Excerpt from The Alchemical Transformation of the Wisdom Passage: Based on “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho

“How strange Africa is, thought the boy. 

“He was sitting in a bar very much like the other bars he had seen along the narrow streets of Tangier. Some men were smoking from a gigantic pipe that they passed from one to the other. In just a few hours he had seen men walking hand in hand, women with their faces covered, and priests that climbed to the tops of towers and chanted—as everyone about him went to their knees and placed their foreheads on the ground. 

“ ‘A practice of infidels,’ he said to himself. As a child in church, he had always looked at the image of Saint Santiago Matamoros on his white horse, his sword unsheathed, and figures such as these kneeling at his feet. The boy felt ill and terribly alone. The infidels had an evil look about them. 

“Besides this, in the rush of his travels he had forgotten a detail, just one detail, which could keep him from his treasure for a long time: only Arabic was spoken in this country.” 

Like most people, Santiago is skeptical of people he doesn’t know—people who are different. And like most people, Santiago has been steeped in inflammatory stories about foreign people—people who are different. Not only do Arabs have different customs and religious practices, but here now in Tangiers, they speak a different language. Moreover, the reference to Saint Santiago Matamoros makes a not-so-subtle reference to the Moorish invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in 711. The fall of Granada in 1492 marked the end of Muslim rule in Iberia—but obviously bad blood has remained for centuries. Santiago Matamoros will forever be known in Spain as the Moor-slayer.  

Let me pause over this.

We are currently living in a doubly challenging moment in history. Not only are we contending with a world-wide pandemic, a pandemic which has exposed the inequalities of health care according to race and income; but here in the United States as the result of the murder of George Floyd in the city of Minneapolis by a police officer, these inequities and injustices have reached a tipping point. 

The Wisdom community, however loosely defined, has not seen itself as a social justice movement. But for us now not to be engaged in this moment of history in some sort of constructive, if not transformative, way would be a damning irresponsibility. In fact, Wisdom may have a perspective that may prove very helpful in the necessary restorative work ahead of us as a country and as a human family.

I have long heard the criticism in Wisdom Schools: Where are all the young people and the people of color? How can we draw them here? To my mind, these are neither the most important nor most timely questions to be asking. Rather, as a part of the alchemical transformation of the heart, most all of us Wisdom practitioners must be asking ourselves and deeply considering how our own attitudes toward race are contributing to keeping us both asleep and blind. Here glibly or superficially progressive self-evaluations that put us beyond or above such issues actually serve to keep us stuck in our own white privilege, white frailty, and white blindness. 

There are currently some young teachers in the Wisdom community who are poised to take us into this work. Most of us will have to confront some attitudes about race and color that we would rather not own up to. Rather than writing ponderous spiritual declarations on Facebook that try to illustrate how open and tolerant we are, we must instead engage in difficult small group discussions wherein we can both inspire each other with self-honesty and hold each other more deeply accountable. 

In the end, the Wisdom path may prove most helpful in all of this in its deepening capacity to see the divine wholeness in all its apparent disparate parts. While the parts can be differentiated and distinguished and thus appreciated, they belong together and can and should be joined. To see the other, not as “other” but as “me,” clumsily describes the Wisdom way of seeing. But that seeing begins by a fearless self-inventory and an acknowledgement of how biases get imbedded and stuck in our minds and our bodies. These must be mined and then owned.

Not only might this historical moment we are in be added by a Wisdom perspective, but the Wisdom movement in general and our own Wisdom transformations in particular may indeed require this historical moment for their fullest unfolding.

Getting Clear About My Lane

With various pronouncements about the circumstances we are now in as well as the judgments about the technologies at our disposal, I have been asked by a number of people where I stand on such things. Here I would like to briefly address some of these issues, so people know what lane I am traveling in.

 Before I jump into this, let me say that these conclusions are solely based on my own perspective and seek to convey what I deem helpful vs. not so helpful for me and my actions.

 First, let me say that, although I am fully cognizant of the dire economic repercussions to our staying physically distanced for the present time, I believe this strategy is based on sound science and saves lives. I will stay secluded in this way until such time as it is deemed safe by those who scientifically evaluate such dynamics. I stay at home not so much for my own safety, but because this protects the well-being of others, especially those most vulnerable. In this decision, I do not believe that I am swayed by fear, hysteria, or the media. I am guided by the science and by compassion for my fellow human beings.

 Second, for a couple of years now I have used the technology of Zoom for virtual meetings, and I will continue. This technology has enabled me to meet and work with people from all over the world. More recently, I have used this technology for my virtual retreats. Not only have I heard from many others how powerfully important these experiences have been for them, but I also have experienced myself a profound sense of embodied relatedness. 

 Relating on Zoom is not a substitute for being with a person face-to-face, but it does allow us to connect when distance is a limiting factor. Zoom does allow for an encounter that can open a more energetic connection. Moreover, this platform has enabled me to work with others on a donation basis, permitting me to reduce the costs of those who cannot afford much. It is, in fact, the face-to-face encounters of a residential Wisdom School that end up being so expensive and accessed only by the privileged. And as far as its effect on the planet, I do not believe that using Zoom is any more harmful than any other use of the Internet, including Facebook.

Speaking of Facebook, third, I do not use it. Facebook too easily promotes false information and factitious conspiracy theories that have dangerously undermined our lives. There is no accountability for fact or veracity, and too much misinformation is promulgated. Additionally, even within spiritual groups/communities, I see how Facebook unconsciously promotes posturing, pretention, and excessive identification. Honestly, I can see these temptations rising in me. Like alcohol, I see Facebook as a toxin, at least for me, and so choose not to partake in either one. While others may not be drawn into this negativity as I am, my conclusions about the proliferation of misinformation stand.

 Lastly, I sense it is my present calling to move Wisdom as a way of knowing to a way of loving. This to me seems to require a deeper integration of Wisdom from the head down into the body and being. This integrative work seems to require two foundational platforms. The first is embodied practice. While centering prayer and other forms of sitting meditation are great places to start, the integration of Wisdom requires more varied and directed practices. The second is community. Here I do not mean just being in the presence of others in a Wisdom School. I mean the sustained support and accountability that manifest over the commitment of extended time together. 

 None of the above are meant to be prescriptive for anyone else. These simply map out the lane I am currently running in.

Finding A Helpful Inner Attitude by Sue Houston

 I am currently a participant in Bill Redfield’s virtual Easter Retreat and Practicum. Besides deeply appreciating all of Bill’s online offerings, I would like to draw the Wisdom community’s particular attention to a two-part practice that is crucially important in these times we are moving through. Lamenting the difficult reality that currently many people are dying essentially alone in our hospitals without the comfort of family and close friends as well as the additional reality that many are then being buried without funerals—Bill has put together two recordings that can serve as vehicles for our prayers and intentions. Prayers for the Dying and Prayers for the Dead can be found on Bill’s website. 

 These meditations went straight to my heart. I felt deeply connected to people I’d never met, those lying alone in a hospital as well as grieving family members. Images and sensations coursed through me; tears streamed down my cheeks. If you’ve not listened to Bill’s reflection recordings before, they are quite stunning in their artistry and impact, an amalgam of words and music that together take one beyond the ordinary mind and into the depths of the heart, to the extent one is willing let go and go there. After a couple sessions with these recordings, I started to feel a little overwhelmed with the grief of the world and my feelings of helplessness in the face of what appeared to be awful circumstances. Upon reflection, I realized I was getting trapped in the misconception that I am “the doer” who is supposed to be somehow “fixing” some of this sorrow by participating in this meditative prayer. In a flash it became clear that the only thing to “do” here is to open the channel and allow myself to be instrument in the orchestra, this great symphony of love. This love is what lies at the bottom of this pain we are all feeling as this pandemic unfolds. To grieve is to love. To hold others, especially those who are alone and most in need, is an expression of that love. Participating in this work feels to me like an important reason for being here in human form.

COVID 19

In the Introductory Guided Reflection of my recent Virtual Lent and Holy Week Retreat, I use a quotation from “The Boys in the Boat:” “What mattered more than how hard a man rowed was how well everything he did in the boat harmonized with what the other fellows were doing. And a man couldn’t harmonize with his crewmates unless he opened his heart to them. He had to care about his crew.” 

 Using the metaphor of an individual rower in an eight-oared shell, we are approaching our spiritual work in this retreat in a different mode—that of dedicating the fruit of our work to specific others and of paying directed attention to the relationship between the part and the whole, between the individual and the community. For me this, has been a useful frame to discern my place and responsibility in the present Covid-19 crisis.

 At the risk of excessive self-disclosure, I want to share with you not just the content but also the means by which I have arrived at a personal decision of my response to the current threat of this virus in the United States and throughout the world. I am setting this forth that it might inspire you to think through your own position with regards to your own future actions. In this I by no means expect that you will arrive at some of the same conclusions as I have—only that you will have thought through both your personal issues and the wider issues and forces at play. 

For myself, in having to approach the present situation with as much self-honesty and integrity as I am able, I have had to excavate through layers of personal issues, like staring down my desire never to let anyone down and my proclivity for playing out the story of the hero. Beneath those layers of individual story I have come to see more clearly my relationship with, and responsibility to, the greater community. 

Specifically, I have come to see how I as an individual can help to “lower the curve” for the community as a whole. In order to slow the speed of the first wave of this virus to keep it from overwhelming our medical systems—for me, social isolation is imperative. If not slowed, the emergency medical needs of those critically affected by this first wave could well far exceed what can be delivered. Therefore, I myself am limiting my contacts with others and cancelling or postponing all gatherings. This is based on a primary concern for the whole, the community. In this, the metaphor of the individual rower in a rowing shell with others has been helpful.

But isn’t this capitulation to the forces of fear, panic, and hysteria? I supposed it could be, but that is not at all how I have arrived at this conclusion. Rather, I believe one can be fully grounded, embodied, and seeing from the heart in order to rise above the fear and panic to find the primacy of love and concern for the greater community. 

Don’t I give up my power by such a withdrawal from the active stream of life? Quite the contrary. To recognize the link of love with the greater community empowers me to help lift the burden that this pandemic is bringing to humanity around the globe. In so doing I recognize the efficacy of directed love and attention. Here, then, is an incredible opportunity to contribute to the whole instead of insisting that I have the right to continue business-as-usual. 

In this decision I have been guided by my head as well as my heart. Although the powers-that-be have tried to muffle it, I have tried to listen to the science. For example, I have intentionally rejected others’ minimalization by comparing this virus with the flu. Besides listening to my heart, I am listening to the public health professionals who actually know something about the pandemic situation we are in.

I encourage you to think through your own position and plans of moving forward in the next few weeks. Might the metaphor of the individual rower in a boatful of others be helpful to you? Moving beyond fear and panic, can you articulate your own position? Can you find a foundational platform on which you might stand and feel both unified and grounded? 

Love, Bill

 Epidemiologists call this strategy of preventing a huge spike in cases “flattening the curve,” and it looks like this:

Christina Animashaun/Vox

Syracuse Post Standard Interfaith Voices: Holy Week

The Rev William Redfield is rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Fayetteville, NY, and leader of Trinity’s Wisdom House. He is also the convener of InterFaith Works’ Round Table of Faith Leaders.  

Sunday

Holy Week is that one-week period of time between Palm Sunday and Easter on the Christian liturgical calendar that marks Jesus’ final showdown in Jerusalem.  In thinking about Holy Week as the preparation for Easter, we might be tempted to think that, just as Jesus rose from the dead and overcame the fear and hatred that got him crucified, so too might we eventually triumph over all the forces that oppose us.  Although most of us are coming to accept the fact that we cannot pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, we hold out the hope that God can do what we ourselves cannot and that ultimately God will bring us vindication in the end. Undoubtedly that is true.  But understanding things on that level and in that sequence puts us way ahead of ourselves and keeps us from the fullness of this present moment we are in.

 Without disclaiming this kind of ultimacy, I nevertheless have to say that Holy Week is really about something else altogether.  Yes, there may well be some ultimate triumph inherent in the life of faith, but that is not its means and that should not be its motive.  No, there is something deeper.  In Holy Week we have the opportunity to find the fullness of life in the falling, in the dying, itself.  More than assuming that we will automatically come out in one piece on the other side (that is, the Easter side), in Holy Week we can find something akin to the hidden victory in the vulnerability of the falling and the dying itself. But it’s not just the dying; it’s the loving through it all.

 Imagine the freedom if we might were released from the forced climb of accomplishment and self-importance.  We would be free to love.

Monday

Unfortunately, the history of Holy Week has been marred with accusation, blame, and the stains of anti-Semitism.  A different outcome is possible when Jesus’ last days are reframed. Jesus’ death is less about the vindictive reactions of an angry God who put his only Son to death because of the sinfulness of humankind and much more about the primacy of conscious love and the abiding truth that love is stronger than death.  With this shift, we are freed to love and respect all others.  Tonight on this sacred night of Passover, we honor our Jewish brothers and sisters. 

Tuesday

I have come to the sense that, upon his entrance into Jerusalem in that last fateful week of his earthly life, Jesus himself underwent the final intensification of his own great surrender.  While that gesture of surrender marked the whole of his life, in the passage of those final days that relinquishment was deepened and perfected.  But is not just something Jesus did for us; he has forged a path on which he wants us to follow. He wants us to pattern that gesture into our very being. That what the life of faith is all about.   

Wednesday

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain.” (John 12:24) In this passage and others we find the very core of the Christian imperative—it is about dying to self.  Invest in preserving your life, we are told, and you end up losing it.  Surrender it, and you not only find your true life, but you also discover the Kingdom of God. That is not only the central message of Jesus’ teaching, but it is also precisely how he himself lived his own life and died his own death.  

Thursday

On this most tender of nights Jesus gathers his followers and shares a sacred and symbolic meal with them.  Following the meal, he washes their feet, showing them how they are live when he will no longer be with them in the flesh.  Then in the garden, although he would have preferred a different outcome, he surrenders himself to the reality of the present moment and to the love of God as his both his Source and his Destination.  Instead of any kind of capitulation on his part, this is the surest manifestation of strength.  

Friday

“This is how I would die: Into the love I have for you, as pieces of cloud dissolve in sunlight.” (Rumi)  By all appearances it would seem that Jesus’ life and ministry are finished in a disastrous dead-end of utter defeat.  But when love is at the center, all bets are off.  It may only be an inkling right now, but could it truly be possible that love is stronger than death?  In trusting this, how might our lives now be lived?   

Saturday

One of my best friends died this past year.  Being told that she had only one month to life, she not only put all of her affairs in order, but she also resolved to live a conscious death.  With paralysis moving swiftly up her body, on her last night she had control only of her face.  Instead of shrinking back in fear, she passionately (not desperately) kissed her husband.  With her conscious death came the deliberate choice to love from this life into the next. Resurrection had already been woven into her dying. 

Background for Virtual Advent Retreat

I was recently asked by Northeast Wisdom to share more about the details of the upcoming Advent Retreat and the process by which I had gotten into offering virtual retreats. Here is what I wrote:

I was always one who said that I was only interested in working with people and groups in person. Then, when a fairly recent move to the seacoast area of New Hampshire took me away from the circles of people with whom I connected and dearly loved, I was forced to find another medium in which to work. I very reluctantly tried my hand at virtual work.

Wow, have I been amazed! I am now so appreciative of the opportunities that the Internet, and specifically, the Zoom platform offers. I feel fortunate to be living in this day and age when we have this technology. I currently meet with both individuals and groups on Zoom and couldn’t be more pleased with the results. But I specifically want to talk with you about the virtual retreats.

Having worked for years to deepen the understanding and experience of Holy Week, this past spring I found that I was itching to create something new. For many previous Holy Weeks—both when I was serving a parish and even after I retired—I had organized residential retreats to assist others in deepening their walk through this sacred time. But this past year found me ready to again take up this work—but without a community in proximity with which to share it. And so, I got this crazy idea to create something that could be transacted online. Besides guided reflections and shared online contemplative worship, this would also have an opportunity for people to come together online to share their experiences with each other. 

I was simply amazed with the result. Many people wrote to me and shared how important and impactful their experience was to them. I was gratified beyond expectation. I was determined to push this format forward, and, thus, I started planning the Advent retreat. 

All in all, the Holy Week retreat was an ambitious program. Although I made it clear that all the parts were optional, I know some people shied away from joining because for them it seemed so daunting. So when I started planning the Advent retreat, I thought I would simply the structure. Briefly, starting with the First Sunday of Advent on December 1 and running right through Christmas Day, the components include three Guided Reflections each week as well as two scheduled Zoom group gatherings each week of Advent on Monday and Wednesday evenings (at 7 pm, Eastern). Hopefully, this would provide a structure that could be added to one’s own ongoing meditative or prayer practice.

As with the Holy Week retreat, it was important for me to offer this “by donation.” This would make it accessible to anyone and everyone. But I also have wanted to create a safe container within which we could do this work, so I have made these retreats password accessible only. Therefore, it is necessary for everyone who will be participating to sign up. virtual advent retreat.

The Guided Reflections may at first seem to be teachings put to music. Here it might be assumed that the music is employed to “amp up” the emotion. But, actually something very different is going on here. First of all, in preparing the reflections I am finding and actually experiencing an unexpected connection and bond with the listener. Even though there is a “dislocation” in terms of time—that is, I am preparing the reflections at a preceding point in time before the listener will receive them—I find a meeting, maybe even a union, out of time. 

Second, in terms of this profound connection with the listener, what is recorded is not exactly a teaching. If these reflections were teachings, they could stand alone and maintain their structure and form outside of this intimate relationship between me and the listener. They could be written and perhaps even published. But because of this accessed depth in relationship, these are more like intimate whisperings that are meant to be deeply shared, briefly treasured, and then let go. If they are to be measured at all, it will not be in terms of any increased intellectual understandings; it will be in terms of more subtle transformation in the field of loving relationship.

Third, the musical pieces chosen to undergird the reflections have been chosen not on the basis of rousing emotionality, but in terms of deepening vibratory resonance. Thus, the music simply helps the reflections go more deeply into the body. While this may not completely circumvent the emotions, these are secondary at best. Interestingly, when the reflections were at first brought together with the music that might vibrationally support them, the music would sometimes instigate changes in the wording of the reflection. Thus, the reflection and the music became of a piece, with each more deeply informing the other. 

I am honored to be able to do this work. If it calls to you, I would love to meet you in that beautiful field we call Advent. 

Guide to Virtual Holy Week Retreat

The Elements

Let me begin by listing the four elements that will be available Monday through Holy Saturday. (Passion/Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday will each have only one recorded teaching/reflection.) Everything will be posted on the website early in the evening the day before. Because of the variety of time zones, this will hopefully insure that everyone will receive the recordings in a timely fashion.

 (1.) Morning Worship. The first recording will be a 45-minute morning worship as we have in our Wisdom Schools. The elements include an opening acclamation, a short reading, 15 minutes of silence, free and spontaneous moment to a short piece of music, a logion from the Gospel of Thomas, a chant, and another 15-minute period of silence. (I want to thank Hanna Lynn Mell and Bryan Vosseler for their beautiful voices in the chants.) This morning worship prepares us to receive the work, the teaching, the reflection and the practices in the other sections that follow. As important as this may be, this might be the segment that is skipped by those who are pressed for time. Alternatives might include doing your own morning sit for a shorter time, doing a part of the 45-minute worship, or listening meditatively to the teaching/reflection. Clearly, there are plenty of options here.

 (2.) Teaching/Reflection. The second recording includes the teaching for the day. This is generally about 20 minutes long and is the lynchpin for the day. Again, if time is limited, you could listen to this recording first thing in the morning instead of the longer morning worship. This is the segment in which the overarching Holy Week themes will be developed.

 (3.) Internet Group Discussion. The third segment is the Zoom group at 4 pm (EST). There is a great deal to include here, so I will come back to this below. 

 (4.) Evening Practice/Meditation. The fourth segment is the evening practice or meditation session that runs from 25 to 40 minutes. This segment is designed to take the themes developed earlier in the day and then to integrate them more deeply into one’s body and being. This segment will utilize energetic practices that may be new to many. Along with the teaching/reflection of the second segment, these two are the most critical to include in your work. 

Except for the Zoom discussion group, all the recordings will be able to be accessed throughout the week and beyond. They can also be downloaded. But one might wonder if it isn’t important that we all be doing the same thing at the same time. While conducive, this is not necessary. Being of one mind and one heart is what will draw us together more than efficient timing on the linear dimension. The efficacy of this work will hinge of the attunement of our intention.

What I am suggesting here, then, is an intentional approach that is at the same time relaxed and non-reactive. Let’s do what we can and not become obsessed with what we can’t do. And let’s work out of our desire rather than a sense of duty. In some sort of mysterious and paradoxical way, it is this surrendered attitude that will magnify our work. 

Directions and Guidelines for Small Groups

The afternoon group portion of our Virtual Holy Week Retreat will take place Monday through Saturday from 4 to 5 pm (Eastern). There will be a link that you can click on at that time, and it will bring you right to the meeting. That link will be sent to those who have signed up for the retreat. There is just one intermediary step, and that is to choose and click on “allow.” You will not have to download anything ahead of time. A laptop or desktop computer will work better than an I-pad or cell phone. A steady Internet connection is imperative.

This Zoom platform will allow me to gather our plenary group for a short time and then to divide the large group into small breakout groups. These small groups of three or more will be randomly assigned, and participants will have two periods of roughly 15 minutes in these small groups. Because these groups will be randomly assigned each time, we will not be in the same groups throughout the week or even on the dame day. Therefore, time utilization and directed group process will be supremely important.

Thus, potentially using discussion questions as beginning prompts, the participants will have the opportunity to put their learning and their experience into words. Why is this important? Struggling to put words to our experience is a very crucial way that we can integrate the material into our consciousness. Indeed, one important way that passing experiences get integrated into abiding stages is through putting our experiences into language and offering these in shared conversation. Rather than just expressingexperience, this kind of discussion can actually deepenexperience itself. The overriding purpose of these small groups, then, will be to support our unfolding throughout the week. 

But clearly, this cannot be any kind of lackadaisical conversation. It must be directed toward real depth and sharing. Additionally, the container of each small group must be safe and sturdy enough to hold the trust necessary for this kind of sharing. In most groups, this group development toward open and honest sharing takes time. Because we will not have such a luxury, we will have to bring a high level of intentionality and maturity. We ourselves, then, must be emotionally and spiritual prepared to engage in this vital group work.

Consequently, I am asking each and every one of us to come as prepared as we possibly can for this work together. Strikingly, the “surrendered presence” that will contribute to the efficacy of our small groups will be both the goal and the means of our Holy Week work together. Holding our smaller identities loosely will mean they will be less likely to get in our way.

Our time will begin with the plenary group. To prevent competing sounds and distractions, everyone’s microphone in this large group will be muted except my own. In the upper right hand corner of the screen, participants can choose a “gallery view” (in which they will be able to see all of the faces) or a “speaker’s view” (in which they see only my face.) After greetings and orienting directions, I will begin the readings—each one followed by a moment of silence. This brief practice will serve as the vestibule for the later discussion work in the small groups.

Each small group will develop its own structure and format.. It might be useful to begin with some very brief introductions. Then each group might dive into responding to the discussion questions, making sure that each person gets an equal share of the time. 

But what about the readings? Are we to reflect on them? The readings are with us as the gatekeepers to our work. They are pointing us to our own depth. They may or may not prompt some response directly; but, regardless, they help to provide the contextual container for each group’s work. (See the blog post, “Working with a Living Text”)

In such intensive time-limited small groups, the group norms are probably obvious. In our exchange we must move beyond right and wrong, beyond judgment and evaluation, and beyond trying to impress each other. Listening thoughtfully and carefully is imperative. Stretching ourselves to be honest and forthcoming will not only benefit us in the long run; it will also encourage the greater risk-taking of all. The deeper the level of exchange, the more everyone will benefit.

Like all of the other elements, this gathering on Zoom is optional. Many people will simply not be available at this particular time. My hope however, is that everyone will be able to process their experience in one way or another. One might write in one’s journal or share experiences with a trusted friend or family member. After the retreat is over, I will provide an opportunity for participants who so desire to write to me of their experience. I will then ask permission that certain responses be shared with the larger group.

Inviting others

If you have friends or family members who you think might also be interested, by all means invite them. I would ask that they sign up on the website so that I have their E-mail address in order to send them the password and other ongoing announcements.

 Music and Readings

After the completion of the program, I will be sending out a complete list of all of the readings and all of the music employed.

 Further Questions

Please E-mail your questions or concerns. What is unclear to you may likely be unclear for someone else. Your questions can help me shape things on the fly.

Appreciation

Again, let me express my gratitude to all who are joining in this work. We are at one and the same time forging new ground and doing important work for the benefit of the world.

Working with a Living Text

A Wisdom way of knowing invites us to a very different orientation to all of life. This is particularly true regarding the way we might approach a written document or text. 

 In our modern understanding of reality, a written text has a set meaning based on the author’s intention and/or based on its use and understanding within a particular tradition. With a spiritual text, especially, it is usually the academic theologians and the professional clergy who are the authorities and guardians of a scriptural text’s meaning. And this meaning is regarded as set and objective. Within this modern Western framework of understanding, most of us end up feeling insecure and uncertain in the face of spiritual texts. They seem inscrutable to us, and we are glad to hand over the authority of their understanding to the “professional experts.”

 A Wisdom way of knowing, however, sees the world and all of life differently. Many of us have learned–indeed, we have experienced—that “energy flows where attention goes.” What we focus on can become alive and energized. There is a power in seeing, in noticing, in witnessing. Liveliness and meaning are breathed into all nature of things when we are truly present to them—even seemingly inanimate things.

 With the mind grounded in the heart and with a deepened sense of presence that results, many of us have come to appreciate that the world is alive in ways that we had not previously acknowledged. Indeed, we are coming to more deeply apprehend that consciousness is not restricted to the brains of human beings. The universe is dynamically animated.

 Relatedly, many of us have also come to appreciate that howwe look at someone or something makes a difference. How we see a situation influences how it will unfold and turn out. Our previous understanding of an outer reality that is objective and set has been replaced by a more dynamic understanding that the perceiving of something has the power to influence and modify it.

 With this brief explanation as a vestibule, Wisdom seekers have found new ways to approach scriptural texts, poetry, and other writings. Rather than lying flat and one-dimensionally on a page and often indecipherable, these texts can actually be regarded as alive and waiting to be encountered. And rather than having one set and objective meaning, they desire to gift us with a meaning that may be specific to our unique conversation with them. Put another way, these texts seek relationships with hearts that are open and willing. And like any other relationship, they will gift their inner secrets to those who are receptive, open, and humbly respectful. 

 The texts are best encountered, then, not by researching and reading about them in commentaries or trying somehow to forcibly extract meaning from them; but by encountering them openly and respectfully in mutual dialogue. So, rather than a set and objective meaning that is to be extracted from the text, the text’s deepest meaning will be gifted in the honest dialogue with a respectful conversant. We, then, have something to give as well as to receive from the text.

 What will you give to the text before you? This is a good question with which to initiate your conversation…

Christophany to Deepen our Understanding of Incarnation: Advent 2018

There are probably many ways to know Jesus, but there are two general approaches. The first is from the outside, as an object of faith, adoration, or doctrine. This is the method of conventional Western Christianity. This method of knowing Jesus in traditional theology is called Christology. The difficulty in this method, however, is that the object of our knowing is culturally embedded; in other words, our sense of Jesus is dependent on Western methodologies and thought categories. This lens or filter, actually, any lens or filter, is called a cosmovision.

 For one thing, this Western cosmovision is a rather biased and slanted perspective that ends up having more to do with Greek thought forms and Roman legal categories than it does with who Jesus really was or what he really taught. That would be problem enough. But this perspective through our Roman and Western lens also makes it extremely difficult to converse meaningfully and sympathetically with the other peoples and religions of the world and difficult to connect with the legitimate experience and thought forms of the rest of the world. 

 But the other way we can know Jesus is from the inside.  We can take our cues here from Raimon Panikkar in what he describes as a very different contemplative knowing of Jesus he calls Christophany. Rather than subject-to-object as in our traditional Western knowing, this knowing is subject-to-subject. The trajectory of this inner knowing is through the disciplined and subtle exploration of our own inner landscape. Where you find Christ is correlative with your deepest and most authentic self.  

 By this route we are able to encounter Jesus’ own cosmovision through a dynamism that Panikkar calls interabiding. Because the only cosmovision here is an interior one, this interabiding, then, requires the opening of a new channel of perception within us—what Panikkar calls the third eyeand what Cynthia Bourgeault calls heart perception.The research of modern neuroscience confirms what contemplative transformational methodologies have known all along—that contemplative practice doesn’t just change whatyou think; it changes howyou think. It also changes what you are able to see.

 Panikkar suggests that the pathway of this contemplative inner knowing of Christophany skates between the two classic options of our identity vis-à-vis God. On the one hand, I do not exactly claim that I am God; but, on the other hand, neither do I insist that God is completely other (as in the claim of a rigid monotheism). Instead, I discover myself as the thou of an I,(God is the I, and I am God’s Thou.) This is the nondual knowing that preserves the sense of the divine interpenetration into human life.  

 There are certain conditions of life that contribute to this understanding. One is that life is not static; it is a constant flow, moving ever forward. There are no fixed points and, despite illusions to the contrary, no fixed identities. The other condition is that everything in life is related to everything else. There are no distinctly separated objects. Relationalityis the principle by which life is put together. Strikingly, these are among the proven verities that come from quantum science. Again we see a confluence of modern quantum physics and ancient contemplative truth.

 To see in this way—to see the unified field of this relationality that includes the seer and the seen—is frequently called unitiveor non-dualvision or perception without differentiation. But the challenge of this vision and understanding of life is that you cannot see it until you can see it. From our usual way of seeing and from our ordinary consciousness (egoic operating system) this simply makes no sense at all. It requires subtler faculties of apprehension.

 It is, nevertheless, how Jesus saw the world; it is his cosmovision; and it is the perspective within which he pitched his teaching. Specifically, what he taught is patterned by a Trinitarian understanding of life. Deeper than doctrine, this sense that life is thoroughly penetrated by the divine was mystically experienced by Jesus from the inside. He both expressed it and lived it as a life gesture of kenosis, by which, through this expression of self-giving love, one enters the dance of abundance. It is precisely in this dance that unity and diversity are preserved in the dynamism of love. 

*

Although most of us had been taught that to follow Jesus required moral merit and obedience, that model and understanding follows the first way of knowing Jesus—knowing him from the outside as an object of moral injunction. But if we were to explore this second way of knowing Jesus—knowing him from the inside, subject-to-subject—what kind of difference would it make, what would it look like, and how would we even do that? It would obviously require a sensitivity and attention to our own interiority. This would necessitate a different way of knowing—the capacity to delicately notice and observe our own experience from the inside without judgment. Theological and philosophical categories would have to be suspended in favor of a subtler interior noticing.

This subject-to-subject knowing would be more like the meaning of the Hebrew word dath, which is the kind of knowing inherent in lovemaking—knowing from the inside, subject-to-subject. Where you find Christ is correlative with your deepest and most authentic self, for Christ is in you and you are in Christ.This Christophanic interior knowing requires a more refined phenomenology than our usual way of intellectual knowing, our knowing from the outside.   

 But this capacity for Christophanic knowing is a faculty we already have within us; we come equipped with it. So much do we exclusively rely on our intellectual awareness, however, that most of us do not even know that we have this capacity for deeper seeing and deeper knowing. But just to correct myself here, this is actually not something we “have,” so much as it is a part of our being, our very nature—a vibrational frequency wherein the human and divine flow into each other so that there is an interpenetrating presence. The result is an energetic dynamism in human life that bears the stamp of the divine.

 It is in this sense that Theresa of Avila (whom Panikkar references) can hear the divine imperative, “Seek yourself in me and seek me in yourself.” This is the essence of the Christophanic experience. As mentioned above, it is an inherent interabiding. Our contemplative practice assists us by allowing us to relax the contraction that allows the divine penetration to unfold within us, to fill us, and, most importantly, for us to realize it.

 But there’s a striking assumption here that goes against the grain of what we’ve been taught. We had been led to believe that the way to God is up and that the human condition is at the maximum distance from God. In both our training and upbringing the incarnationwas the miracle by which God deigned to try to pull us from the contaminated mire in which we were stewing by sending Jesus, his only Son. Incarnation meant that the divine entered human life in the one person of Jesus, and Advent had always for us been the season in which we tried to wrap our minds around that reality.  

 But this Christophany, this subject-to-subject knowing of Jesus, reveals something profoundly different—that enfleshment is no impediment to divinity and that the incarnation has to do not just with Jesus, but also with us. The divine enters human life and interpenetrates and enlivens our being, every bit as much as it did Jesus’ being. Consequently, the way to God is not so much up,as it is in. It turns out that we have the same two natures within ourselves as Jesus did.  

*

In Advent we have long been urged to wait and watch and hope and pray. It has seemed all about the preparation for Jesus’ arrival—his arrival on the planet in the stories of his humble birth in a manger and his coming at the end of time to judge the world. But all of that would seem to be a response to the first way of knowing Jesus—knowing Jesus from the outside as an object of faith, adoration, or doctrine.  

 But there is something else in addition, something far more mundane that further complicates things at this time of year. Besides being the time for spiritual preparation and purification, unfortunately Advent in our culture is also a frenetic time of getting ready for all of the family and cultural expectations that come with Christmas. Consequently, we just never seem to get it right. And by the time Christmas crashes down the chimney and into our living room, we complain that we just don’t feel very “Christmassy.” 

 The hook of Advent and Christmas for most of us has been sentimentality. We have tried to use our mood to hype us up to a level of concentrated involvement and participation. But sentimentality can only cover the most superficial of ground; it has very little depth. But knowing nothing deeper, we have put all of our eggs in that basket. And then we have always ended up coming up short and being judgmental of ourselves for our seeming failure.

 But what if we took direction from the mystical and contemplative traditions and sought to know Jesus from the inside—as I have suggested in this second way? That would undoubtedly put us on a whole different trajectory. But whose birth would we be preparing for during Advent? Would it be Jesus’ birth or would it be our own? Or might it be both—something of a relational birth with two dynamically connected ends that wouldn’t be fixed points at all. 

 One way that we might express our relationship with Jesus is this: We say that he is the icon of all reality, meaning that he perfectly encapsulates the deepest principle of human life within himself. He demonstrates what it is to be a single or completed human being. But this is not an external standard to which we are to live up. Rather, it is an interior reality about our human nature that is already true.

 This is, in fact, the pattern of the Trinity (mystically instead of doctrinally understood). It is in the movement of the Trinity’s flow that I experience that I am a Thou of a deeper I. I experience my deepest “I” as the beloved. But this awareness cannot come from an intellectual or rational understanding; it can only come through experience, which is the result of practice; and it can only come from a relinquishment, a letting go, a surrender. 

 While this does not preclude a certain amount of sentimentality (we can relax about this), it certainly transcends it. That means that our Advent preparation no longer hinges on getting emotionally jacked up. Preparation may well, then, include something quieter, subtler, and much deeper.

 I wish for you this quieter, subtler, and deeper Advent. Blessings to you!

Surrender: A Deeper Dive

On Saturday, November 10, 2018, I presented at the first of three full days (spread out over a couple of months) of an Introduction to Wisdom.  In response to that day of teaching, I received the following inquiry:

I attended your November 10th program at Holy Family and wonder if you could further clarify what you said about surrender.  Per my notes, I know you were very clear to say surrender was NOT giving in or capitulating to evil [or other] forces; that it was NOT rolling over or being a doormat, but, rather it is a gesture of strength and that is how Jesus used it.  He took surrender all the way.  You went on to say that surrender (letting go) and kenosis (self-emptying) lead to abundance and fullness of life…

Could you say a little more about it being a gesture of strength, and how surrender and kenosis lead to abundance and fullness of life…  I'm not quite sure I understand... I have a fleeting glimpse but can't quite "get" the meaning of these comments or what you were trying to say.  Thanks.  

My response to this inquiry gives me the opportunity to take a deeper look into Wisdom’s central dynamic of surrender. But before I undertake that and because this E-mail manifests it, let me first say a word about how most of us seem to learn. Although this participant got a “fleeting glimpse” of what was presented, she is here asking for a deeper foundation of understanding. This “fleeting glimpse” is most often an experiential reception of one of Wisdom’s insights—one that usually matches an underlying yearning. Often, too, this experiential intake is physical in nature; that is, it is often received in the body as a physical sensation and recognition. We experience something that in our body and in our being we’ve always known to be true. In this sense, we get a “hit” of a deeper experiential glimpse of Wisdom’s truth, but it often takes a while before that experience (a passing state or sensation) can be forged into an abiding stage out of which we can, more substantially, live.  

This passage from a passing experiential state or fleeting bodily recognition to a firmer foundational stage seems to require at least two things. First of all, it seems to take time. It takes time for what has been experienced to seep down into the pores of our being in order to take up a more integrated residence within us. And, second, it seems to need a cognitive framework within which it can coherently rest. But more needs to be said about this part of the integrative process because at first blush it can seem to run against the stream of most spiritual thinking/understanding.

Often the sense of our spiritual trajectory of growth is that it is taking us beyond the reach of the rational and the intellectual. And it is true that much of spiritual encounter takes us beyond the ego’s ordinary thinking and its rational and temporal understanding of itself. But in order for that to be integrated into the self-system, it is useful (if not necessary) to have a cognitive understanding into which it can eventually fit. I sometimes refer to this cognitive understanding as a kind of “file folder” or series of “corresponding file folders” in which our spiritual experiences might be held and organized. This is why both an underlying theology and a foundational cosmology are important in our ongoing spiritual trajectories. While they cannot replace spiritual experience itself or the results of ongoing spiritual practice, they enable us to construct for ourselves an abiding stage out of which to live. Our conceptual understandings, then, enable us to hold our spiritual experience in a relatively coherent container. 

Given, then, that surrender can best be learned through sensation and gesture from the inside, how might we tentatively draw some sort of conceptual picture that might shape our cognitive understanding? Again, I am not suggesting that we replace experience with intellectual conceptualization; but by having some sort of evolving framework, we might then have a better shot at integrating our experience.

I turn to Jesus’ teaching from the Gospel of Thomas to instruct us here. This is logion 8 [trans. Lynn Bauman]:

Yeshua says...

 A true human being

can be compared to a wise fisherman

who casts his net into the sea

and draws it up from below full of small fish.

Hidden among them

is one large, exceptional fish

which he seizes immediately,

throwing back all the rest without a second thought.

Whoever has ears let them understand this.

Surrender suggests letting go of the anxious clinging of the ordinary self—the small fish. This doesn’t mean we have to push away all of the pleasures on the horizontal dimension. It just means that we don’t have to grab on to them quite so tightly in order to bolster our egoic self and push forward its programs for happiness. It is not necessary, moreover, to become an ascetic. It just means that we do not need to grasp things so compulsively. 

This surrender, then, helps to occasion a deeper sense of selfhood—one that is not fed or propped up by the more usual conventional motivations of the ordinary self. We begin to sense our place in the family of things as an integral part of a greater whole. Because everything is held together in a vast field of belonging, we can relax a little and trust that we cannot fall out. Indeed, there is no place to fall!

This surrender is a relaxation in all dimensions of life, and it creates a greater spaciousness within which something new can come to life. When we’re not clinging to our props and when we’re not overridden with fear and anxiety, there’s room for us to find an authentic response to the situation at hand—the one large, exceptional fish. Thus, surrender is anything but passivity. It does, however deliver us from our reactivity.

This surrender results in our greater capacity to see the universe and our lives in the universe in a new way. Relinquishing those things we had been convinced that we so desperately needed—that is, those demands of the compulsive self—we come to see beyond the tight little world that we thought was supposed to revolve around us. More specifically, this ongoing and multi-dimensional gesture of surrender releases us from our usual (and unnoticed) subject-object perceptual configuration. No longer am I on the inside looking out at the world that is outside. No longer is everything split into the subject/object duality and separation. And no longer are we merely isolated beings obsessed with “procuring,” “protecting,” and “advancing.” In those moments of surrender, then, we can see that our subjective sense flows into and is coterminous with the subjective sense of the universe. A big fish, indeed! From this perceptual vantage point, then, we are one with the Whole, and we could never see our own enhancement apart from the Whole.

It is from this perceptual vantage point that we can see that, rather than a hostile world marked by scarcity and danger, the universe is flowing out to meet us. And whatever conditions we may find ourselves in, it is precisely right there that we will be met. What we see and experience, then, is life’s abundance conspiring on our behalf.

It is useful to remember that this way of seeing is not something to be achieved through demanding hard work. It is not a ladder to be climbed. Rather, it is the result of a relinquishment and a letting go. It is not “more”; it is “less.” Over time and repeated “letting go” the gesture of surrender can be woven into the very fabric of our being. Profoundly, it is this gesture than opens us up to see and experience the abundance of the life into which we are planted.

As much as it may be helpful to try to articulate the depth and immensity of surrender directly, it is also useful to approach it metaphorically, if not poetically. This need has inspired me to plan and organize a Zoom group that I am calling: “Learning to Fall: Finding Surrender from the Inside.” With the stimulus and the guidance of an amazing series of essays by Philip Simmons, “Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life,” we will embark on a deep inquiry of surrender, utilizing the shapes and patterns of our own lives.

This Zoom group will run for twelve consecutive Wednesdays, starting on Wednesday, January 9, 2019. Taking us through Epiphany and the first part of Lent, it will hopefully provide spiritual preparation for our work in Holy Week. (Watch for announcements about specific programs for marking Holy Week.) For specific information about this and other Zoom groups, click on “Programs” on this website.

I will have more to say about Wisdom Mentoring in groups and also more about the upcoming Holy Week program

The Heart of Presence Meditation

I call this practice the Heart of Presence Meditation. It is so named because it works to bring us to a new viewing platform from which we can begin to develop the visionary capacity that sees not through fragmentation or scatteredness, but through unitive wholeness. And it gets there through the intentional and methodical uncovering of an active presence. That is how Jesus and the other Wisdom masters view life and the world. This does not cancel out our ordinary way of seeing, but rather it grounds the mind into the heart and allows us to see from unitive wholeness. This, then, is what it means that the transformed heart is an organ of spiritual seeing and alignment; the heart can see the coherent patterns of wholeness. But in order to move in this direction, we must invite the heart to move beyond its better known capacity as merely the seat of the emotional life of our ordinary self. For here, its capacities of vibrational and empathic resonance primarily encircle the tighter orbit of the ordinary self. And here they are consumed in the reactivity, the self-defense, and the self-promotion of our smaller identity.  

But when we can ground the mind in the heart, a whole new way of seeing begins to open up for us. We can begin to see in and from unitive wholeness. This means more fully appreciating that we are an integral part of the whole. No longer separate, isolated, and apart, and no longer always looking out from the inside to the world that appears to be on the outside and separate—we now can begin to see ourselves as deeply and integrally connected to the whole.

It is from this place of deeper seeing that we can begin to more accurately discern both the meaning and the purpose of our human lives. It is no longer simply about self-preservation and self-enhancement in a dog-eat-dog world; now we can more clearly and more accurately see our place within the whole. And our life purpose can now be seen as how we might serve the greater human collective rather than competing with, or defending ourselves against, the rest of the world.

How is that we can develop this deeper way of seeing? Through the practice of presence; and this is precisely what the Heart of Presence Meditation seeks to develop. It does this by combining several different categories of practice—specifically surrender, attention, and compassion—and utilizing them in concert and complementarity with each other to increase the level of Being and bring us to greater presence. This is precisely what may contribute to our awakening.  But note well: this awakening is not for our own personal fulfillment. Rather, this awakening is expressly aimed at helping us fulfill our contributory work to the greater human collective. Asleep, we battle for our own individual, separate selves. Awake, we see so much more clearly our integral connection with the whole and are then able to find our unique and authentic ways of serving the collective.

Consider the following diagram. It seeks to represent the overlapping categories of Wisdom practice. It depicts the reality that these categories, when practiced in conjunction with each other lead us to active presence. This is the capacity—when attention is freed from the smaller, tighter circle of identified personality—to see reality as it truly is. This gives the us the capability first to see our neighbor in order that, then, that we might see our neighbors as ourselves. (It can be useful to sit with this diagram for a time—not to try to figure it out—but to allow it to give its Wisdom over to you.)

There are seven parts or movements to this meditation. Each is set to a specific piece of music. The movements of the combined practice have been demarcated and differentiated from each other by the seven separate songs. The pieces of music in this way can help us keep track of the directional flow of the meditation. But these songs have not been chosen to sentimentally or emotionally support the movements of the practice. Rather, they have been selected for the vibrational and resonant character that each brings to its corresponding movement in these spiritual practices. Thus, each piece of music supports its related practice through an evocative felt vibrational sense, rather than through any mental idea or emotional suggestibility.

Let me give you an overview of the seven constitutive and complimentary practices.

1. First, it is so important that we utilize the power and the capacity of our embodiment in this compound practice. Thus, we start off placing ourselves directly and intentionally in our bodies. We also give our bodies voice and prepare ourselves to receive the body’s wisdom. This is the intention of the first movement of the meditation. During this first song, “Blue Aubade” by Slow Meadow, we give permission to our body to express itself as it desires. Perhaps a slow, deliberate, and expressive series of movements might desire to find expression in you.

And rather than be anxious about our exterior appearance, we intentionally work to remove any self-judgment or self-criticism and simply allow the body’s own authentic expression to lead. This part is probably best done standing, but it could be done from a seated position or, I suppose, even lying down. When it is done in a group, I always encourage participants to close their eyes to obviate any embarrassment or any sense of performance that might arise. If you are doing it at home, open or close your eyes as you feel comfortable. When the song concludes, you may sit on a cushion or a chair to continue the flow of the combined practices.

2.  The second song, “Last Sunrise in the Wasteland” by At the End of Times, Nothing has a more pulsating rhythmic movement that lends itself to the physical awareness of the breath—which is our focus of attention here. Not only does attention to breath bring us further and deeper into our embodiment, but it also brings, through sensation, the awareness of our connection with all of life through the exchange that happens with and through the breath. Here is the very physical reciprocal flow of life that pulses through us, bringing vitality and life itself. Thus, our work here is simply conscious breathing. Our attention, then, is on the sensations of our breathing at the nostrils, in the upper chest, or in the belly. Without necessarily trying to change or improve our breath, we simply breathe more consciously. When attention waders, we gently but firmly bring it back to the breath.

3.  The third song is “Only the Winds” by Olafur Arnalds. Here we intentionally soften the heart through the conscious generation of gratitude. But this practice is more than an appreciative accounting for all of the things we possess. Rather, it is an intentional recognition of our “place in the family of things.” This deeper sense of gratitude can be done in the following way: Looking back, we can think of those who have given or even sacrificed themselves in order to bring us to this present moment. This is a conscious awareness of those who have helped to pay the cost of our arising. We might think of parents, teachers, and others who were willing to sacrifice something to contribute to our being. Then, looking forward, we can consider those for whom we might direct the self-donation of our own lives. Who are those for whom you would sacrifice something of significance, or maybe even life itself…?  But rather than any kind of reverie through story, we work to anchor these considerations through sensation in the heart. What sensations do these awarenesses bring…?

4. This then brings us to the center piece of this Heart of Presence Meditation. Here, having consciously brought ourselves into a more pervasive sense of our own embodiment and then having softened the heart and made it more porous through the spaciousness of this deeper expression of gratitude, we now focus on the heart’s interior. Through awareness through sensation, we will now very intentionally bring our attention down into the heart. Rather than viewing the heart from the head, we will actually work to take our attention right down into the heart’s interior in order to see from the heart. This may take some effort, so don’t get discouraged. Here, a clenching in concerted effort will be far less useful than a more relaxed and effortless effort. Remember, this is a practice rather than an easily learned technique, and it is found more readily by surrender than by concerted effort.

The piece of music utilized here is “Mysterium” by Hammock. We will allow its vibrational resonance to lead us to this movement of taking our attention down into the interior of our heart. This perspective leads to an understanding through felt sense that it is here, in the interior of the heart, that divine energy from its unitive source wells up and emerges and breaks into manifested form. It is here that the unitive wholeness desires to divide into structures and form and become manifest in the specificity that is you and the specificity that is me. In this way the transformed heart—even though only a part of the whole—becomes something like a hologram of the wholeness of the divine heart. Here unitive wholeness divides and breaks into manifest form, and you and I—when we can authentically express the fullness of our being—become instantiations of divine love in the uniqueness of our individual lives. The whole, then, is fully expressed in each of the parts. This happens when we fully and authentically express the fullness of our being.

But all this is not just something we can choose to believe in. This is a living reality that can be experienced through felt sense. But it requires that our attention move down into the heart. Remember, again, that this is a practice. Be patient with yourself. It is not about climbing up to some higher level of technique or achievement. It is more about surrendering yourself more fully to what your body and being already know to be true.

Additionally, in my experience using this practice form with groups I have found that some practitioners more easily experience a downward flow into the heart’s interior from “above” rather than an upward emergence in the heart’s interior from “below.” Because this practice takes us beyond space and time, the direction is less important than its sensate qualities. Use whatever feels right to you.

5.  Now more consciously aware through a felt sense of the divine energy that both inhabits and defines us, we can extend our inspired compassionate concern to those around us. During the song “Melodrames telegraphies” (in B major 7th, part 2) by Brian McBride this process begins with a directed intention of increasingly wider circles that radiate the love outward from our transformed hearts. This section of the practice models the Buddhist meditation of loving kindness. But here—instead of praying to the divine, “May they be filled with lovingkindness,” as divine instantiations ourselves we may pray even more directly, “May you be filled with loving kindness.” The direct expression is grounded in our felt sense of being a divine instantiation. I will lead you in this segment of the meditation.

I will be using this form of expression: May you be filled with loving kindness. May you be free from inner and outer danger. May you be whole in body, mind, and spirit. May you be content and at peace.

6. This directed compassion continues and deepens through the next segment that is accompanied by “Thunder Rising” by The American Dollar. Here we employ a variation of the Buddhist practice of Tonglen. Using the reciprocal sensate and physical exchange of the breath, we intentionally breathe in all that is dark and difficult, and we breathe out love, compassion, and blessing. Here we may focus on a particular individual or on humanity in general. We allow ourselves to draw in through the breath that which is broken and in anguish, trusting that this can be touched by a transformed heart (or even by a heart that desires to be transformed). And then through the power of our own intention, we breathe out wholeness and healing. Thus, we take our rightful place in tikkun olam, the reparation and repair of the world. But this is not done through story or any kind of heroic self-narrative. This is simply the very human purpose into which we all have been born. Indeed, it is the expression and manifestation of this divine compassion—generating love through a transformed heart—that makes us fully human. When we can generate tender love and generous forgiveness out of the challenging constrictions of life on this planet, something of essential meaning and importance is gifted to the greater universe. And we have contributed our part to the greater cosmic unfolding.

7. At this point in the meditation our work is very nearly complete. All that needs to be done during this last piece of music, “Structures from Silence” by Steven Roach, is to fall more deeply in the surrender and relinquishment of the Silence. This Silence is more than quiet or the lack of noise. It is the subtle material essence that enshrouds the deep realities we have just encountered and navigated. Its mystery is best met with a profound willingness, trust, and letting go. Centering Prayer fits perfectly in this final segment of the meditation. We simply let go of thoughts as they arise, and we willingly entrust ourselves to this Great Mystery, having touched and experienced our integral part of it.

But this surrender does not empty us in the sense of depletion. It is a letting go of the clutchings of the smaller self—the graspings that keep us shut and taut like a closed fist. The emptiness here is paradoxically at one and the same time an overflowing fullness. It works with our compassionate capacities by enhancing rather than diminishing or erasing them.

---

Whether you may utilize this mediation daily, weekly, or even just periodically—I am very grateful to have you join me and others who are engaged in this practice. Together, our work contributes to a cumulative value that may beneficially promote the unfolding of the divine purpose and the enhancement of the Kingdom.

Are you ready in this small but significant way to bring your “Yes” to the question of your existence…? Together, then, let’s begin...

To express appreciation, please donate.

Song List

1. Blue Aubade by Slow Meadow            .
2. Last Sunrise in the Wasteland by At the End of Times, Nothing
3. Only the Winds by Olafur Arnals
4. Mysterium by Hammock        
5. Melodrames telegraphies (In B major 7th, Part 2) by Brian McBride
6. Thunder Rising by The American Dollar        .
7. Structures from Silence by Steven Roach

Where Are All the Young People?

Where are all the young people? This is a question that I have often heard asked among participants at their first Wisdom School. Mostly those who have been pursuing Wisdom for a longer time stop asking the question because they have become so used to seeing the sea of gray-haired folks who usually attend Wisdom events. So, where are all the young people…?

While I don’t necessarily have a definitive answer to the question, I do have a recent experience that I’d like to share that may shed some light on the question. The event was my son’s wedding at which I was asked to officiate. Now, I don’t know about other clergy, but when I was in parish ministry weddings were my least favorite liturgies. “Give me a funeral any day,” I would say. “Most people at weddings are present only because they feel obligated, and most are just biding their time for the reception anyway.” While I am not proud of that cynicism, it accurately reflected my attitude. So, I wanted to be sure that Ben and Olivia’s wedding was a different matter altogether.

I was just coming off my “Mary Magdalene and Conscious Love Wisdom School,” so for weeks I had been deeply considering the nature and dynamism of love and its central place in an awakened life. The question that confronted me as I approached the wedding was whether I would simply recycle a more traditional and conventional ceremony or take the risk of enacting a Wisdom ritual that attempted to take into account the deeper dimensions of love. I chose the latter, and it is about that that I am writing.

There are a few preliminary details that will help to set the stage of what transpired that day. First of all, Ben and Olivia wanted their ceremony to be intimate and spiritual, without being overtly religious. My son Ben is Jewish, and Olivia is Christian, but like so many young people today, neither one is tied to formal or institutional involvement. They also wanted to jettison some of the usual baggage of matrimonial ceremonies, like having bridesmaids and groomsmen. And they wanted to generate something active and participatory that would gather their families and their friends together in an intimate way over a whole weekend. So, they booked a rustic Vermont inn for Friday through Sunday and invited everyone to stay there. There was a beautiful knoll with a babbling brook in the background for the outdoor ritual and a large tent where the reception would be held.

Friday night was pizza night. A truck with a wood-fired pizza oven drove up just as the drizzle let up, and we enjoyed slice after slice of delicious pizza over a three-hour time period. That was followed by elaborate s’mores with our marshmallows browned over an open fire. Inside, we were starting to get to know each other. Because my son Ben had obviously talked to some to his friends about me and about my Wisdom work, a number of them wanted to sit down with me and find out more about it. There were a number of very intent questions and conversations about my work. I was immensely pleased to be drawn into this level of conversation from the get-go. And I was immediately struck with how awake and dialed in these young people were. Rather than the usual glassy-eyed stares that I sometimes get when I drop a few comments about Wisdom, these young people were very interested and followed my explanations with some searching questions. I was also struck by both their earnestness and their direct eye contact. 

A word about the weather, because, along with some other forces, that seemed to be conspiring on our behalf. The forecasts had all said that Saturday would be a complete washout with showers all day. And yet, by early afternoon, things had cleared up enough that we dared to put the chairs out in our outdoor cathedral. And by the time the 3:30 starting time rolled around, there was actually sunshine peering through. It would be an outdoor wedding after all!

Because I was very much intending this to be a participatory event, I didn’t want the chairs arranged in rows as they traditionally are. Instead, we made a gradual arc that gently embraced the canopy (a huppah, if it were a Jewish ceremony) where I would stand with Ben and Olivia.

What follows in indentations is the ceremonial that I had written and which we followed. It is interspersed with process comments and explanations about the ritual text and about what was being transacted at different points along the way. What you will very likely discover here is nothing other than a Wisdom teaching—a Wisdom teaching set within a wedding ritual. Is this even possible, and how fitting and how effective could this be…? Let's see...

Entrance

While everyone was seated and waiting on the knoll, Ben and Olivia and both sets of parents were gathered out of sight, a distance apart. The six of us embraced meaningfully. We had all been together there since Wednesday, and together we had found a platform of deep commonality on which to engage each other. My wife Cathy and I first escorted Ben to the canopy and waited as Olivia was then escorted her parents. Following embraces in front of the canopy, Olivia’s parents and Cathy sat down, and we were ready to begin.

Welcome and Intention of Purpose

Welcome to you—to us—all. Words could never express the enormity of meaning that this day has for Ben and Olivia, but also for Cathy and me, for Chris and Bob, and for the siblings and all the friends and other relatives who are gathered here. 

Today, together, we have work to do. This is not just a pro-forma ceremonial we are superficially reciting today. It is a deep and meaningful ritual that will change the lives of Ben and Olivia and, potentially, of us all. This is a ritual that focuses on the intentional and nurtured connection between two people.

Here I try to set a tone of real and active participation. It is not nearly enough that these promises be witnessed—as important as that may be. In order for things to be really opened up, the people gathered must fully and actively participate. What is required in this kind of liturgy is opened hearts that are willing to be fully present.

But this is a connection that unites us all. Underneath the more superficial realities that seem to separate and divide us, there is a unifying force that binds us all— one to another. And when one bond is solidified, it strengthens us all. Perhaps we might all be daring enough to just look around with fresh eyes and an open heart to more intentionally see this reality.

The reality that we are all connected can be more than a belief; it can be a felt sense and a lived reality. This Wisdom perspective is what I am inviting people into. There will be a reciprocal exchange transacted here, but it will require an intensity of presence from everyone assembled.

Ben and Olivia, I want you to turn around and look into the faces of those who are gathered here for you. I specifically want you to draw on the love and support of all of us here. This is the context—the seedbed, if you will—within which your love for each other can grow, blossom, and bear fruit.

If the eyes are the window to the soul, then direct eye contact is how we can connect being-to-being. Earlier, I had prepared Ben and Olivia to take the opportunity to maximize their sense of presence by making intentional eye contact. But this is how they already operated, They looked deeply into the eyes of their families and friends.

Let’s all just take a couple of deep and intentional breaths and allow the importance and magnitude of this moment to sink in…

A pause in the flow of words—even when these words are being offered slowly and emphatically—can intensify a sense of presence. During this pause we could hear the wind through the trees, the gurgling brook just ten feet away, and the throbbing beat of two loving hearts. The resonant vibration of these two hearts would begin to be offered up so that all the hearts present could begin to entrain to them and beat to the same vibration…

Prayer
 
On this day of joyous celebration, we give thanks for the gift of marriage and for all of the challenges and blessings it bestows. May Olivia’s and Ben’s ongoing love for each other flow from the promise of this present moment and may their commitment to each other grow and deepen over time so that all who know them might be touched and influenced by their love.

Prayer in this less conventional setting is more than a spoken message to a distant God. Because of our own present and immediate immersion and participation in the divine flow, prayer becomes our own deepest and most loving intentions made manifest. Can you feel the difference?

Reading of Personal Statements

Here first Ben and then Olivia read the statements to each other that they had prepared ahead of time. The declarations of their intentions and feelings were read slowly and clearly, with each of them looking directly into each other’s eyes and the eyes of those assembled. Because they were so personal, I will not include them here, but I will tell you that they were delivered through many tears as well as some unexpected laughter. And the veil was lifted and the heavens began to open...

But that was not quite enough. Families and friends also needed the opportunity to express themselves in a similar way. While we obviously couldn’t give every individual the chance to speak, I addressed them all, and they responded enthusiastically.

Now to you, the family and friends of Ben and Olivia: Your presence here is so vitally important.  The future of their home together depends, in part, on your ongoing love and support. Through your thoughts and intention and through your actions, you can strengthen their bond. It is time now for your personal statement. And so, I ask you now, will you give your enduring love and support to Olivia and Ben in their life together?

The People: We will.

To understand the dynamics of what is being transacted here, it is essential that everyone be pretty much on the same page in terms of intuiting the nature of love. But both in our religious traditions and certainly in our culture, we are guided by some very specific and limiting myths. I took it upon myself in the following remarks to try to suggest a deeper understanding that might supplant these misunderstandings and contribute to bringing all of us to something deeper. This, you may recognize, becomes a Wisdom teaching. But this can be risky, since no one likes a tone that is either demeaning or preachy. I only knew that the usual insipid platitudes about love would not be enough to get us out of the tighter orbit of the culture’s gravitational pull. And so, I stepped out on the end of a limb…

My Remarks: The Nature of Love

I have boldly suggested that this is ritual can change the lives of Ben and Olivia and, potentially, the lives of us all. That is because it might be a potent reminder of the central force that holds all life together. It affords the opportunity for us all to realign our lives with the fundamental purpose for which we have been born. Of course, I am speaking of ‘love.’

Mistaking love as a special emotion, we in our culture miss the force of its deeper power. When we put the emphasis on finding just the right partner who will give us what we most need and desire, we misunderstand the direction of love’s trajectory and overlook our own responsibility.

Right out of the gate I wanted here to present a deeper and vaster understanding of love’s power, and I wanted also to name how culture’s view of love falls short of the mark.  

But don’t get me wrong—a committed and intimate relationship can be a royal road to spiritual transformation and abiding happiness, but we just have to get the direction right. More than getting something from the other, it’s about giving what is deepest within us—giving freely and unreservedly to the other. Love’s power is unlocked when we choose to give to the other that which they most deeply need. And surprisingly and quite paradoxically, it is that giving that deeply gifts us and allows us to fulfill the fullness of our own unique individuality. It is, then, the daily practice of laying down oneself for the other—exchanging self for other—that a deeper channel is carved in the heart. And by this deeper heart-knowing we know that we belong to the world and that the world belongs to us.

This can best be realized through generous self-giving. It is less likely to be accomplished through duty, convention, keeping score, or one-sided gratification. It is in this sense that the institutionalization of marriage, while undoubtedly necessary, can at best only outline its external form. Its inner truth lies deeper down.

Thus, a juxtaposition of the different interpretations of love is presented, hopefully without putting down our culture’s understandings. It’s not that they are bad or wrong; it’s just that they don’t take us deep enough. Here, I am offering an invitation that we drop down to this deeper level.

This afternoon we are witnessing the promises to each other of two remarkable human beings. Granted, I cannot claim any sense of objectivity here, but I am quite confident that this is true. And what I am also pretty sure of is that what is being transacted here will deeply affect the future. 

You can probably see where I am going here. There is work to be done, and love provides both the means and the end of this work. And I cannot help but state the challenging context within which this present work must be done.

But I am not just referring to your future, Ben and Olivia, though that will surely be included. I am actually suggesting something bigger—the future of life on this planet. It will take remarkable people like the two of you and your commitment to each other to help to steer our course away from some of the magnetism that greed, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness seem to currently hold sway. 

Did I get too political? I don’t think so. The state of our country and our world is the elephant sitting in our living room. I thought, however, that that one statement would be sufficient.

But now the strong point needs to be made. This has to do with the purpose, the power, and the influence of love as it may be expressed in an awakened life. As I was making this point, I looked out at the people. I could both see and sense that they were following me. I saw unabashed tears of recognition and acknowledgment. There was a certain luminosity that was building at this point—a field of openness, warmth, and connection was being created. While this may have had something to do with the words that were being spoken, I am sure it was heavily shaped by the open-hearted receptivity on the part of the people assembled. I sensed that a portal was opening…

Am I suggesting that the kind of sincere self-giving love that is engendered in a committed relationship like this one is going to change the world? Well, yes, I am. Because everything at its root is reciprocally connected and because all the seemingly separate pieces are all integral parts of one unified whole—our actions, and all our interactions, have consequences beyond themselves. It is all of this that points to the gravity of what we are enacting today.

Here, then, is the final and, perhaps ultimate, point that was just begging to be made. This is how the universe is put together, and this is our work in the world. This is why the love between these two incredible people can change the world, and this is why their relationship includes and encompasses us all.

Could all this be heard and internalized by Ben and Olivia’s families and friends as we all came together to celebrate their love? My bet was that it not only could, but that it actually was. Again, I could both see and sense the receptivity. Yes, a portal had been opened. And the capstone of this recognition would come later that evening.

What can assist you two in this sacred endeavor? You already know what to do. Continue as you have started: Be authentically real and open with each other; listen deeply to each other’s perspectives and points of view; do not be afraid to disagree, but do it openly and with hearts and ears that can actually hear the other’s point of view; work to find the humor in everything; and dance whenever you can. Let your deepest intentions find expression in your actions and trust your own and each other’s deepest knowings. As you continue this path together, your love for each other will overspill its banks and seep out into the world. In this way you will soften some of the world’s current hard-heartedness and close-mindedness.

Here I turn to some practicalities for negotiating the river of a committed relationship. But I framed this with the articulated recognition that I already see them moving strongly in this direction.

And for our part, allow us to truly support you. Stay open to receive our love for you. Trust that we will always be there for you.

We don’t live in a vacuum. We all deeply need each other.

And now—each in our own way—let us confirm interiorly whatever truth we have heard and can claim in this moment. And rather than with merely a mental consent, with a couple more intentional breaths, let us seek to embody and live out these truths…

So, while this ritual is clearly for Ben and Olivia, it is also fundamentally for us all. The opportunity had been given for everyone present to take another, deeper look at our relationships and see how we might realign ourselves with love’s purpose. Again, because we all needed a little spece to consider all of this, we moved into a musical interlude.

Did this Wisdom teaching reach its mark? By hearing the responses after the service, I know that it did. While too personal to relate in this public writing, I myself had some amazingly direct and intimate conversations in the hours immediately following this service.

Musical Interlude

Vows— [spoken to each other]
“I, Ben, take you, Olivia, to be my friend, my love, and my life-long companion. I will respect you, cherish you and love you in sickness and in health, through good times and through hard times, all the days of my life.”
"I, Olivia, take you, Ben, to be my friend, my love, and my life-long companion. I will respect you, cherish you and love you in sickness and in health, through good times and through hard times, all the days of my life."

Exchange of Rings
    
[The rings are held up and blessed:]    
The wedding ring is a symbol of unity—a circle unbroken—without beginning or end. Today Olivia and Ben give and receive these rings as demonstrations of their vows to make their life one, to work at all times to create a life that is whole and unbroken, and to love each other without end. May these rings be worn as signs of love unbroken. 
Ben: Olivia, I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow, and with all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you.
Olivia: Ben, I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow, and with all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you.
    
Pronouncement of Marriage

In the presence of their families and friends, Olivia and Ben have made their sacred promises to each other. They have confirmed their vows by the joining of hands and the giving and receiving of rings.  Therefore, in the presence of this community and by the authority of life itself, I proclaim that Olivia and Ben are now husband and wife.

The Blessing

And now, while recognizing the integrity of their relationship as well as opening to the deep connections that unite us all in this field of love, let us raise our hands over this couple in sacred blessing: May your lives open more and more deeply to each other, even as you maintain the dignity and integrity of your own separate individualities. May you be endowed with the courage to be honest even when it is difficult, the forbearance to listen even when the other’s truth is hard to hear, and the graciousness to forgive and to be willing to let go of past hurts and animosities in order to always start anew. May you always be faithful to each other, even as you continue to be faithful to your families and friends. And may we all open to the field of love and mercy in which we are presently standing and living, and may we more truly reflect this love in our relationships with each other and in our care for the world. And now let us all say, ‘Olivia and Ben, we bless you and we love you!’ 

Can you see the deeply participatory nature of this ritual? While usually the authority for the pronouncement of marriage and the blessing are given to the priest, I am eager to share this authority with everyone present. Everyone raised their hands in consecrated blessing.

Where are all the young people? Well, some of them were there at this wedding. They not only responded profoundly to the Wisdom that was articulated, but they also participated fully in Wisdom’s ritual. I could both see this and sense this from them. But it was what happened later that evening that completely convinced me of this reality.

After a lingering shared meal on long farm tables under the tent and a beautiful toast by Ben and Olivia’s closest friends, the dancing began. The DJ, under Ben and Olivia’s direction, did a particularly good job of choosing a mix of songs that moved from Motown and classic rock (that pulled us older folks onto the dancefloor) to more contemporary music (to which the younger people recognized and responded). 

With the end time of 10 pm approaching when the music would have to be ended, the DJ for the last song chose the one that Ben had referenced in his statement to Olivia in the service. At this point, many of the older folks had left; and those of us who remained were standing apart and watching the younger people on the dance floor. For their part, they greeted this final song with a singular recognition and with a burst of renewed intensity.

What I witnessed at this point was Ben and Olivia’s tribe dancing their love for each other and their enthusiasm for life. And rather than being partnered in couples, they were all dancing as particular individuals who were part of a greater collective. The intensity of their exuberance was striking. While my mind was fully in the present, I was at the same time witnessing an indigenous tribal ritual from a timeless past. 

And then the song was abruptly over, and we were dropped into a deep and sudden silence. What I witnessed next almost literally took my breath away. Without a word being spoken, the tribe on the dance floor self-organized from separate flailing individuals into a tight self-embracing ball of oneness. Pressed closely together, they were One, and they remained wordlessly pressed together for a full thirty seconds. That half minute turned out to be an eternity. Here, then, was life's deepest and most meaningful dance--the dance between particularity and union. Not one, not two--but one and two...

Where are all the young people…? They are here with me, and they are there with you, and they are everywhere. I truly believe they are fully capable of responding to Wisdom, and very likely already do in their own ways. But what if we offered opportunities and rituals like the one I have described here in order that they might more intentionally participate? And rather than criticize this emerging Wisdom movement for what appears to be a paucity of young people, we might better ask, what can each of us do in the offering of this invitation…?

Another Look at Love

This summer I have the special privilege of officiating at the wedding service of my son Ben and his beloved Olivia. In preparation of my remarks for this momentous occasion I am reminded of the great disconnect we in our culture have with the truest and deepest meanings of love. More than merely a sentiment, an emotion, or a commodity to be grasped and seized upon, love is the very force that holds the universe together. It is the water in which we are swimming. It is this, and it is more.

Nevertheless, the fullness of a committed relationship can offer glimpses into love’s transformative power. Here’s how I will expressed it in some of remarks at the service:

But don’t get me wrong—a committed and intimate relationship can be a royal road to spiritual transformation and abiding happiness, but we just have to get the direction right.  More than getting something from the other, it’s about giving what is deepest within us—giving freely and unreservedly to the other. Love’s power is unlocked when we choose to give to the other that which they most deeply need. And surprisingly and quite paradoxically, it is that giving that allows us to fulfill the fullness of our own unique individuality.  

It is, then, the daily practice of laying down oneself for the other—exchanging self for other—that a deeper channel is carved in the heart. It is this gesture of open-hearted giving that can take us from the tighter orbit of our usual self-absorbed self-referencing and self-protection to a deeper and more porous sense of ourselves that knows that we belong to the world and that the world belongs to us. 

Unfortunately, though, we in our present Western worldview have come to think of love as something we can acquire—from the right partner. A judicious choice is what is believed to be required to ensure that the one we pick can give us the love we most desperately need. Of course, this directs our focus on what we should get rather than what we can give.

We who have been exposed to Wisdom work know that that perspective derives from the smaller self and its egoic operating system. Its job is to protect, promote, and enhance that smaller self-identity. Everything is seen and experienced within that tight orbit of self-referencing.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that a deeper love is impossible from this tighter orbit and orientation. It just means that it will have to swim against the current and get there through a sense of duty, service, or social conformity. As priest and pastor, I have seen stunning examples of this—situations wherein great sacrifice was expressed through such duty or service. And yet, sometimes the missing piece in these examples was joy.

Wisdom knows that there is another path to deep love, and that this doesn’t necessarily travel by duty, service, or social conformity. It operates through finding a different platform from which to see and apprehend realty. This viewing platform affords the fuller perspective of interconnected wholeness. That is, we can see that, rather than a small and scared object in a sea of hostile enemies and competitors, we are integral parts of the whole and connected to the All. But the key to this whole trajectory is that it must be experienced in order to be known. It is so much more than simply believing that this is so.

This is where our Wisdom practice may take us. Rather than thinking that our partner actually hands anything over to us and that, in our receiving this from our partner, we are thereby given the key to intimacy’s door; it is the experience of giving love that gradually opens us up an entirely different awareness. This recognition is that the heart itself, when purified through sincere and authentic giving as well as spiritual practice, already has the quality of intimacy as its essential nature. In this way, loving our partner simply reveals the intimacy that we already have. Pure intimacy has been there all along; we only had to uncover it.

The great discovery of meaningful life, then, is that our own heart is like a hologram of the divine heart and already has (and has always had) the vibrational signature of pure intimacy. And this is true whether we are engaged with a partner or not. But this great reality is only uncovered when we learn how to give love and when we learn how to give ourselves away.

Another Look at Surrender

During a recent Wisdom Practice Circle, one very sensitive and insightful woman suggested to me that, in terms of surrender, women might either consider it differently or at the very least might hear the instructions differently. Her suggestion has prompted me to take another look at surrender in order to more deeply plumb its dynamic. In this, it is continuously necessary for me to face my own shortsightedness toward experiences of others that are undoubtedly very different from my own. And so that would necessarily include not only women, but also people of color and segments of the population that have been persecuted or marginalized in any way. Rather than a movement in the direction of political correctness, this seems an essential attempt to widen one’s Wisdom perspective in order to include the viewpoint and experience of all others.

Surrender is a central, or perhaps, the central dynamic of a Wisdom Christianity. Based on the key passage from “Paul’s Letter to the Philippians” (2:6-7), Jesus’ path is characterized by the complete outpouring of love and being. It is encapsulated in the Greek work, kenosis. And, just as Jesus’ path is one of surrender, that is exactly the same path to which we too are called. But what does Jesus’ surrender really mean?

In our everyday parlance, amongst other nuanced definitions, “surrender” can mean giving up or giving in—capitulating to some degree or another. Unfortunately, to a woman’s ears this may sound a little too much like the dictates of a male chauvinistic culture, forcing a woman into the strictures of limiting stereotypes and repressing both her capacities and her freedom. Or to a person of color this may sound like a movement toward subservience and complicit inequality. If we are going to continue to use the term “surrender”—as I sincerely hope we shall—we must use care in how we present and explain it. Specifically, we need to be sensitive to how this may be heard and understood by women as well as men and by the marginalized as well those in power. It, thus, demands a continuing exploration of its deepest meanings.

In the Wisdom lineage within which I mostly work, the foundational benchmark explanation of surrender can be found in Cynthia Bourgeault’s, “The Wisdom Way of Knowing.” Initially, she uses two images. The first is that of an acorn that is transformed into an oak tree. The second is that of a candle that gives of itself in order to engender light. Both the acorn and the candle surrender their being at one level in order to manifest it at another. She wisely suggests that there is a sacrifice involved and notes that this sacrifice comes at a cost. But it is in the sacrifice that being is more than just used up or given over; it is made “holy” and “whole” (the root meaning of “sacrifice”). Jesus expresses this transformational process in terms of a dying: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains a single grain; but if it dies, it shall yield a rich harvest.” (John 12:24) Christians know that Jesus’ sacrifice included death on a cross. So, are we to give over our lives in this manner?

Well, maybe we are, and maybe we’re not. Let’s look more carefully. Here’s how Cynthia expresses it: “The act of dying to the outward form of our selfhood, akin to setting the candle aflame, is what releases and makes visible the inner quality of aliveness. At the moment this inner aliveness is released, it becomes available as psychic force, a vital nutrient for the feeding and building up of the planetary body, but particularly for our human kinship and dignity.” (“Wisdom Way of Knowing,” p. 68.) Here in a unitive framework I discern a dance between the universal and the particular. In this, it would seem to me that it is the dying that is the universal part, and it is “the outward form of our selfhood” that is the specific and particular part. In other words, the surrender in dying can take as many different forms and expressions as there are individual human beings.

What is the outer form of selfhood in your life that might be surrendered? Just to use the most extreme of examples—If you are a white male in our society, maybe it might include letting go of power, privilege, and prestige. But if you are a woman who is used to getting “the short end of the stick,” maybe it is surrendering your deference, compliance, and submissiveness. The point is, it is our identifications—whether they might be deemed “positive” or “negative”—that are surrendered.

The mistake that is sometimes made in the understanding of surrender is that we have to give up our substance to the point of diminishment of our personhood or even extinguishment of our lives. Although I am not ruling anything out, this is not necessarily always the case. In fact, often the surrender of our identifications can deliver us to new capacities of strength and power. Less subsumed to the tight orbit of the protection and enhancement of the smaller sense of self, we can be freed to see and act more clearly and decisively. Indeed, our capacities may grow and strengthen, supporting our work in the world on behalf of the greater human collective. That certainly seems true of Jesus. Although in died in total surrender of a cross, he also lived to actively affirm the dignity of every living being. 

So, allow me to add a third image to Cynthia’s other two—and that is the image of a bellows. If you are old enough, you undoubtedly know what a bellows is. It is a device consisting of a flexible bag attached between two rigid boards. The bag is an airtight cavity that can be expanded and contracted by operating the two boards or handles, allowing air to enter the cavity when the handles are pulled apart and thrust forth when the handles are pushed together. A bellows is a powerful and useful tool to direct air into a smoldering fire, bringing the necessary air directly to the ashes in order to encourage them to enflame.  

So, rather than terminating itself after its initial push outward of its contents (that is, the air that is directed to stoke the fire), the bellows allows itself to expand again as it takes in more air in order to repeat its task. The apparatus itself is neither diminished or destroyed in the process; it lives to repeat its active work and purpose. 

In some ways, I think that we can use ourselves like a bellows. The movement back and forth of the two boards is possible as we remember more deeply who we really are. Surrender is the means by which this re-membering takes place. Otherwise, lost in our identifications and trapped in our smaller self-identities, we try to take the entire apparatus and wave it back and forth in front of the smoldering fire in order to try to fan the flames. Obviously, this is an extraordinarily inefficient and unproductive way to use both the bellows and ourselves. 

But once we can loosen the attachments to our smaller identities, we are freed to use ourselves as we were intended. By bringing the two wooden planks together, we contract the flexible bag and we breathe out love and compassion. That can be expressed in the form of care and concern for others, but it can and should also be expressed in the form of the active pursuit of dignity and respect for oneself and for all others—regardless of differences in color, creed, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. That is precisely what enflames and enlivens the fire of life and hallows and sanctifies the human collective and life itself. 

And then as we pull the wooden plans apart, we expand the bag and take in more air—maybe in the form of solidarity and support from those around us in respect for our own dignity of being and the acknowledged and valued position of all persons and beings in the human collective. Thus, we are not extinguished, but live to continue to both advance and receive the love and dignity worthy of us all. In this sense, what is surrendered are those lesser versions of ourselves whereby some were given the dignity and worth of their inherent nature while others were denied this.

The bellows, of course, will not last forever. It will eventually wear out and be discarded; but not before it has breathed life and air to fan the flames of the unfurling purpose of life—that we shall all be one in love and solidarity.

I use this image of the bellows to remind us that through surrender and the detachment of our lesser identities, we may come upon the experience that our capacities are sometimes expanded and deepened. Rather then, than coming into capitulation or rather than giving up, we are delivered in our surrender to new and productive life wherein we can give ourselves to others through freedom, choice, yes, even power.

Change is Afoot

Change is always happening, but sometimes its unfurling patterns become particularly noticed. That would seem to be true of this moment. Moving toward ever-expanding circles, I point to three specific changes of which I am an active participant.

The first has to do with my own emerging Wisdom work in the world. Solidifying a role that I have informally occupied for quite some time, I am now more officially offering myself in an interactive practice I call “Wisdom mentoring.” Consulting with Wisdom students either in person or via the Internet, this work seeks to help individuals more deeply integrate their experiences from spiritual practice and their understandings of Wisdom teachings. More information is on this website.

The second level of change has to do with the work of the Northeast Wisdom Board of Directors. While we are not abdicating our responsibilities as a board, in response to Cynthia’s desires, we have evolved into a Wisdom Council with additional charges and callings. Here is how I expressed it to those assembled at the Ingathering in Stonington in early June: 

As the sponsoring organization of this mostly Annual Ingathering, we welcome you.  While we’ve committed ourselves to utilizing the time to meet together as a Board, we have thoroughly enjoyed our time with and among you.  Just a word of who and what we are.

Along with Cynthia, we are six—Laura, Marcella, Mary Ellen, Guthrie, Matthew, and myself.  Formed originally as a board of directors, we now function more as a Wisdom Council around Cynthia.  The term “think tank” may not be just right, but it also may not be too far afield.

Being Northeast Wisdom, we are both particular and very local.  We are here on the ground in Cynthia’s neck of the woods.  Our mutual physical access seems important.  But being Northeast Wisdom, our sights are set as well to the more universal and far-reaching unfolding of Wisdom throughout this country and the world.  So, the universal and far-flung is our goal, but local and particular is our means.

In one sense, our work is aimed at the high bar of serving the Conscious Circle of Humanity and helping to heal our planet.  But in order to accomplish this and in a more specific sense, our work is to supportively hold Cynthia and to free her and support her to do the work she is called to do.  Our work also centers particularly on nurturing the growing Wisdom community—students, post-holders, and, particularly, emerging teachers and leaders.  

Although as individuals on this Wisdom Council, we live in many different contexts—we are particularly committed to living within the banks of our lineage’s 8 principles. 

This seems like timely and important work to be undertaken. But this is happening within an even larger context of the greater Wisdom community. Based on my experience at the Ingathering and my sense from an extended conversation of senior Wisdom students shortly thereafter—I wrote this to them:

There is a growing sense that our Wisdom community is on the cusp of a significant shift. There was the shared understanding that there is something of a “passing of the baton” that is currently transpiring. While Cynthia of course continues to be the head and the teacher of our growing community, an increasing number of experienced students are sensing a call to step out and teach themselves. Even if not called to teach, though, there seems to be a felt urgency to more deeply embody the Wisdom teachings in our own lives. So, this is all about finding one’s own Wisdom Voice—whether it be expressed in Wisdom Practice Circle post-holding, in teaching Wisdom Schools/retreats, or in emboldened manifestation of Wisdom in our everyday lives. 

Words and phrases like, “proliferation,” “organic unfolding,” “enlargement of the community,” were used to describe this present crossroads. This was also described as a differentiation of teacher and teaching, such that others now are invited to share the leadership of this Wisdom trajectory. Cynthia is not abdicating anything but inviting us to share the responsibility. In fact, this shift has been anticipated by Cynthia and has been encouraged and guided by her current work on the eight markers of our Wisdom lineage. 

Change is afoot, and I can feel it working around and within me. What about you…?

Christophany and Incarnation

There are probably many ways to know Jesus, but there are two general approaches. The first is from the outside, as an object of faith, adoration, or doctrine. This is the method of conventional Western Christianity. This method of knowing Jesus in traditional theology is called Christology. The difficulty in this method, however, is that the object of our knowing is culturally embedded; in other words, our sense of Jesus is dependent on Western methodologies and thought categories. This lens or filter, actually, any lens or filter, is called a cosmovision.

For one thing, this Western cosmovision is a rather biased and slanted perspective that ends up having more to do with Greek thought forms and Roman legal categories than it does with who Jesus really was or what he really taught. That would be problem enough. But this perspective through our Roman and Western lens also makes it extremely difficult to converse meaningfully and sympathetically with the other peoples and religions of the world and difficult to connect with the legitimate experience and thought forms of the rest of the world.

But the other way we can know Jesus is from the inside. We can take our cues here from Raimon Panikkar in what he describes as a very different contemplative knowing of Jesus he calls Christophany. Rather than subject-to-object as in our traditional Western knowing, this knowing is subject-to-subject. The trajectory of this inner knowing is through the disciplined and subtle exploration of our own inner landscape. Where you find Christ is correlative with your own deepest and most authentic self.

By this route we are able to encounter Jesus’ own cosmovision through a dynamism that Panikkar calls interabiding. Because the only cosmovision here is an interior one, this interabiding, then, requires the opening of a new channel of perception within us—what Panikkar calls “the third eye” and what Cynthia Bourgeault calls “heart perception.” The research of modern neuroscience confirms what contemplative transformational methodologies have known all along—that contemplative practice doesn’t just change what you think; it changes how you think. It also changes what you are able to see.

Panikkar suggests that the pathway of this contemplative inner knowing of Christophany skates between the two classic options of our identity vis-à-vis God. On the one hand, I do not exactly claim that I am God; but, on the other hand, neither do I insist that God is completely other (as in the claim of a rigid monotheism). Instead, I discover myself as “the thou of an I,” (God is the I, and I am God’s Thou.) This is the nondual knowing that preserves the sense of the divine interpenetration into human life. 3,61,75

There are certain conditions of life that contribute to this understanding. One is that life is not static; it is a constant flow, moving ever forward. There are no fixed points and, despite illusions to the contrary, no fixed identities. The other condition is that everything in life is related to everything else. There are no distinctly separated objects. Relationality is the principle by which life is put together. Strikingly, these are among the proven verities that come from quantum science. Again we see a confluence of modern quantum physics and ancient contemplative truth.

To see in this way—to see the unified field of this relationality that includes the seer and the seen—is frequently called unitive or non-dual vision or perception without differentiation. But the challenge of this vision and understanding of life is that you cannot see it until you can see it. From our usual way of seeing and from our ordinary consciousness (egoic operating system) this simply makes no sense at all. It requires subtler faculties of apprehension.

It is, nevertheless, how Jesus saw the world; it is his cosmovision; and it is the perspective within which he pitched his teaching. Specifically, what he taught is patterned by a Trinitarian understanding of life. Deeper than doctrine, this sense that life is thoroughly penetrated by the divine was mystically experienced by Jesus from the inside. He both expressed it and lived it as a life gesture of kenosis, by which, through this expression of self-giving love, one enters the dance of abundance. It is precisely in this dance that unity and diversity are preserved in the dynamism of love.

Although most of us had been taught that to follow Jesus required moral merit and obedience, that model and understanding follows the first way of knowing Jesus—knowing him from the outside as an object—here, an object of moral injunction. But if we were to explore this second way of knowing Jesus—knowing him from the inside, subject-to-subject—what kind of difference would it make, what would it look like, and how would we even do that? It would obviously require a sensitivity and attention to our own interiority. This would necessitate a different way of knowing—the capacity to delicately notice and observe our own experience from the inside without judgment. Theological and philosophical categories would have to be suspended in favor of a subtler interior noticing.

This subject-to-subject knowing would be more like the meaning of the Hebrew word “dath,” which is the kind of knowing inherent in lovemaking—knowing from the inside, subject-to-subject. Where you find Christ is correlative with your deepest and most authentic self, for Christ is in you and you are in Christ. This Christophanic interior knowing requires a more refined phenomenology than our usual way of intellectual knowing, our knowing from the outside.

But this capacity for Christophanic knowing is a faculty we already have within us; we come equipped with it. So much do we exclusively rely on our intellectual awareness, however, that most of us do not even know that we have this capacity for deeper seeing and deeper knowing. But just to correct myself here, this is actually not something we “have,” so much as it is a part of our being, our very nature—a vibrational frequency wherein the human and divine flow into each other so that there is an interpenetrating presence. The result is an energetic dynamism in human life that bears the stamp of the divine.

It is in this sense that Theresa of Avila (whom Panikkar references) can hear the divine imperative, “Seek yourself in me and seek me in yourself.” This is the essence of the Christophanic experience. As mentioned above, it is an inherent interabiding. Our contemplative practice assists us by allowing us to relax the contraction that allows the divine penetration to unfold within us, to fill us, and, most importantly, for us to realize it.

But there’s a striking assumption here that goes against the grain of what we’ve been taught. We had been led to believe that the way to God is up and that the human condition is at the maximum distance from God. In our training and upbringing the incarnation was the miracle by which God deigned to try to pull us from the contaminated mire in which we were stewing by sending Jesus, his only Son. Incarnation meant that the divine entered human life in the one person of Jesus, and Advent had always for us been the season in which we tried to wrap our minds around that reality.

But this Christophany, this subject-to-subject knowing of Jesus, reveals something profoundly different—that enfleshment is no impediment to divinity and that the incarnation has to do not just with Jesus, but also with us. The divine enters human life and interpenetrates and enlivens our being, every bit as much as it did Jesus’ being. Consequently, the way to God is not so much up, as it is in. In turns out that we have the same two natures within ourselves as Jesus did.

In Advent we have long been urged to wait and watch and hope and pray. It seems all about the preparation for Jesus’ arrival—his arrival on the planet in the stories of his humble birth in a manger and his coming at the end of time to judge the world. But all of that would seem to be a response to the first way of knowing Jesus—knowing Jesus from the outside as an object of faith, adoration, or doctrine.

Unless…

But there is something else in addition, something far more mundane that further complicates things at this time of year. Besides being the time for spiritual preparation and purification, unfortunately Advent in our culture is also a frenetic time of getting ready for all of the family and cultural expectations that come with Christmas. Consequently, we just never seem to get it right. And by the time Christmas crashes down the chimney and into our living room, we complain that we just don’t feel very “Christmassy.”

The hook of Advent and Christmas for most of us has been sentimentality. We have tried to use our mood to hype us up to a level of concentrated involvement and participation. But sentimentality can only cover the most superficial of ground; it has very little depth. But knowing nothing deeper, we have put all of our eggs in that basket. And then we have always ended up coming up short and being judgmental of ourselves for our seeming failure.

But what if we took direction from the mystical and contemplative traditions and sought to know Jesus from the inside—as I have suggested in this second way? That would undoubtedly put us on a whole different trajectory. But whose birth would we be preparing for during Advent? Would it be Jesus’ birth or would it be our own? Or might it be both—something of a relational birth with two dynamically connected ends that wouldn’t be fixed points at all.

One way that we might express our relationship with Jesus is this: We say that he is the icon of all reality, meaning that he perfectly encapsulates the deepest principle of human life within himself. He demonstrates what it is to be a single or completed human being. But this is not an external standard to which we are to live up. Rather, it is an interior reality about our human nature that is already true.

This is, in fact, the pattern of the Trinity (mystically instead of doctrinally understood). It is in the movement of the Trinity’s flow that I experience that I am a Thou of a deeper I. I experience my deepest “I” as the beloved. But this awareness cannot come from an intellectual or rational understanding; it can only come through experience, which is the result of practice; and it can only come from a relinquishment, a letting go, a surrender.

While this does not preclude a certain amount of sentimentality (we can relax about this), it certainly transcends it. That means that our Advent preparation no longer hinges on getting emotionally jacked up. Preparation may well, then, include something quieter, subtler, and much deeper.

The Inner Work of Holy Week

Holy Week is ground-zero for the Christian Mystery. Will be marking this epicenter with a Holy Week Retreat at Christ the King Retreat House, Syracuse, NY. But there is something here that is far more important than our personally getting something deeper and more meaningful out of Holy Week. What actually hangs in the balance is the development of our fullest humanity, the future of humankind, the balance and feeding of the entire universe. Most often, though, we have no idea of the enormity of the stakes. It’s as if we are living in a dream—sleep walking through life. We are lost in our personal agendas and revelries and our entertainment.

The picture is not completely negative. We have relied on conventional religion to give us a sense of what is really real and to give our lives meaning and purpose. It has helped, but it has not taken us as far as we need to go. It has left us stranded on the horizontal and only told us to believe in the vertical. It has not shown us—not led us to—the faith’s deepest treasures.

We are entering the most holy of days—days that mark Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem to face his destiny and to fulfill his purpose. Our conventional religion has told us that we should mark this time with penitence and fasting. The only tie that traditional Christianity has been made between Jesus’ destiny and what he did during this time and our own destiny is that Jesus underwent his suffering so that we might be saved. In this we have been encouraged to believe that, if we just might believe that Jesus emerged back into life following his suffering and death, we would be saved and therefore marked with the reward of eternal life.

While I do not want to negate that pathway or even quibble with its veracity in any way, I just think that it by no means tells the whole story. In that conventional picture God’s hand is forced by the depth of human sinfulness to have to sacrifice his only Son in order to make up for the enormity of human sinfulness. But just as incomprehensible as that is the fact that this Holy Week/Easter scenario has Jesus alone on the playing field going through his tribulation and us fully removed and separate watching from the stands.

But that is not the way Jesus moved through life and, I am quite sure, not the way he moved through death. Jesus was forever inviting his followers into the fullness of life as he experienced it. “Because I live, you also will live.” But he is not referring to ordinary life here; he is talking about “Kingdom life”—the full aliveness in life that manifests the qualities of the divine. That is the life to which we are called. And that—that—is the purpose for which we gather this week.

But that having been said, I have to remind us that this is not for our benefit alone. The goal of this Holy Week work is not increased holiness or sanctity on our part. It is true that we are being called into a process by which we might be deeply healed; but it is also true that our work together might contribute to the healing of the rift between the realms. Yes, our work has both personal and cosmic implications, and its importance cannot be overstated.

But to do this work on that level we must go beyond the path that conventional religion has given to us. Please note that that does not mean throwing out the traditional faith claims with which we have grown up. And that does not mean closing the churches. It just means that we can use conventional religious thinking as the vestibule through which we may enter the more interior rooms of the faith. This pathway beyond traditional Christianity shows us how the outer events of Jesus’ historical life are directly and integrally connected to what beats within our own hearts.

This week, then, will introduce us to the experience of this historical event as having cosmic proportions that can most deeply be felt and experienced within a human heart that is truly open and present. Indeed, it is my hope that this week will afford us with the possibility of apprehending the mysteries of Holy Week from the inside— from that spaceless space within—from the place beneath the ego’s addictive strivings where kingdom life can be found and experienced. All this will happen not through mental belief but through corroborative lived experience.

So we will not so much be celebrating the days of Holy Week as a ceremonial drama, marked as it often is with the daily blow-by-blow drama of the journey through Jesus’s last days. While we will in no way be ignoring these details, our Holy Week work will open up inner passage of transformation. Each of the days can become a gateway to the inner transformational touchstone that must be lived into with one’s whole self in order to be experienced. And the purpose is not for our own personal piety, but for the transformation of the whole world.

So our work will not strictly be historical study or theological reflection. While important, alone they will keep us stuck on the horizontal. Instead, Holy Week requires Wisdom Work. This is a different kind of learning—one that involves the interior parts of ourselves in order to become “fully human.” It entails a recognition of a presence that is our deeper nature and includes attention, presence, and will. It takes us within, but then beyond ourselves, in self-transcendence.

Our biggest obstacle in getting there, however, is that we are stuck in thinking and believing that what our ego can grasp—what we can see and measure with our five senses—are the only things in life that are real. And while we have been encouraged to believe that there is a realm beyond this that we might hopefully be able to access after we die, our lives on this side of the grave have been largely confined to this material life on the horizontal dimension.

But Wisdom Work seeks to give us access to that in us which lies beneath the ego. It asserts and leads us to experience that which is deeper than our individual personality. This—which we might see as the fully opened and fully functional human Heart—is not separate from the Heart of God. Indeed, the human heart that has learned to come alive and to open to its fundamental qualities is integral to—and is a hologram of—the Heart of God.

Did you tremble a little bit on these last words? Did your own heart skip a beat? We are so used to dramatically dividing the divine realm from the human realm. None of us, I guess, want to be caught making the gross heresy of equating ourselves with God.

And yet, in our small minds we work hard to make God a manageable concept. Because the ego must take things on its own terms, conventional religion references God in human terms and human images. In this sense, it tries to leverage some small amount of control over the wild mystery of the Sacred Presence. Wisdom Work, on the other hand, turns it around the other way and uses divine terms to understand our deepest humanity. It harkens back to the ancient formula: “God became man so that man might become God.”

The Wisdom Work that we will be employing this week will seek to awaken the Self that lies beneath the ego. Called the True Self, the Essential Self, or the fully Human Self—this deeper Self can only be accessed when we have become relatively free of the identifications of our social programming and conditioning. We must go beyond what we have known before, and we must become more acutely aware of our previous assumptions. But the effort will be well worth it, for this path will open us to an unconditional love and a fundamental creativity in which our lives will be imbued with a deeper sense of aliveness. And rather than just using our intellectual minds, we will be using all of the instrumentation of our deeper humanity. This Work, then, is not just knowing more, but knowing with more of ourselves and making what is latent within us come to life.

The work, then, is not the achievement of some sort of level of belief. This would keep us trapped in the intellectual center. We will have to go deeper, but without abandoning the intellectual center. Instead, we will have to utilize our moving center and the Wisdom delivered by the body, and we will have to utilize hearts that have learned to be open, vulnerable, and ripe.

There will be nothing to achieve and nothing in which to succeed. We have everything we need for our own transformation—all we have to do is to surrender to it. If that sounds simple, that is because it is; but that doesn’t mean that is either automatic or easy. You see, we have become so linked to our personalities and our cultural and family conditioning that we have virtually forgotten who we truly are. We are so laden down with these identities of ours and so preoccupied with their enhancement and their preservation that we are pretty much tied up in knots. This is manifested by the flywheels of our minds that are constantly spinning and that so preoccupy us that we are essentially unable to be present in the moment we are in.

So here, then, is the inner work of Holy Week. There is an exquisite moment manifested in Jesus life in his final days. Although on one level, of course, it is mind-bogglingly gruesome in terms of its violence and brutality, still on another level the trajectory of this life is the most graceful movement we will ever see in human form. And actually the two of these go eloquently together in that the graced surrender he exhibits comes out of terrible brutality. The contrast accentuates and magnifies both.

But in order for us to grasp the depth of what is going here in the life of Jesus, we must match this trajectory—at least to some extent. That is to say it is only by coming to vibrate at a proximate level to Jesus that we will ever be able to apprehend the depth of his actions. Our work is the work of surrender so that we might be deeply touched by his surrender. Our work is the work of a more complete embodiment in order that we might better grasp God’s gesture that could only come in bodily form. Our work is to open to each other and deeply taste the community that is possible for us in these days in order to more fully grasp Jesus’ sense of interconnectedness.

This is not to say that we have to work out our own transformation. Again there is nothing here to be achieved. There is no success that needs to be won. But the truth of Jesus Christ has both a depth and a fullness to it that it requires a certain spaciousness within the container that will receive that truth. And we are those containers, and developing that spaciousness is part of the inner work of Holy Week.

I invite you to join us either by signing up for the whole retreat or by attending one or more of the various modules and contemplative liturgies that will be offered throughout each day and evening. Please click on “Programs” and then “Holy Week 2015” to view further details. E-mail Cathy Dutch at wisdomswork@gmail.com for registration forms or if you have any questions.

Lenten Reflection: Further Ponderings on Humility

In the previous Ash Wednesday reflection, I suggested that, “Living into our own fullest personhood seems to be contingent upon developing and releasing our talents and abilities into the world.” I also intimated that, while we needn’t be boastful or arrogant about these capacities, neither do we need to be bashful or apologetic about them. And yet we are up against that assumed religious ideal that our eyes should be downcast in self-effacement.

So, if most of us have been raised with the warning that we should not sing our own praises, how can we affirm our God-given talents and skills without resorting to boastfulness? Is there some sort of key or alarm with which we might catch ourselves from toppling over this cliff of arrogance and immodesty?

Unfortunately, we usually try to discern this by observing our external behavior. An inner arrogance, we assume, can be detected by outer boastful behavior. Catch ourselves acting boastfully, we assume, and we can then pull the plug on arrogance. But, really, is that strategy workable or effective? Usually it seems that it is only well after the fact, if ever, that we realize our corrupt faux pas.

Instead of focusing on our behavior, maybe a better direction from which we might work on this issue comes from an inner scanning for fear. Fear? Yes, I am convinced that boastfulness and arrogance are nothing other than one side of the coin of fear whose other side is timidity and faint-heartedness. These are bifurcated responses to the entrapment within a tight and self-limited orbit of the ego’s obsession with self-enhancement and self-protection. Either side of this coin of fear—boastfulness and arrogance on one side or self-deprecation on the other—keeps us from being fully present and from manifesting our skills and talents with power and grace.

Two suggestions of inner work that might address this base fear come to mind. I hope that these might be helpful during this Lenten season. One concentrates our attention on interior emotion, the other on the physical body.

Shockingly, the first is counterintuitive. Instead of distancing or distracting ourselves from the destabilizing discomfort that fear brings, the suggestion here is to befriend this fear. Are you kidding?! No, it can actually be most helpful to develop a curious attitude about this fear. What is its energetic signature? What does it smell like? How do our bodies respond to its signals? A witnessing attitude toward this debilitating emotion means that we aren’t as likely to get completely lost, consumed, and overwhelmed by this fear. We may actually come to be able to differentiate different kinds of fear—that which might be informative and ultimately helpful and that which only serves to tie us in knots and to get in our way.

So when we are even dimly aware of fear’s presence, we can stop and make the intentional effort to face it and to sit with it. Non-judgmentally we can explore it and come to know its various facets. (An even fuller and more elaborate practice along these lines is the Welcoming Practice; it has been fully described by Cynthia Bourgeault and Thomas Keating.)

The other suggestion to deal with fear is to literally and physically stand in a deeper sense of groundedness that reflects our position as a bridge between heaven and earth. When we can stand firmly and unapologetically between heaven and earth, bridging both, we can find our rightful and God-given place in life. In this practice we actually stand intentionally embodying and embracing this deep reality. And as we stand, fully gathered and present, we imagine two triangles—the first whose base goes deep into the earth and whose apex reaches up through our body all the way to the “high heart.” (The high heart is about half-way between the beating heart and the throat.) The second triangle is inverted with its base in the highest and most expansive heavens and its apex reaching down to our physical heart. The intersecting triangles form a diamond in the high center of our chests. The practice, then, is simply to intentionally stand in mindful awareness of these two triangles. When we have an embodied sense of this diamond, it is possible to apprehend that we are a bridge between heaven and earth. And we will know this not as a belief, but as a felt sense.

By assisting us to modify and reduce our fear, these and other related spiritual experiences assist us in finding that sweet spot out of which we may authentically live out our lives—avoiding boastfulness and bragging on one side and self-deprecation on the other. This is about undermining the power that fear has had over us and learning to trust the basic goodness of our lives in order that we might actualize our life purpose.

Can the Seeds of Wisdom be Sown in an Educational Institution?

Because Wisdom is often referred to as that underground stream that feeds all the world’s great spiritual traditions, it seems assumed by many that Wisdom requires a religious container for its fullest and deepest expression.  And that may be so.  I have certainly seen firsthand what the infusion of Wisdom programming can bring to the growth and vitality of a parish.  Indeed, the present challenge to the Church and to other religious institutions is to develop the means by which, through specific Wisdom and contemplative practice groups, people can begin to access these deeper levels of being.  This can actually be accomplished with a minimum of resources.  I am currently working on a book that will outline how this can be done as well as the skills needed to lead such Wisdom Practice Groups.

But what about reaching those who are not connected to a church or other spiritual community…?

I recently led a retreat for a dozen self-selected faculty members from a small college.  The purpose was to introduce contemplative practices to these participants in order to deepen their writing.  From many different departments, the faculty were also from several diverse religious backgrounds, but most were presently unaffiliated.  Although not self-identified as such, perhaps they could be considered in that growing category of “spiritual but not religious.”

Besides some basic Wisdom teaching and the introduction of Wisdom practices, the participants were given stretches of time to work on their writing during this four-day retreat.  But this distinctly differed from other Wisdom programs in more than format.  Because I started out by explicitly inviting it, there was some specifically articulated resistance on the part of some.  Unlike other Wisdom Schools that I usually lead where resistance might be either hidden, unconscious, or passive-aggressively expressed, this was directly conveyed.

Perhaps like any other Wisdom group leader worth his or her salt, I actually delighted in having this resistance so directly articulated.  There is, no doubt resistance in every group, but it is best dealt with when it can be directly expressed and confronted.  My proposed schedule for the group included early morning meditation instruction, a silent breakfast, a mid-morning teaching, an afternoon lectio divina session that utilized selected poetry (rather than sacred texts), group discussion in the evening, and a Great Silence that took us through to the end of breakfast the following morning.  But given the resistance that had been initially articulated, I invited them in that first session to make their decisions about participation based on their own personal needs and desires.  It turned out that one participant ended up attending only a couple of sessions and chose instead to work exhaustively on writing projects that were soon due.  Everyone else, however, attended virtually all the sessions, and all ended up being active and willing participants.

In giving the participants this freedom, I sought to honor and respect the expressed resistance.  Indeed, I knew that what they would get out of this retreat was going to hinge much more on their own willing participation than I my own planned and desired outcomes.  Trying to be relatively free from my own emotional reactivity and intentionally refusing to engage in power and control issues usually seem to help keep resistance within the banks of the river of normal group functioning.

Wisdom does not necessarily have a curriculum.  Although I had been encouraged to submit a full outline of what I would be presenting, I had to demur.  I took the position that—although I committed myself to teaching a meditation practice, to introducing the practice of lectio divina, and to giving the group experiences of extended silence—I had said that I would have to gauge the rest of the explicit teaching material by what emerged from the circle of participants.  Indeed, the initially expressed resistance was amazingly helpful in knowing where and how to start.  But I couldn’t have known that until I sat in the circle and opened to where they were.

But, honestly, here was my deeper underlying concern: While mindfulness and contemplative practice have become incredibly popular and have entered into the everyday parlance of many aspects of contemporary life, including higher education, they are most often employed to open and deepen the capacities of those who use them.  Replete in the literature of higher education, for example, are studies that verify that meditation and contemplative practices improve student performance by increasing their personal investment in course material and improve focus, concentration, and recall.  That is all fine and good.  But Wisdom takes us beyond what we might call high-egoic development.  It is designed to take us beyond ego to the next orbit out.  Wisdom is about dying before you die.  And more than about how one can sharpen one’s capabilities, Wisdom helps us to discover the ways in which we can see ourselves as an integral part of the Whole and how we can serve that Whole.  Knowing that these faculty members self-selected because they wanted to hone their writing skills, I wondered how they would respond to Wisdom’s deeper agenda?

As I do in most all the groups and retreats I lead, I began with explicitly shaping the group norms.  “How we will be together” is most often the first order of business.  This is especially important for those whose regular group meetings and gatherings are of a completely different nature.  Here in a Wisdom Circle we are not proving a point or defending a position.  But as we begin to risk personal sharing and struggle to put deep thoughts tentatively into language and then set these into the center of the circle as offerings, these tentative sharings have the capacity to deepen the group’s inquiry and spark further insight.  And because two of us may see something very differently, it doesn’t mean that one of us must be right and the other wrong.  Indeed, there are no answers in the back of the book.  We are not only reading the tea leaves of life; we are contributing to reality’s ongoing creation.

With the unfolding of our time together, the practices themselves carved a spaciousness into the group process; and the rhythm and balance of our time helped to soften and open hearts.  The teaching inquired into such questions as, “Who is the ‘I’ that is writing?” and “For what purpose am I writing?” and “What are some of the sources of my assistance?”

Slowly but steadily, the group opened like a flower.  Listening was deep and intentional.  The silence began to be sensed as having a formative substantiality.  And perhaps not surprisingly—while at first wanting to deepen their writing—the group flirted with life’s deeper issues.  In our lectio we were drawn to the issues of death and the meaning of life.

On the final night in a sort of recital, they shared with each other in the circle what they had been working on.  Although the writings were of various forms and of diverse subjects, I was completely blown away both by the heart-quality of them all and the warm generosity by which each shared piece was received by the rest of the circle.  The group had found its way to the boundary between utilizing contemplative practice for one’s own devotion and/or development right to the cusp of Wisdom.  And all had deeply shared—except me—for on that final night I acted as facilitator and witness.

The final morning, however, I asked their indulgence to put my own oar in the water.  Although I did not have a reading to share, I tried to express that my life itself was the book I was writing.  And then, using Wisdom’s lens, I shared with them what I desired my life to be.  Instead of presenting Wisdom concepts and principles, I simply used my own life to illustrate some of Wisdom’s perspectives and expressions.  I could tell in both how they listened and in their responses that the teaching had landed in receptive hearts.

So, while their writing may well have deepened as the result of our time together and the practices they had learned, these faculty members undoubtedly were on a new and different trajectory.  Something had shifted in them individually—maybe we can call it a lowering of their centers of gravity; but something had shifted in the group as well.  In fact, I learned in the immediate days after the retreat they had planned a lectio gathering at one of their homes.

Can Wisdom be transmitted without an explicitly religious container?  I do not know the answer to that question yet, but I am committed to its further exploration.  While I continue to hope that the Church will take up Wisdom’s call, I also know our world cannot wait.

I cannot tell you how impressed I was with this group.  Having started out by being so clear in articulating their resistance, they ended up in a most receptive heart space and were able to make astounding connections.  The seeds of Wisdom had been sown in an academic institution, and we will wait to see what fruit they might bear.

Christmas Eve Meditation on the Incarnation for our Times

In the tender compassion of our God *
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
To shine on those who dwell in darkness
and the shadow of death, *
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

We are living in darkness and in the shadow of death.  You don’t need a degree in environmental studies, political science, or international relations to know that the world is in a terrible mess.  And despite our own efforts to put our own “best foot forward,” our own personal lives aren’t exactly perfect either.  These days, insecurity and a profound sense of dread are palpable; they are everywhere around us as well as within us.  We may pretend that life goes on as usual, but the smarter part of us knows better.  Indeed, the encroaching darkness and the shadow of death threaten to trample our hope and strangle the breath right out of us.

But out of the deep gloom comes a promise, and it is born out of the compassion of our God.  It promises that the dawn will break and that we will be delivered to an unimaginable peace and freedom.  While the source of this promise is founded in the compassion of our God, the means by which this will be accomplished takes us up short.  We are promised that the life of an individual human being—and on this night we say that the birth of a particular baby—will change everything.  But can one human life turn such an overwhelming tide?

 *

Now is the time when all of our narrower assumptions and most of our shortsighted expectations are being turned upside down.  It’s not that the darkness we have been intuiting is not real or is not dark—it certainly is.  It’s not that the present historical/political drama being enacted in our times isn’t profoundly disturbing—it certainly is.  It’s just that there is another perspective—one that is larger and longer and deeper—that bursts forth like a shooting star across the night sky.

This other perspective bespeaks light and coherence.  Its light pierces the darkness.  It does not destroy the darkness, but rather impregnates it with spaciousness.  And the coherence takes what is shattered, broken, and fragmented on the surface of things and provides it with a hidden organizing principle that conjoins everything together on an unseen level.  It’s as if something from some distant realm is making itself shockingly present—present at a depth in us with which we might be unfamiliar.

*

Tonight we are celebrating the Incarnation—that special color of the spiritual rainbow of the world’s religions that Christianity paints so beautifully.  We have been taught that Incarnation means that God becomes manifest in the life of Jesus, born this night.  All Christian churches will tell this familiar story tonight and throughout this season.  And we have been taught that all we have to do is to believe that this is true, and eternal life will be ours.  I am affirming that that too is right on target. But I am also going to suggest that while that is true, it is true in a different way from how we have been taught.  And I am also going to suggest that that is just the beginning.

You see, we are living in two understandings or conceptualizations of time.  On the one hand, we mostly assume that our lives are being carried across a predictable straight linear line on which past time flows into the present and will then take us forward into future time.  But if we then try to take our traditional understanding of Incarnation and place it within this linear time conceptualization, we will only get the most trivial sense of what this is all about.

If, on the other hand, we could sense that we are also living in a kairos moment—a moment of a whole different quality, depth, and dimension—a moment in which the past and future are saturating the fullness of this present moment—then we might be able to grasp the greater meaning and implications of the Incarnation.

This kairos moment includes the historical moment, but it also takes us beyond it.  It sees and acknowledges the present dark times in which we are living, but it knows that, while these are very real, this is not the whole story.  So while selfishness, greed, and narcissism are the forces pulling us down toward potential decline, collapse, and maybe even destruction—there is another strength, another power, that is pushing us forward in the Omega direction to which creation has been pointing all along.  This direction—although it seems impossible to put into words—has something to do with the fulfillment of wholeness, bringing all the seemingly irreconcilable parts into loving relation with each other.

But here is where the unimaginable power of Incarnation comes in.  It informs us that all this is more than a mental idea, a philosophy, or a theology.  This deeper force that is moving creation forward has become shockingly manifest in a human being, this Jesus, in this kiaros moment.  If you want to get a deeper sense of what this life is all about on its deepest and most meaningful level, get acquainted with this life, this Jesus.  His life—lived as a gift to all in his loving gesture of surrender—tells us everything we need to know about what is essential in life and about this Omega direction in which we are heading.

But don’t stop with an historical study of Jesus.  You see, because his birth comes in a kairos moment, it is not confined to a past moment 2,000 years ago.  Jesus is also born this very night in which the past and the future find their fullness and their completion in this present moment.  Therefore, this person Jesus is fully available to us right now—not just in memory, but in presence and in truth as we make ourselves available to him—in prayer, in song, in silence, in loving service to others, and in care for the disenfranchised.

And that, then, delivers us to the implications of the Incarnation as it desires to deeply touch us.  As we open our hearts to this love we see in Jesus, something comes alive in our own deepest being.  The heart of Jesus and our own hearts, we discover, are not separate—they beat as one.  And that light that is born into the world this dark night is the light that we have always carried within us, but it is now ignited in a burst of recognition.

Although technically we can tune into this inner light anytime—sometimes, in order to sense this, we need to stop for a moment and step off our usual treadmill.  This is a little like my internist putting his stethoscope to my chest to hear the beating of my heart.  My heart certainly (thank God!) had been beating all along, but he just needed to tune into it more intentionally.

And that’s precisely what we do when we gather together on Christmas Eve or when we sit in silence in front of our candle this night.  Our liturgy or our silence is our stethoscope, and we intentionally tune into this overwhelming reality before us.  For some of us, our own recognition will bring goosebumps; others of us will weep quietly; but each of us in our own way will know that we are looking into the deepest truth of life.  And we will know that we and the whole creation—especially the most fragile among and those living in danger—are tenderly bound in the embrace of Love.

Remember the wise men following that dazzling star in that dark Judean night sky?  I wonder if they realized that that heavenly starlight matched the light in their own hearts—their hearts of desire that burst aflame when they found life in its most vulnerable and most open form…  For what could be more open and vulnerable than a newly born infant…?

What could be more open and vulnerable than…you…?

In the tender compassion of our God *
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
To shine on those who dwell in darkness
and the shadow of death, *
and to guide our feet into the way of peace