Love, Beauty, and Dead French Jesuit Geologists

Rachel Henry7 Comments

You have to be careful when talking to dead French Jesuit geologists because they might answer you.

Here’s what happened: Jim Finley says that Thomas Merton said, “With God, a little sincerity goes a long way.” My sincerity meter this week hovered in the low twenty percent range. Every prayer, even the simple “help” that Anne Lamott recommends, came out as a plea to shore up my ego. By the end of the week, I was tired of myself.

Wondering how to access even a modicum of sincerity and at the same time thinking about evolution—because, you know, those two things naturally go together like tea and crumpets—I asked Pierre Teillhard de Chardin how I might locate some sincerity. Teillhard is the French Jesuit who first imagined a Christian theology that took evolution into account. (“First” meaning “that I know of,” not “rigorously researched.”)

I was not expecting an answer, but immediately this advice popped into my thoughts: “You have to accept the beauty and love at the core of your being.”

I am pretty sure I didn’t come up with that because this has not been a beauty and love kind of week. It has been a resistance kind of week, an “I don’t want to be back at work,” “I don’t want to clean up that mess I made” kind of week. I have even been resisting my resistance. (This is an advanced technique—don’t try it at home.)

But the advice makes sense. If sincerity is “freedom from deceit” and “honesty in intention,” to quote dictionary.com, then our lives must be most sincere when moving from our true centers, our true selves to use Richard Rohr’s term, which are made in the image and likeness of God.

Truly accepting that beauty and love are at my center means at the same time recognizing that they are at the center of my fellow humans and all of creation, the ground of our being as Meister Eckhart puts it. I would say that accepting beauty and love as the true reality is my New Year’s resolution, but I expect to have it down by June and will then move onto the next great cosmic truth.

Ready or Not

Rachel Henry4 Comments

I’m not ready for Christmas this year. The gifts are purchased—OK, all but one—I gave up on cards long ago, and I have plenty of time to pack. But I spent more time the last few weeks focused on getting things done than on pondering the reality of God with us.

Here’s the thing, though—Christmas will happen anyway. The birth of love in our hearts is ongoing whether we’re paying attention or not.

Maybe we make it more complicated than it needs to be, maybe we needlessly separate—I certainly do—things that are and aren’t preparation for Christ, the presence of God, of the holy, in our midst. Every time we smile at someone in line at the store or let someone who’s exuding stress go ahead of us, we welcome love. Every time we wonder which gift would bring the most joy to a friend or bake cookies for our neighbors, we bring love to life.

Perhaps if we simply pay more attention to the things we are already doing, we will unfold into our own true love nature, as a flower unfurls from a bud. A rose doesn’t bloom from an oak tree—a flower can only come from the plant it already is. And so with love—we are already doing it; we already are it. In it we live and move and have our being.

That’s not to say that we don’t need times of quiet prayer or meditation—they help us open our eyes to what is already within and among us. It’s there in the grocery store and on the beach every bit as much as it is in church. It’s there when we forget or are distracted. It is love, divinity, or whatever you call that connection, that oneness for which you most long, and it is now and continually born in our souls. Now that is indeed reason to be merry.

Wishing everyone a joyful celebration of whichever holidays are closest to your hearts this time of year.

Note: I will be on vacation for the next two weeks as, most likely, will this blog.

Partying with Hafiz

Rachel Henry2 Comments

It has been my turn this week to host some of the viruses whose purpose appears to be to slow down human beings by making their heads stuffy, so please allow me to share a poem instead of a regular post. This is by the Sufi poet Hafiz and seems apropos for where we find ourselves these days. Printed in The Gift, translated by Daniel Ladinsky.

If God Invited You to a Party

If God
Invited you to a party
And said,

“Everyone
In the ballroom tonight
Will be my special
Guest.”

How would you then treat them
When you
Arrived?

Indeed, indeed!

And Hafiz knows
There is no one in this world

Who
Is not upon
His Jeweled Dance
Floor.

Come on Down

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A couple of weeks ago, my mom and I were in Avila Beach on one of those “death is nowhere in the background” kind of days when the ocean and sky teach you the beauty of the color blue, the sun shines specifically to warm you, and an infusion of sweetness permeates the day in some way you can’t quite put your finger on.

I arrived first and went down to the water. From there, I could see much of the beach and most of the entrances from the embarcadero above. We were texting back and forth, and Mom was trying to figure out which entrance to take and where I was standing. “Just come down and I’ll find you,” I told her. I knew I would see her no matter which route she took, but from where she stood, there was no way to understand the breadth of my view.

I wonder whether God is often saying this to us and we aren’t listening. We are worrying about which way to go or what to do because we think only one way will lead to God or happiness or wherever we are supposed to be. Maybe all we have to do is set out toward the divine and it will come rushing to meet us, like the father in the story of the prodigal son. We don’t have to figure it out because God can see the whole picture, and we can’t.

I told mom to take the stairs closest to her. Many teachers tell us to stick with the spiritual tradition we grew up with, as long as it wasn’t too harmful. Maybe that’s because it’s the closest staircase, the easiest way to head in God’s direction.

Maybe, when we stop trying to figure out where to go, we’ll discover we’re already there.

 

Note: The quotation “death is nowhere in the background” is a slight adaptation of a line in the poem “From Blossoms” by Li Young Lee.

Yes! Thank You!

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This is one of my favorite blog entries of the year—the one in which I choose a few of the myriad things that inspire me to say “Yes!” and list them out. Here is this year’s offering:

I am grateful that there are so many ways to say this same thing:

  • “Love is our origin, love is our ground, and love is our destiny” (Jim Finley).
  • Everything comes forth from God, is an example of God, and returns to God (my paraphrase of Richard Rohr’s paraphrase of St. Bonaventure in his book Eager to Love).
  • “Love is the essential structure of reality, the metaphysical basis of all that exists, the eternal pattern of the universe” (Ilia Delio describing Bede Griffiths’ approach in her book Christ in Evolution).

I am grateful chocolate-covered carrot bits are not a thing.

I am grateful for transformations of all kinds:

  • the bursting forth of flower buds into full blown blossoms
  • the changing and falling of leaves
  • the caterpillar’s chrysalis and the emerging butterfly
  • sobriety
  • the breaking open of our hearts in the presence of suffering

I am grateful for how often what I’m reading is grammatically correct and perfectly proofread, all things considered.

I am grateful for generosity of heart in so many forms:

  • parents rising in the middle of the night to tend their sick children
  • people sending money across the globe to those they will never meet
  • people smiling at others for no particular reason
  • animals caring for other animals in all those videos careening through Facebook feeds
  • plants growing to support all life on Earth

I am grateful for imagination—in a world that has never been at peace, the concept still exists.

I am grateful for the Sunday comics and beautifully illustrated children’s books.

I am grateful for all the people who so grace my life with love, perspective, good humor, and, of course, good food on a daily basis, including everyone reading these words. Happy Thanksgiving!

Note: I will be on vacation next week. May everyone be well fed.

Wave the White Flag

Rachel Henry4 Comments

I love it when my friends tell me exactly what I need to hear and I actually listen. Sometimes I ignore or resist their good advice, but now and then, it goes straight in.

This week a friend and I were talking about how change happens in life. At a time when things were shifting for her, a friend of hers said, “Well, you’ve gone over it mentally every way you can for months. Now all you have to do is give up.” She asked, “How will I know when I’ve given up?” Her friend said, “That’s when it will change.”

Though I’ve spent plenty of time resisting this truth, it’s still true. I also think we’re on God’s time, and we’re unlikely to give up ahead of the universal roll-out schedule. We still need to practice, though, so when the time comes, we’re ready to do it.

The spiritual journey is so odd when considered with the same lens we use to do the grocery shopping or complete tasks at work. We can’t rush it, we’re not in charge, but if we don’t participate, it doesn’t work. Participation mostly means practicing giving up.

I am of course not the first person to say this. Teachers in every wisdom tradition have been saying it for a long time. God’s will, non-action, falling into grace—it’s all the same thing: we’ll only find what we’re searching for when we give up thinking we’ll get there by ourselves. It also helps to realize we don’t even know where there is.

We need to strike out in some direction that we think is right— another strange twist—we just shouldn’t get too attached to the destination we’ve chosen. Julia Cameron describes this in her book The Artist’s Way. She says we go out looking for apples and end up with oranges, only to discover that’s what we wanted all along. But we never would have happened upon the oranges without leaving the house in search of apples.

None of this to say I’m particularly good at giving up. That’s why I write myself reminders like this; that’s why we practice.

Heart Homework

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When I first learned about the Pure Land sect of Buddhism in college, I understood that the monks said the name of Amitābha Buddha over and over in hopes of saying it with perfectly attentive consciousness because then they would attain enlightenment. I thought, that’s stupid, what does saying the Buddha’s name over and over have to do with enlightenment?

Turns out I wasn’t listening very well. First, according to that master spiritual resource Wikipedia, this chanting is a mindfulness exercise that can lead to a high state of consciousness different from enlightenment. Second, what you say matters much less than whether you pay attention when you say it. If you can say Cheez-Its with perfectly attentive consciousness, enlightenment might be right around the corner.

I recently read an explanation of how our interactions with the same wisdom teachings change over time. The author (apologies for not remembering who it was) pointed out that the teachings remain the same but we become more “transparent” to them. The interior stuff blocking their entry gets removed over time.

God must have wiped off a tiny pin head of space on my interior window recently because I’ve been seeing myself trying to figure out with my mind teachings that can only be grasped by the heart. Up until now, I simply resisted them, concluded they were wrong, and complained to God that I couldn’t get to wherever it is I’m supposed to be going.

This approach is like trying to solve an algebra problem using arithmetic and, after failing, saying that algebra doesn’t work. It’s true—algebra doesn’t work when approached solely with the rules of arithmetic. But that doesn’t mean algebra isn’t true. You just need to learn an entirely different way of approaching mathematics in order to do algebra.

I never took this, if I can’t do it, it’s not true approach in school. I assumed it was true, paid attention in class, did the homework, and learned. In life, on the other hand, I often start with resistance, especially in matters of the heart.

I’m not recommending that we throw away our ability to approach things critically, but I might try setting aside that tool occasionally and doing the heart homework to see what I can learn.

Whose Will?

Rachel Henry4 Comments

“What should I do?” is a question I ask God fairly often. Or so I thought. Recently it appears that actually I’m asking myself, and the question is closer to “What is the one step I can take that will keep me on the invisible path that makes me right and perfect?” Because as anyone who reads this blog knows, I’ve maintained a perfect record of right-ness and perfect-ness so far.

Discernment is the practice of getting in touch with God’s will. “What should I do?” is not about stepping into the divine flow in a way that is most beneficial to all of creation, including me—which might be what following God’s will means.

In The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Abba Poemen says, “To throw yourself before God, not to measure your progress, to leave behind all self-will; these are the instruments for the work of the soul” (from the Benedicta Ward translation). All this time I thought I was practicing discernment, I was just measuring progress. “Should” is a dead giveaway that we’ve substituted progress measuring for the will of God.

Much of my thinking, say 99 percent, is about how well I’m doing and how far I’ve gotten, in other words, progress. But progress toward what? Seeing as we really don’t know where we’re going, trying to figure out how close we are to the end seems dicey at best.

I’m fairly certain that God doesn’t do “should.” God invites but doesn’t obligate, loves but does not impose. Laws are useful, but God is inviting us to freedom, which begins in our hearts. Only our hearts are big enough for freedom.

“Should” is a giveaway that I’m not leading with my heart. There is no room in love for how things ought to be according to me, only for how they are.

So how does discernment work instead? I have absolutely no idea. When I experience it, I’ll let you know.

Standing in the Muck

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It was one of those weeks that makes me grateful other people can’t see into my head, which was more than usually full of all that muck we rather wish we didn’t carry around inside of us— fear, a sense of inferiority, frustration, meanness.

A religious sister once couldn’t overcome her inability to be patient with the other sisters in her community. She asked St. Thérèse of Lisieux what to do. St. Thérèse didn’t say a word about how to treat the other sisters but instead counseled her to be patient with her own impatience.

I decided to take St. Thérèse’s advice. I wrote myself a list of questions: Can I be loving with my cruelty? Can I be understanding with my frustration? Can I tell the voice that sees only lack that it is enough?

The answer was yes—for a few seconds at a time every now and then. Did it make a difference? It depends on what you consider a difference, I suppose. Was it all sunshine and butterflies after my first few attempts? No indeed, not even after many attempts. Was I more loving to those around me? No way to tell without popping over to the alternate universe where I chose to be overwhelmed with feelings of self-pity or take a sick week.

Though a sick week sounds pretty good—and sometimes we need those—other times we just need to stand in our own skin and be OK with ourselves as we are. There is that saying that the only way out is through. I’ve always pictured that as a relatively unpleasant journey, but maybe the only way through is love and acceptance.

The Terror of Now

Rachel Henry4 Comments

Not all learning by experience is pleasant. Like when your mom tells you that the melted, unsweetened chocolate that smells fantastic doesn’t taste good and you don’t believe her and so she tells you to try it. And then you believe.

After a few such incidents, we realize that we can learn from others’ experiences, and we don’t actually have to eat a large piece of horseradish root to accept that it’s kind of hot. OK, some of us do.

Taking others’ word for it is not quite the same, though. There are plenty of things we accept but won’t truly understand until we experience them, everything from just how scary the wicked queen in Snow White is to the level of sleep deprivation an infant subjects her parents to.

Many people—including most recently for me Richard Rohr—have said that we spend most of our days living in the future or the past because our small self, or ego self, is terrified of the present. The current moment is always beyond the ego’s control, and it doesn’t much like that. The people saying this are smart and deeply spiritual, so I have been happy to believe them. I could certainly verify that I spent little time in the here and now.

Then, for a few weeks, I focused on bringing myself back to the present as often as possible, which consisted of a lot of bringing back and not a lot of staying. Even so, my ego freaked out, as if the wicked queen/hag were standing directly in front of me with an irresistibly red apple.

Terror is not difficult to recognize, and when it shows up while doing the dishes or cooking breakfast—in my kitchen, absent saber-tooth tigers—ego protection seems a pretty reasonable explanation. It’s fascinating to watch when I can remember to watch it and not run away immediately.

It’s even interesting to watch myself run away, which I’ve done for the last week or two, under the guise of needing to get things done. Now that I can recognize the running away, though, I can at least choose whether I have the oomph at any given moment to confront my ego fear. And maybe, when all is said and done, that fear is really no more threatening than unsweetened chocolate.