame. You ate the whole carton of ice cream, bummer. Why? Yeah, I know, because "yum," but that's not good enough. The devil made you do it? Hah. Yeah, you wanted it, but you also wanted not to eat the whole thing, or you wouldn't be beating yourself up over it. So why did you do it?

So the first thing is to get really clear about your standard of behavior. That means, think about ice cream, and the role you want it to have in your diet. How much, how often, what time of day, what days? Would you like to have some ice cream every evening for dessert? Or is it just for birthdays, or would once a week be just about right? Define the portion size. Be specific. Make a rule for yourself. 

This rule is not a lifetime commitment. It's a hypothesis, not a conclusion. Hypothesis is what scientific experiments are based on, and that's what this is for: exploration. So make a very clear, very specific ice cream rule for yourself to try out: "I may eat 1/2 cup of ice cream for dessert on Sundays and holidays (list them); I will eat it in the evening after dinner. I may also have up to 1/2 cup of ice cream, if it is offered with birthday cake. I will not eat ice cream otherwise." Note that the rule codifies indulgence, not just abstinence. Then, when you are in the grip of the ice cream temptation on a Wednesday afternoon, you can tell yourself "yes! I will have ice cream on Sunday!" and it makes "not now" easier to take.

Try it for a month. Pay attention to how it goes. When temptation hits, instead of reacting with either indulgence or resistance, react with curiosity.  What was going on when you felt the urge? How were you feeling right before it hit? Where do you feel the temptation in your body? Are you actually hungry? Do you feel tense? Bored? Anxious? Upset about something else? Are you tired? Has someone hurt your feelings? Have you been concentrating on your work for too long without a break? And remember, since this is an experiment, failure is a possibility. If you slip, examine that in the same way. Ask those same questions. Don't judge, don't wallow, just pick yourself up and pay attention.

Also, think about how you can make it easier to act the way you want to act. Do you have fresh fruit handy, to snack on when the sweet tooth strikes? Can you buy ice cream pre-packaged in little single-serving portions? Could you negotiate with your spouse who's not willing to give up ice cream, so that he maybe agrees to store it in the freezer down in the basement, where you won't have to see it every time you go looking for ice cubes for your healthy unsweetened iced tea? Etc. Be creative.

Making a rule separates the decision from the impulse. Temptation and denial are best friends forever. It's amazing how our minds can justify really stupid behavior when in the grip of a strong temptation, how easy it is to blank out the good intentions. So, the rules you make for yourself can be negotiated, but -- here's another rule -- not impulsively. You can make exceptions to your rule, but only planned ones, and well-defined ones. Not "I can eat anything I want just this once," and not "I can eat anything I want on my month-long vacation," but maybe "I can eat anything I want for dinner on my birthday."

And maybe your first hypothesis doesn't work out, and you need to try something else. Maybe you find that you're verging on diabetic, and your system really can't process sugary desserts at all. Maybe you would do better on a low-carb diet, or a vegetarian diet, or intermittent fasting. And maybe your ice cream temptation has nothing to do with ice cream or diet at all. You might be depressed, you might be worried about money, you might be unhappy in your relationship and subconsciously trying to make yourself fat and unattractive to your partner. Looking the real problem in the eye, with self-compassion, maybe with counseling, often takes the zing out of self-sabotage.

One more thing: focus. Don't try to tackle all your bad habits at once. It's not so much because changing a lot of variables at one time blows your scientific experiment. It's that it takes energy to change, and energy is limited. When we resist a temptation that we are used to indulging, we literally re-wire our brain. Well, OK, they're not literal wires. But we do actually alter the default pathways in our brains when we push back against impulsive behavior. I mentioned "dopamine addiction" in the last post, and it's a real thing. We have to wean ourselves off of instant gratification, and that takes energy. Think about starting with diet, sleep, and/or exercise, the ones that directly affect how much energy we have for everything else.

There are many, many possible reasons why you ate that whole carton of ice cream, or why we do any of the many things we wish we didn't do. But I'll tell you some reasons that are not true. You are not a loser, you are not worthless, you are not hopeless, you are not bad. You are not weaker than everybody else. You don't lack character, and you don't have a willpower problem. You're just human, and humans are wired to go for instant gratification. It's normal! 

So lose the whip, burn the hair shirt, pull on your lab coat and start figuring yourself out. It's totally worth it!

PEACE

The power of weakness

I hate being weak. I hate being vulnerable, insecure, getting sick, needing help. I hate getting angry, scared, moody, not having all the information, and not being in control of outcomes. No, I don't like being weak. Who does?

So the really stunning thing about the Christian God is not the power and glory, but the human weakness, frailty, littleness. The Incarnation of the most high God came in the form of an absolutely dependent, powerless being: an embryo, son of a girl who was barely old enough to get pregnant, in a time when infant mortality was exponentially higher than we can get our heads around in this era of high-tech obstetrics. She wasn't married yet, and her fiancé very nearly ditched her when he found out she had gotten pregnant, not by him, before the wedding. The damn Romans forced them to travel to Bethlehem --by donkey if she was lucky, or maybe on foot-- when she was 9 months pregnant; she gave birth to the baby in a stable; and then they immediately had to get up and run away to Egypt to escape another tyrant. When they came back they lived in Galilee, working-class citizens of an especially distressed province of a weak little nation under the boot-heel of a big strong empire, with all the brutality, all the brave but futile resistance, all the corrupt collaboration by both civil and religious local elites that goes along with that. 

When God decided to become human, it wasn't as a great big strong hero. Baby Jesus embodied all the weakness and precariousness of the human condition. And mother Mary, she was not just a vessel, not just a pass-through between Heaven and Earth. Mary was a partner in the Incarnation. She was given a choice, and she chose to participate. Jesus's humanity is Mary's humanity, his flesh was her flesh. Mary didn't supply muscles and weapons and armor. She gave her smallness, her weakness, her vulnerability, and her mortality, to the singular merger of Divine and Human that took place within her frail body. 

And after that encounter with Gabriel, having said "yes," what did Mary do? What would I have done? Even if I had had the humility and trust, in the presence of the angel, to say "yes," as soon as he disappeared I'm pretty sure I would have curled up, freaked out, and melted down. OMG what did I just agree to?? What am I getting into?? What will Joseph say?? How am I going to explain this to him?? He'll never understand!! Nobody's going to believe me!! I'm going to end up on the streets ... die in childbirth ... stoned to death.....  You get it. I'd be "catastrophizing." It's the control freak's answer to the inescapable reality that we are not in control.

Mary didn't do that. She didn't freak out. She went off to celebrate the event with her cousin Elizabeth, who had a new miracle pregnancy of her own. What can I learn from that? What is the essential difference between Mary's response to the Annunciation and my response to being confronted with my own smallness, weakness, and vulnerability? OK, today is the feast of the Immaculate Conception, which says that from the moment she was conceived in her own mother's womb, Mary was kept free from the burden of original sin. And what was the original sin? Eating the apple, yes, but why? What the snake tempted Eve with, in Genesis 3:5, is this: "when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods." Being free of original sin, then, is the humility to accept being merely human, and let God be God. Mary is "full of grace," as Gabriel says; she says, "I am the handmaid of the Lord." But I've been baptized, and the whole point of the sacrament of baptism is that it purifies us of original as well as personal sin, right? So can't I be full of grace enough to accept my own weakness, ignorance and vulnerability, with Mary-like uncomplicated simplicity, humility, and trust?

There is an essential mystery here, a fundamental paradox, that I am struggling to put words to. Trusting in God does not mean believing that I will be safe. It doesn't mean everything will work out fine. The essential fragility of the human condition is just what God took on in the Incarnation. Jesus was crucified! There is nothing safe about that. And yet ... it's not just that Heaven is fabulous enough that it's worth everything we go through to get there, everything Jesus went through. 

It's that a part of embracing God, of becoming united with God, is embracing my own humanity as Jesus embraced humanity. It means embracing my own and others' weakness, taking pain by the hand, looking vulnerability in the eye with compassionate love. It means embracing my neighbor's weakness and brokenness, not with strength and answers and competence so much as with my own honest vulnerability. It means taking my frailty to God in prayer, going there with my anger and fear, my fleeting enthusiasms and superficial pleasures, my hurt feelings and confusion, all my paltry, sordid self. Not trying to pretty myself up, as if I thought God was looking at the image I try to project instead of the total reality of who I really am. There's a kind of radical acceptance in Mary's example that challenges me profoundly.

God, grant me the grace to let go and let You be God, as Mary did, and to love weak humanity -- my own and my neighbor's -- as You do. Amen.

Practical Asceticism in the Modern World: Intro

According to Merriam-Webster, asceticism is "the practice of strict self-denial as a measure of personal and especially spiritual discipline : the condition, practice, or mode of life of an ascetic : rigorous abstention from self-indulgence." 

That doesn't sound like much fun, does it? It seems crazy, in a modern culture that celebrates the opposite: strict self-indulgence, and a rigorous abstention from self-denial. 

And so what's wrong with self-indulgence, and what's so great about self-denial? Well, there's nothing mysterious about that. Overindulgence in food and drink leads to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, addictions, etc. ad nauseum. Inappropriate sexual self-indulgence, lust without love and commitment, is another way to contract nasty diseases, but it's an even better way to wreck relationships, break hearts, and erode self-esteem. Covetousness, as in impulse shopping or "keeping up with the Joneses," can get us into serious financial problems and leave us insecure in the long run, not to mention the degradation of natural resources and the exploitation of "third world" producers of cheap consumer goods. I could keep going through the seven deadly sins, but you get the point. Some amount of ascetical practice is just "being a grown-up," something for all of us to aspire to. 

In the modern world, we are blessed and cursed with resources that St. Benedict couldn't have dreamed of. Social media is allowing us to sustain close relationships in a time of pandemic, but it can also be viciously superficial. The availability of seemingly infinite information is a gift to curious minds, but I wonder if it doesn't discourage us from slowing down to absorb and think deeply about one thing at a time. The convenience and variety of online shopping is great, but cheap consumer goods are seldom made to last. Processed and globally-sourced food is easy and affordable, but it's not very nourishing.

There are also deeper benefits to ascesis. Marie Kondo's Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is all about letting go of the excess possessions that weigh us down, so that we can be surrounded only by the things that "spark joy." That's not so much about having less as it is about really valuing all of the things we have, not acquiring or holding onto things that we don't really need or want. It's not so different from St. Benedict's teaching that we should treat all the tools and property of the monastery as if they were the sacred vessels of the altar. It is about letting go of the superficial pleasures that clutter up our lives and distract us from the things that really bring us joy.

For monastics and other religious ascetics, there is a still deeper value in asceticism. Communion with the Divine is easily overshadowed by worldly desires, worries, resentment, ambition, etc. Buddhists call it "the monkey mind." The more we follow every whim and satisfy every impulse, the wilder the monkey gets, and the harder it is to hear the still, small voice of God. The voice of God is never raised to shout down the monkey mind. It is we who have to be still, and know God, and that means breaking the cycle of distraction and superficial self-indulgence.

Are you depressed yet? Because the road to hell is paved with good intentions, your diets never last, your resolutions are broken within days or weeks, the wagon seems designed to be fallen off? Yes. All that, and plus I have ADD, which means that I am even more prone to impulsivity and even weaker in self-discipline and will-power than people with typical brains. My brain is chronically starved for dopamine, and since "working memory" is one of the central deficits of the disorder, I literally can't remember my good intentions when I'm distracted by an instant reward.

But I've started to learn the art of monkey-whispering. Here and there, in one area of my life and another, I'm starting to find ways to live a more orderly, disciplined life. I'm still a mess, still a beginner, still backsliding, still figuring it out ... but I've made some progress. So I want to write some things about what I've learned so far, and maybe figure some more out as I go along. Maybe someone reading will find something useful, too.

It's a huge topic, so I have it in mind as a series, not one huge brain-dump. Just a few quick teaser thoughts, that I intend to get back to in more depth later. In no particular order:

• Will power is a limited resource, easily depleted
• Getting motivated is overrated
• Habits, once formed, don't require will power
• Some habits are more fundamental than others (diet, exercise, sleep), because they affect how much energy and focus we have available for the rest
• Dopamine addiction is a thing, worth pushing back against
• Decision fatigue is a thing. Constrain choices, and plan ahead. 
• Plan treats -- anticipation extends the pleasure and defuses impulsivity.
• Ditto breaks in routine: Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy -- "give yourself a break" is a commandment 
• Mindfulness is powerful stuff: meditate; single-task; acknowledge impulses without indulging them, and they will pass
• Habit and routine do not make a boring life -- they make the boring stuff automatic, so I can stop thinking about it and free up head-space for more creative and interesting stuff
• Pray for help and guidance every morning and when facing a challenge
• Examine conscience with curiosity rather than judgment, to learn from both successes and failures 
• Maybe most important of all, for me, is to remember to aim for progress, not perfection. Take it slow, don't try to change everything at once. Good intentions are not magic wands. Rely on the grace of God, ask for human help when I need it, and humbly accept that I can only grow up gradually.

It's worth saying that for most people, peer pressure -- buddy systems, support groups (or obedience to a Rule and an Abbot) -- seems to be really key to keeping good intentions. If you find it easier to keep your commitments to others than to yourself, roll with it and find yourself an accountability partner or group. It's not really a big motivator for me, though, so I won't be having a lot to say about it. It is helping me to get this posted ... having publicly stated my resolution to work on my writing and post to this blog weekly, here I go..... For what it's worth. 

I place it in Your hands, God. Fill up my defects, and may it be pleasing to You.

Happy New Year!

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. For us churchy types, that makes it New Year's Day. I actually bought some little miniature bottles of bubbly and had one with supper yesterday ;-) I also bought my Christmas tree and set it in its stand, though so far it is decorated with nothing but a great big angel on top. I mixed some of the cut branches with some holly from my yard on a little table with the Advent candles, purple and pink. And I've started listening to Handel's Messiah, King's College Choir, and the Nutcracker Suite. The house is fragrant with fir, woodsmoke, and hot spiced cider.

I haven't posted here for a while. I've tried.... Two things: brain fog, which turned out to have a physical cause and seems to be solved, yay! And two, my tendency to think about everything, all at once, so a simple blog post starts to turn into a whole encyclopedia. In my last attempt I was trying to write about all the feasts this past week rolled into one great theme: the Presentation of Mary last Saturday, then Christ the King, then Thanksgiving, and now Advent. It didn't work. I got bogged down right on the first of those, in my evolving understanding of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her role in the Incarnation, which is a huge, huge topic all by itself.

So this is my resolution: to work at my writing! To work at constraining, mostly, constraining my writing topics into chunks that are big enough to be worthwhile but small enough to digest. Small enough to actually have a beginning, a middle, and an end. If the most interesting thing is how a bunch of disparate topics are connected in my thinking, then I need to present the disparate topics first, one or two at a time, and draw the connections after or as I go. I will post weekly, at least during Advent. Then I'll reassess.

Writing has the potential to deepen my contemplation and reflection on the Divine, on God's presence and action in my life. But when my thoughts start to spread out like my beloved wetlands, in every direction at once, it may be enriching but it can also become frustrating and confusing. This exercise in constraint should be a kind of ascesis, the kind of discipline that fosters growth. And I hope that I will be able to write and post something that will give readers food for thought, also.

So happy new year, my friends, and God's peace be with you.

Zealots and Lost Causes (not political!)

Today is the feast of Sts. Simon and Jude. That's "Simon the Zealot," and "Jude, the Patron Saint of Lost Causes." Both of them were among the original 12 apostles chosen by Jesus. I'm going to take a minute for some basic catechism on the communion of saints in general and patron saints in particular, and another minute on these two saints celebrated today. But if you will keep reading, after that I want to say something about our own personal "lost causes," and reflect on "zealotry" as one of the ways we respond to them. I am NOT here to talk about zealotry in public causes, not a week before an election. In any case, I hope everyone reading this has already voted!

So first of all, some basic catechism on patron saints for the non-Catholics out there. What is a patron saint? Why do Catholics pray to saints, and why isn't this idolatry? So ... Catholics pray to saints, but not because they themselves have power, as if they were minor deities under God. We pray to saints for "intercession." It is exactly the same as asking your friends and relatives to say a prayer for you when you're about to go into surgery or take on a major challenge. Since we believe in everlasting life, whatever fuzzy ideas we may have about what happens to us basically good but flawed people (and Purgatory seems to be in a kind of doctrinal limbo these days), when it comes to the obvious saints -- apostles, martyrs, and others whose sanctity is generally recognized -- we believe that they are with God. And they are still with us, as God is with us. We can't see them, but they can see us, and being saints, they care about us. They pray for us, and we trust that such holy people's prayers are heard.

So that is the "communion of saints" in a nutshell. As for patron saints, they are understood as saints who take a special interest in particular human needs. Just like saints on this side of mortality, who have particular vocations. St. Francis of Assisi, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Teresa of Calcutta, St. Benedict, were all holy people with very different ways of living out their holiness. A doctor might pray to St. Luke, because he had the same profession. If you're going on a journey, or out in a boat for pleasure, you might pray to St. Brendan, who made an epic sea voyage from Ireland westwards, maybe even as far as Greenland. You could say a prayer to St. Isidore the Farmer when you plant your vegetable garden in the Spring. I sometimes talk to my great-uncle Henry when I'm down in the marsh, because he had such a great love for the Great Dismal Swamp. And so on. 

What I love is the weirdness of some of the attributions of patronage. For instance, St. Agatha, whose martyrdom in the 3rd century included having her breasts cut off, is the patron saint of bakers and bellmakers. Why is that funny? Just, she's typically portrayed in art carrying her severed breasts on a platter, and people seeing the image without knowing the story thought they were loaves of bread or bells. Because unless you know her story, it would never occur to you that a pious image of a saint would show her holding a tray of breasts. And even knowing what a twist-up that is, she's still invoked as a patron saint of bakers and bellmakers. 

St. Joseph of Cupertino is the patron saint of aviators and astronauts, because he is supposed to have levitated during periods of intense prayer. St. Ursula is a patron saint of archers, not because she was one, but because she was shot and killed with an arrow. And St. Bibiana, the patron saint of hangovers (I'm not making this up!) -- not because she was a drunk, but just because her name is related to the Latin word for "drink." 

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And so, back to St. Jude. Why is he the patron of lost causes? It's another convoluted one: his name is too close to that other apostle, Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus. In fact, they have the same name, it's just anglicized differently so that pious people can think of Saint Jude without danger of mixing him up with Sinner Judas. That's why he's the patron of lost causes. In the old days, people would shy away from calling on Jude for fear of invoking the bad guy instead. So he would only be called on as a last resort, by someone really desperate. I don't know just when those "old days" were, but nowadays he's a popular guy.

OK, and then Simon the Zealot. We know that Judea in Jesus's time was an occupied territory, annexed by Rome. It was not a gentle occupation, and the Jewish people were not reconciled to it. "Tax collectors" were so reviled because they were collaborators who collected taxes on behalf of Rome, and moreover, stuffed their own pockets by extorting even more than the emperor required. "Zealots," on the other hand, were fanatical resistance fighters. I say "fanatical" because despite the overwhelming military advantage Rome had over little Judea, the Zealots seem to have opposed all accommodation with that power, either by the Jewish leaders or even by ordinary men and women. There's that little episode in Matthew 22:15-22, where the Pharisees try to trap Jesus into saying something that would discredit him with one of these two parties, the Zealots or those who accommodated themselves to the reality of the occupation, by asking him "is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?" His answer is to point to the image of Caesar on the coin, saying "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's." And really, it is one of the marks of Jesus's greatness that he was able to hold within his inner circle, apparently harmoniously, both Simon the Zealot and Matthew, the tax collector. 

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So ... that's a whole ton of background! I'm finally ready to get to the idea that occurred to me in the conjunction of these two saints. It has to do with how we experience lost causes in our own lives, and how we respond to them sometimes overzealously, sometimes giving in to accommodating the unacceptable. 

I wrote a month ago about how discouraging it can be to repeatedly fail to live up to one's good intentions. This is how I experience the "lost cause" most sharply, by feeling that I myself am a lost cause. It's also where the abbot has done me the most good in spiritual direction, by encouraging me to ease up on myself. In practice, in my experience over the previous decades of my life, I could never become holy and sustain a holy way of life until I really internalized not just forgiveness but renewal, rebirth. My past is still my past, but I am not defined by it in the present. I still experience that kind of hopelessness on a smaller scale, in more limited ways, with various things I fall down on over and over until I gradually lose faith in my ability ever to succeed. That's probably pretty universal, isn't it? 

There are other kinds of lost causes that can bring us to our knees: terminal illness; broken relationships in which forgiveness and reconciliation are withheld for years; a loved one spiraling out of control with drug or alcohol addiction, or with the kind of severe mental illness that has, as one of its symptoms, the inability to recognize it in oneself. And yeah, OK, I'll say it: the ever-worsening polarization of U.S. politics, that we all suffer from but no one knows how to fix.

We can respond like a Zealot, raging away at a problem without strategy, moderation, or respect for our own or others' weaknesses or uniqueness. We can respond by giving up, which tends to lead to depression when what we are giving up on is something or someone really important to us. Or we can look for a third way. 

We can reclaim a vision, and then take the time to map it out, breaking down the first steps smaller and smaller until even in our dejection we are able to start moving forward. A little bit of forward motion can be a very powerful thing. Sometimes, when we've beaten ourselves up against a brick wall, if we step back and try to look at it with a new perspective we may find a door through it.

As for broken relationships, or loved ones spinning out of control ... I'm afraid this sounds weak, but what comes to mind is to recognize that we are connected in the communion of saints not only with those super-holy people who have died and gone to Heaven, but also with those beloved of God in this life. And being, say, a heroin addict, or a heroin dealer for that matter, does not take a person out of that category of "beloved of God." We are all beloved of God. And being unforgiving and judging does not forfeit God's love, it only awaken's God's compassion for the wound that is not being allowed to heal. It doesn't matter where the blame lies or how it's divvied up between estranged and bitter relatives. In the communion of saints, we are held together in the all-encompassing Love of God. That doesn't mean your lost daughter or brother or friend is going to all of a sudden start texting you hearts and smiley faces and pics of the grandkids. It doesn't, on the surface, change anything -- which is why I'm afraid it sounds weak. But for me, it's not weak, it's deeply meaningful. Just as I sometimes talk to Great-Uncle Henry, or my dad or my grandmother, I can talk to an old friend whom I still love even though the relationship is broken, while they're still alive. I can talk to them, and I can talk to God about them, and send them all my love and care and wishes for their welfare, and it really means something. The connection between us in that way is real, no matter how irrational and impalpable it is.

The crucifixion of Jesus is the perfect example of a lost cause that wasn't. He was expected, by many, to somehow bring about a restoration of Judea's sovereignty from Rome. Calling him "son of David" was code for "the person destined to re-establish, and lead, the kingdom." That's what Pontius Pilate meant by tacking up the sign (John 19:19-20) over the cross on which he was killed, that said in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew "Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews." He meant, "THIS is what mighty Rome thinks of your paltry pretensions to sovereignty!" It's what the Roman soldiers meant by the crown of thorns and the purple cloak (Jn 19:2-5); they meant to mock Jesus. These Romans and a whole lot of Jews were so caught up in the conflict between the two nations that it's all they could see when they looked at Jesus. Even Jesus, in his last moments, cried out the anguish of the ultimate lost cause: "my God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" 

The crucifixion of Jesus left his disciples and the movement he had led in chaos and despair. On the night of the arrest, Peter tried to blend into the crowd to watch the horror unfold, but being recognized he repudiated Jesus three times before finally running away. The conversation between the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-24) was all about their bewilderment and distress in the aftermath of the crucifixion of their hero. Encounters with the risen Christ in the first few days were scattered, and did not restore hope but only added more confusion. 

But it wasn't over. The true meaning of the Kingdom of God finally came clear at Pentecost, when the disciples received the Holy Spirit. It is in the Spirit that we can see impossible things, that they can be transformed into positive truths, that we ourselves can be transformed into living vessels of the Divine. It is in the Spirit that lost causes are turned around. It's not in zealotry, flailing away regardless at the intractable problem. It's not in giving up and settling for mediocrity. It's in acceptance of the present reality, vision for the future, and openness to divine (and sometimes human) help and guidance. 

*Whew* this got long. I guess I could have summed it up in three lines of someone else's words:

God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

the Courage to change the things I can,

and the Wisdom to know the difference.

Amen!

Toxic

So in case y'all haven't noticed, Election Day in the USA will be this coming November 3, two Tuesdays from now. And you know what? It can't be over soon enough. I mean, I'm really glad I live in a democracy, but man, is it toxic!

I don't watch or read or listen to the news. I'm not on social media. I'm aware that it's really ugly out there, but -- well, that's exactly why I don't partake of it. It's too toxic. I'm not an undecided voter, in fact I already voted. I don't need to see and hear all the nastiness. When I am not sure which way to vote, in a primary or on some local issue, I look it up on the internet. Preferably on some non-partisan voter education website that can give me the information on the issues straight up, without all the hype and hysteria. 

I'm not going to rant on and on about this, just -- I miss my monks! I watched Mass livestreamed from the monastery this morning, but then I also went to Mass at a local parish so that I could actually receive the Eucharist. At the parish, the sermon was given by a deacon I had not heard from before. *sigh* Poor thing. It was not a good homily. I mean, it wasn't even a well-done bad homily, it was disjointed and rambling. He seemed, at the beginning, to be lamenting the way the media drive conflict and polarization, but then he went on to say a whole long series of such offensive things -- no, I am not going to list them. I'm not going to pass them on. Well, hell, you all have heard all of them already, anyway! You know. 

Meanwhile, at the monastery, my very dear Fr. Christopher preached about (go figure!) the gospel reading of the day. Which, by the way, is one of the very best passages in all of Scripture, and why anyone would want to ignore it in favor of rolling around in the pigsty of politics I don't know. It's Matthew 22:34-40, in which Jesus is asked "which commandment in the law is the greatest?", and he answers, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments." That's what it's all about, and Fr. Christopher worked it. 

I miss my monks. I am reminded that there were plenty of parish churches in Italy when St. Benedict was a young man, but he didn't find spiritual sustenance in them. He left town and became first a hermit, then a coenobite (a monk in community). I don't know, there's just a different kind of wisdom -- maybe it's that they are first brothers, and only then, perhaps, sometimes preachers. Diocesan priests are first of all pastors. They are there for the people, people look to them for guidance, which maybe risks engendering a certain arrogance? Whereas monks are all monks together, community life is humbling. Only the abbot has a position above the rest, but unlike a parish pastor he's chosen by his own community, his own brothers who know him, warts, cracks, and all. 

For whatever reason ... *sigh*  Well, let me stop here and count my blessings. I have not gotten sick. I haven't lost a job. I'm not stuck at home with an abusive husband. I'm not trying to work at home while simultaneously directing my kids' schooling at home. I'm not depressed. I can watch one or another of my monks preach every day, through the miracle of the internet. There are dozens of parishes within easy driving distance of me, most with more than one Mass every Sunday, most with multiple priests and deacons alternating preaching duties -- and while some of those preachers make me want to give up and go convert to Hinduism or Wicca or something, some of them are the best kind of Christian saints. And I do live in a democracy, which may be pretty toxic these days, but you know -- Rachel Maddow hasn't disappeared, Joe Biden hasn't had any mysterious fatal accidents, and if Donald Trump tried to declare a state of emergency and call out the National Guard to avoid having an election when he's down in the polls, the National Guard would say "dude, no." This IS a democracy. And the election is almost over!

I'm sorry, that's as uplifting as I can get tonight. The bell has rung for Compline, and if I don't click "publish" now, it's just going to get more rambling, not any more inspiring. God bless you all, and let's keep the faith.

Theology

I have learned that the place wherein You are found unveiled is girt round with the coincidence of contradictories, and this is the wall of Paradise wherein You abide! The door is guarded by the most proud spirit of reason, and unless he be vanquished, the way will not lie open. --Nicolas of Cusa, Vision of God (15th century)

I am a contemplative, not a theologian. I am distrustful of "theology," and generally opposed to "doctrine." I am a Christian, and it is through the story of the Incarnation that I relate to God. I find great riches and depth in Christianity. It has to be admitted, though, that there's also an awful lot of garbage encrusted around it. Neither do I believe that Christianity's sacred Scripture and Tradition together, even at their best, give me any more than an obscure view "as through a glass, darkly" of God.

I object to theology, to the definition of doctrine, because it treats God as an object, or some kind of mechanistic process. We cannot "know" God the way we can "know," say, biology or history. Those are subjects which no candid scholar would ever aspire to reach the ends of, or ever claim to "know" in their totality. Nonetheless, they can be studied objectively and known rationally.

But God is not a thing, not a process, not a concept. God is a Person, to be "known" not with the mind but with the heart. It's kind of odd that English should have one word for such different kinds of "knowing," isn't it? And yet, in some ways, they are not only distinct but actually opposed.

In any close, long-term relationship, there tends to be a "getting-to-know-you" period at the beginning, which gradually turns into comfortable familiarity. There's nothing wrong with comfortable familiarity. It's what allows us to turn some of our energy and attention from the shiny new relationship, and get on with everything else in our lives. It's what gives us enough sense of security with one another to risk more self-revelation and vulnerability.

The danger is only when we start to think we "know" one another, and stop discovering one another. That is when "I know you" moves from the heart to the head. Then it ceases to be you that I know. It becomes: what I expect from you, what I have seen in you so far, what you believe about yourself, what you have been willing to reveal, and the pattern or role in my life into which I have slotted not you, but this fragmentary image of you that I can only ever see, really, "as in a glass, darkly."

When we allow "knowing" to move from the heart to the head, we shut the other person up into a box. To the extent that our "knowing" is very sure and fixed, as the other continues to grow and develop in life, they may either allow themselves to be stunted and deformed by the box or else bust out of it in a way that hurts both knower and grower. And we also box ourselves in, since it is through relationships that we principally grow. By defining the other in relation to ourselves, we simultaneously define ourselves in relation to the other.

When we "know" we cease to "wonder." We stop listening. We have claimed "mastery" over the other person's character, personality, thoughts and feelings. To judge based on what we can know of a person is to close off the infinite possibilities of that person's next move, change, choice. Rational knowledge is a kind of domination, of control. We "master" a subject in school, it is not a healthy thing to aspire to in relationships. 

I remember years ago, a young Capuchin friar laughing wryly at having achieved a "Master of Divinity" in seminary. It's so wrong ... just as wrong as aspiring to "master" a beloved human friend or lover. That kind of attitude closes off all possibility of real mutual knowledge, or of the self-knowledge that is gained only through relationships, through the mirror of the other's knowledge of oneself. 

The same is true in the relationship with God, with Divinity, who is not a subject to be "mastered," but a Person to be known and loved, Who knows and loves me. And just as in any relationship, the way to know this Lover is by:

listening, without preconceptions, with a willingness to be taken by surprise, an openness to wonder, trying not to project our own ego onto the Other;

being transparent, self-revealing, willing to look hard at ourselves and be seen and known exactly as we are; 

being willing to step up, to accept demands on our time and energy, to sacrifice, do things we don't like, stretch beyond our comfort zone.

To really know a person, whether human or divine, is to know them with the heart rather than the head. To know You is to love You!