Paul Please note: Due to the large amount of email Paul receives and the limitations of his physical condition he can no longer respond to all email. But please keep sending — he reads them all.
In our yard when we were growing up stood the most beautiful white birch tree in the world. I do know, really, that it must have been exceptionally large and straight. When we traveled north one time and passed through a famous stretch of white birches – by then I may have been eleven or twelve – I discovered that the trunks aren’t usually as thick and straight as a pine’s.
Each summer the tree’s foliage created a cooling pool of shade. Its bark was delicate and smooth: peeling off a little strip revealed a fresh, light-tan skin beneath. Its large white frame had the pristine look of a classic New England church. Indeed, on Sunday mornings if I looked up when the church bells pealed out from across town, the branches seemed raised to catch the sound.
It was a dizzying tree. Looking up into its wide embrace showed a world of white and light green dazzling in the radiant blue. Its numberless leaves would whisper rustled riots on a morning’s air stream; quiver like a million little yellow-green flags celebrating how they liked looking new in the young light. And yet the way that its heavy boughs would sway and creak in a stiff wind sounded grounded in something ancient, resonant with a dark depth that was somehow familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
Large and at large in the all outdoors, it always remained its own world, creating a sheltered, pattering space, moist and fragrant, to stand beneath on drizzly days. It overlooked every backyard game but had planted itself to the side at a discrete distance, giving us an open field of play. And slowly, over many years, not knowing it for decades, I absorbed this tree as a symbol of something in myself; and even now, this long dead tree still photosynthesizes sentences for me.
What is something that you recall as deeply symbolic and meaningful from your own childhood – a stream, a rock, some woods; a room, picture, toy, book, color, view from a window; maybe the way that light fell in some certain place at some certain time of day…?
Here are a couple poems that seem to fit the time of year. Written in the 19th c., a few preliminary definitions might be worth glancing at: vernal is green; brinded is striped; stipple is spotted; “landscape plotted and pieced” refers to how adjacent fields can have that kind of checkerboard look according to what’s cultivated, or not being cultivated; "trades" refers to kinds or types of work.
The ones I missed – that’s because I don’t know exactly what they mean either...
This first is excerpted from William Wordsworth’s The Tables Turned. Wordsworth is a leading nature poet writing in the early 19th century. He's basically saying that you can learn more about certain kinds of things from going for a walk in the woods than from other people.
One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can.
Because some of the language in this next one is archaic and Hopkins even had a tendency to make up words sometimes, it helps to start off with a general idea of what he's up to here: giving thanks, enjoying, and really reveling in all the variety of colors, shapes, movements, and even tastes that are found in life.
Glory be to God for dappled things – For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings; Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plow; And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
For westerners, belief in God is generally considered basic to defining what it is to be a religious person. Just as deeply rooted in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition is the idea that God is ineffable or beyond words. Twenty-five years ago I had what was for me a singularly ineffable experience that literally changed my life overnight.
Several months after the experience, I discussed it with a friend who stated that I had experienced God. My thought at the time was that the experience was so ineffable, so unlike anything I’d ever known as a state of mind, that it didn’t bear any more resemblance to the God I’d been taught to picture and believe in than it did to anything else I’d ever thought, dreamt, felt, imagined, or perceived.
When we say the word “God,” how much can we be said to know what we’re talking about? Is a profession of belief the most significant spiritual act a person can make - are words of doctrine that telling of the nature of ultimate reality? Are the words by which we think and talk about God the measure of our nearness to God? And does atheism – disbelief in that Entity which believers describe in words, often in considerable detail – necessarily represent alienation from God?
Consider, for example, that Buddhists are sometimes considered atheists by westerners. Certainly the Buddha never spoke of God in the western sense of belief in a Creator existing in distinction from creation. That said, to read the Eightfold Path is to see that anyone who faithfully follows it would be perceived by Christians as “Christ-like!”
Something noteworthy about religious tradition as it’s generally been passed on from generation to generation is the idea that one’s own is best. The right one. The true one. Even traditions that are similar and related to our own just don’t quite get it.
To those convinced in (humble) righteousness that the tradition to which they belong reigns supreme in God’s eyes, people who view multiple spiritual paths as authentic are terribly misguided. They are victims of today’s “secular humanism” and “relativism” and “post-modernism.” They are, in a syllable, beset by isms. Veritably lisping isms, these are namby-pambies who lack core beliefs, moral fiber, and the courage of their convictions.
Whatever blessings finally come to us, or some of us, thanks to those among us who really do have the right righteous outlook, in the long meantime it paradoxically produces a certain curse, so to speak, that it looks like all of us here on planet earth may have to put up with between now and judgment day: a whole lot of words and sometimes actions coming from all sides that are condescending, antagonistic, and otherwise mutually disrespectful. At worst, we find oppression or violence directed against those who are viewed as being of relatively little consequence to God.
People Don’t Pass Judgment; God Does
This outlook may be more common than we might expect among people who view themselves as religious. Although its extreme manifestations are exhibited by only a minority of believers, I wonder if “my religion is best” isn’t perhaps implicit to the outlook of many believers. I’m thinking in particular of believers whose beliefs include the belief that God passes ultimate judgment in favor of those who share their beliefs.
If one believes that one’s own beliefs are the truest, and that the ultimate in human worthiness consists in recognizing their veracity, then isn’t a professed tolerance of other perspectives only a matter of superficial politeness? I would think that even the most considerate and well meaning believer of the belief that his or her own beliefs are the best and holiest, and will prove true at the end of time, and may even spell the difference between eternal bliss and eternal damnation, would want very much to see other people come to see things their way – that is, God’s…
Whether you call it contemplative prayer or meditation, spending a little time on this particular “wise activity” can be worthwhile. My interpretation of Yves’ comment on the previous thread is that spiritual practices involve the sort of wise passiveness and receptivity referred to in the previous post. So it’s a matter of taking action to make wise passiveness a part of our day to day lives.
Reduced to their essentials, the steps involved are as follows.
How to Meditate
1. Sit comfortably, but in a straight-backed chair. Nothing reclining or too cushy.
2. Relax your muscles and let your breathing become deep and regular.
3. When you exhale, repeat a one-syllable word to yourself – for example, peace, calm, or God. Do not reflect on the word’s meaning. The reason you return to the word with every breath is simply to keep your mind from wandering down any of the thousand different paths it would normally take if you were sitting quietly. Repeating the word is to quiet the mind as well as the body, allowing you to eventually begin to experience a different kind of consciousness. You keep returning to the word in order to interrupt distracting thoughts and let them go before they run away with your mind.
4. Build up to twenty minutes once or twice a day. It's best to be reasonably well-rested or there's a tendency to fall asleep.
What can really be expected from meditation?
First, I’d be wary of some of the salesy spirituality stuff that packages meditation as a kind of panacea promising good health, weight reduction, and financial gain. (I wish I were kidding…)
Second, going by my own experience, you can initially expect months of boredom. Though easy to learn and consuming little time, it seems to take the mind a while to figure out that it could possibly have anything to do aside from the usual worrying, daydreaming, or planning.
And frankly I don’t know whether meditation “works” for everyone. I’ve known some people who concluded that it didn’t work for them. At the same time, it did take several months before I noticed that anything was happening. I could easily have concluded that meditation wasn't for me. However, it ended up having profound, lasting, and positive impacts on my life.
Although our most powerful spiritual experiences and insights remain lifelong memories and points of reference, I think their greatest import is found in what we take from them and what we make of them. Recollecting them, engaging with them, consciously taking direction from them, is how, little by little, we become akin to them in our moment to moment existence. And that is who we have to live with, and who those around us have to live with, every day and night.
William Wordsworth spoke of the “wise passiveness” by which we are receptive and open enough to experience powerful watershed moments in our lives, or what he called “spots of time.” Yet without wise activeness, we are left with only interesting memories: frosting but no cake.
Something about the simplicity and rhythm of jogging occasionally puts me in a mood where I feel an integral part of one whole that is happening or going on. This morning, that mood completely captivated me. Everything in my awareness became one world: the movements of my limbs, my breathing, the feel of the cool air moving against me, the surrounding trees, and each twig and leaf passing underneath on the ground at my feet. Even the sounds of traffic rushing by in the road beyond as people drove off to work were included in this experience and in that world of the moment. The traffic sounds blended into a white background sound like seething surf or the steady whirring of insects at night. It had the same mysterious effect, like overhearing whispers, loud and urgently moving, yet without being able to make out the words – like a kind of humming sound that all life makes but which we usually ignore.
Feedback?
For many years jogging was an activity that helped keep me sane, centered, and moving forward. But jogging doesn’t have this effect on everyone. Different things seem to work for different people.
Are there practices that you’ve incorporated into your way of life that have worked well for you and that you’d like to share?
Maybe this one’s for children at least as much as it’s about them…
News Flash from School
Mariella touched her brush a bit On Alec’s project. It was an accident.
“Hey! You got some yellow on my marshmallow!” He bellowed.
“Alec – Shush!” said Mr. Lund. Oh yeah, thought Alec, That marshmallow was going to be the sun…
***
Friday it was Alec’s turn To lead the line at lunch, But he found Peter at the door.
“You cheater, Peter!” So he pulled Peter’s sweater And it tore.
Alec cried until his eyes burned. That was when he looked up at the board and learned, “Today is Thursday…”
***
“Class,” asked Mr. Lund, “Does anybody know Which president came first?”
“Sure,” said Alec, Of course it was George Wershington.” “That’s ‘Washington,’ said Valerie from out in back.
Then Alec clamored fiercely: “I hate it when you interrupt me! That Valerie! She always interrupts me! I hate-hate-hate that! Take it back! Valerie, you smarty-pants!” With every word he stamp-stamp-stamped, Until he tumbled from his seat And bumped his bum While all the other kids hilariously laughed.
And even though his bum was numb, It’s like a light bulb flashed in Alec’s mind, And even Alec couldn’t help but smile. “I’m sorry guys… I think I might have interrupted Mr. Lund!”
Paul Martin
Off-Topic Addendum
"'Whose religion is best?' strikes me as a question antithetical to religion at its best."
I, uh, liked this quotation from myself from someone else's comment thread so much that I thought I'd quote me. All rights reserved?
At the age of twenty-four or twenty-five, I visited St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. The Abbott, the late Father Basil Pennington, introduced me and several other guests who were there to the centering prayer, a practice that would subsequently have major, lasting effects on me.
At one point I had some time alone with Father Basil, something each of us had an opportunity for. At the conclusion of our conversation, I asked if he wouldn’t mind taking a look at a short manuscript I’d written. He was glad to do it. I anticipated some interesting feedback along the lines of how wonderful my writing was and what a depth of spirituality it showed.
When Father Basil returned my paper the next morning he briefly stated that it was in keeping with what he already knew from having spoken with me: that I was a good person. This was communicated with such understated but obvious sincerity that I couldn’t help but feel really happy, uplifted, and annoyed as he proceeded to move on to other topics.
Wish I could have been there to see the expression on my face! But as you can tell, I was still some distance away at the time...
Has anyone else out there ever had a mortifying experience that was good for you in the long run?
There’s often a certain freshness to children’s responses to the world. Susie Q summed it up in a comment to the previous thread by citing their spontaneity, ability to live in the moment, sense of wonder, and simplicity. I’m reminded of the concept of “beginner’s mind” in Buddhism.
People also noted how much less ability children have than adults to conceal their feelings and motives. From children we get little by way of feigned interest or sympathy, thinly veiled condescension, polite hostility, or any number of other adult affectations. Likewise, when children are egocentric, it’s all out there! While it can be annoying, at times it has a refreshing quality.
This combination of a fresh approach to the world around them and openness or transparency – maybe that’s what makes us often connect children with spirituality. Children don’t make good hypocrites.
Sufi Poetry Carnival
SUFI WIDGET As you can see, I still haven't really figured out how to post "widgets" but at least I think this links to it...
Tiel and Sadiq are hosting the Sufi Poetry Blog Carnival May 28th. They’re looking for poetry that reflects a relationship with the Divine; you don’t have to be a Sufi to participate. So here’s something that may fill the bill and also fits my “spirituality and children” theme:
Sky Smile
The big sky smiled so wide! “Why don’t you smile too?” It seemed to say. But Jessica was crying. “I’m blue – don’t you even get it?” “So am I “said Sky. “I am the blue that’s light.” And Jessica saw that Sky was right And really was light-blue, Like that half-unraveled crayon She liked to use when she was drawing sky. So she kicked off both her shoes Right there on the grass To feel another kind of blue.
