Quote for the Day
“You can’t know,” said the girl. “You can only believe — or not.”
— C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
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21
May
20
Believe in = Embrace the Mystery of
I spoke with a friend recently about the concept of belief. We talked about the challenges of believing in the postmodern world. Joni Mitchell sums it up nicely in her song “The Same Situation”:
Still I sent up my prayer
Wondering where it had to go
With heaven full of astronauts
And the Lord on death row…
Much of the contemporary difficulty, I think, comes from the fact that belief has, culturally speaking, come to imply a sort of suppression of rational or cognitive doubt: “I believe in Santa Claus” means I affirm the idea that a man lives in the north pole and distributes presents to children all over the world on Christmas eve (well, he goes to the Netherlands on December 6), never mind all evidence to the contrary. And even if we can allow that “believing in Santa Claus” implies nothing more than accepting the power of Santa as myth or metaphor, as soon as you raise the stakes and start talking about believing in God or believing in Jesus Christ, the waters get muddier and murkier. It’s one thing to believe in Santa-the-myth, but if we start talking about “the mythic Christ,” tempers flare and anxiety levels rise.
Here’s something I wrote way back in the mid 1990s, which appears in my first book, Spirituality:
Even more interesting is the etymology of “belief.” It stems from an Ind0-European word, lubh-, which means “to hold dear” or “to like.” Lubh-, incidentally, is the same ancient root from which love originates. This connection between belief and love suggests that belief has something to do with being in relationship. To believe means to trust and to love. To believe in the Sacred means to love the Sacred — and to be the Sacred’s beloved. To believe in God means to trust, depend on, and rely on God. Belief is not a matter of certainty or lack of doubt. Belief is a matter of emotional openness. Belief grows out of such characteristics of spirituality as willingness and vulnerability.
From the perspective of mysticism or contemplation, perhaps it is best if we lay aside any temptation to link belief with certainty. Perhaps it is the glory of belief that it is awash with unknowing. Not an anti-intellectual, willfully naive unknowing, but a humbler recognition that all human knowledge is suspended over the vast mystery of a cosmos that is beyond our capacity for full understanding. In other words, an unknowing that comes only when we are forced to acknowledge the limitations of our knowledge, our perception, our capacity for reason and analysis. We can dissect God, we can prove (or disprove) God’s existence, we can rest painfully in the unanswered questions of theodicy or the mystery of suffering. And then we face a choice. Do we retreat into nihilism and despair, or at best, a nontheistic humanism (which is more or less what so many secularized intellectuals opt for in our culture), or do we, seeking to continue the conversation of our centuries-old wisdom tradition, choose with joyful hope to embrace the mystery?
What if we recast the creed, substituting “embrace the mystery of” for “believe in”? Consider this as a tool for your own spiritual reflection.
We embrace the mystery of one God, the Father, the Almighty.
We embrace the mystery of one Lord, Jesus Christ, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen; the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father…
We embrace the mystery of the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father (and the Son)…
We embrace the mystery of one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
Maybe this won’t solve all the problems of belief in the postmodern age. But if nothing else, it might open up some new ways of approaching the question of how do we “do” faith in our time, consistent with the calling of contemplative spirituality.
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May
19
Quote for the Day
The cloud of unknowing is that dark and obscure knowledge and love that fills the mind of the contemplative when, void of images and discursive reasoning, it rests silently in God in mystical sleep. The knowledge now suffusing the mind is only that of a faith which, nakedly divorced from any human consideration whatsoever, finds God’s truth in His revelation in Christ; and from this knowledge springs a love that touches the very essence of God, bringing yet a higher wisdom. This darkness of faith and love and wisdom is in reality a dazzling light that blinds the mind of the contemplative, thus leaving him in the mists of the cloud.
— William Johnston, The Mysticism of The Cloud of Unknowing
| 1 commentsMay
18
The Beard is Dead, Long Live the Beard
Last night I shaved.
Here I am in my full bearded glory...
... and after the deed was done.
May
17
More endorsements!
Several other folks have praised The Big Book of Christian Mysticism since I published the first round of endorsements on this blog a few days back. Here are the latest kind words:
Carl McColman has both studied and practised the Christian mystical tradition, stressing its earthiness and ‘ordinariness’. Like Thomas Merton, Michael Ramsey and others, he holds that mysticism is not an esoteric realm, reserved for the very holy, but is what all Christian life is about. I strongly commend this book.
— Kenneth Leech, author of Soul Friend:
Spiritual Direction in the Modern World
A brilliant contribution from a clear, concise and articulate author! Carl McColman’s Big Book deepens the conversation as he explores the paradoxes of the mystical/traditional approaches, outlines the bias against cultivating an interior life and illuminates the reader on practices to embrace in order to relate to a dynamic Living God.
— Lauren Artress, author of
Walking a Sacred Path
Mysticism is at the heart of faith, whatever religious or denominational flag we raise. Thoughtful, well-written doorways into these mysteries, such as this one, matter a great deal to all of us who seek communion with the Mystery Itself.
— Robert Benson, author of
In Constant Prayer
If you’d like to see what other folks (like Richard Rohr, Carolyn Myss, Brian McLaren, and Phyllis Tickle) have said, click here. And if you haven’t done so already, I hope you’ll take a moment and pre-order the book here: The Big Book of Christian Mysticism.
May
16
Is there such a thing as too many books?
I am trying to lose weight. Actually, I’m a good 15-18 pounds lighter than I was in November, when I first resolved to trim up. I’d still like to take another 20 pounds off, so I’m only about halfway to my goal. When people ask me how I’ve managed to lose the weight I’ve already taken off, I always shrug and say that I have no particular diet: my basic game plan is “eat less, move more.” In other words, I try to be mindful of my portion sizes and I try to keep exercise and physical activity as a priority.
I’m still thinking a lot about the conversation I had last week with a monk who suggested that I need to be spending less time reading and more time engaged in my spiritual practice of prayer and contemplation. I literally have a house full of books, and the vast majority of them I have not read, or only read in part. This, I know, is not unusual for educated, reasonably affluent American writers, particularly since once the publishers discover someone like me (who often blogs about books), they start sending out free books in the hopes that I’ll mention them in my blog. Even worse (as my wife likes to remind me), if I ask a publisher for a complimentary copy of a newly published book, often they’ll send it along. The moral of the story: I have a book addiction, and I acquire the things faster than I can usefully read them. I am book-fat.
If the way to lose excess flesh is to eat less and move more, then it seems that the only way to overcome the problem of book-fat is to acquire fewer books and simply set about to reading the ones I already have (which, frankly, will probably see me through to the end of my life). But instead of “moving more,” the process of abandoning compulsive book acquisitions probably will indeed require contemplating more. Engaging in the silent process of seeking and resting in the presence of God is probably the only real antidote to the rather materialistic (read: gluttonous) habit of continually buying (or begging for) still more reading material.
None of us can read our way into the presence of God. The only real point behind spiritual reading is to encourage us to, finally, put the book down and get on with the business of prayer, meditation, contemplation, and the work of loving one another. Mind you, I’m not suggesting that spiritual reading should be abandoned altogether (that would be silly, considering that I have just finished writing my own book on Christian spirituality), but I do think that reading is like eating: it’s possible to both over-do and under-do it. I suspect that book-anorexics probably are not much for reading blogs either, so I don’t imagine too many of my readers suffer from that particular problem. But if you, like me, have too much book-fat in your life (warning signs include acquiring books faster than you can read them, and rather compulsively reading pretty much every spare moment of the day), then perhaps my monastic friend’s advice would be useful for you, too. Read less, pray more. Read less, meditate more. Read less, contemplate more.
Here are a few quotations from www.quotationspage.com to ponder as we consider how to find the perfect balance between the right amount of reading and a meaningful practice of contemplation in our lives.
Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
— Albert Einstein
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I’ll have a long beard by the time I read them.
— Arnold Lobel
Readings is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought.
— Arthur Helps
Never read a book through merely because you have begun it.
— John Witherspoon
The multitude of books is making us ignorant.
— Voltaire
| 0 commentsMay
15
A Photo Essay of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit
If you would like to see some photographs from the monastery where I work, including some rare shots from inside the cloister, follow this link:
Georgia Monastery Strives to Be Self-Sufficient
The occasion for this little photo essay was the groundbreaking at the Monastery on Tuesday, for a new “monastic heritage center” (which will include a new bookstore!).
| 0 commentsMay
14
The meaning and purpose (and types) of prayer
A reader named Steven responded to my Wasting Time with God post by writing, in part:
Carl, the terms “prayer,” “contemplation,” “meditation,” “non-discursive contemplation,” have been used in this conversation. I would very much like to understand how you would distinguish between them. Furthermore, I am trying to come to a deeper appreciation of the meaning and purpose of prayer.
Forgive me for not getting too detailed in my response here, for two reasons: 1. it’s late, and I want to get to bed, and 2. I address these issues in further detail in the forthcoming book. So, for now, here is an admittedly brief response.
First of all, “non-discursive” is used only for the purpose of adding emphasis. Talking about non-discursive contemplation is rather like talking about the very truth. Contemplation, as I understand it, is by its very nature non-discursive, or at least has as its goal the entry into a non-discursive way of relating to the divine.
Now, as for the distinctions between prayer, contemplation and meditation (please keep in mind that I am defining and using these terms explicitly in terms of the Christian wisdom tradition. My definitions may not make sense in other contexts):
- Both contemplation and meditation are forms of prayer;
- Contemplation is a form of meditation.
Therefore, let’s start with the broadest term (prayer), and finish up with the narrowest (c0ontemplation).
Prayer, as I understand it, involves communion/communication with God. Now we can go down the rabbit hole of “what is God?” but I’ll save that for another day. If the marker “God” makes you uncomfortable, try replacing it with “Holy Mystery.”
Just as there a variety of ways in which human beings can communicate (verbally, non-verbally) and for a variety of reasons (to get something done, to enjoy intimacy), so too prayer can take on a variety of forms, methods, techniques, and purposes. But it seems to me that whether we are praying to get something from God or simply to enjoy God; whether we pray using lots of words we find in a book or simply sharing the unrehearsed words of our hearts or employing a technique to silence the words in our mind, it all boils down to some action or dimension of communion or communication with God (the Holy Mystery).
So both the meaning and purpose of prayer is to facilitate such communion or communication.
Meditation, as a type or category of prayer, represents that point where we begin to relinquish control over our own prayer. It’s easy to approach prayer as if you need to be making a speech while God, your heavenly secretary, quietly takes good notes. But eventually such prayer dries up. Meditation (in the Christian sense) implies a quieter, more reflective, pondering or thoughtful consideration of God, or of some other aspect of your faith & relationship with the Holy Mystery. We pray using words for rain, but we meditate on God’s goodness. We pray with words to confess our sins, but we meditate on God’s forgiveness. We pray discursively to praise God, but we still our mind to simply rest in God’s praiseworthiness.
In the classical Christian understanding of the word, meditation can still be filled with thoughts, ideas, feelings, and mental chatter. It is, essentially, a cataphatic form of prayer, which is to say prayer that uses concepts and words and images to reach out to God. But there comes a point when we begin to recognize just how impoverished even the loftiest words and thoughts and concepts are when it comes to God. It seems that any word or image or concept that reveals God also in some significant way conceals God. It seems that the more we pray, the more we meditate, the more we mysteriously and inexplicably feel called to a place beyond words, beyond concepts and images, beyond anything that seems to come between us and God. The more and more we are able to move into this prayer beyond words, beyond images, the more we have embraced the path of contemplation.
Now, a number of “methods” or techniques for contemplation have been developed over the centuries, from John Cassian encouraging the repetition of Psalm 70:1 (69:2 in the Douay version) to the eastern fathers and the Jesus prayer, to the centering prayer movement in our own day. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with such intentional forms of prayer that aim to enter into contemplation, but I think that, ultimately, contemplation is a gift, that may or may not be given to us, even when we engage in a method or a technique. Repeating the Jesus prayer for hours a day may not make you a mystic, it could just mean you’re obsessive and compulsive. So, while such techniques for contemplation do exist, it’s important to keep in mind that what efforts to still or slow down the mind actually do is to dispose us to the mysterious action of the Holy Spirit — which may or may not take us where we “want” to go. It’s helpful, therefore, to keep in mind that even the apophatic (no-images) form of contemplative prayer is, at the foundation, still a form of prayer: seeking communion or communication with the Holy Other. And just like human-to-human communication, it doesn’t always go the way we want it to or think it should.
Okay, I’m begin to nod off, so I’ll end here. I hope this helps to make these terms at least a wee bit clearer, and perhaps will initiate further discussion and consideration from those who are more clever (or at least, more alert) than I am…
| 0 commentsMay
12
Quote for the Day
Those who are perfectly humble lack nothing, physically or spiritually, because God is all abundance.
— The Cloud of Unknowing, Carmen Butcher translation
| 0 commentsMay
11
Wasting Time with God
Yesterday one of the older monks had to pick up a printing job, and so he needed a ride into town to the print shop. He could have asked a novice or a monastic guest to drive him in, but he chose me. I was delighted at the thought of spending an hour with this monk, whose loving personality and palpable holiness I have admired for a long time. It turned out to be almost two hours — the print shop was further away that I realized. Little did I know how the conversation would go. I’m not sure if he planned on this or not. I suppose it doesn’t matter.
After a bit of small-talk chatting, we got onto the subject of the challenges facing monasticism, between declining vocations, aging communities, and the difficulties of adapting to the economic realities of the postmodern world. A frequent theme for this monk was his concern over the decline in contemplative practice, even among those who have given their lives to the cloister. As a layman, I supposed myself to be beyond his astute critique. But I was mistaken.
Before I fully realized what was happening, my companion had stopped talking about monks and monasticism, and began a litany of complaint against the many authors and teachers of contemplation and Christian spirituality who, in his opinion, do not live the life they are teaching. I won’t name names here, but everyone he spoke of he knew personally, and more than one person he mentioned was someone whose work I admired. Slowly the noose was tightening around me, and still I hadn’t caught on.
The monk spoke about how writers and teachers get so caught up in their message, and their audience, and the “business” end of the work they are doing, that they either stop praying altogether or maybe only give ten minutes a day to their practice. As he said this, I grimaced a little, for I caught a glimmer of recognition there. Then, finally, he sprung the trap.
“I think a mature contemplative needs to be devoting two hours a day to their practice. And while normally lay people simply cannot embrace such a discipline given the challenges of work and family, I would think that anyone who is writing about the contemplative life probably needs that level of commitment, whether inside or outside of the cloister.”
I gulped.
“Well, father, I’m nowhere near that level of practice.”
“I know,” he said gently. “Carl, you are very sincere, and I admire that about you. And you’ve written a wonderful book. But now you face a difficult question. Are you going to live the life, or are you just going to talk and write about it?”
“I don’t know that I have two hours a day to give, father.”
“Maybe you need to be reading fewer books.”
Ouch again. He knew right where to poke, didn’t he? By now I made no pretense of hiding my defensiveness. “But I love the reading I do. Are you saying I need to give all that up?”
“Of course you’re going to read. The question is, how much? Are you so committed to staying ‘current’ that your contemplative life gets sacrificed? What good does that do — you, or anyone else? Which comes first, reading or prayer?”
As we pulled back onto the monastery grounds, he paid me a wonderful compliment, especially since he is one of the brothers who has already read my book. “Carl, you have written your masterpiece. Don’t throw away your spiritual life trying to write another one.”
Back in the store, I needed to call my wife to make plans for the evening, and I told her about this conversation. As I expected, she just laughed, and said she would have to be sure to give this particular monk a hug the next time she saw him. “But honey, how can we devote two hours a day to prayer?” I said, hoping desperately that she would commiserate with me. But no such luck. “Yes, I know we’re not there yet,” she replied, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t be working toward it.”
At one point during the conversation the monk defined contemplation as “wasting time with God.” If I am bluntly honest with myself, I know I waste a good two hours a day, between reading silly stuff online (do I really need to know about iPhone prototypes that get lost in California bars?), watching TV (I don’t do a lot of that, but I do some), playing games on my iPhone (ditto), shopping for books online (just because I have a house full of the things doesn’t mean I don’t want more), and — dare I say it? — Facebook. Okay, okay. If I can waste time all these other ways, why not waste more time with God?
I’m not suggesting to my readers that everyone needs to be suddenly devoting two hours a day to contemplation, just because that’s how my monastic friend challenged me. In fact, I believe most people probably shouldn’t attempt more than an hour a day, without competent spiritual guidance. And if you’re not meditating/contemplating an hour a day, twenty minutes or even ten minutes a day is better than nothing. But perhaps all of us can consider how much time we waste every day, doing stuff for no other reason than it’s silly or fun. I don’t think we have to eliminate silly or fun from our lives, but that’s like saying we don’t have to eliminate chocolate or potato chips, either. A healthy diet means lots of fruits and vegetables and only the occasional candy bar. Likewise, a healthy contemplative life means more silence and less Facebook. I have a long way to go on this one myself, so I offer these words not in a spirit of judgment, but rather with an open-ended sense of possibility: if we want to waste time with God, just how far can we take it?
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