Blades of Grass

"If we study Japanese Art, we see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent, who spends his time doing what? In studying the distance between the earth and moon? No. In studying Bismark's policy? No. He studies a single blade of grass."  
  -- Vincent Van Gogh

In a fit of stupidity I agreed (several months ago) to participate in an art show. The show is on June 5. As of right now I'm about 3/4 finished with the second of five pieces we're supposed to provide. My primary discipline is painting, and I use acryllics, so I can't even say that I have to wait for the paint to dry and that's what is taking so long. I do have an innate tendency to paint things that are complicated, or very detailed (as a euphemism). Lately, though, I find myself drawn to simpler style. I also find that I enjoy a simpler style. 

The more contemplative my spirituality becomes I notice a tension between it and daily life. Of course, this shouldn't be. Hopefully it's just growing pains. The tension is that a contemplative life demands simplicity and our modern Western culture is anything but. Interiorly there is a longing to simplify the exterior in the same way that the interior simplifies.

When I say "simple" I don't mean "dumbed-down". I mean "essential". To simplify our lives means to get down to the essence of what life is, of what life is about. St. Augustine once said, "Love God, and do what you will." This is a terribly misunderstood and ill-used quote. It doesn't mean pay lip-service to God and then do whatever you want. It means that if you truly love God and order your life toward that love; then do what you will, because it is done in the context of Love of God. In this sense life suddenly becomes very simple. All the things our culture has reared us to worry about can fall away. They can fall because they don't matter, they never did.  

What does this have to do with Asian brush painting or blades of grass? Go back to the top and read the Van Gogh quote again. It's about how we clutter our lives with so many concerns that we don't notice the essence of what we are trying to depict. In the Taoist and Buddhist traditions harmony with nature is paramount, so the artist who is trying to depict nature studies nature. He doesn't just study nature, he contemplates the essence of nature. Anything that distracts him falls away as unimportant. In the Christian tradition we also want a harmony with creation but this comes from being united to God through Christ in the Holy Spirit. Anything that distracts us needs to fall away. We are trying to capture the essence of Christ in our lifes. We are trying to depict Christ in our lives, by our lives. This is what Van Gogh is getting at (well, maybe, but probably not).

The Buddhist painter contemplates the blade of grass in an effort to know the essence of that blade so that when he paints it one brush stroke tells us more about the grass than an entire book on horticulture. He is not trying to mimic the grass, he is trying to depict the grass: huge difference. 

The Christian contemplates the mysteries of Christ. He contemplates so that he becomes that single brush stroke. Our effort is not to mimic Christ, that is only surface, it's fake. We want to depict Him. In our lives we want to breathe the very essence of Christ; "Your will be done..." To do this we have to strip away the fascade and get to Who Christ is, not what we want Him to be or imagine Him to be to satiate our (to copy a new term) "therapudic deism". We want the brush stroke to be so complete in its understanding that in a single stroke is contained the will of God.       

Dawn Patrol

Getting up earlier than I get up for work. Not getting enough breakfast. Not getting enough coffee. Yet, somehow, it still feels like I won.

The dawn patrol is an ancient surfing phenomena where a person will get up way too early in an effort to catch the first wave of the day, with the rising sun. This practice usually results in being damp, smelly, and exhausted for the rest of the day. Also, probably late for work. Strangely enough, though I was late, no one seemed to notice. I don't know if that should bother me or not.

Going on a dawn patrol is part of what makes a surfer. There are many people that surf. Then there are surfers. It isn't about being first or catching the first wave or anything like that. It is more about being present. Surfing early in the morning is like a secret that is shared between you and the waves. While the world is still sleeping, you are surfing.

In the Christian life meditation and the moments of contemplation that come from it are the dawn patrol of the spiritual life. Meditation is waiting on the wave and contemplation is surfing. Mediation is first of all a self-denial; it the denial of the all-important "time" in the Western world. Even worse than wasting time, from an American view meditation commits the ultimate sin; being unproductive. Even more, meditation, if it leads to contemplation, creates a sense of the coming sunrise. It tells us that this is only the very beginning of new day.

I said that surfing in the morning is like a secret shared between you and the waves. Contemplation is a secret shared between you and God. The secret is (are you ready): Here I AM. Was that disappointing? I don't think so. In fact I think the opposite. The secret is that it's not a secret, anymore than it's a secret that there are waves in the morning. So why a secret? Again, like the waves, you have to be present. Everybody knows the waves are there, but they are asleep. If not asleep; busy. We are too busy, too distracted, too productive. We are too busy planning our future that we aren't here for the present. The secret that the Father whispers to His children is only a secret because we aren't listening. We don't have time to listen. No, we won't make time to listen.   

Though the culture may see you as wasting your time, being unproductive, and uselessly denying yourself; you know it's worth it. You know it's worth it because you share the secret; even if only for a moment. No matter what the world thinks, in the end, you know that while they were sleeping you were surfing.

Look at Me!

"Contemplation is nothing else than a secret, peaceful, and loving infusion of God, which if admitted, will set the soul on fire with the Spirit of love."

St. John of the Cross

There is a difference between a person who is religious and a person who is in possession of a spirituality. Before we go any further, I absolutely do not mean those people who utter one of the more stupid statements found in the modern world, "I'm spiritual but not religious". If you want to know why this is so stupid, please say so and I'll elaborate but that's not the point today.

You can be both religious and spiritual or you can be religious. What I mean here by religious is the very basic definition of one who adheres to a religion. In a bigger sense, this means a person who participates in the life of their religion. A religious person goes to church, or synagogue, or temple, or whatever. For our purposes I'll continue the example using Christianity. A religious person attends church (religiously). They tithe. They attend the church's functions. They even serve on things like councils and committees. Very often they are willing to take on leadership positions that have great demands on their time and talents. So... what's the problem? 

If a person is purely religious their piety is external. In other words, it's all for show. There are a couple of reason why this may be. The first is the "Checked-Box Religious" that sees their faith as a series of hurdles to be overcome. They want to make sure their card is punched. They treat God like a cosmic vending machine, "I put in my money, now You have to give me heaven". This is where some people get the idea (the wrong idea) that Catholics believe they can earn their way to heaven by doing good works. Basically, God is an accountant and you have to make sure your balance sheet adds up. 
The second reason is pure self-interest. They wear a thin veil of piety but in reality it's all about them and their ego. This person does all that they do in an effort to be recognized by the population. This is also the type that takes on many projects and then complains (which code for fishing-for-compliments) about all the work they do and all the time they spend at the church, etc.
The common thread running through both is that the outward signs all point to a holy life, on the inside there is no real love of God. 

However, to have a spiritual life implies a religious life. The spiritual life is the interior. Who we are or what we have on the interior is ultimately manifested in our exterior life, which is why I said one can be spiritual and religious; meaning one will certainly have the an exterior manifestation of the interior life. The interior life is what enables us to be religious even when there is no consolation. We are religious because we are spiritual, or we engage in the externals because of the internal. If a person loves God they will also love their neighbor. If a person loves God they will do good works. 

The externals that make up the religious part of our lives are only worth-while to the extent that they provide for continuing interior conversion. It doesn't matter how many rosaries you say if it is a mere mechanical action. What makes prayer "prayer" is the elevation of the heart and mind to God, not a recitation of words. A person is made holy by uniting their will to God's, not by serving on councils. A person who has a deep spirituality certainly may (and probably will) serve the community but they do it because they love God and their neighbor not because they are going to get a plaque or a mention at mass by the pastor. 

That being said, the interior life comes first. You can't help fix your neighbor's house when yours is crumbling. If our exterior life is impeding our interior life we need to step back, or step down, or whatever. If we have taken on so many pious "duties" that we have no time or inclination to actual piety, it's time to reevaluate. God is not an accountant, He is our Father. He doesn't want your balance sheet, He wants your heart.    

Shed the Wetsuit

The Gulf Coast took a moment in silent prayer over the last week. The water temperature is back over 70 degrees. For all the non-surfers; this is huge. The last few months have been a harrowing ordeal of swimming around in frigid water in skin-tight neoprene looking like something in between a B-movie Space Ranger and one of those yoga instructors that wear the unitards. Well, as of this week, they go back into storage until December.

Wetsuit, wetsuit, why do hate you so? You are tight and uncomfortable. You are constricting and have a seam in all the wrong places. You fill your cells with frigid water that no only sucks the life from me so that my body hovers 1/2 a degree from hypothermia, but you also add several pounds of dead weight and at my age it ALL counts.

However, it's more than that. Shedding the wetsuit is more than getting rid of a piece of uncomfortable clothing. It's the shedding of a false self. It is getting rid of a man-made skin that separates you from fully engaging the wave. Essentially, it's a barrier. There is nothing like the feeling of a wave washing over bare skin. There is nothing like the feeling of the warm sun on your shoulders after being washed by cool water. And there is also nothing like the feeling of the salt rubbing on your slightly sunburned back, and you know it absolutely worth it.

The wetsuit is our ego. It is a barrier, a false barrier, that prevents us from true intimacy with the wave. Our ego is false self that acts as a barrier to true intimacy with God and each other. Just as the wetsuit is a self-imposed isolation that keeps the water out (and keeps us stewing in our own filth), so does our ego isolate us from true surrender to the love of God and the love that we are called to extend to each of our brothers and sisters. So long as we insist on presenting a false self to the world we can never actually find intimacy with another person, we aren't really invested. We are always holding something back.

This Lent, my challenge to myself is to shed the spiritual wetsuit. My goal is remove the barriers that I have set up to protect a fragile ego that really isn't worth protecting. The potential is to be an walking, talking, moving, breathing manifestation of the Love of God. The reality is that so long as I cling to my ego I am only a manifestation of love of myself.

Vacation

No post this week. I'm on vacation and that means vacation from everything except surf (and apparently yard work).

Teacher, Teacher...

We all remember with fondness (or lack of) elementary school. I'm sure we remember that there were, and still are, subjects that we seem to understand better that others. Because of our background; that is our childhood, our education, our environment, and our own innate capabilities we have a slightly nuanced approach to life.

Back to grade-school: I am a teacher with a class of twenty students (all you teachers out there, stop rolling your eyes, I know it should really be about 35 students but only 28 desks and 25 books) and I am teaching them basic algebra. First, it must be assumed that if I am teaching algebra I know algebra (again, teacher stop laughing) and I'm not just making it up as I go. Again, not only must I know algebra but know it well enough to spot mistakes and teach it. But here's the problem: as stated above, everyone of those twenty students is different. I can teach algebra to the class. The entire class got the same lecture, same examples, same worksheets, same everything. So why do some excel, some fail, and some inhabit that squishy middle section we call "average"?

There will be a certain percentage that will immediately grasp the concepts, will excel, and will move on to higher math with little interference. Albeit this is a very small percentage. Then there is the opposite end of the spectrum that is also a small percentage of those who will fail. There are many questions that arise when you have some excelling and others failing. Finally, there is that large middle-range of those who are not excelling or failing but muddling through. Let's take each in turn:

Those who excel: Are they born smarter than the others? Probably not. I'm not aware of any scientific test that can be performed to distinguishes two normal human brains and determine one is smart and the other dumb. Is it environment? Did the parents or previous teachers provide an environment that nurtured the development of engagement with regards to academic study? Is it possible that they have a personality that inclines them to pay attention better? It's not that they are any smarter, they just listen. Instead of playing with their shoes or drawing on their worksheet they are actively engaged in the lesson. However the understanding occurs; it does, in a tangible and demonstrable way.

Those who fail: Again, are they born dumber than the others? And again, probably not. However, study after study has shown that if parents do not value education and create and environment that encourages exploration and the desire to learn, the children have a high risk of academic failure, or struggle at the very least. This is not to say that a kid raised by parents who have no education and don't care about education and even ridicule a child attempting an education won't excel, just that the odds are not in his favor. There is another factor here. The kid could come from a very different background than one that is anti-intellectual, in fact the opposite. The background could be one of entitlement and expectation (on the kid's part). If the child is raised in such a way that they are given all they desire without any expectation on their part, what are they learning? Why should I bother to learn, I get whatever I want whether I know this or not, whether I get good grades or not. It's not that the child has the cards stacked against him or that he is antithetical to learning, he just doesn't care, because he doesn't have to. These are the kids who are playing with their shoe-strings and drawing on their worksheets. And, again, this is shown in a very tangible way: lack of understanding.

Then there is the middle: these are the kids that represent most of us. They somewhat get get. They try. They get get some right, some wrong, but ultimately it prove that they have a working understanding but not a spectacular showing. In other words; they are average.

In end, however, what cannot be said is that it's the teacher's fault. All the students were presented with the same material that of an appropriate level as their grade suggests. All were given the same opportunity to see examples, to ask questions, etc. The difference is the student. Some will hang on the teacher's every word, internalizing the lesson so that it becomes ingrained in them and algebra becomes second-nature. Others will listen as best they can, and will for the most part get it. They will make many, many mistakes, but they genuinely want to learn. If the don't succeed by natural ability they will succeed by perseverence. Then there are the those who don't listen, don't care, and will not learn. They will not learn, not because they can't but becasue they won't. They would rather sleep, pass notes, whatever. And in the end, they will fail.

We are all given the same lecture. Granted, we all come with different burderns. It will be easy for some and incredibly difficult for others. However, ultimately, it is our choice. It is each of us that excel or fail or waver in mediocrity. It's not our parents, our environment, or anything but us. So what are we doing. Are we listening intently or playing with our shoes-string?

Fight the Good Fight

I don't know why (probably because I'm teaching a class on the Book of Job), but I've been thinking a lot about evil and the nature of, well, bad things that happen. Before I go any further I want to say that Job is not a book about evil. It is about the theological implications of suffering and how that relates to God and man. I simply said; it got me thinking about evil. I suppose we could argue that suffering is evil, if we were so inclined, but I don't think that is a very strong position. I was more thinking about the existence of evil and how there are many people who use the tangible reality of evil to claim God does not exist. So I'll do a few things in this short post: First, we should define evil. Then, just to clear it up, I'll demonstrate why I think it is erroneous to lump suffering (general) in with evil. Finally, in a very brief way, I hope to show that the reality of evil does not disprove God rather it acts as evidence for Him.

So, evil: the opposite or absence of good. Physical evil (like natural disasters, illness, etc.) is the result of being "en route" in a fallen world towards perfection in God where the possibility must exist for the less-perfect to be alongside the more-perfect. Moral evil is the free choice to sin, that is the freedom to act against God and thus against perfection. This evil is permitted to allow for and to respect free-will. (Catechism of the Catholic Church).

Why don't I think all suffering should be lumped in with evil? I'll have to break suffering down. The first reason is that when people speak of suffering (when rendering it evil) are talking about physical suffering. Here I mean physical as opposed to spiritual, not as opposed to mental; many mental sufferings have a physical cause and are treatable through physical means. Some not all of our physical sufferings aren't even sufferings at all because we intend them; like soreness after exercise or the pain from vaccinations, etc. Self-inflicted suffering for a good cannot be evil. Then there is the other self-inflicted suffering; the unintentional. This is the suffering that we bring on ourselves though mis-calculation (like, say, a sports injury). I certainly could not maintain with any theological certainty that because I hit myself with my surfboard trying to do a trick I never should have tried that God does not exist, or that what happened is evil. Then there is the self-inflicted suffering that that is unintentional but is a result of abuse of freedom, like the suffering that comes from drug abuse. Of course, there is always the unintentional, not self-inflicted suffering. This type is easier to regard as evil, given the definition above.

Unintentional suffering that is not self inflicted is the closest variation that we can really call evil. The famous atheist of the early 20th century Bertrand Russell once commented that a telling a child who is dying in a hospital bed that God loves him and he is going to heaven is not really any consolation at all. True. But what can an atheist like Russell say to that same child, "Sucks to be you"? If evil is the absence of good several implications are made. The most important being that when something is declared evil it implies that there is some objective, universal thing we call "good" that it is being measured against. For Christians, and most other theists, this objective and universal good we would call God, or at the very least an attribute of God. Essentially, for evil to exist it's opposite must exist, and that is God. This is because evil in-and-of itself is nothing, it is only the absence of good. Think darkness. Darkness is nothing. Darkness is only the absence of light. Darkness can only exist where light is not. They are not equals. Light always conquers dark. So, one more time, evil is nothing, it is the absence of good. Evil can only exist where good is not.

The other implication is the problem. If there is a universal, objective good that we measure evil against, then we must concede that there are absolute truths. If something is good it is always good. Evil is always evil. If not, we have nothing. If there is no objective, unchanging good then all this talk about good and evil is pointless. If good and evil are constructs of my own mind then they are just as meaningless as any other construct of my mind and only bear any weight so far as I can force others to follow them. If you and I are allowed to differ greatly on what we consider good and evil then the idea and the term are arbitrary. If they are arbitrary, they are nothing. I hope you catch where this must logically follow.

If there is no objective good then there is no objective evil. On the surface this may not sound bad. What it really means is that all of life boils down to different strokes for different folks. Again, not so bad, until my strokes and your strokes are in disagreement. Then it comes down to contest of strength: might makes right. Hitler wasn't really evil, he just had a different idea of good than we do and he had the power to institute his view of life, but we can't say that he is evil, that would be forcing our morals on him, and that's not right. But wait, the idea that it's not right to force your moral view on others is statement of objectivity. So if I think it's right to force a morality and you think it's wrong, you can't tell me I'm wrong, that would be asserting an objective morality. In the end, we have to either admit that absolutes and objective good exists and evil is the absence or opposite of that good, or we must jettison the whole idea of good and evil and start our new life in the Thunderdome.

Either God exists, or evil does not.