Three Little Birds

Before you read this I humbly request you listen to Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds".

So, our Clementine tree is full of fruit, and yesterday it looked like we should be able to pick it today. Every time I see that tree, with the fruit slowly ripening, it reminds to keep things simple. It reminds of the joy found in simplicity. The theological concept of simplicity ties in with the previous post concerning non-attachment. But talking about simplicity and non-attachment also brings up a host of issues that have to be worked out be each person on their own terms.

Simplicity is not being lazy, cheap, or irresponsible. The purpose of simplicity is to free us from the desires of the world so we can pursue God with our whole being. Simplicity, at least in large part, is pretty subjective. For instance you may really be attached to something like cars whereas I could care less about cars so long as it can carry surfboard and has an A/C. But then again, you could maybe careless about surfboards, or to a greater degree, living in place you can surf (that's a strong attachment). What this means is that to achieve a degree of simplicity of life is something we have to judge for ourselves in so far as we are able to measure the extent that we are attached to world and the extent to which the distractions of a hectic life impede spiritual progress. Simplicity is a major theme in contemplative religious orders; the simpler our lives the fewer things calling for our attention. A Trappist will own nothing and live in very sparse conditions because he knows that through a renunciation of material goods he is free of all the complications and distractions that come from them, he is simple.

How are we, the laity, supposed to achieve simplicity? After all, if we have a family we have to house, clothe, and feed that family. As much as I would like to, I don't think I could get away with wearing the same thing to work everyday. Because of where I live it would be nearly impossible to get rid of my car. So what can we do? In a very rudimentary sense this is where people like Dave Ramsey and a few others make sense (albeit at an extremely basic level). To get out of debt, to not owe anybody anything, to only have what you can pay for, this is a starting place only because lack of debt frees you. To remove the obstacle of financial debt is not only physically freeing but it is  huge mental burden released. Now you can concentrate on God instead of car payments (notice I don't say mortgage payments; I am a realist). I do know that when my mortgage is paid off I will have a party.

Back to the topic: Simplicity and non-attachment go hand-in-hand. To remove attachment is to simplify. To simplify is to begin to know true freedom; why? Because we know that the "Truth will set us free". Once we begin the process of simplification we begin the process of recognizing our buyer's remorse and return the lie we bought; that the world would provide contentment and stuff would make us happy and free.

In a practical sense, think about the things that pull at you the hardest. I mean, of course, the bad things, not things like family or community. Although even these can be detrimental to the extent they distract us from our real mission, to know God. See what I mean about it getting difficult? Anyway, go back to those things that pull and distract, the useless things. How about the TV or the Internet? How about work (yes, Dad, I said work)? For an example I'll use TV. Most of us know we spend too much time watching TV and even if we don't (don't know or don't admit), we would probably agree that at a point we are using TV as a distraction. Let me qualify this by saying I am the last person that is going to say something like we shouldn't watch TV because it isn't productive. The Cult of Productivity is one the deadliest heresies in American culture. But, instead of TV you could be engaged in something that you are really passionate about, something that leads you into the eternal (like creating art or music, for instance). It is also possible that what takes the place of TV could be nothing. How may of us would love time to do nothing? Use the time to take a walk or sit on the patio, learn to enjoy the world God has created for us.

If nothing else, Advent is beginning in week or so, use the time to lose something and gain something. See how you like it.       

You're Killin' Me, Man

Original Painting by Jeff Montgomery

Now that the ranting is over, on to more important things. I alluded to non-attachment earlier and to the fact that insanity lies in continuing to do things we know don't work in the hope that THIS time it will work; essentially, we are insane. I also understand that to many people the idea of non-attachment or disciplines that include ascetic* practices are like dirty words, horribly offensive to the modern ear. But it doesn't need to be. In fact it should be welcome. The world has convinced us all to walk around with our heads up our... in the sand (that's better, but the imagery isn't as powerful).

I'm going to assume that no one reading this is a monk or cloistered nun, that I can focus primarily on those of us slogging it out in the ruins of Mammon. In a world that is built on the lie that more and newer equals happiness and contentment, the question is not just how can we practice non-attachment, but why? With all the gilded-crap that modern American life has to offer, why would I purposely limit my gluttonous life-style? After all, by the time the bottomless pit that is my carnal pleasure becomes a problem, they'll have invented a pill to fix it. The obvious, or maybe not, reason is that I know this is not reality. I know that such a life doesn't really make me happy (a moment) or content (an underlying state-of-being).

See, non-attachment is not simply denying myself all manner of pleasurable things. In fact, it only begins as denial. Denial is the infant stage of non-attachment. In its immaturity, non-attachment is the proverbial teenager: whiny, preachy, and without a real understanding of itself. The basic denial has to mature. In maturity, non-attachment is true freedom (like riding in a '76 Lincoln Continental between San Bernadino and San Diego). The true freedom comes from not being held hostage by vice. Freedom is the ability to move towards God unimpeded. Our attachments bind us; hold us back. Here's a simple example: if I define myself by what the world thinks of me, if my self-worth is dependent on meeting my cultural definition of success, I am not free to jump into the "Great Ocean" to quote the Dali Lama. My attachment to the world and to the successes of the world will hold me in chains on the shore. Once I am freed from an attachment to success as the world defines it, that attachment is no longer binding on me. This is a large part of what Jesus means when he says we have to "die to ourselves" in order to live.

To be non-attached does not mean that I have to become a stoic, joyless, hermit. The opposite should be true (again, issues of maturity here). Let's say I can accomplish the feat of destroying my attachment to particular people.  The modern instinct is to say, "That's horrible". Actually it's another of those pesky paradoxes of faith. The freedom from attachment to people doesn't make me without love or indifferent to others. Rather, freedom from attachment to a person or persons frees me to really love them, that is to love them without possession. As long as I am attached to a person, my love for them is contingent on whether that person fulfills my ideal of whatever attached me to them in the first place. However, if I am non-attached, I have relinquished an attachment to them that is dependent on an ideal created in my own mind. I would argue (though not here, for the sake of space) that much of the divorce and discontent in our culture is the result of attachment and when the object fails to live up to the ideal, to the fantasy, we are discontented. But if we are in a state of non-attachment (which really means a total attachment to God) we are able to love as God loves, or at least as close as we can get on this side of sanctity. To love as God loves is love without qualification. As Jesus says, "...to love and not count the cost."

The goal of non-attachment is not to free us to be indifferent, but to give ourselves away. It is the freedom to love and not demand or dominate. It is to love and not require or qualify. Every attachment binds us to a spiritual state that demands justification and keeps us from being what we are created to be. Every attachment we break allows us to enjoy the things of creation even more because we are not married to a preconceived notion or outcome. Each attachment we leave behind does not say, "You are useless, and unimportant and I leave you" but instead says, "I want to know you for what you really are, what you were created to and not what I imagine or demand you to be".

The challenge is to find the things we are attached to. What do we hold in such esteem that any deviation from expectations leaves us angry or discontent? Find it and leave it, or at least your attachment to it. I used to be discontented at living on the Gulf because it wasn't San Diego or Tamarindo. I learned that I was holding on to something that never actually was and it never would be. Once I realized that the Gulf is the Gulf, I loved it and don't want anything more. 

*asceticism (ascesis)- the practice of penance, mortification, and self-denial to promote greater self-mastery and to foster the way of perfection by embracing the way of the cross (CCC).

The Difference Difference Makes

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

"Emerald peaks polish heaven. I wander,
sweeping clouds away, forgetting years,

looking for the ancient Way. Resting
against a tree, I listen to stream water,

black ox dozing among warm blossoms,
white crane asleep in towering pines.

A voice calls through river-tinted dusk,
but I've descended into cool mist alone."

Li Po, Looking for Yung, the Recluse Master

I lied. Last week I said we would discuss practical ways to begin a practice of detachment. Well, we're not, at least not totally. What I want to focus on is the concept of different, of Other, particularly as it relates to our spiritual lives.

If we are going to pray and meditate, if we are to be able to let go we need a situation that invites letting go. We need a moment that invites ascension. We know when we are in a place that calls us into the Other. The Druids called it the Threshold; a place not exactly a place in a time not exactly a time. The Threshold is where heaven and earth meet, where the eternal touches the temporal, where the Other enters the Ordinary. Of course, this can happen at any time, whenever and however God chooses. But in the same way that prayer does not command a response from God, it does prepare us to better receive God; we can prepare a place that better enables us to enter into that Threshold. In essence this is what the church building is supposed to do. This is the intention of any sacred space. The intention is to elevate the heart and mind to the eternal, to the Other.

Many of us like to pretend that we aren't affected by things like the way a space is designed or the style of music we hear in reference in a given circumstance. I thought that. Then I realized (and maybe you're different) I am very much affected by sights and sounds, or as the popular saying goes with regard to the Church with "smells and bells". Perhaps I'm just not capable of separating the physical and spiritual. The world I inhabit physically does infect my spiritual life. However, I can't really see this as wrong or bad, after all, we are both physical and spiritual beings. Much of what we know and love begins with the senses. That being said, my contention is that a major hurdle for many of us (I know for me) in spiritual growth is a sense of the Other.

Now, I get to rant. One of my pet peeves is bad liturgical music and bad liturgy in general. I know there are plenty of arguments from both sides and I know that the mass is valid even if I don't like the music or think the mass lacks reverence, etc. So save the argument, this is purely personal taste. I just hope you will at least understand my point even if not agreeing. The mass is a Threshold. It is where the Other and the Ordinary meet. The problem is we are so infected with the Ordinary that we don't recognize the other. This is why a church shouldn't be a glorified high-school gym. This is why I shouldn't hear the same music at mass that hear on the radio. When I walk into the church I should be invited into the Other. I should know that I am in a sacred space. I should know that I am somewhere different. I would imagine anyone who has been to many of the old churches in Europe or Mexico understands the difference I'm talking about versus the average suburban American parish. I'm not saying it can't be done with modern style, it can, I've seen it, just not often. So I'm going to give you a thought experiment:

Imagine walking up to the door of a Gothic or Romanesque church that is 800 years old. Imagine the gargoyles and every other intricate detail carved into the stone. Try to see the spires that climb so high you nearly get vertigo looking up at them. Hear the creaking and feel the weight of a thirty-foot carved wooden door that is older than our country. You step inside and notice the cool silence only broken by the echo of steps on centuries old stone. You smell the lingering scent of incense and the warmth of the sun filtered through stained glass depictions of bloody saints holding their own severed heads or angels armed for medieval combat. Imagine dim light coming from gas chandeliers suspended by yards of heavy chain. Hear the reverberation of a single note struck on a low bell. The priest comes in a solemn procession behind the crucifix that is the Church's legion standard and ahead of the cloud pouring through the tinkling chains of the incensor, his robes and vestments sliding across the stone floor. He begins a low chant in a language that is not spoken but is eternal. The mass begins. You know something is about to happen. You know that Ordinary was left when the door was opened and the Other is here. Not just here in a vague spiritual sense, but here in a physical, tangible way; in sights, smells, and sounds. You know that you stand on the Threshold.

This is very different than walking into a modern parish. Imagine, if you would, but you probably don't have to imagine, simply remember last week, the nondescript double-steel doors, oddly similar to the ones at your kid's school, because they came from the same Home Depot. Note the feel of the aging low-pile carpet that you remember being a very hip color palate twenty years ago, now it just looks dated and gross. But don't worry, you won't have time to notice it before someone you have never met comes up to shake your hand and welcome you and had you a "worship-aid". As you move from the foyer (it used to called a narthex) into the church (again, the nave) you notice the comfortable stadium style pews arranged in the organic "round", so everyone can see better. You nearly genuflect out of habit, then realize you have no idea where the tabernacle is. As you prepare for the sacrifice of the mass you can't help but hear the many conversations going on around you so you try to concentrate on the crucifix that is the more palatable "Resurrection Jesus" who looks oddly like the lead singer from Alabama. The signal that mass is about to begin, a lady in a dated pantsuit will ascend to the Ikea podium and welcome everyone by asking that they turn off their phones and say "Hi" to those around them. Then, the first chord of the guitar is strummed, signaling the procession of clergy in tablecloths dancing down the isle in front of a clapping deacon who is singing "Jesus Loves Butterflies" two notes slow. After an obligatory bow to the alter and the banners with the latest Catholic PC slogan , the priest can get to what's really important, telling a few jokes to get everybody excited...

It's not that the modern mass is wrong or that it's invalid in any way. It just doesn't seem to invoke a real sense of the sacred, at least not for me. It doesn't make me think, "This is truly where heaven and earth meet." This is because from the moment I walk in the door there is more a feeling of a town hall meeting or a "praise and worship" session than an encounter with the Mystery of mysteries. I have to ask, why am I here? Am I here to be entertained? Am I here to move further into an ever-widening mystery that is our faith?

What a difference difference makes.