Faith as Fact - and the Facts About the Book Business
Kathryn Vercillo has posted my interview with her at Diary of a Smart Chick, where we focus on the writing process as well as the content of Original Faith: What Your Life Is Trying to Tell You.
Excerpt:
Kathryn: What is the one key thing that you would like a reader to take away from Original Faith?
Paul: That faith is a fact - whether or not we connect faith with a religious belief system...
The Realities of the Publishing and Self Publishing Worlds
For a discussion that includes the topics of trade publishing and self publishing, see my Tuesday Sept. 29th interview with Mary Jo Campbell at Writers Inspired.
Book giveaways at both sites, and I'm happy to answer follow up questions about anything discussed in these interviews on their comments threads.
Did you know that most of the books you see when you walk into a bookstore are put out by several multimedia conglomerates, despite their variety of “imprints” that seem to indicate a myriad of publishers out there?
And if you have any thoughts about writing – in the sense of ever getting published – do you know what a “marketing platform” is? If not, you’re not getting published…
You may want to look in on my Tuesday Sept. 29th interview with Mary Jo Campbell at Writers Inspired and add your questions or comments. Mary Jo's questions inspire me to “tell all” – about where I’m at today on writing and faith and what I've learned on the topics of trade publishing and self publishing.
Pure Process – Weds. the 30th
On Wednesday Sept. 30th I’ll interview with Kathryn Vercillo at Diary of a Smart Chick, where we will focus squarely on the writing process. For example, Kathryn asks,
“You incorporate wonderful poems at the start of each chapter. How do you feel this adds to the book (or what do you hope readers will take away from these)? And at what point in the writing stage did you add these in?”
Here's a sample poem, excerpted from the start of Original Faith's Chapter Seven, “Nature’s Work of Transformation” on nature’s potential impact on our spiritual lives:
Being Still
Round earth Round sky Bird’s eye Catches in its compass all; all stones, trees That gyrate, twirling in a head-spin. He senses feathers, parted by the wind, Straining taut and upcurled on a silken skin; Precisely feels, with swift release of body heat, A delicate, staccato chill from wing to wing…
Two excerpts from my interview with Samantha Clark at Day By Day Writer:
Me: I learned to meditate from the late Fr. Basil Pennington at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. He taught a very simple form of meditation. It consists of repeating a word that you’ve chosen for this purpose – for example, “love,” “peace,” or “God” – and repeating it to yourself each time you exhale.
Samantha: The deep kind of meditation that Paul talks about is something people study for years. If you want to try it, I suggest you study it carefully first.
Speaking personally, everything I learned about meditation going in was contained in a little leaflet - a piece of colored paper folder over three times that Father Basil handed me. So "Repeat the word on exhalation" as per above was about all I knew. But many people learn to meditate in workshops or meditation centers, read up on it pretty extensively beforehand and sometimes practice forms of meditation that are more complicated - for example, with specific postural requirements or recommendations.
What do you think? Careful study or "just do it?" If you've meditated, what was your approach?
CORRECTION "Tell-All Exposé" is next Tuesday the 29th. As for my interview Friday the 25th, info is as follows:
This Friday 9-25 I interview at Day By Day Writer with Samantha Clark. The interview focuses on how Original Faith took shape, including the effects of meditation and the impact of illness and disability as well as the creative process and my writing routine.
Next Tuesday 9-29 I interview at Writers Inspired with Mary Jo Campbell. Mary Jo’s line of questioning leads me to “tell all” – about where I’m at today on writing and faith and on the topics of trade publishing and self publishing. For those of you interested in writing as well as spirituality, this is a guest post that may contain information you can use, and I’ll be happy to answer follow up questions that anyone may have in Mary Jo’s comments thread. Not till Tuesday though. Meanwhile…
Writing as Spiritual Exploration
On the Hand, There’s Content, but then…
It happens that I’ve mostly written in the religion and spirituality area. Since that was my subject, naturally the time that I spent at my writing desk had a spiritual focus.
I’ll add that it really was a desk - or, more precisely, a large table. Most of my work on Original Faith and most of my poetry was written from the early eighties through the mid-nineties, pre-computer, at which point I was derailed for ten years by the onset of a rare progressive disease while continuing to work full time and all that this entailed.
There’s Also Process…
Yet it seems to me that independently of my subject matter, there were certain features to the writing process itself that made it an activity conducive to my spiritual growth and well being.
Practical Life Priorities and Organization - Perhaps especially because I was writing while holding down a career, writing made me streamline my life in ways that were helpful. I had to set priorities and boundaries around areas like my social life and time spent on entertainment.
The Things That Matter – Writing helped me see more clearly what kinds of experiences held most meaning for me. I especially noticed this with my journal. I found myself steering clear of the “Dear Diary” approach. That would have forced me to make entries that I would have found boring myself!
I don't mean to cast aspersions on the logging/dear diary approaches of others – I can see this working in some lives or during certain periods of a person’s life. For example, one of my uncles kept a diary while serving in WWII. But personally, I found that experiences meaningful enough to serve as fodder for my creative writing occurred to me on their own and from time to time and not on any schedule that I could set.
Reflective Time – Writing is a thoughtful, reflective process that qualifies as quality time alone with yourself. It’s relaxing at a number of levels. There’s a sense of space and unhurriedness that comes with having carved out dedicated blocks of time for writing.
I even recall my sensory enjoyment around using the “tools of the trade,” which for me back then included number two pencils, a good quality eraser, and paperweights that were mostly stones I’d picked up at the beach. Over the long run, writing leaves you open to wonderful experiences and insights that you might not have known otherwise.
Ego-Editing – When I first started writing, I used to have a high opinion of almost everything I wrote right after writing it. But then, when I’d have some reason to refer back to it some weeks or months later, my reaction was often, “Ugh…”
Over the years I was able to spot my self-indulgent writing more and more readily – it would take maybe two days for me to notice that something was bad. Eventually, I pretty much stopped writing junk at all.
I'll bet there’s a high correlation between low-quality writing and coming at it from an egotistical place – trying to be new, different, clever, showcase one’s sensitivity, profundity, logical abilities – whatever… To become increasingly adept at self editing and to eventually truly lose your taste and enthusiasm for the written products of your own ego – that’s personal growth!
What has your experience of writing been, especially in relation to your inner life and personal development?
“The Word of our own nature begins and ends with something infinitely greater than ourselves, yet here and now resonates in our own voices. The Word that rises on our own breath is consistent with anyone’s beliefs or lack of beliefs. To speak the Word in this way is to feel and know something original to ourselves. It can only enrich us. It can only unite us. It is time.”
From the preface to Original Faith: What Your Life Is Trying to Tell You
For more about “the Word,” see Jan Lundy’s interview at Awake is Good as my blog tour continues…
“Detachment from the Fruitlessness of our Failures” - ?
Here are two quotes I’ve lifted (in an enlightened kind of way…) from Jan Lundy’s Awake is Good blog:
"The secret of meditation is affirming that you already are inner peace and perfect joy."
~ Abridged quotation from J. Donald Walters' Secrets of Meditation
***
"You are that which you are seeking."
~St. Francis of Assisi
Long story short: I agree. But speaking personally, getting there wasn’t easy – and staying there isn’t always easy.Here are some fair questions:
If you disagree with these quotes – why?
If you agree with them:
1. How do we reconcile a state of perfect or near perfect inner peace with our passion to do good in the world - that sense of urgency that accompanies our efforts to keep harm from coming to those we love and see their greater well being realized, whether in personal life or with respect to social justice issues and large scale suffering in the world?
2. What happens to inner peace and joy when we do our best in life but it doesn't work out – whether we try and fail to make a difference saving the dolphins, saving Tibet, saving the planet from global warming, or saving our own child from, say, dying of cancer? If there’s one thing harder than “detachment from the fruits of our labor,” that would be "detachment from the fruitlessness of our failures."
Spiritual Transcendence and Psychological Struggle
What distinctions do you make between psychology and spirituality? I make some comparisons in “Spirit and Psychology: Ego and the Greater Self” – my guest post now at Spirituality and Self Help.
I’ve known people who seemed to try to use spirituality to transcend psychological issues. They seemed to believe that if they meditated or lived in the moment enough, they could get over or around their issues without addressing them.
Speaking personally, I had baggage from my childhood relationship with my father that weighed heavily on me from my teens into my early twenties. In my mid twenties through my late twenties, I took an honest look at myself, went through a period of insight and struggle, and by the time I was thirty, had it pretty well behind me. But I had to go through it – I couldn’t go around or over it. Going through it allowed me to go further spiritually. It helped clear the way.
On Friday one of my two guest posts will be at Quest for Balance. It concerns negative thinking. My QFB post will raise another question related to psychology and spirituality: when is it beneficial to focus on our unhappiness and when is it not such a good idea?
Thursday Oct. 8 Mom-E-Centric guest post: "secular values" in the public schools - ?
Original Faith Blog Tour, Week of Monday Sept. 28
Tuesday Sept. 29 Writers Inspired - author interview focuses on the realities of the publishing & self publishing industries as well as on writing and spirituality. Book giveaway.
Wednesday Sept. 30 Diary of a Smart Chick - author interview focuses on spirituality and the writing process. Book giveaway.
Original Faith Blog Tour, Week of Monday Sept. 21
Monday Sept. 21 Awake Is Good author interview, focus: book content
Friday Sept. 25 Day by Day Writer author interview, focus: the writing process
Original Faith Blog Tour, Week of Monday Sept. 14
Mon 9-14 The Muffin interview with book giveaway – just leave a comment at The Muffin to participate.
Tues 9-15 Holistic Future guest post: the connection between spirituality and nature.
Blog Book Tour for "Original Faith" Starts Mon. 9-14
This tour is sponsored by WomenOnWriting - thank you Margo, Jodi and Angela.
A blog book tour for Original Faith: What Your Life Is Trying to Tell You launches Monday September 14 at The Muffin and runs through mid-October. It includes guest posts, interviews and reviews at as many as fifteen blogs, with nine scheduled to date.
Although this tour is sponsored by WomenonWriting, I am not a woman. Other insights into me and the book include the following from Monday's interview with WomenOnWriting at The Muffin:
WOW: It took you twenty-five years to write Original Faith (25, correct?), and it addresses your spiritual life and struggles along the way. Why did it take so many years to write this book?
Me: Yes, twenty-five, “25,” or, as I like to think of it, “only a quarter of a century…”
Please note these additional links of possible interest:
Please see Urban Monk for my guest post remembrance of 9-11-01. It relates to the theme of this post. Thanks to Albert at UM...
Daphne’s recent thoughtful review of Original Faith: What Your Life Is Trying to Tell You on her Joyful Days blog included referencing the book’s discussion of despair. Not everyone experiences a despairing crisis of faith. In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James distinguishes between “once-born” and “twice-born” types. For twice-born types the experience of our despair, in retrospect, appears integral to how we came to make our way forward.
Constructive Despair
From what I’ve experienced and read, constructive despair, so to speak, is a period of despair that is reconstructive below the surface. That is, unconscious processes somehow make use of our “down time” to do a great deal of work toward remaking our perspective – enough that eventually a breakthrough occurs and we can begin to consciously support and participate in the process.
Debilitating and Fatal Despair
Yet there are also people who don’t go through despair as a stage but remain depressed for years, decades or a lifetime. And then there are those whose despair brings them to end their lives.
Regarding suicide, I’ve often cited a quotation given by one of my professors when I was in graduate school for my counseling degree: “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” Depressed people tend to view their problems as events or situations that they'll never get over, when the causes of depression are generally psychological, spiritual and sometimes biological. Just the passage of time and the person’s further life experiences, sometimes with the help of therapy, would have been enough to pull them through.
What do you make of “the dark night of the soul” in its different forms? Could there be indicators that might help us distinguish potentially constructive despair from despair that appears likely to do the person more harm than good?
Update, 9-7: Daphne at Joyful Days has just reviewed Original Faith. I plan to use an aspect of her review as a way to lead into the topic of my next post. Thanks, Daphne!
Influences vs. Mentors
People have a wide variety of experiences when it comes to spiritual mentors and influences. Although I had one significant encounter with someone who was a spiritual mentor to many people, it was a brief encounter on a three day retreat. The relationship didn’t extend so far as true mentorship.
I did have one other relevant experience: when I was in a long period of despair in my teens into my early twenties, I often spoke about spiritual concerns with an uncle who was intelligent and well informed about science as well as religion. It was encouraging to me that he wasn’t hopeless about life. While this encouragement didn’t go so far as to give me vicarious faith through him – faith that he had the answers I was looking for – it did let me see that a positive view of life wasn’t just for people who were naïve or kidding themselves. But those persons with by far the biggest spiritual influence on me exerted it much more indirectly than directly: my mother and father.
Social Settings and Seeming Perfection
From what I’ve seen of others and know about myself, I think it’s a mistake to idolize anyone – to imagine that even those we most look up to don’t sometimes feel, think and act from out of egoism. I doubt the ego dies until we do.
I suspect that one reason we’re tempted to idolize renowned spiritual figures is simply that we don’t know them up close and personal enough. I imagine that being a celebrated spiritual figure would be enough to assure that in public you’d act that way with great consistency. That’s a lot of social pressure…
An analogy comes to mind. Although I tend to be a calm person and someone who isn’t moody – who doesn’t have “bad days” that impact those around me – my appearance in this regard was especially consistent at work because of my position as school counselor. Even when I was having some hugely bad days and years as I entered into the world of rare disease and declining health, few people at work knew about them. Those who were aware only knew because I confided in them, but even here, I didn’t confide in an agitated manner or frequently. No one knew how often I was confronting deeply troubling turns of events or how steadily and seriously my quality of life was eroding.
But an emotionally volatile counselor who looked like he was losing it – that wouldn’t have worked out too well! My social context required me to project calm and collectedness more perfectly and consistently than I experienced it.
What’s your view/experience of spiritual influences and mentors? Do you see mentors as perfect? Nearly so? Or as just having hiked further on up the road?
It’s All Right: Less Justification By Faith than Faith Without Justification
“Everything is okay” or “It’s all right” is something we feel at the core of who we are. My interest has been in how we go about noticing this place in ourselves rather than trying to prove that everything is OK or how and why it might be that it’s OK. The fact that our own nature makes this statement needs no proof because it can be directly experienced.
We seem to think that faith must be predicated on something outside the terms of our experience – that something else must justify it. If we know profound trust, then there must be reasons for it. If we hope, then there must be grounds for it.
Faith is the ground. The ground is bottomless.
Faith is love walking on water.
Faith is how we experience the full circumference of ourselves in the act of crossing a threshold. Faith is the illumination of the bright corona of who we are in the moment of the total eclipse of the self as we have known it.
Excerpted from Original Faith: What Your Life Is Trying to Tell You
