Everyday Boy

Finding The Center, Again & Again

The Self is a circle, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. - Carl G. Jung

I am still uncertain what living a contemplative life means for me exactly.  I know it's not just a state of eternal peace or bliss above the ordinary events of life.  I know it's not just those few moments of thinking on spiritual things.  I know it's not the opposite of an active life - though I believe being still in silence and solitude is an important practice for a contemplative.

Right now I'm thinking it has to do with the point of consciousness from which all action grows - our awareness, our attention, our cultivation of the inward reality of love and truth in the ground of our being.  But how does that translate into the messiness of life with it's ups and downs?

I've been watching a video series of Bill Moyers interviewing Joseph Campbell, and one illustration given was a wheel where the events of life were on the outside - the ups and downs where we often find ourselves.  The point of course was that we must move to the center of the wheel, but I think one of the mistakes in my thinking has been believing that the center is a static place - but it too is a place of movement - only it has a different perspective in the place from which it moves and is held - from the sacred center of our being, which is God.

Well, if you've stuck around reading this up to this point - thanks.  All this to say I continue to struggle with finding that center in the craziness of life, but find comfort in fleeting moments of moving past my own selfishness...  here's an excerpt that stuck out for me this past little while, from A Year With Thomas Merton: Daily Meditations From His Journals, Selected & Edited by Jonathan Montaldo (May 25):

In our monasteries we have been content to find our ways to a kind of peace, a simple, undisturbed, thoughtful life.  And this is certainly good, but is it good enough?

I, for one, realize that now I need more.  Not simply to be quiet, somewhat productive, to pray, to read, to cultivate leisure - otium sanctum - a holy leisure.  There is a need for effort, deepening, change and transformation.  Not that I must undertake a special project of self-transformation or that I must work on myself.  In that regard, it would be better to forget it.  Just to go for walks, live in peace, let change come quietly and invisibly on the inside.

But I do have a past to break with, an accumulation of inertia, waste, wrong, foolishness, rot, jink, a great need of clarification, of mindfulness, or rather of no mind - a return to genuine practice, right effort, need to push on to the great doubt.  Need for the Spirit.

Hang on to the clear light! - Thomas Merton, May 30, 1968

Which Button Would You Choose?

 

They had a fun interactive exhibit outside the Contemporary Art Gallery in mid-May - three large panels surrounding their building, pinned with hundreds - if not thousands of buttons with words describing a range of emotions and states of being we view ourselves and others through.  It was interesting seeing the different ways folks interacted with it, some grabbing as many buttons as they could off the wall quickly, others carefully scanning all the buttons and taking them down slowly and deliberately, and of course a good mix somewhere in between.  At the end of it all you would see folks go off happily wearing their buttons or stashing them away in bags.

The favorite button among the youth at the shelter was unsurprisingly - horny, while one of our student interns wore bored, and one of my housemates chose sarcastic.  The ones I took down: aware, contemplative, curious, grateful, hopeful, idealistic, inspired, marginalized, open, playful, selfless and shy - many contrary to what I've been feeling of late - closed, tired and uninspired.  Tensions and seasons I guess.  A friend reminds me that it rains sometimes and you just have to sit through it - let it all soak through.  The idealist in me has a hard time holding negative states in hand - or even talking about them or admitting them.  Nouwen wrote about confessing our loneliness in order to make solitude possible - I find myself having to confess lethargy and depression in order to see and reach out beyond myself again.

Out Of Sync, Out Of Time

Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. -H. Jackson Brown, Jr., writer

I'm feeling a bit out of sorts, and in many ways I think it'd be much easier if I just had more hours in the day. There is so much I want to taste, smell, touch, see and do. The problem for me seems to lie in having so much I want to do that I end up doing nothing, or perhaps worse, in all the doing I miss what it means to really live.  I've been re-reading Joan Chittister's commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict, and as I sort through difficulties and priorities between work, rest and play, I once again appreciate the sensible words she writes:

The bad does not destroy us and the good gives us new breath because we are always aware that everything is more than it is.  The family is not just a routine relationship; it is our sanctification.  Work is not just a job; it is our exercise in miracle making.  Prayer is not just quiet time; it is an invitation to grow.  We begin to see God where we did not see him before...

We need to open our eyes and see things as they exist around us: what is valuable and what is not, what enriches and what does not, what is of God and what is not.  It may be the neighborhood we live in rather than the neighborhood we want that will really make human beings out of us.  It may be the job we have rather than the position we are selling our souls to get that will finally liberate us from ourselves.  It may be what we do rather than the prayers we pray that will finally be the measure of our sanctity.

And so, the sliver of time I'm going to focus on is the now - on what is right before me: from when light first hits my eye and when I shut it out again at night, in the difficulties of work and prayer, in the mundane and everyday, in the person before me in all their hidden glory... I will ask for the grace to see things as they really are, and the mercy to find my way.

Mother's Day

Your mother loves you, so act accordingly. - Anonymous

Our backyard is a bit of a natural disaster with dandelions overtaking our small rectangular patch of overgrown grass, and a smattering of plants and weeds fighting for space in the garden soil.  It's definitely not a very picturesque yard right now and is in need of some grooming, but upon closer inspection there is still much beauty in the chaos: the rose bush yielding lush full red blooms, bright yellow flowers cradling drops of afternoon rain in their crescent petals, and even the white dandelion skeletons - made up of tiny effervescent paint brushes all perfectly placed around a tiny globe, saying - make a wish.  It's an apt illustration of how I'm feeling these days - a bit of a mess when I take a step back and see how much is left undone, but many instances and opportunities to be thankful for.

Some questions were asked recently in a discussion group I'm part of: How do we in North America cope with the whirlwind of stress and overwork?  How do we find and make time to live and not only exist?  How do we stay sane?  It was pointed out that the culture in South America, where things move at a slower pace, allows people to take time to breathe, enjoy friendships and nurture family... there is time and space for afternoon naps, leisure and wonder.  Coming back to these questions and comments at the end of the week, I am much more certain we have the same opportunity to cultivate such things here in North America - but just more often neglect to do so...

For myself work continues to be tiring and stressful as I sometimes feel inadequate in counseling youth with drug and alcohol and mental health issues, but I do my best and have to remind myself that that is enough.  Perhaps that's a bit of the root of the problem - our need to do more or be more.  I remember reading a book by Mary Jo Leddy called Radical Gratitude which touches on our cultures propensity to emphasize our dissatisfaction with what we have and who we are; we don't have enough and therefore we aren't enough.  So I struggle with my writing because I say to myself I'm not ready, I have nothing to say, I can't begin yet; I struggle with trying to let go and play because I feel like I should be doing something more productive; and I struggle with living out of fear of not being or doing enough, rather than living freely in love and gratitude.

I went to the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in Chinatown, tucked away behind a long concrete white wall, away from the traffic and noise of Pender Street.  It's a beautiful space, with a Bogota, a large pond covered with lily pads, and dirt paths and stone bridges throughout - all surrounded by large weeping willows, cherry blossoms, and even thin bamboo shoots sprouting up to twelve feet.  It's a perfect spot to go to after a hectic day at work, and so I sat, and took pictures, and tried to take time to breathe.  I know these moments of peace are fleeting, but I also know they are important.  They enable me to recognize the illusions of worry and busyness that I so easily fall into.  I can fill my time with worry or I fill my time with wonder.  I can run around with chores, or I can take a nap and feel refreshed.  I can become consumed with work or consumed with play.  And of course, there is a time for everything... but within those spheres of worry, wonder, work, play and rest I must remind myself again and again that nothing can separate me from the Love which says you are enough.

In The Kitchen

The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament. - Brother Lawrence, a 17th century monk

Lamb Shanks With Eggplant and Thyme

1 cup finely chopped onion
1 clove garlic, finely minced
2 tablespoons butter
6 lamb shanks
Flour for dredging
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1 teaspoon thyme
1/2 cup oil
1 cup crushed, peeled tomatoes
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 bay leaf
1 small eggplant, peeled and cut into one-inch cubes

Instructions:  Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.  Cook the onion and garlic in butter until soft but not brown.  Set aside.  Wipe off the shanks with a damp cloth.  Combine the flour, salt, pepper and thyme and coat the shanks with the mixture.  Heat the oil in a large skillet and cook the shanks on all sides until golden brown.  As the shanks are browned, transfer them to a large casserole.  Add the onion and garlic mixture, the tomatoes, wine and bay leaf.  Bring to a boil on top of the stove and cover.  Bake two hours.  Drop the eggplant cubes into a little boiling salted water and cook briefly.  Drain.  Add them to the lamb and continue baking, basting the lamb occasionally, about thirty minutes or until lamb is fork tender.

Yield: 6 servings

From Cooking With Herbs & Spices, by Craig Claiborne.

I've been enjoying cooking.  Like everyday chores or exercise, it brings me awareness of the present moment; of God, of others and of self.  The following is from Spiritual Literacy: Reading The Sacred In Everyday Life, by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat.  Bettina  Vitell, in A Taste of Heaven and Earth, writes:

The kitchen is a place that sharpens us.  It's a place that wakes us up.  Our sense of smell becomes keener.  We taste with greater subtlety.  We see with more clarity and our movements become quick and sure.

But there are times when we are not as sensitive, not as focused.  We are distracted and nothing seems to go right.  In the kitchen the results are easy to notice.  The sauce burns, the bread doesn't rise, and dishes slip our of our hands.

Cooking requires that we be fully present.  This is one of its greatest teachings.

It keeps bringing us back to what is happening in the moment and continually calls our attention to what we are doing.

We smell when the cake is ready to come out of the oven and we taste when the soup is almost done to perfection.  When the water boils on the stove, we turn down the heat.

Through cooking we can become more responsive to what is happening around us.  In the very same way that the Chinese cook was able to sharpen his knives just by using them, we can sharpen our lives by living them with awareness, moment by moment. (219)