12/3/16

I started reading Etienne Gilson's God and Philosophy today and realized how a lot of philosophy goes over my head. Does God exist? What is God? What is existence? What is the nature of being? These are just some of the many questions that the philosopher seeks to answer. But what can I really say about God or existence or the nature of being? I have a hard enough time grasping my own existence let alone that of God or the nature of reality itself. There's nothing I can say that will be of any help to anyone. I could never do the subject justice. But then there's Jesus.

Whenever I find myself stuck on an intellectual problem, I turn back to the story of Jesus, because I really like Jesus. I can relate to Jesus and feel like I understand him. Jesus is a child of God, as we all are in a way; and as the divine archetype, he embodies everything that we share with God. The thing I like most about Jesus, though, is that his message is simple and he teaches it by example: Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself (Mk 12:30-31). As St. Paul says, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28); and Jesus, out of love, helps all who come to him and ask.

It's not their asking that's important, it's his acting out of love. Jesus makes no distinction in who he helps, even those who were considered unclean and sinful. If they ask, he helps. But he also gets angry at greed, corruption, and the empty and often haughty words of hypocrites, because he saw with piercing clarity that it's the quality of one's heart and intentions that make them clean or unclean, pious or truly sinful. A person who acts out of kindness and love, even if they transgress this law or that, is clean. And one who is truly sorrowful and repentant for a wrongdoing they've committed is infinitely holier than one who refrains from outward acts of sin and harmfulness but has a heart full of anger, hatred, malice, or greed. When criticized for his followers' lack of ritual hand washing before eating, he says to his followers, "Are even you still without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that enters the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled into the latrine? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile" (Mt 15:16-18). Hence he forgives the adulterer and heals the untouchables and eats with those who have unsavory occupations in the eyes of the religious authorities of his day, and he drives the money changers out of the temple with a whip.

The story of Jesus is ultimately the story of how to be closer to God. It's a story in which one person's life shines forth like a light in the darkness and cuts through the Gordian Knot of intellectual paradoxes and religious dogmas to get at the heart of the matter: the best way to get closer to God is through relationships. God is one but is paradoxically expressed as a trinity, three 'persons,' because I think it reflects the relational nature of existence. We relate to God by relating to one another. We love God by loving one another. And we serve God by serving one another. In the gospels, John says that "God is love" (John 4:8), so in a way we can say love is our first principle, and that loving one another is the only philosophical system we really need. Of course, that's easier said than done. It's easier to do in the abstract, but not so easy face to face in a seemingly chaotic and cruel world, where one class or group of people always seems to oppress another. Where things like poverty, illness, addiction, and abuse make some people difficult to love, let alone help or even be around.

Even Jesus faced criticism, abuse, and ultimately even death on the cross following this path; and that reflects our own challenges in choosing to follow his example. It's not always an easy path to follow. But I think Jesus would agree with the sentiment behind Marx's famous line, "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it" (Theses on Feuerbach).

4/10/16

Last night's bonfire reconciliation service was one of the most moving experiences of my life. Gathered around the fire pit in the dying light of the setting sun, we placed a lit candle around the fire one by one, either in silence or while sharing what was on our hearts and minds, confessing our faults and failing as well as our desires to be better people. Many were moved to tears, their own hearts pierced by the pain and hope of others as much as by the love and support each of us offered in return.

When it was my turn to place my candle around the fire, I shared with everyone that I'm going through a difficult time, that I've been depressed and lost and so self-absorbed in my own pain that I've neglected those closest to me. And I shared my hope that I can start to pick up the pieces and heal myself somehow and be more considerate, loving, and kind to the people around me, especially those who I'm unintentionally hurting with my self-destructive behaviour.

There's a line from Leonard Cohen's "Anthem" that Fr. Michael likes to use: "There is a crack in everything / That's how the light gets in." He said that those cracks are where we're broken, and yet, it's those very same cracks that can make the world a brighter place if we work on them. And in the darkness of that night, the world felt just a little bit brighter.

3/15/16

I went to my first reconciliation service today, which wasn't quite what I'd expected. I find many religious rituals interesting, and see in them a social dynamic that I think explains their continued popularity and relevance in an increasingly secularized world. Take the sacrament of reconciliation, for example. Despite how most people view it, the sacrament itself isn't meant to appease some vengeful deity (especially if one believes that God is love and mercy). Rather, it's meant to help us heal ourselves and our relationships with one another. And how do we do that? We start by admitting the mistakes we've made and the areas where we fall short and endeavour to do better. It's not meant to be some kind of magical sin-sponge that sucks up all the selfish and lustful and harmful and deluded things we've done, but an honest reflection of who we are and who we want to be. And the expectation of this particular sacrament is that we're willing to do something about it, that we're willing to try to make amends and live a more compassionate and skillful life, which in turn we do by following the example of spiritual teachers like Jesus, who make a point to illustrate our interdependent nature. This idea might be a little out there, but I think the act of confession, while having a more religious connotation, is a universal compulsion among most human beings given our social nature. Fr. Michael once said something to the effect that, we sin because we suffer. And that got me thinking that perhaps the root of sin is this suffering, and in particular, the suffering that arises from holding onto what we can't admit to. Expose this root, and it withers away. And to confess, to freely share this difficult thing, this source of anger or shame or whatever it causes us to feel, is to expose the root, which thrives in darkness, into the light of awareness, freeing us from its hold and the shame we feel. In this way, then, the act of confession, of saying out loud what we often can't even bear to think, is salvific. But rather than being saved from the fires of hell, we're saved from the fires of our own shame and self-loathing.

3/1/16

Sunday, Annie and I went hiking at Smith Rock on a weekend getaway for our twelve year anniversary. Smith Rock is a beautiful cathedral of peaks and cliffs in the midst of central Oregon's desert plains. As it happened, the first reading at church that morning was the passage from Exodus where Moses goes up the mountain and hears the voice of God. Many ancient peoples from around the world held mountains to be sacred places, and standing upon the summit of Smith Rock, I could easily understand why. In that quiet and solitude, surveying the natural beauty of the landscape surrounding me as far as the eye could see, I felt at once both insignificant and the centre of the universe. And in that moment, I felt so overwhelmingly thankful for everyone and everything in my life and wanted to share that feeling with everyone I knew. But the feeling faded once I was back home and separated from the conditions that gave rise to it; and the question that I now find myself faced with is, How can I cultivate that same kind of feeling in my day-to-day life?

2/13/16

So many things going on in my head. Where to begin? Looking back at the past couple of months, I've realized that I've been depressed. It seems obvious in hindsight: the tiredness, the lack of motivation (especially when it comes to writing), the general unhappiness and anger I've been feeling, etc. I'm doing my best to weather it, but it's been difficult. My job is as stressful and unfulfilling as ever. My dad has been a huge asshole to both me and my sister, as well as irresponsible financially, which is making things difficult for her. I've been sick off and on since Christmas. I haven't been sleeping well, and have been having a lot of dreams about my mom, amplifying the sadness and loneliness I already feel at her absence in my life. On top of that, the Paulist General Council has voted on the fate of St. Philip this week, and they've decided that St. Philip will cease to be a Paulist parish at a time when my faith is being devoured by darkness. A few weeks ago, for example, I wrote in my other blog/journal:

An existential malaise has fallen upon me of late, with its feverish yet indescribable woe and melancholy. Truly, how does one put into words the terror of reality and its semblant meaninglessness? How does one express the despair of existence when all pretenses are dropped and the chaotic banality of our frailty and suffering become so apparent, so oppressive? How does one look at the face of death and its unquenchable emptiness and then turn around and describe it to another? How does one communicate the anguish of their hopelessness or the infinite sadness of their loneliness to another any more successfully than a shade can impart their innermost thoughts to the living when each is separated by an insurmountable divide? How does one confide these things when the coarseness of words fails us, when we're unable to peer into one another's hearts and read the subtle language of the soul? They say that the eyes are a window into the soul, that pneumatic void. And what would that soul say if it could speak, that deep, dark abyss that lies at the heart of our individual beingness? What secrets would it share that our lips are incapable of divulging?

I've felt so lost and helpless these past few months. It seems like every time I make some progress in life, spiritually or otherwise, everything comes crashing down around me and I have to start all over again. I thought I was over the worst of the grieving. I thought I'd finally found a stable spiritual community that would support me and help guide me in the right direction. I thought I was right where I needed to be. And now? Now I'm as unsure of myself as ever.

Fr. Michael is trying to be as positive and supportive as he can, and I appreciate that, but I'm afraid of what the future holds for St. Philip. I still can't believe it even though I've been preparing for the possibility. The news hit me hard, and it's going to hit the rest of the community even harder. I really hope that the parish community will survive this and carry on the Paulist charism after they're gone, but I worry that it won't. Nothing will be the same. Fr. Michael is the heart of the B- group, and it will die without him. And the Paulists have been the spiritual heart of St. Philip for over a hundred years. What will happen to the parish, and to the spirituality of Portland when they're gone? They're such a unique presence, and they're openness is truly Christlike. I'm not sure I'm strong enough in my faith to stand on my own feet yet, and I worry that I'll slowly drift away from the church without the encouragement, wisdom, and openness of the Paulists to help guide me.

I'm sad, devastated even. I admit that I'm also angry. I realize that they're stretched thin and that they have to leave somewhere, but I'm angry that they've picked the one place that's been such a bright spot in my rather dark life. They always say how their mission as missionaries is to reach out to the young and unchurched, and Portland is the youngest and most unchurched city in the US. And by leaving, I feel like they've not only failed us, as a community, but their very mission, that they've essentially given up, that Mammon has conquered Christ. But I also know that this is the angry and selfish part of me talking, and that in time I will see things differently and be thankful that I had the good fortune to wander into St. Philip while they were still here.

Still, this news has me questioning my faith, my path, even more than before. Before falling asleep last night, I was reflecting on life and loss and felt a wave of samvega envelop me, what Thanissro Bhikkhu defines as "the oppressive sense of shock, dismay, and alienation that come with realizing the futility and meaninglessness of life as it's normally lived." Everything is impermanent. People come and go. Our health comes and goes. Thoughts. Feelings. Each day is unlike the last; each moment we're a different person. There's no refuge to be found, no safe place to weather the storm of arising and ceasing. And the more you cling to something, the more you hold it tight, the greater the hole in your heart when it's no longer there. And yet I still foolishly try to cling to everything I love. The people. The places. The tastes and sensations. I try to hold onto all of them like a handful of sand, even as the grains come pouring out, lamenting as each one is lost. It's almost as if grief is the natural state of life, the one constant throughout our lives masked by moments of happiness and joy. Maybe the Buddha was right after all. Maybe nothing is worth clinging to.

But perhaps Fr. Michael is also right in that, even though it is the clinging that causes the pain, it doesn't mean it relegates us to misery, that for the Buddha and for us life is 'full of Grace.' I'm not sure if it's true, but I'd like to believe it is, and that my faith in God/Dhamma will guide me and bring me towards the peace spoken of by Solomon in Proverbs 3:1-6:

My son, do not forget my teaching,
take to heart my commands;
For many days, and years of life,
and peace, will they bring you.
Do not let love and fidelity forsake you;
bind them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
Then will you win favor and esteem
before God and human beings.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
on your own intelligence do not rely;
In all your ways be mindful of him,
and he will make straight your paths.

I suppose that only time will tell if it will.

12/29/15

Wow, the National Catholic Reporter, a popular (albeit liberal) Catholic newspaper has named Greg Bourke and Michael DeLeon their 2015 persons of the year for their role in the SCOTUS case that ruled same-sex marriage a constitutional right, as well as for being vocal about the challenges and discrimination they face as a gay couple within their own religious community. I can't say I'm not a little surprised. I'm sure it'll upset some and put the NCR squarely in the cross hairs of the uber conservative USCCB, if they're not already. But I think it's a pretty bold move that reflects the voice of many rank and file Catholics, one that'll hopefully help broaden the institutional church's painfully outdated understanding of family and human sexuality sooner rather than later. People like Greg and Michael, and many others like them, are exceptionally brave for sharing their struggles and taking a stand, and I think they reflect the future of Catholicism and other religious institutions like it if they're to survive, let alone establish the kingdom of God on earth.

x-mas at our lady

12/24

I preemptively thought that Christmas without my mom was going to be difficult, whether I was alone, in Michigan, or with Annie and her family, so I scheduled a short 3-4 day stay at Our Lady for Christmas back in August. I left early Christmas Eve morning. I wasn't in any real hurry and took my time driving through the countryside, arriving about 10am. It was cold, grey, and rainy, which mirrored how I felt inside. Still, it was good to be back in such peaceful and familiar surroundings, and I found myself reminiscing about visits past.

I arrived in time to watch the monks decorate the 15ft+ Christmas tree in the chapel, then sat in the library and started reading Bernard Bangley's modernized translation of The Cloud of Unknowing while I waited to check into my room. For a Catholic text composed in mid-14th century England, I was surprised by how similar it is to many of the Buddhist meditation manuals I've read from the Thai Forest tradition, which tend to be less theoretical and more practical, focusing on things like sense restraint, constant mindfulness, and techniques such as the use of a short meditation word to maintain one's concentration. In its simple yet profound language, it's obvious that the unnamed author was an accomplished meditator. I sat pondering what I'd read as I tried to let the peace of the monastery wash over me.

I went for a hike after settling into my room, which this time happened to be the one directly beneath the one I'd stayed in last time. The trail was wet and muddy, and the closer I got to the top, the darker and foggier it became. When I wasn't worrying about a werewolf jumping out of the shadowy fog and eating me, I was thinking about The Cloud of Unknowing and contemplation in general, how the experience of nibbana, awakening, union with God, or whatever you want to call it isn't something you can intellectually understand, nor something that you can physically see, smell, taste, or touch. It's not something that's easily put into words, either, because it's a reality that transcends our normal, everyday experience of the world and how we perceive that world to operate. It's truly a mystery.

That's why mystics tend to talk in symbolic language, language that points one towards it and how to experience it for oneself. And mystics of all traditions seem to agree that you don't cause it, all you can really do is remove the obstacles in your mind that obscure it and open yourself up to the experience, or at least the possibility of that experience. You have to learn to be silent, deeply, internally silent, and rest in that silence, forgetting the world and yourself, and continually incline your mind towards that transcendent reality. You just have to keep focusing through the darkness, that proverbial cloud of unknowing, to the light on the other side, the luminous mind that's "defiled by incoming defilements" (AN 1.49-52), the "spirit of God that dwells in you" (1 Cor 3:16). We're often frightened of the dark, of the unknown, yet the darkness is where the magic happens.


12/25

It's frustrating in many ways being Christian and contemplative, because if God exists, if God is real and present everywhere, why is it so hard to see God, to hear God, to touch God, or be aware of God? I think it kind of makes sense that you have all these stories like Adam and Eve and whatnot, because they're trying to explain what it's so difficult, why there seems to be this barrier to experiencing something that should take no effort at all. Reading the Cloud of Unknowing, the author describes it as a cloud of unknowing, this darkness that you have to love through. From our POV, our level of being, God is incomprehensible, nothing you can intellectually grasp or see, but still there to be experienced by those who long and love into that unknowing, that darkness, whether you connect to it, it connects to you, or both. It's frustrating sometimes, though, being in the world and having everything bombard your senses so that God seems so far away. I'm trying to think about God and be open and aware of existence, of beingness, and then I'm thinking about work, I'm thinking about my girlfriend, I'm thinking about a TV show that I've been watching, or a random song gets stuck in my head, and it just drowns out everything else, everything spiritual. But sometimes, when my mind is quiet enough, like when I'm on a long retreat, I think I catch a glimpse of it, I think I understand, but I'm just not sure yet.


12/26

I spent a lot of time staring at this empty page and stressing over what to write until I realized that I don't have to write anything at all. Writing shouldn't be a chore; and if I don't have anything to say, I don't have to say anything. It's a liberating thought, really. Whether in school, at work, or just hanging out with friends, it feels like we're constantly pushed to do something, say something, even when we don't want to. So much so that the pressure to do something carries over into almost every moment of our lives, compelling us to feel anxious whenever we're idle, like there isn't enough time in the day to do all the things we have to do. To make matters worse, today's culture, influenced by the popularity of social media, encourages us to always have an opinion, something to say about something just for the sake of saying it. But sometimes, I don't have anything to say. And how freeing it is to realize I can just rest in that silence. It reminds me of that passage I read at Open Sanctuary a while back from Recollections of Thomas Merton's Last Days in the West:

[B]eing attentive to the time of the day: when the birds began to sing, and the deer came out of the morning fog, and the sun came up... The reason why we don't take time is a feeling that we have to keep moving. This is a real sickness. ... We must approach the whole idea of time in a new way. We are free to love. And we must get free from all imaginary claims. We live in the fullness of time. ... The whole thing boils down to giving ourselves a chance to realize that we have what we seek. We don't have to rush after it. It was there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us. ... There is, in all this, a sense of the unfolding mystery in time, a reverence for gradual growth.

12/26 (2)

Lying in bed, contemplating God as the nameless author in The Cloud Of Unknowing suggests, I got lost within a train of thought. While the author discourages thinking as a means of understanding God, I was having trouble keeping my thoughts, my concentration, on something I can't see, hear, smell, taste, touch, or mentally envision; but then a line from Evelyn Underhill's essay came to mind, "For he is thy being, and in him thou art what thou art, not only by cause and by being, but also he is in thee both cause and thy being" (112-13), and I began wondering how the darkness of unknowing could be a mirror reflecting such a truth. It's a difficult idea to comprehend. But the more I thought about it, the more I was reminded of the pure Mind of Zen, the monistic substance of reality, in which awakening is simply Mind recognizing itself, divine nature partaking of divine nature, creation becoming conscious of itself.


12/27/15

Three days isn't nearly a long enough stay. Just when you get into the swing of things, the silence and the schedule of the monastery, it's time to go. I left early to beat the traffic and because I wanted to attend mass at St. Philip. I missed everyone there, and I remembered that Fr. Michael said it was going to be his turn this time around, his first on the Feast of the Holy Family. Alexis wasn't there and they needed an extra hand, so they asked me to help be a server. Afterwards, I met up with my friend Chris for lunch, and on the way home it began to snow. It was a good day, and something about it made me think that I'm exactly where I need to be right now. I just need to trust in that.