That God

It is usual for people

to think of God

as Supreme Being,

the Lord and Master

of all Creation,

the omnipotent Higher Power

who is in charge

of everything.

Such a God

is separate from us,

transcendent,

above and beyond us and 

capable of giving us

good things

and bad things.

We naturally pray

for the good things we want

and for relief from the bad things

we don’t want. And usually

it doesn’t work.

We don’t get all

we want, and 

we get too much

of what we don’t want.

That transcendent,

omnipotent,

separate God

seems arbitrary 
at best.

And at worst?

At worst?

AT WORST?

That God?

Whose God

is that?

Ever have a crisis of faith? Recently? Now?

Or perhaps more of a slow erosion of its former landscape?

From what I can tell, the only way not to experience loss, erosion, queasiness of  faith is ultimately to choose a more comfortable idea of relationship with God over actual relationship with God.

Recently I've posted how helpful Gerald May's book The Dark Night of the Soul is for coming to terms with how necessarily challenging and unsettling our experience of God must be. Challenging, unsettling, and ultimately deep, true, nurturing, and joyous.

The poem above is another bit of May's wisdom, slightly modified and formatted as a poem.

R.A.I.N--Helps Us Get Unstuck

A helpful way of getting unstuck from Tar Baby--and an acronym for very earthy mindfulness work--is RAIN. It’s useful both as a challenging version of formal meditation and an on-the-hoof practice whenever we’re strongly hooked, stuck, frustrated, angry, melancholy, anxious, envious, puffed-up, etc., etc.

RAIN stands for: Recognition, Acceptance, Investigation, and Non-Identification.

R         We can practice RECOGNIZING whenever we’re hooked. The word RECOGNIZE means ‘to indentify something from having encountered it before.’ It’s a great word for the way we learn to work with unhelpful, habitual responses to life. It reminds us we have the capacity to develop transforming habits of mindfulness right in the many places where we’re working with unhelpful habits of our minds.

A         We can practice ACCEPTING what’s going on with us every time we remember to. We learn to look our own experience in the face. This practice is the opposite of denial. Accepting means we do our best to be aware of exactly what’s happening without judging ourselves. ACCEPTANCE is more than gritting our teeth and bearing the unbearable. It suggests roominess, generosity, kindness, a welcoming spirit. Inhaling is a good a metaphor—the diaphragm making room for what keeps us alive.  

I           We practice INVESTIGATING the ‘stuff’ we’re noticing and welcoming. Are there bodily sensations? Where in the body do we sense it? Is it a pain? A numbness? More like cold or heat? Tightness? What about feelings? Are they pleasant (or not)? Does this particular experience come with sadness, happiness, fear, frustration, etc.? What exactly do those feelings feel like? Where in the body are they lodged? (Don’t forgot ACCEPTANCE here—with every feeling we notice we do our very best to hold it with kind attention.) And what about memories—do memories come up? What narratives surface with them? Is a story being told? What’s it about? Who seems to be telling it? Who’s listening? Is it possible to listen objectively—and kindly?

N         We practice NON-IDENTIFICATION. All spiritual traditions recommend distinguishing between small self and big self, false self and true self, non-self and more-than-self, dying to self in order to be fully alive. NOT IDENTIFYING with our narratives, not mistaking the stories we tell about ourselves for who we truly are is a powerful way of embodying the wisdom of these traditions. DON’T INDENTIFY may sound like a command, but it’s better seen as wise, helpful, healthy practice. We DON’T CONFUSE the feelings, thoughts, memories, moods, stories or predictions about ourselves for who we most truly are.  RAIN work often exposes us to the very sticky feelings and stories we do identify and suffer with, but all the while, as we slowly grow in practical skill and gracious discernment, we’re seeing for ourselves the truer self—and the more-than-self knows and rejoices in the difference.

For a better understanding of RAIN work, read Jack Kornfield’s, The Wise Heart, p. 101 ff 

(Re-posted from September 26, 2011)

Tar Baby in the Brain

Most of us know the old Georgia folktale about Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby. Br'er Fox sets an ego trap for Br'er Rabbit. He makes a tar dummy we know as Tar Baby. When BR meets TB on the road he gets so frustrated that TB won't be sociable, won't reply at all when spoken to, that he punches him and gets stuck. Punches TB again and again and gets stucker and stucker and stucker.

Mindfulness meditation is all about cultivating wisdom, humor and experience enough to recognize and avoid--or at least get unstuck from--Tar Baby the many times we meet him on the road.

Uncle Remus's Tar Baby catches Br'er Rabbit by being mute. Our ego/small-self catches us with constant chatter.

Contrary to what a lot of folks think, mindfulness meditation isn't about cultivating silence. It's about cultivating awareness. It's about learning to 'use' the part of our brains where 'awareness' comes from in order to witness what's up with other parts of our brains.

I love honey on toast or in tea. But I hate the sticky mess that invariably accumulates around the family honey pot. When I imagine what Br'er Rabbit must have felt like with his hands and feet--and ultimately his nose and chin and eyebrows--all glommed up with Tar Baby, it gives me the heebie jeebies.

Life often blesses us with frustration enough from being stuck that we're ready to learn how to get unstuck. In meditation, by keeping a little focus on the breath and the rest on kind attention to what's going on inside us, we begin to see and see and see how Tar Baby works in our lives.

I can describe what it feels like to me, but the only way to test how Tar Baby works in you is to begin to notice his sticky self in your own brain.

As you begin to take time to pay attention, you'll likely soon begin to observe a stream of back and forth chatter in your head. Lots of 'advice' coming from 'somewhere.' Advice and commentary--warnings, self-praise, self-criticism, praise and criticism of people you know or you're with at the time...etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum. It's a loop (noun) that loops and loops (verb). It's a pattern that catches us over and over.

But over time, as we practice noticing what's going on, we slowly wise up and get convinced not to engage Tar Baby on his own terms. Over time we also learn how to free ourselves from Tar Baby after we have engaged him on his own terms.

It's a very simply concept. We take time to pay kind attention to our patterns of thinking and feeling. Then we invariably see/hear incessant chatter. Then realize that much of the habitual 'guidance' we get is out of date and out of tune with are growing selves. Just by noticing this looping chatter, Tar Baby's stickiness decreases.

At some point we also realize that after tuning in to these voices we can choose to tune out. This is not repression. These voices and who and what they represent are welcome at the table--they're just not allowed to dominate the conversation.

Like I said, the only way to test this is to try it. Be curious. Give it time. Get support from a good book and a local meditation or centering prayer group if one is available.

Don't Stay Stuck. Stick With It.

Yesterday's post was about getting stuck. Mindful practice helps us see where we're stuck. And it give us tools for getting un-stuck. Below is a little 'encouragement' from Jon Kabat-Zinn for those of us who sometimes wonder if we're suitable candidates for mindfulness meditation.

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Can anybody meditate?

I get asked this question a lot. I suspect people ask because they think that probably everybody else can meditate but they can’t. They want to be reassured that they are not alone, that there are at least some other people they can identify with, those hapless souls who were born incapable of meditating. But it isn’t so simple.

Thinking you are unable to meditate is a little like thinking you are unable to breathe, or to concentrate or relax. Pretty much everybody can breathe easily. And under the right circumstances, pretty much anybody can concentrate, anybody can relax.

People often confuse meditation with relaxation or some other special state that you have to get to or feel. When once or twice you try and you don’t get anywhere or you didn’t feel anything special, then you think you are one of those people who can’t do it.

But, meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It’s about feeling the way you feel. It’s not about making the mind empty or still, although stillness does deepen in meditation and can be cultivated systematically. Above all, meditation is about letting the mind be as it is and knowing something about how it is in this moment. It’s not about getting somewhere else, but about allowing yourself to be where you already are. If you don’t understand this, you will think you are constitutionally unable to meditate. But that’s just more thinking, and in this case, incorrect thinking at that.

True, meditation does require energy and a commitment to stick with it. But then, wouldn’t it be more accurate to say, “I won’t stick with it,” rather than, “I can’t do it”? Anybody can sit down and watch their breath or watch their mind. And you don’t have to be sitting. You could do it walking, standing, lying down, standing on one leg, running, or taking a bath. But to stay at it for even five minutes requires intentionality. To make it part of your life requires some discipline. So when people say they can’t meditate, what they really mean is that they won’t make time for it, or that when they try, they don’t like what happens. It isn’t what they are looking for or hoping for. It doesn’t fulfill their expectations. So maybe they should try again, this time letting go of their expectations and just watching.

(From Wherever You Go, There You Are)

If you want to learn more about the basics of insight meditation, there's a good introduction here.

Stuck

Just before moving to the NC mountains I talked to one of my new friends in Cullowhee, Newt Smith. I was planning on getting a pickup truck and was wondering what brand, what size, what options, etc.

"I really love exploring old logging roads," I said. "And I don't want to get stuck in the mud, so I'm thinking about getting 4 Wheel Drive." 

"Well," Newt said, "Most folks around here have 4 Wheel Drive pickups. They have a saying about them, too: 'Four Wheel Drive allows to get way back into the woods...before you get stuck.'"

I wound up buying a nice used Nissan 2 Wheel Drive pickup that averaged 33 MPG. Never had to get it towed out of the wilderness. I had that little red Nissan for 16 years--it got me to the edge of wild places hundreds and hundreds of times. I always walked the rest of the way. 

But I have, nevertheless, found hundreds and hundreds of others ways to get stuck.

Stuck is where you are when you stop moving toward where your deep self hoped to be. The way a lot of us deal with this kind of being stuck is to gradually stop hoping to be in that other, longed-for place. But it's not the deep wise hope we should be letting go of--it's the stuff that keeps us stuck.

Mindfulness practice is the best tool I've found to work with being stuck. Though, to be clear about it, sometimes meditation or contemplation is nearly as depressing as it is exhilarating. 

That's because when we slow down and do the work of practice, we see just how very stuck we are. And that is wonderful medicine. And a bitter pill. 

Einstein said, 'Problems cannot be solved at the level of conscious that created them.' Mindfulness takes us on a tour of the levels of consciousness that seeded, hatched, and raised the problems that populate our lives. What's the line in Monte Python's Holy Grail? ..."Run away, run away!"

Running away is one of our options. We have others. 

The story of the Holy Grail is not a bad metaphor. What seems to be an insoluble problem turns out, almost miraculously, not to be. Over time, what is insoluble sometimes dissolves. What is un-find-able often gets found. 

In meditation and contemplation new levels of consciousness are both cultivated and stumbled upon. By doing the grunt work of exploring the lands where we are stuck we are also always stumbling upon doors that open to new worlds. 

Catholics & Protestants Getting It Wrong

I experience Richard Rohr as a generous, wise priest. Also honest--sometimes painfully honest. What follows is a bit from a talk he recently gave about scripture--how neither Catholics nor Protestants handle it wisely. 

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Thomas Merton said it was actually dangerous to put the scriptures in the hands of people whose inner self is not yet sufficiently awakened to encounter the Spirit, because they will try to use God for their own egocentric purposes (This is why religion is so subject to corruption!). Now, if we are going to talk about Lent being a time of conversion and penance, let me apply that to the two major groups that have occupied Western Christianity—Catholics and Protestants. Neither one has really let the Word of God guide their lives.

Catholics need to be converted to giving the Scriptures some actual authority in their lives. Luther wasn’t wrong when he said that most Catholics did not read the Bible. Most Catholics are still not that interested in the Bible (historically they did not have the printing press, nor could most people read, so you can’t blame them entirely). I have been a priest for 42 years now, and I would sadly say that most Catholics would rather hear quotes from saints, Popes, and bishops, the current news, or funny stories, if they are to pay attention. If I quote strongly from the Sermon on the Mount, they are almost throwaway lines. I can see Catholics glaze over because they have never read the New Testament, much less studied it, or been guided by it. I am very sad to have to admit this. It is the Achilles heel of much of the Catholic world, priests included. (The only good thing about it is that they never fight you like Protestants do about Scripture. They are easily duped, and the hierarchy has been able to take advantage of this.)

If Catholics need to be converted, Protestants need to do penance. Their shout of “sola Scriptura” (only Scripture) has left them at the mercy of their own cultures, their own limited education, their own prejudices, and their own selective reading of some texts while avoiding others. It has become laughable, as slavery, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia have lasted authoritatively into our time—by people who claim to love Jesus! I think they need to do penance for what they have often done with the Bible! They largely interpreted the Bible in a very individualistic and otherworldly way. It was an evacuation plan for the next world—and just for their group. Most of Evangelical Protestantism has no cosmic message, no social message, and little sense of social justice or care for the outsider. Both Catholics and Protestants (Orthodox, too!) found a way to do our own thing while posturing friendship with Jesus.

Waiting For A Vanished April

Today is the first Sunday in Lent. For us at St. David's, it also happens to be the day we mark our Patronal Feast Day. March 1 is St. David's Day across the world. David is the patron saint of Wales. Wherever Welsh people traveled, you'll usually find churches bearing that name.

R. S. Thomas was a Welsh priest in the Anglican Church (now the Church of Wales). He was also a a remarkable poet. His poem, The Coming, is a powerful reflection for the movement of God in Lent.

THE COMING

And God held in his hand

a small globe.  Look, he said,

the son looked.  Far off,

as through water, he saw

a scorched land of fierce

color.  The light burned

there: crusted buildings

cast their shadows; a bright

serpent, a river

uncoiled itself, radiant

with slime.

On a bare

hill a bare tree saddened

the sky.  Many people

held out their thin arms

to it, as though waiting

for a vanished April

to return to its crossed

boughs.  The son watched

them.  Let me go there, he said.