Simplify, Man. Simplify

A saying that gets thrown around a lot, without much thought it seems: The Definition of Insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

And just a little something to further illustrate the point; from the Desert Fathers:

Abba Anthony said, "The time is coming when people will be insane, and when they see someone who is not insane, they will attack that person saying: You are insane because you are not like us."

So, basically, we are all insane. I'm going to be picky for a moment, so bear with me. We all want to be happy. Even people who revel in their misery want to be happy, they just have a twisted notion that being miserable can make them happy. Now for the picky part. I don't like the word happy. I don't like it because it doesn't mean what we think it means. Happy is a derivative of an Old English word that means accident; or something that happens, hence happy. To be happy is a momentary occurrence. It is fleeting. Finding $20 on the ground is a happy moment, not a lasting sense of peace and fulfillment. Properly, we are after either contentment or joy. Both terms denote an underlying state not affected by externals. I can have joy in the midst of suffering, I cannot be happy in the midst of suffering (unless I am really clinically insane, even then, I'm not happy, I'm crazy). Again, what we are really after is contentment and joy.

What makes us insane? What is it that we are doing over and over expecting different results? For most of us, I would say, "Everything". We want a joy that is by its very nature Otherworldly yet we only look for it in this world. We think that some-thing is going to bring us contentment when it is really some-One. We know this, we just pretend we don't. Because this is a blog and not a philosophical or theological discourse on the nature of ascetic practice, I'm not going to spend any more time on this, I'll just get to the point of this post:

Things don't bring contentment, fleeting happiness, yes, contentment, no. When I get a new surfboard I'm like a kid at Christmas but I my joy does not live and die based on having a new board. What I'm getting at is simplicity of life. Oddly enough, every serious religious tradition in the world teaches simplicity of life as major force in moving toward God which is moving toward joy. When we simplify our lives through ascetic practices or even just in the spirit of "clearing away the clutter" we are doing more good for ourselves than we realize. To remove something from our lives is to free us. Much of our society is focused on addiction. Companies want us to suffer from addiction: addiction to technology, fearing you'll be left behind without the latest and greatest. There is addiction to entertainment and to being entertained; how often do we (or our kids) groan "I'm bored, there's nothing to do" when in reality we are culture of spectators, we watch what someone else does, we don't do it. How much stress do we cause ourselves over the material things that clutter our lives? We may not recognize it, but the material clutter quickly causes mental clutter and that results in spiritual clutter. Without giving example after example I'm going to relay a parable that illustrates it well, I think:

A Buddhist monk writes (paraphrase): We must seek to be detached from material things. As soon as we own something we find we must keep it with us, or we may lose it. The next think we know we have to leave for some reason, but we can't allow our precious possession to be unprotected, so we build a wall around it. Now that we have a wall, people (all of whom have their own things) will wonder what we have that is so precious that it has to be protected by a wall. Now we worry that they will try to climb the wall and steal our thing so we become afraid to leave, because we need to watch the wall. But, we have to leave, so we hire a guard to watch the wall. Then we have thoughts about the guard wondering what is behind the wall he is guarding, he might steal it for himself! The very person we hired to protect it! Well, better hire another guard to guard the guard. What if they form a conspiracy? And on and on until one day we have peoples and nations killing each other because someone MIGHT have something better than them behind their wall. All of our thoughts and our lives become consumed with the thing s we have, the things we want, and the things others have. And we have no peace.

Think about it. Next week we'll discuss some ways to ease into a spirit of detachment and asceticism.

Empty Your Cup

There is a story in the Zen Buddhist tradition that goes like this:
There was a Master who received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. It was obvious to the Master from the start of their conversation that the professor was not so much interested in learning about Zen as he was in impressing the Master with his own opinions and knowledge. The Master listened patiently and finally suggested they have tea. The Master poured his visitor's cup full and then kept on pouring.
The professor could no longer restrain himself, "The cup is over-full, no more will go in!"
"Like this cup," the Master said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

For the last couple of weeks we've been having an unusual flat spell. The waves have disappeared. This was wreaking havoc on my system. Then I began to think of it another way; as a fast or a desert. I am trying to see the lack of waves as a teaching moment. At first it's annoying. Then it's confusing. Next comes sadness. After sadness comes acceptance. Finally, there is realization that though the waves are absent, they aren't gone and they will come back.

The Absent Wave is a tangible reminder of the spiritual desert or dark night of the soul. Before I get into this I want to make a distinction real quick: there is a difference between a desert and a dark night. The desert is a place of isolation and desolation where the dark night is a loving abandonment. The dark night is something usually reserved for those saintly people who are so near to God that the final stage preceding a total mystical union is a period of darkness where God asks for pure faith, faith without consolation. The desert is a place that anyone who is honestly seeking God will experience. In life we may travel through one big desert or many little ones. For my purposes I'm treating the absent wave more like a desert experience.

The old cliche of "distance makes the heart grow fonder" is true in many ways (it is also false in many ways, but I'm not getting into that). The absence of waves, the absence (presumed) of God in the desert, doesn't mean they are gone, leaving us forever, but only that they are not here, now. Their presence is not felt. In the desert or on the beach, we must wait. We learn patience. We practice faith. We come to understand our longing. In fact this is where we come to understand whether or not we have a longing.

Of course it is preferred to have surf over flat seas. It is preferred to know God's continuous presence over isolation and spiritual abandonment. I would never deny this. However, as much as I prefer surf to flat I have to realize that the flat spells are an important part of the surfing life. The flat spells are like fasting; they teach us to wait. They teach us to have a hopeful anticipation. They also teach us that we don't cease to be surfers because there are no waves. A big leap in our maturation as a surfer is moving through the flat spell and not losing the surf-ness.

A big part of our spiritual maturity is moving through the desert and not losing our faith. The first wave after a flat spell is always wonderful. It's like being home again. But if we never go through the desert, if we never sit through a flat spell, eventually we become complacent, we expect that the waves will always be there. The result is that we never mature. It a parent never lets go of a child's hand the child will never really learn to walk. Once the parent does let go, what happens? The kid is scared. Maybe he falls a few times. But in the end, because the parent let go, the kid isn't just walking but running and jumping. If God never lets go, never pulls back to see if we'll take that next step on our own, we will never learn to walk.   

Other Surfers

Thomas Merton once said that in life, with every person you come in contact with, you have the opportunity for that moment to be heaven or hell for that person. Every interaction you have throughout your day moves that person closer to or further away from God. Now is the time to ask yourself which way you are sending people. Now I'm going to tie this into surfing. There several distinct character-types in the surfing world. Even if you've never surfed, you ought to be able to identify with one of them. I hope you'll catch the analogy of these types to people in our spiritual lives and how each one is illustrated in Merton's assertion. I'm not going to tell you which one I am. We're all sitting in the same line-up. We're all trying to catch the same waves.*

Type 1: The Newbie- This person is just learning. They are awkward and unsure. They make a lot of mistakes and can get in the way. They have caught their first wave and are hooked. It is youthful enthusiasm. They won't catch the best wave, they may not even catch that many waves, but they have a certain contentment that is contagious. They are happy just to be there. They are over-joyed at surfing whitewash on a wave an experienced surfer wouldn't even paddle for. The wave is still awe-inspiring mystery and every encounter is the best thing ever.

Type 2: The Guru- This guy is a seasoned veteran. He doesn't need the biggest or best wave. He'll let you have it. It doesn't matter, whatever wave he takes is going to look like the wave of the day. He's not fighting with the wave, he's in a mutual embrace with the wave. For this surfer a session is no longer about wave-counts and tricks or the people on beach seeing what he just did; surfing is about surfing. He is genuinely happy to see any surfer catch a good wave and have fun. His surfing is the relationship of the lover and the beloved.

Type 3: The Old Guy- He's the one set up ten-yards behind everyone else so he gets first pick of the waves because, he's earned it. He gripes about the conditions; the waves were better/water was cleaner/beaches less crowded when he was younger. The kids' shorts are too long. There are too many people in the water. Why don't they go somewhere else? After all, he's been surfing here for years. He's one of the guys that make a beginner not want to come back. His actions teach the kids that waves are property and you don't have to share. In many ways, he's forgotten why he loves surfing, now it's more habit.

Type 4: The Pro- Well, first, on the Gulf Coast there are no pros, so I'm being sarcastic. The Pro is the guy that believes himself to be of professional ability. In many ways the Pro is the Old Guy before he got old. He will have the latest board technologies that are advertised in magazines. He will wear the the latest in current surf-fashion and have all manner of advertising on his board, truck, and clothing even though he's not sponsored by any of them. He may be a very talented surfer, but he's a jerk. He believes that his talent means he has right-of-way on any wave he chooses and everyone should marvel at his greatness. When he is surfing he makes sure everyone knows it. If another surfer catches a good wave he sees it as a personal affront and seeks to establish dominance. Where the Guru embraces the wave, the Pro attacks it. His surfing is a battle with the ocean for supremacy. The wave is an object to be used.

Type 5: The Kook- Just like the Pro only he sucks. He is all advertisement, no content. Calling himself a surfer and looking/acting the part is an attempt to feed his ego. The Pharisee of surfing.

Type 6: The Betty- Though the Betty is usually female for the purposes of this metaphor it is not restrictive. Betty is not really a surfer. Betty owns a surfboard. Surfing is an excuse for Betty to paddle her board out in the middle of half-a-dozen men in her bikini. She may try for a wave, she may not, but that's not the point. The point is: did you see me in my bikini?

Each of these is a gross generalization of surfers. These are the people you encounter in the water. Some enhance your surfing, others distract. In reality most of us are probably a combination of a few of these stereotypes. When I think about what Merton said I have to ask myself which one I am. Am I a newbie, still full of wonder and awe? It's possible to maintain that innocence (maybe?). But there is a danger there. If I remain a newbie people will be attracted to my joy and want to surf, but they may also be turned away by lack of real understanding, my nievete. Am I a guru? I would hope that we all read this and think we want to be the guru (but if we already think we are, we're probably dishonest). I hope that my surfing, my attitude in the line-up, my overall surfness draws people into the water. I'm not old enough to be an Old Guy and I really hope I'm not heading that direction. I hope my surfing never becomes a source of resentment and holier-than-thou judgmentalism. I would be genuinely saddened to think my behavior had ever made a newbie or a grom (kid that surfs) feel unwelcome in the water. I would also hope I'm not the Pro. This one dangerous because I am good and I know it. This kind of attitude has a very real possibility of turning into a self-rightousness and an arrogance that not only scare the beginners away but anger the veterans that can help me move past the level I'm stuck on. I know I'm not a Kook, and hope you aren't either. I guess, in the end we should be striving to be the Guru. At least we're on the right path even if we haven't got there yet.  

Anybody out there who is a surfer, I'd love to get your take on this. What are the different character types you've encountered? Is this assessment close to true, or way off?

*Obviously, the line-up is metaphor for our spiritual life and the wave is metaphor for God.

Surfing Junk

My Brother, Making the Most of Not Much
If you see him, tell him he looked fat.

Whenever I tell people that I surf the response is generally the same; "Where do you surf?" I don't know if they might have noticed, but there is an ocean down the street. It's huge. Then the inevitable comment, "There's no surf in the Gulf." My uncharitable side wants to respond "Good, then stay out of the water" but I usually just smile and say, "You're right" and leave it at that. Of course there is always the pseudo-surfer, the poseur, or in the industry jargon: the kook. This is the person that assures me that they are a surfer but they don't surf in the Gulf because there are no waves. Usually this is followed with, "I only surf when I go to Hawaii". As the conversation goes on I find they haven't been to Hawaii in five years and have only ever been once. I don't mean to impose or rush to judgment but if you live here and only surf in Hawaii and the last time you were there was half a decade ago, guess what... you're not a surfer! You are a person who has surfed. Owning a pair a surf-trunks (a.k.a. boardshorts) does not make you a surfer any more than owning a crucifix makes you a saint. In fact, this is the hypocrisy that Christ condemned the Pharisees for. The Pharisees were more concerned with looking holy than actually being holy, they were more concerned with performance-art than prayer. "What's the point," you say?

The world is full of people who are forever waiting on ideal conditions: "I'll go when the waves are better", "I need a new board", "I don't feel God's presence". The problem is that ideal conditions rarely happen. Ideal conditions are rare because they so heavily depend on or subjective definition of ideal. If we are waiting on a perfect wave before we will get in the water we will wait our lives away. There is always an excuse, a way out. An attitude of waiting for perfect timing or perfect conditions creates a habit. There is an underlying issue here: if we say we are a surfer, that we want to surf, but never go because we are waiting on the perfect wave, it will never come. And even if it does, we won't know what to do with it because we don't know how to surf. Here's one further, if we've never surfed, I'd wager we wouldn't even recognize a perfect wave when it did come.

So... connect this to our spiritual lives...

It's simple, surf the junk. If we are only willing to enter into our spiritual lives when conditions are perfect (whatever that means) we never will. There are days (or months or even years) when God seems distant, possibly absent and our prayer is an act of the will because emotion is gone. There are days when the waves are small and we think there's no point: this is when we are really surfing. The moments that test our faith are when our faith grows and is strengthened. The decision to enter into a contemplative life must be an act of the will. It cannot be simply a reaction to external stimulus. It is another paradox of faith that we are often closer to God the more distant He seems.

God offers us consolations (in many cases) because our faith is weak and needs something tangible to get us going. My favorite (living) philosopher, Peter Kreeft, said in a lecture over the weekend that "Mystical experiences are almost certainly less important than you think they are". He was getting at the concept faith constantly rewarded is no faith at all. If we are relying on emotional highs to keep us coming back to God, there is no faith there, rather we are treating God like a supernatural drug-dealer: I'll keep coming back as long as you keep providing a high, but if you stop, I'll leave. The little things we do everyday are what brings us closer to God. The little things prepare us for the big things. If we can hold on in the dark, we can run in the light. If we learn to surf the junk waves we are prepared and we are effortless dropping into the eternity of a hurricane swell. After a while we realize that God is present everyday, all the time and we can stop wasting our lives waiting on perfect waves and know there is perfection in every wave. We realize that everyday we're in the water is the perfect day.

P.S. Just a little post-script here. The references to God's distance or absence refer to a spiritual occurrence traditionally known as the Dark Night. This is may or may not be experienced by someone who is close to God. It is NOT the absence of God felt (or not) by someone who has rejected God in their lives. It is the spiritual proving-grounds, the final battle before the ultimate victory.

What is a Contemplative Life?

Gary Norbraten http://www.blaryphotography.com/

As I've been writing these few posts it hit me that I haven't taken the time to actually discuss what this contemplative life I'm trying to sell is all about. I'll tell you first, and I hate to ruin it for you, it's not about laying around in hammock all day in varying degrees of sobriety. Before we get into what constitutes contemplative life we need to know what we mean by contemplation. Before we define contemplation we have to define prayer, as contemplation is form or fruit of prayer. So, here we go...

Prayer, as defined by the Church, is "the life of the new heart" and "ought to animate us at every moment". It is the "elevation of the heart and mind to God in praise of His glory" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2559-2565). Prayer is essential to the process of becoming contemplative to the degree that we really become aware of what we are doing and who we are talking to. It's not about words or lack of words or whether everyone else hears you or not. St. John Chrysostom said, "Whether or not our prayer is heard depends not on the number of words, but on the fervor of our souls". Let me offer a few descriptions of contemplative prayer:

From the Catechism: Contemplative prayer is...
"... the prayer of the child of God, of the forgiven sinner who agrees to welcome the love by which he is loved and who wants to respond to it by loving even more." (2712)
"... the simplest expression of the mystery of prayer." (2713)
"... silence." (2717)
Romano Guardini defines it as an attempt to "apprehend the nature of God, to grasp the meaning of the Kingdom of God, to gain insight into the condition of man and an understanding of one's own place in the pattern of things, to obtain a true picture of the world" (The Art of Praying, 110). Also from the Art of Praying:

When contemplative prayer is rightly practiced it sooner or later tends to become very simple... Step by step, however, the subject of contemplation will become both simpler and more compelling. Our thoughts will diminish in number but gain in depth and concentration. The words will come more sparingly, and ultimately the inward prayer is resolved in silence or even in something which goes beyond the duality of speech and silence (110). 

Alright, so that is contemplative prayer, but what is contemplative life? It is simply the living-out of the prayer. If you are woefully unsatisfied with that answer, I understand. This is like teaching someone to surf. I can explain the mechanics of surfing in less than a minute, I can even show you what to do in a couple of minutes. Now try to do it. Like surfing, contemplation is a profoundly simple concept but a very difficult practice. Again, what is contemplative living? In New Seeds of Contemplation the Trappist monk Thomas Merton says, "It is an awakening, enlightenment, and the amazing intuitive grasp by which love gains certitude of God's creative and dynamic intervention in our daily life".

There is a film (I use the term loosely) that everyone should be made to watch. It's called Surf's Up and it stars talking, surfing, animated penguins. Before you roll your eyes (wife of mine), remember that the Church commands that because God is the author of all truth we are obligated to recognize truth from wherever it comes. Anyway, there is a scene where the old master of the surfing penguins is asked how to determine the best surfer on the beach. He laughs and responds, "It's the one having the most fun." The contemplative life is not about being better or more or further than others. The best contemplative life is the one closest to God and therefore, in the purest and most theologically correct form of the word, it's the one having the most fun.

Dragonfly Paradox

The picture (it's awesome isn't it) was taken by an incredible local photographer named Gary Norbraten. There's a lot more of his work here: http://www.blaryphotography.com/ his site is also linked at the bottom of the page. Trust me, you won't be disappointed. What always amazes me about photography is the ability to capture a single moment, an instant, in a constantly moving world. The ripples in the water, the wings of the dragonfly, these are object always in motion but in the photograph, they are still. It is when everything is still and everything is quiet that we begin to notice subtle movement. Think about sitting in an airplane (I recently flew to and from Luxembourg with my family; a nine-hour flight with two kids is a penance). The plane is moving at a mind boggling speed (at least to me it is). The earth is moving, the clouds are moving, but we hardly notice it. Now, think about standing on a corner waiting to cross the street as traffic whips by. That is movement you really notice. If we run with the wind we don't feel it. It's not until we stop that we know the wind is blowing.

A great paradox of our spiritual lives: it's not until we learn to be still that we can know the movements of God. It's not until we come to a stand-still that we really begin to move. We have to be willing to listen for the "still, small voice", but we can't hear it if we don't stop talking. For us modern-type Americans there are few things more difficult than to be still. We don't like it. Stillness makes us uncomfortable. A nagging feeling that we should be doing something, anything, so long as it moves in some direction that we can label accomplishment washes over us the moment we try to sit. We don't like it because it is quiet, it is stillness.

The question is why are we so afraid of stillness and silence? In our world of iphones and emails and TV and the multitude of daily distractions we face there is a siren-call opportunity to never know stillness and silence. Well, my best guess, and let me know if you think I'm way off base; we are scared of what we might find in the silence. St. Bonaventure is attributed as saying (paraphrase) that if you "ask a man about his image of God you are more likely to get his image of himself". The frightening aspect of still-silence is that we must accept God as He comes, which also means facing ourselves as God sees us. All of our illusions of who God is begin to fall away and we realize that even if we know creed and sacrament very often we have made God in our image instead of the other way around. We have to take Him as He has revealed Himself to us. We don't get to pick and choose, that option has not been left open. However, He has chosen to reveal Himself in a way that is without coersion, so we are able to hold on to our idols.

Back to the photograph. We are like that that dragonfly perched on the tail end of a tiny stick in a great, moving stream. We convince ourselves that we like our pinpoint existence because we are afraid to leave the perceived safety of our little stick. We know there is an ocean around us. We think we can be planted firmly in our shaky tower and we won't be washed away. But as soon as we take the first step off the branch we realize that our stick was never any consolation. It was false security, a cardboard castle. We realize that there's nothing be afraid of by letting go, by dying to the pathetic world we've created. Playing in the ocean is so much more fun than hiding on the beach.