Real Presence: A Method For Finding God In All Things 403l28

REAL PRESENCE:

A Method for Finding God in All Things

ROBERT COLACURCIO, PHD.

Copyright © 2012 by Robert Colacurcio, PhD.

ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4797-4865-5 Ebook 978-1-4797-4866-2

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Contents

Introduction to Real Presence

Chapter One Baptism As Initiation

Chapter Two Confirma Me, Domine

Chapter Three Order Up Some Space

Chapter Four Misalignment

Chapter Five Realignment Of The Spiritual Vehicle

Chapter Six The Wisdom Of Spacious Graciousness

Chapter Seven Eucharistic Presence

Chapter Eight The Wisdom Of Emptiness

Chapter Nine Epilogue

Afterword

Footnotes to Real Presence

Dedication

Introduction to Real Presence

This book is written with devout Christians, especially Catholic Christians in mind, for adults seeking an entry into a deeper daily connection with the mysterious presence of the divine in all things. I write for Catholics in particular because I know them best. I was raised a devout Catholic, entered the Society of Jesus after being taught by the Jesuits in high school, and received my doctorate in philosophy from the Jesuit university of Fordham. Three years shy of ordination I left. When asked why I left the Jesuits, I first give the short answer: because it stopped being real food. If pressed to say more, I ask, “How do you know when you’re hungry?” This question is not meant to be rhetorical, but it usually evokes the same silent response. When you are hungry, it is undeniable. You would dismiss the sophist as a fool if he tried to persuade you otherwise. Physical hunger is not satisfied by argument, and neither is spiritual hunger. In my case, the experience of the monastic life was paradoxically luxurious. I loved the strict disciplined routine. I loved the asceticism of rigorous study. I loved the idea of the magis, doing more and being more ad majorem dei gloriam (for the greater glory of God). The monastic experience for me was a satisfying feast for the mind and heart… until it wasn’t. Slowly, slowly a conceptualized awareness arose into consciousness of a deep dissatisfaction and spiritual hunger. The best had given me the best they had to offer, and it wasn’t sufficient. It didn’t suffice to give me a way to enter into a deeper daily connection with the mysterious presence of the divine in all things. The Jesuits were certainly not deficient in their effort to make it suffice. I am not faulting the genuine integrity and devotion of my Jesuit instructors and professors. By and large, they all were witnessing to the life they had been trained for. My problem was deeper. I found the spiritual methodology unsatisfactory. The church and St. Ignatius offered me the best they had, and what can I say except that it left me hungry. I wanted more. I had taken to heart the Catholic vision of what life is all about. I was given the best philosophical and theological superstructure that could articulate and that vision. I applied the soundest spiritual technology the Jesuits could

offer that was grounded in the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola. After working the program from the time my mother used to take my hand and walk with me to daily mass and communion until I left the Society of Jesus in 1971 at the age of twenty eight, I then had to conclude that I was hungry. This diet was not satisfying that hunger. This book, however, in no way advocates leaving the church. In fact, its intent is just the opposite. I write intending to present the sacraments as a method for entering more deeply into the sacred mystery as a member of that sacramental body, the church. From the vantage point that I have now, reflecting on the way I was taught to make use of the sacraments and the spiritual technology that I have learned since, I want to offer some ideas for guiding devout Catholics to go deeper into the sacred mystery of the divine presence. A final word about method before we start our exploration of a more methodical way of making use of the sacraments. The prayer practices taught by St. Ignatius in the Spiritual Exercises are intended, when applied with diligence and perseverance, to produce contemplatives in action. My observation and personal experience, however, is that they are not a powerful enough tool to consistently do what they are intended to do. They need to be supplemented, in my experience, with a spiritual technology practical and powerful enough to give entry and deep familiarity with what I call “the wisdom of emptiness.” It is the development and habitual practice of this state of mind that does give entry into that deeper daily connection with the mysterious presence of the divine in all things.

Chapter One

BAPTISM AS INITIATION

Catholic theologians combine both Baptism and Confirmation as sacraments of initiation(1). These symbolic actions are efficacious signs. That is, given the proper disposition on the part of the recipients (or in the case of infants, on the part of the parents or others who stand up for the child), these signs effect what they signify. Through the immersion in water and in the presence of the community of believers represented by the priest, Baptism initiates one into the saving mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection. The newly baptized person thus begins a journey of faith that is meant to lead to an ever deeper entry into the mystery of God’s presence in the world, in the church, and in one’s own individual life in a deeply personal way. Subsequent to the ceremony at the baptismal font, however, it has been my experience that what one is initiated into is the catechism, not the mystery of God’s presence. From (a) the mystery of the Word made flesh in the Son of God becoming incarnate in the person of Jesus through (b) the words of the various creedal statements and their dogmatic explications all the way down to (c) the catechism’s distilled formulations designed for memorization, the church puts a lot of trust in words. I would like to expand on the symbolic meaning of Baptism by starting with the word “initiation.” Our word “initial” also has its root in that word. One’s initials stand in for the rest of one’s name because they are the beginning of each name. They initiate the name in a secondary meaning of that word. We have probably all been part of some initiation ceremony since Baptism. My first was in the Boy Scouts as a webelo candidate. The honor of becoming a webelo scout was a distinct kind of merit badge. It signified that the scout first initiated a request to undergo a rather scary test. I was eleven years old. It was summer scout camp. After a campfire ceremony, I being marched single file in the dark. We were allowed to take only our sleeping bag, and were not told anything else.

The leader at the front of our column of about twenty boys had the only light. We walked, stumbling really, for about a half hour in pitch blackness—or so it seemed to me as I kept my eyes down trying to keep from falling down. I didn’t notice the stars. Just as the adrenaline finally began to wear off and a drowsiness set in, someone grabbed my shoulders from behind, threw me down into the long grass, and left saying, “Don’t move until you are told.” That was quite a night! The sun was barely up when one of the scout leaders fetched me. I could now see the large field I was in; the other webelo candidates were spread out about fifty yards apart. We worked all day without food, only water. After supper we were awarded our webelo badges, and we all felt like we had really done something to earn them. That initiation proved to be more than just a ceremony. In its own small way it too was an efficacious sign. The webelo initiation ceremony introduced me to mental toughness and flexibility. I was afraid when suddenly thrown down and left alone, but I knew how to sleep on the ground after making a little clearing in the tall grass. The stars slowly comforted me before I fell asleep. The dawn held fresh meaning. Hard work without food all day gave me confidence and inner resilience. These qualities began to develop in me with that initiation. The point I want to make is that, taking our cue from the word itself, initiation should be just the beginning. Like one’s initials, the rest of the name needs to be spelled out. Further, there is generally no credit given for just putting your name at the top of the test paper. Initiation, in the sense I mean, ought to be just the beginning of the process. The real test is whether the qualities signified and efficaciously begun at the outset can be developed and celebrated at the award ceremony at the end. The Greek word from which Baptism derives means to immerse in water. Water itself has profound symbolic resonance in the human psyche. We cannot live long without it. By some s our bodies are over seventy-five percent water. Evolutionary theory holds that all life on earth originated in the sea. We take refreshment and renewal regularly from the water of a shower or a bath. We seek restoration from time to time on vacation at the shore. The plunge beneath the waves is invigorating. We search for a suitable wave to ride on our boogie boards. But our incarnate beings seem to most deeply resonate to the ebb and flow of the waves and the tides. In other words, immersion in water offers us the opportunity to initiate the renewal process throughout life.

In Baptism, there is this amazing paradox: the new candidate for ission into the assembly of believers is born into the death of Christ. Birth through death is a fundamental teaching of Jesus, and it is a lesson that the candidates ought to test themselves throughout the entire examination period we call life. I offer now a suggestion that I hope will make the initiation of Baptism even more a celebration and a witness to “the finality and invincibility of God’s offer of Himself… in the concrete life of an individual through the church, the basic sacrament of salvation.(2) The suggestion is that we elevate the initiation of Baptism to the status of a life paradigm. First is the recognition that at whatever age Baptism occurs, this initiation is more than a rite of age, even the solemn age into the church as the faithful community of believers. Yes, there is the indelible mark that testifies to this unrepeatable event, but the mark is just the initials that must be spelled out. They signify a beginning whose seed principle must be nurtured into maturity and full ripening. Secondly, in consequence of the above, my suggestion is that an initiation of this kind should be considered as a paradigm for life’s journey. If the initiation paradigm is adopted, then it follows that new beginnings are the rule. Being born of water and the Spirit, one’s initiation thus creates a template that guides and directs continual creative expression in accord with that Spirit. Creative expression arises from the stimulus of new beginnings and the inspiration arising out of with that silent sacred mystery present at the heart of all things. Consider the humble example of a conversation between two new acquaintances who have just begun to know one another. Reflect on your own similar experiences. How often is it the case that well before the other has had her say, your mind is busily rehearsing the next part of the conversation from your side? If you also reflect on your facility with your native tongue, however, you have to acknowledge that you never fear that, having started a sentence without knowing how it will work itself out, you nevertheless are confident and at ease that it will. And yet despite this fact, we spoil the freshness of dialog by not being completely still and quietly attentive, thinking instead of what we want to say next. Baptism as the paradigm of initiation would direct otherwise. “Be still and know that I am God”(3) is the psalmist’s advice that might surely be applied now, even though what is going on is not obviously prayer. But might it not be made into a kind of prayer following the paradigm of initiation? In Baptism we were born

into the death of Christ and merged with the seed principle of new life. To be simply silent and still while another speaks is a denial that at first may feel like a small death. The ego protests; self nature is assertive. Surrendering the impulse of self assertion can make the ego grasp as though it were drowning or dying. The initiate, having been immersed in the Baptismal waters, knows there need be no fear of drowning in the Spirit and new life that emerges from these waters. Water is life giving. Absent the panicky struggle, one floats and can go with the flow quite easily. Having come of age via the disciplined paradigm of initiation, our interlocutors can resist the self assertive impulse where pre-rehearsed words give no space for the creativity of the Spirit to manifest with surprising new beginnings. What a humble meeting place for the divine to make itself known! One person speaks; the other person simply listens. The confident expectation is that, like the finish one gives to a sentence without knowing how, a fresh beginning will now be given. Because listening is more like prayer than speaking, one’s implicit prayer attitude is that something fresh will indeed be given. The initiate who has been trained in this baptismal paradigm does not fear being immersed so as to drown, not knowing what to say next in response. Out of the prayerful attitude of listening with complete attention arises spirit-filled speech which is a new beginning. It often sures by a mile anything one’s ordinary mind could have rehearsed. And you will be gratefully surprised by the words that come out of your mouth. Baptism as initiation paradigm is a nice thought, but it must be taught and practiced from an early age to be effectively incorporated as a daily habit of mind. The waters of Baptism are an efficacious sign signifying a new beginning, but a good start to any course of action is just that. Few people today recognize an expression my grandfather used to say to me: “Well begun is half done.” I love that memory of him and the meaning it conveys: start something well and what you need do to finish is already half done. In the case of the spiritual journey begun in Baptism, however, there is meant to be an ever deepening entry into the mystery of the divine presence in the world, in the church and in one’s own personal life. The one time sacramental event does not, unfortunately, make for a half completed accomplishment. It would be nice if all we had to really run was the second half of the race, finishing with a burst in the final stretch home. Baptism as initiation paradigm directs otherwise. The Spirit of God is present unconditionally and without limitation the world

over. Even though Genesis imagines God taking a rest on the seventh day, I believe we would all agree that if God were not continually and creatively present, our world would simply cease to exist. His omnipresence is what makes the world, the church, and each of our lives continue to be present and available. We are able to engage and become more abundantly alive through an ever deeper entry into the mystery of this presence, but only if we are ready and willing to make new beginnings. The Lord of the universe, who “reaches from end to end mightily and orders all things sweetly”(4) will not make his awesome presence known just because we happen to show up. As Karl Rahner puts it, “the individual is still running ‘out in the open’ toward the mystery of God’s election.”(5) What he means, I think, is that the journey must be a cooperative venture to be successfully run and completed. The unconditional gift of God’s presence must find the correlative acceptance, acknowledgement and response from our side. Without this continual “yes” on the part of the individual, the sign of Baptism loses its efficacy.(6) The awesome power of the individual to apparently frustrate the creativity of the omnipresent One is a topic that one ought to deeply ponder, although I can’t delve into those deep waters at this point. Here is the situation facing an adult consciousness trying to understand and apply the paradigm of baptismal initiation in the work-a-day world: (a) Faith directs our attention to go beneath the surface appearances to the ever present, creative renewal that the omnipresent One effects moment by moment. (b) But dullness, inattention and sleep obscure this reality. (c) The practice of our baptismal paradigm of initiation antidotes this sleep-ridden state of ours. (d) By training ourselves in this paradigm, we learn the secret of new beginnings. (e) The journey into the ever deepening awareness of the presence of the divine mystery is made efficacious by these new beginnings because new beginnings are themselves an experience of the freshness of the divine creative presence. The Baptismal font, symbolic of the initiation paradigm, reveals itself to be the fountain of youth that was there in the vestibule all the time. We thought it was hidden, but it was there in the open all along. Look at the young and the everyoung who only age like fine wine. What is their secret? How has nature gifted the young? Nature equips them with the attitude that new beginnings and the effort to make them are so natural as to become second nature. Children everyday must meet and creatively adjust to, respond to, and go beyond the novel challenges their growth presents to them. The fountain of youth is found in

the baptismal paradigm of initiation. The secret which has been out in the open all the time is that new beginnings, begun in faith, nurtured in hope, consummated in love give entry into the mystery of God’s presence in the world. New beginnings, guided by the paradigm of baptismal initiation, are efficacious; they give evidence, really present, of the life more abundant that Jesus came to offer. In the next chapter, Confirmation, the other sacrament of initiation, will be discussed as it develops the discipline required to actually put the paradigm of initiation into practice.

Chapter Two

CONFIRMA ME, DOMINE

It’s one thing to propose the efficacious sign of Baptism as a paradigm for initiation and quite another to carry through with a life characterized by efficacious new beginnings. The Latin Confirma me, Domine (Strengthen me, O Lord) suggests a cry for help in which fearful anticipation has loosened one’s bowels. It reminds me of the many moments in college when every ingenious delay had finally to give way to facing the first blank page of the next term paper. Fear or flight on some angel’s wings of inspiration—which would it be— often had to wait for a hasty visit to the bathroom. Confirma me, Domine. I very little about my own Confirmation. It seemed from what the good Sister Mary Virginia said that we needed strengthening for struggles and especially against the temptations that lay ahead. Like the catechumens of old, our newly acquired status as soldiers of the Lord would be put to the test. A bishop came to our parish church. I his high hat and crozier. The bishop applied some oil called chrism to our heads. Was this to lubricate our spiritual wagons, I wondered? He gave each of us a slight tap on the cheek with the palm of his hand. This was meant as a sign to be strong against the blows of adversity. In early medieval England, before most lay people could read or write, a land transfer was sealed by placing a clod of earth from the land being sold on the altar, and then the youngest son of the seller and the buyer got an unexpected smack upside the head that usually knocked them down. This was done in place of a written document so that in the future, the youngest sons now fully grown, would this transaction and be able to settle any disputes about who sold what to whom. That blow upside the head really made for a memorable confirmation! There is a story about a boy of confirmation age who unexpectedly told his parents he no longer wanted to go to Mass on Sunday. His parents were devout and regular church going people, so they were, of course, concerned. The father

asked his son why he felt this way. He told his father that he had lost interest; the same story got told every week. The father was taken aback but resisted repeating one of his favorite lines, “Only the boring get bored.” Instead he asked his son to give him a moment while he looked for something. He came back with an old news magazine from the 50’s or 60’s, and opened it to an ment by Volkswagon. The full page ad was totally black except for one white line, the distinctive outline of the top of a VW Beatle. The caption read, “How long can we keep handing you this line?” Precocious but not quite comprehending, the son asked what this had to do with his not wanting to go to Mass. Dad warmed to his theme: novelty is not everything. Volkswagon year after year kept selling millions of Beetles with the exact same design because people loved it. People love the story of the Last Supper and all that it leads up to. The boy listened attentively and thought for a moment before replying, “But, Dad, I don’t want to buy a car. I want to know God more deeply.” The challenge of the baptismal paradigm is how to constantly initiate new beginnings into the mystery of God’s presence in the world, in the church and especially in oneself. New beginnings are hard enough, but usually the follow through to successful completion is even harder. The cliché, “Well, you learn something new everyday” is belied by the facts. Most people respond to the friendly, “So, what’s new?” with “Oh, you know… same ole, same ole.” Just being resident on the earth’s spinning elliptic around the sun doesn’t automatically make one an academic achiever. To really learn something new each day takes work. To know God more deeply and in new ways takes a confirmation of spirit that is capable of real practical application. In an age much less urban than ours and not at all wired by telecommunications, the poet Wordsworth wrote:

“The world is too much with us; late and soon. Getting and spending we lay waste our powers;— Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon.”(7)

The poet laments the course of urbanization and commerce. He feels they are making our minds coarse. We no longer feel, he says, the presence of God in nature. The poem’s disconsolate conclusion is that he would prefer an outdated paganism since he feels that there, at least, he would find entry into the mysterious power of nature and the presence of the divine. Our world is a feast of fast food novelty. New beginnings are often the next billionaire’s IPO. We have turned completely towards the future. There is hardly a scrap of evidence in the attics of our memory that, as recently ago as the Council of Trent (16th century), everyone looked to the past as setting the gold standard for achievement excellence. “Late and soon” our hearts pump, caffeinedriven or with the latest energy drink, to a scherzo rhythm in which a scatterbrained shallowness is canonized as multi-tasking. We have given our hearts away to the latest “4G” this or its next iteration with its thousands of “apps,” a sordid boon. So as we go deeper into the paradigm of initiation that is recommending a method for making new beginnings, we need to be very clear what they are and what they are not. I will now assume that some of my readers can identity with that boy, at least in wanting to know God more deeply. Further, let’s suppose that somewhere in the attic of your memory is a faded token of having a similar aspiration even as a young person of confirmation age. My wife tells me, for example, that at that age, she was so energized by the idea of God’s omnipresence that she felt naturally safe and strong just by being out and about in the urban world, let alone in nature. Later as an adult, she says the words of the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins captured this feeling:

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.”(8)

Now if the reader’s confirmation-age experience is anything like my wife’s and mine, then the holy mystery of God’s transcendence and man’s ability to experience this transcendence personally were not the subject of Sister Mary

Virginia’s next teaching module.(9) Having paid lip service to what theologian’s have called the “self evident mystery of transcendence” which is “the plainest, most obvious and most necessary condition of possibility for all spiritual understanding and comprehension,”(10) our teacher segued rather to the rules and regulations for memorization from the catechism. Readers are invited to pause a moment now and ask themselves how much the catechism—and by extension the laws of the church generally—feed their adult faith and guide their quest for a deeper knowledge of God? I ask this question without prejudice, asking only that readers honestly search their hearts for the answer. If there is any truth to the saying, “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood,” let’s begin our deeper exploration of the baptismal paradigm of initiation by beginning from the viewpoint of “second childhood.” Let’s use our adult perspective to view what we might have been taught as children about how to deepen into the mystery of God’s presence in the world. Perhaps we are not only not too old to learn something new, but just maybe it is possible for us to learn something new everyday, if we know how to work at it. I’d like to start with frustration. How far into learning or doing something new before the experience of frustration arises? Think about your childhood frustrations with learning something new. Perhaps you have some of the same frustrations now? Did you start without gathering all the necessary materials? Was there a detailed plan or no plan at all? Maybe you imagined being able to do something that far exceeded your current abilities, like the novice pole vaulter imagining going over a fifteen foot bar at his first meet. Were you too proud to seek the best advice available before beginning? Whatever the reason, often we experience frustration well before completing something new. Frustration is such a universal experience that maybe it should rather be called “the plainest, most obvious and most necessary condition of possibility for all spiritual understanding and comprehension.” Let’s revisit those medieval peasants’ land sale. Implicitly there is for them both a deep recognition that his new venture must be regarded as sacred; one places a clod of earth on the altar, and the other takes it from the altar. In other words, they begin with a recognition of the sacred. Like children, how often do we need to be reminded to do what we already know? Let’s keep in mind at the outset, that if we to keep the baptismal paradigm of initiation in mind, then

no matter what new venture we hope will succeed, we also seek to deepen by means of it into the sacred mystery of the divine presence. Therefore, at the beginning, it is extremely important to how sacred ventures begin. Whether you are asked to launder altar linens or take the priest’s vestments to the dry cleaner or even distribute communion, if you forget to purify your intention before beginning, even an overtly sacred task will be rendered mundane. Every action that seeks the real presence of the divine must begin by ing to put whatever you are about to do on your mental altar as a pure offering. The door to the sacred presence of the divine is not locked, but there is a key to opening it: ing to place your venture on the altar at the start. A further word about purity of intention: if the offering itself is impure, the door to the sacred won’t open. For example, “Take, O Lord, this effort I am about to begin. Let it be successful beyond my wildest dreams so that money will flow without ceasing. And you know all the good things I could do once I am wealthy… .” The impurities in this offering should be clear; and they are not the desire for success or copious wealth. Rather, it is the focus on self as the driver, designer and prime beneficiary. Let’s clean up that offering a bit: “Take, O Lord, this effort I am about to begin. Let it be successful beyond my wildest dreams so that as many people as possible may truly benefit. But whether money flows like a river or not, let me learn how to experience true wealth because I am able to experience your presence with me every step of the way.” In a later chapter, we will go into the ethics of an action; that is, what are the determining factors that make any action virtuous or non virtuous. In that context, we will consider the constituent parts of any thought, word or deed, viz., their beginning, middle and end. For now it is enough to note that the quality of any action is initiated by the way it is begun. If we plunge into something with a busy mind, full of distraction, and forget to begin by purifying our intention, the action may not only not reveal the sacred beneath the mundane, it may have no virtuous merit at all. We might just be burning up energy and consuming the earth’s resources with no more thought about the consequences than a forest fire has about its consumption of trees. So key to a good beginning which initiates the quality of any action is ing to to . It won’t serve to have been baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus and then forget about it. That paradigm of initiation requires that we first develop the habit of ing. What we is not some distant sacramental event from childhood. Even though it

may seem like a baby step on the journey into the mystery of divine presence, the first step on that journey is to to to : my mind is a sacred altar. What you put there at the beginning will largely determine the overall quality of your venture. Forget to place a purified offering on the altar of your mind, and even God can’t open the door that leads to the sacred mystery of His presence in the world. This kind of forgetfulness is not the kind we usually worry about as we enter the springtime of our senility. It is endemic from the get-go of childhood all the way up to and including the second childhood of retirement. It is a devilishly cunning ploy of the ego, this distraction of our attention from ing what is truly important. Instead we hasten as fast as we can to go right to the heart of the periphery. Let a story illustrate how important it is to the truly important things at the beginning of any venture. I was falling asleep during a sales training seminar on a hot summer afternoon. The time management guru giving the lecture, realizing his words were not hitting home, reached under the table for a two gallon wide-mouthed glass jar. Without a word, he began plunking stones about the size of your fist inside. After the last stone could be seen sticking out just over the lip of the jar, he asked, “Is the jar full?” We droned a drowsy, “Yes.” He reached underneath the table again and this time pulled out a bag of pea gravel; he emptied this into the jar, shaking the tiny stones until they had filled all the crevices. “Well, now is the jar full?” he asked. Awake now but wary, no one confidently said yes, just a weak acknowledgement from the back of the room. Once again, from under the table he produced a bag of fine white sand, and emptied this into the jar. “Now?” he asked. He had our full attention but no one was bold enough to answer. Finally, he took a pitcher of water and poured it into the jar. “Ok,” he asked, “what’s the point?” I spoke up saying, “Well, since you are lecturing on time management, I suppose the point is that no matter how busy or full our day seems to be, there is always room to fit something else in.” “Not at all,” he replied. “The point of this demonstration is this: if you don’t get the big stones in first, you’ll never get them in.” Get your priorities in order is the point. In our effort to apply the baptismal paradigm of initiation to the supremely practical yet sacred venture of entering

more deeply into the divine presence, the first big stone to put in the jar is purity of intention. If you forget to put that stone in at the beginning, you can’t go back at the end and change the way you began. The blessing of the sacrament of Confirmation ought to strengthen our resolve to get our priorities in order. Even before that precious first stone of pure intention —placed now not in a jar but on the altar of one’s mind—is offered, what we must resolve to do is to to . As adults, we have to remind ourselves to do what we already know how to do. “I forgot my lesson plan and couldn’t do my homework,” will not get the job done. As adult practitioners of the baptismal paradigm of initiation, we must strengthen our resolve to how to make any beginning sacred; that is, if what we really want is not a car, a car dealership, or even to become the town’s impresario of new car sales, but to know God more deeply. Whether we are about to buy or sell a car or even a new car dealership, the first big stone—might we even say now “the pearl of great price”—is to to to . Finally, the paradox of this paradigm of initiation is that you don’t even need to begin something new to initiate a new beginning. Pure intention itself makes everything fresh and new. The “same ole, same ole” offered with pure intention creates an entirely new dimension to the experience. We will discuss this in more detail in the next chapter.

Chapter Three

ORDER UP SOME SPACE

Philosophy and theology in the West are ruled by a certain kind of logical orderliness. The upside of this tendency is the search for precision; the downside is mistaking precision for comprehension. As fascinating as pursuing this idea further might be, we cannot. Fortunately, a discussion of order as it relates to our theme of real presence is something we will discuss in this chapter. In the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the monastic order of the Society of Jesus (the “Jesuits”), the retreat director instructs those making retreat at a critical point on the topic of “inordinate attachments.” The fundamental design of Ignatius’ thirty day retreat is to guide the retreatants to become clear and confident in any decision they might make about a new direction in life. The basic question to be answered is: “What to do that will order my life more in accordance with God’s greater glory?” Inordinate attachments are those that misalign this ordering of one’s life. The tentacles of self nature reach out in many directions. They grasp at all sorts of things that favor instead an alignment with self promotion. If the retreatant is serious about seeking to orient a life in deeper alignment with the greater glory of God, then a first step is clear: clearly recognize and acknowledge whatever attachments there are in one’s own life that are inordinate. The Exercises provide a spiritual workout. A variety of prayer practices, including a profound life review, are designed to lead to a stage called “indifference.” Understood correctly in this context, indifference is the opposite of a blasé-blasé state of mind. Rather, the attitude is one of keen and alert readiness. This kind of readiness is like a lineman in a three-point stance ready to go in either direction. Or to take an example entirely away from the gridiron, it is like the readiness of the loving mother who waits for her daughter’s call. Whether she goes or stays in response to the call for help with the grandchildren, she is ready to do either, only wanting to do what is more useful for her daughter’s sake. Entirely detached from her own selfish inclinations, yes, but ready to be of service when and wherever she is called. This is what Ignatius

means, I think, by “indifference” as the mental antidote to inordinate attachments. With this introduction in mind, let us return to the experience of frustration subsequent to a new undertaking. Let’s go into how this commonplace but dispiriting emotion itself can give entry into a deeper awareness of the presence of God—and not just a deeper awareness but a deeper alignment. We want to examine how the very emotion of frustration can initiate an orderly progression into the sacred presence of the divine at the very heart of this unpleasantness. First, I want the reader to see that this is not some trick having to do with a peculiarity specific to frustration. Let the emotion be any of frustration’s cousins: depression, anxiety, fear, melancholy, sadness. Any of these emotions will serve equally well. Pick your favorite and the orderly method we are about to outline will work just as well. The situation is this: some negative emotion has arisen in the venture you’ve begun. You slow to a crawl. The impulse to do something negative arises naturally from the negative emotion. What to do? that I am for the moment keeping it simple. We are adults in the prime of second childhood wanting to learn something we were not taught as children. Imagine that Officer Goodlaw suddenly appears and reminds you to: “STOP, LOOK, And LISTEN, before you cross that street.” Ok, it can be St. Ignatius if you prefer. The instruction from both is the same.

1. First, STOP. Stop what you’re doing. Don’t do anything further in that negative state of mind. Whether it’s a life altering decision about how to go forward or just to turn back from trying to make a lemon meringue pie, stop. Don’t make any decisions influenced by negative emotions. They are most likely to be bad ones. 2. LOOK. Now look at the emotion. Square up and face the demon emotion face to face. The demon does not refer to any real malignant entity but refers to the disruptive effects if this afflictive emotion. At this point, you must resist the tendency to talk to this emotional demon. He is devilishly cunning, and he will put his own words into your mouth. You will think you are talking to it, but in reality, you will be parroting his own words. Like Max in the children’s

storybook, “Where the Wild Things Are,” the only thing you are allowed to say is “Be still!” But be very clear about this and : you are not talking to the demon. You are talking to your own mind, telling it to be still. If it is not still, you will not be able to look at the emotion and see it clearly for what it is. 3. LISTEN. Listen for an answer to this question: “Do I want to be right or do I want to be free?” Now at this point it will be virtually impossible to keep your mind from conceptualizing and commenting on the situation; and you shouldn’t try. Rather, pay close attention to the rationalizations your mind makes for giving in to your frustration. Here are some examples:

a) You’re right to be frustrated. You knew you couldn’t do it anyway. b) Why did you even start this project? You know you never really finish anything. c) You know you weren’t ready… you never are and never will be. d) Face it, you’re a loser. e) You’re just not ____________ enough. (Fill in the blank: good, strong, brave, smart, talented etc.). f) Nice try. Better luck next time.

Each of us will have a personal favorite. Mine is letter (e). Every one of these rationalizations is an attempt to prejudice your answer to the question: “Do I want to be right or do I want to be free?” Every one of the above rationalizations is an attempt to convince you to answer this question by saying, “I’m right… to put a stop to this.” Maybe it is the right thing to do, but not under the influence of negative emotions. In his play about Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, T. S. Eliot writes

“And this is the greatest treason:

To do the right thing for the wrong reason.”(11)

Notice carefully what happens if you can to ask this question. The very question opens up a little space in the mind that was not there before. The dark clouds of negative emotions had completely blocked the light and obscured the sky-like clarity of mind. The little space opened up by the question, “Right or Free?” is your guide, if you can attend to it in the following way. Imagine you hold a framed picture of a stormy sky that someone has given you. Barely visible in the corner is a small patch of clear blue sky. The rest of the picture is clouds. For some reason—perhaps you don’t like the frame it is in— you take the picture out of this frame, and are surprised to find that most of the picture has been folded over and tucked in behind the backing. Fully open, the picture is mostly clear sky! The clouds now cover just a minor fraction of the canvas.(12) Can you do the same thing with your mind? Can you remove what’s framing the situation so that the clouds of frustration or depression, etc., which seem to fill the whole canvas, are seen to be only a minor fraction of the bigger picture? Removing a picture frame is one thing, but how to remove a frame around one’s mind? to to . Now is when the pure quality of your original intention can assert its strength. You that your intention to begin this project tried to be free of selfish motivations. Whatever the physical or material goal, beneath all that was the desire to enter more deeply into the divine presence in the world in which your project has its place. With that renewed intention, clear your mind. Double check to see what inordinate attachments may have arisen along the way. Think about the subtle quality of self promotion that is implicit in each of the rationalizations that arose in the face of frustration. Every one is a not so subtle put down that is a devilishly clever and backhanded way of promoting self righteousness. So here we are. Where are we? We stopped, looked and listened; and raised a provocative question. Notice that the renewal of your pure intention plus the examination to eliminate any residual attachment and grasping is making the patch of blue sky get bigger in your mind. Notice, too, another very interesting phenomenon: as the spaciousness in your mind increases, you feel calmer and

more relaxed. There is a quality about spaciousness of mind that makes it feel very close to the spirit of generosity. At the very least, once the mind has released its grasping, the spirit of readiness returns. In this frame of mind—open, clear, ready—the question of whether to move forward or not can be raised. In this context, one can confidently expect the “still small voice” of spiritual direction and divine guidance will be clearly discerned. Spaciousness of mind is one of the keys to entering more deeply into the sacred mystery of God’s presence in all things. Negative emotions try to cloud the natural spaciousness of mind. In addition, habit patterns develop where each of us not only takes sides with certain negative emotions, but they come to characterize us. We even feed on them, and become righteous in their defense. However, if we can to ask the question, “Do I want to be right or do I want to be free?” then the very question will order up some space. The question starts to put some order into the cloudy confusion of the mind. It opens up some space. Spaciousness of mind, free of impure motivation and the grasping of self promotion is the place to encounter the divine presence. The obscuration of negative emotions is just a momentary cloud screen. We know there has never been a cloud cover so thick or a storm so violent that it has left a permanent scar in the sky. Neither can negative emotions permanently cloud or scar the sky-like nature of your mind. In a later chapter we will go more deeply into the spaciousness of mind as a gracious place to become present to the transcendent mystery.

Chapter Four

MISALIGNMENT

As was mentioned earlier, after tantalizing us with the tidbit that God is everywhere by virtue of his infinite transcendence and omnipresence, Sister Mary Virginia had us open our catechisms. She would not be distracted from her lesson plan that called for preparing us for confession. As I recall, the topics that got her attention were: swearing, disobedience, anger, stealing and missing Mass on Sunday. We could be excused from examining our consciences about idolatry, adultery and coveting our neighbor’s spouse. Lusting after my neighbor’s new bike could be considered as part of the seventh commandment. I don’t know about you, but I quickly developed a serious case of what I now call “soul chafing.” Why this intense fixation on getting the numbers right? In the past month, how many times did I punch my brother? Which ones were playful shoulder jabs and which ones had some real energy behind them? Was I disobedient because I didn’t come right down to supper when Mom called? What about the hardball I kept chucking through the basement window when trying to make a peg to home plate from the outfield? Was that a form of stealing, or perhaps pride, because I thought I could make that long distance “strike” that would get the runner out? And was it disobedience when I waited until Sunday to fix that window when Dad told me on Friday to fix it the next day? My soul got a serious chafing burn from scraping around inside it to answer these questions in preparation for confession. And then there was rehearsing the numbers before entering the confessional. What was the subliminal lesson that was being taught here? Careful ing and notation plus a regular rendition of the same is what keeps you on the good side of the Lord? Was this legalistic approach to sin taught this way to children because we were thought incapable of understanding a relationship to God in any other way? I still don’t have an answer to that question. There are many ways to spoil a relationship. Some are deliberate; some inadvertent. Sometimes what one person perceives as a toxic offense, the other is completely clueless that offense was taken, because there was no intention to

give offense. A psychology professor of mine once said, “, puppy love is real to the puppy.” Breaking off an adolescent infatuation by following a stronger trail of pheromones may really hurt the other with the serious crush. But is this offense comparable to an adulterous affair in a long term, committed relationship? And if not, why not? My point is this: if sin is a “No” in the presence of God’s unconditional “Yes” which commits him to a permanent, faithful relationship no matter what, then there ought to be a mutual experience of that relationship before it can be spoiled or broken off. The offense that spoils a committed relationship may certainly have legal consequences, but the offense is not primarily a breaking of the law. The Greek word for “sin” in the New Testament is “h’amartia,” which literally means a missing of the mark. Think of the marksman, in olden days, perhaps a long bowman. If the arrow flies past the target, that is “h’amartia.” Perhaps the bowman was distracted by the buxom serving wench out of the corner of his eye. Maybe he came to the contest drunk, and the target seems to keep moving on him. Maybe he’s just pissed off and doesn’t feel like competing anymore. Or perhaps he’s not sufficiently skilled or practiced. There are many reasons why he might miss the mark. But if there is no contest, or if there is no target, or if he simply doesn’t show, then those scenarios each represent a very different evaluation of why he missed the mark. In that we used in the last chapter, there first has to be an alignment before inordinate attachments can cause a misalignment. The bowman has to present himself aligned with target before the word “h’amartia” can be applied. Sin, in this context, is not a legal infraction but something that intends to spoil a mutual relationship. It is a missing of the mark, a misalignment. The arrow is wide of the mark, and there is no made with the target. The overall theme of this book is real presence or how to enter more deeply into the sacred mystery of God’s presence in the world, in the church, and one’s own personal experience of both. We have in this context considered the sacrament of Baptism as a paradigm of initiation, a template, as it were, to be aligned with all experiences throughout life. We began by considering that if the template of baptismal initiation were applied, even mundane experiences could be doorways opening into the sacred mystery of God’s presence. We saw further how the

sacrament of Confirmation ought to stir our resolve to get our priorities in order. Our forgetfulness in dealing first with the “big stones” was countered by practicing the habit of ing to to . Entry into the sacred space of the divine presence begins with a pure intention offered on the altar of one’s mind. And finally, we saw that negative emotions, which arise as obstacles and obscurations in the course of beginning something new, are only distractions that try to disturb one’s alignment. The proper method for dealing with negative emotions reveals a sky-like space in the mind, another doorway into the presence of the divine. In some ways, I have tried to pick up where Sister Mary Virginia left off in primary school. Children experience profound and complex relationships with their parents. They may not be able to conceptualize it, but even at this age, what they come to know is more than puppy love. Careful parental nurture and discipline create an ordered alignment between parent and child. When misalignment is caused by either the child or one of the parents, the experience is not one of legal malfeasance. Rather, it is a living relationship that feels endangered. If the relationship is not to become spoiled, then both parent and child must a) acknowledge the misalignment (the “h’amartia”), b) make confession, c) ask for and receive forgiveness, and d) make whatever restitution is appropriate as a sign of the serious intent to restore the alignment. There is no need to belabor the parallels with our heavenly Father. What I wish to elaborate now, however, is a method for evaluating the degree of misalignment that is different from the ing method taught by Sister Mary Virginia. Not only will this method better accord with a “h’amartia” in a living relationship, it will, in another chapter, give one a method for creating the kind of space that opens up as the divine presence. In the Old Testament, the innermost sanctuary where the High Priest met the Holy of Holies was entered only once a year. An elaborate purification ritual preceded his entry. If our intent is to enter the sacred mystery of the divine presence, not just once, but wherever and whenever we can, what preliminary purification is required? A mind that is clouded with guilt and soiled with shame from serious misalignment will not serve as a sanctuary for the divine presence. Misalignments run a spectrum. There are simple ones that arise from careless driving. Reckless driving, “under the influence” where tires collide with the

curb, causes a more serious misalignment. Then there is the difference between an accidental fender bender and a hit and run. Finally perhaps, there is the deliberate tampering with someone’s alignment so that their car can’t make that hairpin turn, and crashes through the guard rail. I have used the metaphor of mechanical misalignment to introduce the method for evaluating the degree to which our own interpersonal misalignments are culpable. The method is deceptively simple. It analyzes any action into three parts: the beginning, the middle and the end. The quality of any action, good or bad, can be evaluated by a careful examination of how it begins, what happens in the middle, and how it finishes. So let’s begin.

1. The Beginning. Earlier we discussed at some length how important purity of intention is at the beginning, if we are aligning ourselves with the template of the baptismal paradigm of initiation. Now consider the opposite. Consider the spectrum of attitudes that make any beginning impure, toxic or misaligned. We are all familiar with courtroom dramas. Pre-meditation and malice of forethought go a long way to establishing guilt and eliminating reasonable doubt. If, for example, the deed I plan to do requires months of planning, whether it’s a bank job, a terrorist attack, or a sabotage of my mother-in-law’s Thanksgiving dinner, the protracted beginning adds serious weight to the negative moral value. By contrast, consider this scenario: I am walking alone down a dark and unfamiliar street, and you come up from behind and touch my shoulder to ask a question. I instinctively react by spinning around and, with a karate chop to the neck, I strike you down. Stricken with remorse, I call 911, but it is too late. “Unintentional homicide” rules the judge. No malice of forethought, no premeditation. This was a defensive reaction, that while serious in that I took a life, it is not perhaps sinful. The quality of the beginning seems clear of intentional misalignment. But consider now this variation: suppose after striking down my would-be assailant, I don’t call 911, but rather flee the scene. Doesn’t this scenario look a lot like a hit and run? Well, if the pedestrian walked too suddenly into the street from between two parked cars, and I couldn’t break in time. This is an accidental collision; but if I flee the scene, then what? How do you evaluate the beginning now?

Or consider a more subtle variation: I am walking down that dark street after

having had one too many at a bar around the corner. Before that, I had an argument with my wife that got very ugly, and I knocked her down. In this state of mind, the guy seeking directions touches me, and I react violently. Legally perhaps we have the same verdict: unintentional homicide. But in relation to my overall alignment in the world, this beginning now appears fairly toxic. When a project begins motivated by self interest, the purity of intention is suspect; when motivated exclusively by self interest, the alignment can be confidently diagnosed as skewed. Let’s take a scene from a recent awardwinning film, “The Help.” One of the black maids is serving a white middle class family in Jackson, Mississippi. She has two sons who want to go to college, but she is $75.00 short on their tuition (this is back in the early ’60’s). She timidly asks the lady of the house if she can borrow that amount, promising to pay it back with interest by working extra hours and having her weekly pay debited. The lady quotes scripture, saying, “God helps those who help themselves. You’ll thank me one day for turning you down.” How to label this— a sin of omission or an obscene use of scripture? Of course, there is truth in what she says, but her use of scripture is totally self serving. Later, however, this maid finds a diamond ring that has fallen behind the sofa and apparently has been forgotten; it happened so long ago. Her long range intention is pure: to help her sons start college. Her short range intention is not: pawn the ring before anyone is the wiser. The pawnshop traces the ring back to her employer; she is arrested, and given a stiff jail sentence for robbery. Here we have a heart breaking case where we’d like to say the end justifies the means. The problem is not only that every means is itself an end, but that the motivation isn’t really as pure as it may seem. The maid assumes she is justified in taking the ring. It has been missing a long time and nobody asks about it anymore. Humiliated by the way she has been treated, she feels some righteousness in putting one past this arrogant lady. She didn’t ask the question: “Do I want to be right or do I want to be free?” But implicitly she nevertheless answered it by her action: feeling righteous and justified, she rushes headlong through the cloud of these negative emotions to exchanging maid service for serving time in jail. The counsel that “you don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression” has an analogous application here. Once you’ve begun, you can’t change how you began. Practically speaking, life changing starts are rare. We usually have some time to move up to the starting line, time to consider this momentous new beginning and time to to to . But

the spiritual quest of seeking to enter more deeply into the divine mystery on a daily basis is not about momentous new beginnings. It is rather about making any moment a new beginning of deeper entry. The place to start is at the beginning by simply ing to begin with a little mindfulness. If a reality check of a typical day is taken, it may startle you how often you find yourself already in the middle of something without any clear memory of just when and how this activity began. Here I am. Where am I, and how did I get here?

1. The Middle. The middle is the actual execution of the action. The action has been pre-qualified by the intention that preceded it. In and of itself, without this pre-qualification and without any conscious presence of mind during the execution, an action cannot be ethically evaluated. No matter how grotesque or horrendous the action captured on camera, without knowing more than film alone can tell us, the action cannot be evaluated ethically. After all, the film may have been of some dress rehearsal or stage set illustrative of some entirely neutral intent, such as how lighting enhances the verisimilitude of artificial gore or the way period costumes react to artificial blood. Sometimes the ethical quotient of the action can be minimized, if the act is over and done quickly. By contrast, a protracted event gives the perpetrator time to dress the action with a host of mental and emotional accoutrements. Only remind yourself of the sadistic pleasure, intense anger or ghoulish delight that can be consented to during a protracted infliction of suffering—mental, emotional or physical. One can see how the subtle variations of ethical evaluation can come into play, if the spectrum of negative intentions gives rise to a crescendo of negative emotions that may have begun as mildly awful and climaxed as brutally awful. Conversely, after initiating some serious negative act, the doer may experience doubt, hesitation and reluctance to carry through as intended. The ethical quotient of the act is modified accordingly.

3. The End. Once the action—whether it is a thought, word or deed has been completed—what then? Again the mind is the qualifier. If, for example, one assents to the dictum that “revenge is a dish best served cold,” and having done the vengeful deed, there is a savory relish in the cold hearted accomplishment of the act, well that is one thing. On the other hand, if the perpetrator is filled with

horror and remorse at the enormity of the deed, that is quite another thing. What attitudes of mind are allowed to linger or are actually cultivated at the end of a deed go far towards accentuating or mitigating the ethical quotient of the act.

In concluding this chapter on misalignment, I have given rather cursory treatment to the middle and the end of events that have negative moral consequences. In the next chapter, these moments will be discussed in greater detail as we look beyond the penal consequences of the sacrament of Penance. We will discuss how to use the healthy energy of remorse, not guilt and shame, to enlarge the space where the gracious presence of the divine might be more readily encountered.

Chapter Five

REALIGNMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL VEHICLE

I wonder how many readers would get a mental whiplash if I should make the claim that happiness is a learned discipline. On the other hand, what I will claim is this: if your heart’s desire is to meet the Lord in all things, then you must practice a spiritual discipline, even a method of champions. Do any of you need a neck brace? It is my assumption that readers, who picked up this book and have persevered this far, are seeking a deeper alignment with the Lord. Your heart’s desire, the pearl of great price you are willing to sell all for, is to enter more deeply, on a daily basis, into the real presence of the divine in all things. Moral mediocrity is no longer, if it ever was, a pitfall for you. Unfortunately, it is my opinion from a careful, albeit anecdotal survey of the Catholic scene, that the church’s teaching on the afterlife infects the psyche of many law abiding practitioners of the faith with what I call, “moral mediocrity.” Moral mediocrity is a state of mind resulting from the view that we live only one lifetime, one life over and out. The result is an eternal either/or: heaven or hell. Of course, hell is to be avoided at all cost, but what price must be paid to enter heaven? If I arrive at the heavenly gates, and the gatekeeper that day looks me over and says, “You know we don’t grade on the curve. You did rather mediocre work. You get a C-minus. Welcome to heaven for all eternity.” Now as long as I don’t get an “F,” he lets me in! You worked like a saint and are awarded an “A.” Congratulations! I am happy for you. But guess what, we both end up in the same place, and I didn’t have to cut back, sacrifice all that much, and certainly not put out heroic efforts to get exactly where you are. Ciao, bella. That’s moral mediocrity, and it results in a subliminal message derived from the teaching of the church about what happens after death. This book is not for those who are just trying to get by so as to get in. The rewards of daily, deeper entry into the sacred mystery of divine presence speak eloquently, yet silently, to those who aspire to know them. They are more than enough to justify the extra work. Fortunately, the penal consequences from the sacrament of Penance have relaxed

greatly over the centuries. The earliest documentation we have goes back to the third century’s public penances, where the bishop gave out a severe course of prayer, fasting and almsgiving that could last months or more, depending on the gravity of the sin. Serious misalignment requires serious efforts at realignment. Absolution was often withheld until the penance was completed. The practice of private penances from private confessions wasn’t chartered until 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council. We are probably all shamefully aware of the abuses of indulgences that precipitated the Protestant Reformation. Not just the financial transactions, where remission of sin and dispensation from its penal consequences were given for money, but the crusades. The church exhorted the crusaders to take back Jerusalem by the sword, and exonerated and sanctified the killing of Jews (who were there along the way) and Muslims in order to regain the Holy Land. Dying in battle conferred immediate entry into heaven. Otherwise, the penalty for sin was in the form of a lengthy pilgrimage, periods of fasting and continence, or public floggings and time in the stockade. The church was grimly concerned about the sinner’s realignment, which she called “atonement.” Because these penances caused serious interruption in fulfilling one’s daily duties at home and on the farm, they were greatly relaxed over time. Not to mention that not even the church would put children in the stockade for their offenses.(14) My childhood experience of penance was “Say three Our Fathers, three Hail Mary’s and three Glory Be’s; make a sincere act of contrition, and go and sin no more.” I was never given a whole rosary to say, let alone a novena. After coming to the same priest on two consecutive Saturdays with the same confession, namely, “Bless me, Father, I stole lumber,” the priest suspected that his penance of three Our Fathers and three Hail Mary’s had not been severe enough. So he asks this penitent, “Do you know how to make a novena?” To which he replies, “No, Father, but if you can get the plans, I can get the lumber.” In my experience, the most thorough method for examining one’s conscience and exciting genuine remorse that leads to satisfying restitution and realignment is the Twelve Step program developed by Alcoholics Anonymous. One is guided to see clearly the suffering that misaligned behavior has caused. Genuine remorse, restitution and to adhere to one’s firm purpose of amendment are grounded in an effort to realign with one’s “higher power.” The Christian is able to make that higher power a lot more concrete. What may go unnoticed, however, is that everyone is addicted to something. Besides the variety of substance abuses, there are “insubstantial abuses” to which we all form subtle

addictions. The addiction to being right, for example, is a glaring misalignment, and the spiritual seeker who wants a deeper alignment with the Lord must eventually own up to it. In the old days, the profession of faith in Baptism and the sacrament of Penance were often put off until one came near to death. Constantine, the emperor in the fourth century who freed the Christians from persecution, is perhaps the most famous example. The seeker after deeper entry into the divine presence is not interested in hedging bets. The gross misalignments that long ago merited floggings, long fasts or pilgrimages have been purified. The subtler mental misalignments in one’s spiritual vehicle are what the seeker must now correct. In the last chapter we discussed at length how the moral quotient of any action can be evaluated using a deceptively simple method. There we gave most attention to the beginning that qualifies the initiation of an action insofar as that quotient indicates a negative moral value. We now want to apply this method to our fundamental theme of deeper entry into the divine presence. This is the method called “good in the beginning, good in the middle, good at the end.” Since we have spent so much space already on the good beginning, especially when discussing the baptismal paradigm of initiation, I invite the reader to review that discussion. Suffice it now to say this: the most important thing is to to to . If you ask, “ what?” you prove my point: how easily we forget.

1. The Good Beginning. There is just one point to make: a beginning is always happening moment by moment, since the past is no more and the future is not yet. The spiritual seeker cannot acknowledge the blessing of the present moment often enough. It is your magical doorway. It is the gift that invites perpetual reopening. That is why it is called “the present.” One of my teachers referred to those orphaned and largely forgotten moments as “my little darlin’s.” Her intention was not to lose even one. How often do we let one of these “little darlin’s” get away because we don’t to to ? 2. The Good Middle. If your spiritual vehicle has been properly aligned at the beginning, then what is required now is only a mid course check-up or correction. Like a rocket from Cape Canaveral on its way to the moon or Mars,

even though the lift-off trajectory is perfect, the engineers at the Houston Space Center must keep making constant course corrections. What does this mean for the spiritual vehicle of one’s mind? It means the check-up is to see whether the vehicle is tracking in alignment with the purity of one’s intention at the start. Every reader should be able to this in their own experience. Check up on yourself to see to what degree your mid course involvement with a project is still purely aligned with your intention at the outset. What typically happens is that some degree of grasping or attachment wobbles or jolts the initial alignment. Some form of self promotion makes its appearance. Be attentive to such subtle wobbles as:

a) Who will notice what I’ve done and thank me for it? b) How much will they approve or disapprove? c) Will anyone make use of what I’ve done and thank me? d) Will anyone at least acknowledge that I was right? e) A pox on all their houses. Who cares what they think!

Any of the above indicates a wobble in the alignment of one’s spiritual vehicle. At this point, it can be very useful not only to your moment by moment purity of intention, but also to ask yourself this question: “Do I want to be right or do I want to be free?” Wanting to be right indicates an attachment to self promotion, a grasping or neediness to some form of recognition. what we are about: the deeper entry into the spacious graciousness of the divine presence. Since that space has been created by unconditional love, do you think you will be comfortable in that space with anything less? A very simple gauge in your spiritual vehicle will guide you. I call it “the sting gauge.” If your project of body, speech or mind is purely intended and being purely carried out, there will be no sting, if it is not recognized as such or even if it is not acknowledged at all. The needle on the sting gauge will prick you to the degree you are attached to the outcome and to the recognition you feel you deserve for your efforts. On the other hand, to the extent to which the love you invested in your project is purely

given—expecting no payment or interest in return—there will be no sting if none is given. Evaluating the “good in the middle” comes down to how you answer the question “What’s in it for me?” Recall our previous discussion of frustration and its cousins; anxiety, sadness, melancholy, et al. How much do these negative emotions arise because the answer to that question is not what you expected? Ask the other question instead: “Do I want to be right or do I want to be free?” Freedom from the grasping and attachment to self promotion is the vestibule to the sacred space of divine presence. Practice the method and see for yourself what results. The method is experiential. You must be able to quality results in your own experience. This is not a matter of faith or belief, but of direct experience that you can for yourself.

3. The Good End. There is the acknowledgment of self promotion and then there is the acknowledgment of thanksgiving. A job well done deserves the proper kind of acknowledgement. The spiritual seeker only asks to to be grateful. To have been able to do something—apparently only mundane as it may seem—that has been transformed into a pure offering and a vehicle for entering more deeply into the divine presence, is a gift that ought to inspire tsunamis of thanksgiving. Can we say, in fact, that a purified mind intent on a project aligned with unconditional love, achieves a eucharistic presence? Since “eucharist” itself means “thanksgiving” in the presence of unconditional love, I ask you to draw your own conclusions.

The good end seals the deal, as it were. One has paid for the pearl of great price with the coin of pure intention and the effort to surrender grasping that leads to the misalignment of self promotion. At this point, all that need be done is to to be grateful and give thanks for the blessing. The final thing is not to forget that every gracious and grateful ending is the blessing on the next new beginning.

Chapter Six

THE WISDOM OF SPACIOUS GRACIOUSNESS

“The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise.” (Alden Nowlan, poet, novelist, playwright, 1933-1983)

The seeker after spiritual depth is willing to pay for the pearl of great price without counting the cost. Properly invested, the pearl of great price creates immediate interest in the form of forgiveness. Once the gross obscurations of misaligned behavior have been clarified, it is absolutely vital for the seeker to shed the last vestiges of fouled garments and impure outlook. In the sacrament of Penance, the truly contrite receive an official absolution for their sins. The church witnesses to the permanent openness of the transcendent Lord to be there as beginning, middle and end whenever the “misaligned marksman” seeks to realign with the target. But the last vestiges of impure residue concern the marksman’s own openness towards himself. As wandering and misaligned marksmen, can we reengage fully, having fully forgiven ourselves? There is a clear, unobscured openness that returns to the mind with forgiveness. It also has a way of paying itself forward, becoming easier and revealing a spacious graciousness of mind the more it is practiced. I believe this easy gracefulness that comes with the practice of forgiveness results from seeing things more clearly. The burdens of offenses given and received diminish because they diminish in size. They are no longer among the big stones that we prioritized by placing them first in the jar. They are more like the clouds that obscured the sky because of the cramped picture frame. In a way, the clear, unobscured openness of the forgiving mind is like the sky when all clouds have blown away. What seemed like an impediment just dissipates. What once seemed like a huge stone blocking age forward, or at least a nagging irritant

in one’s shoe, is simply not there. Is it the case that the harder a virtuous action is to do, the more merit accrues for doing it? For example, somewhere long ago on your spiritual journey, you took serious offense at something done to you. Brooding, aggrieved, angry perhaps, you finally saw your way clear to forgiving the person who did this to you. It was a very big deal. The big stone in your heart was removed, but the impression left there lasted a long time after. Now, you see past or through a similar offence in no time at all. It’s as though the big stone were a cloud that blows away. Forgiveness is a clear sky state of mind for you today. So which act is more meritorious, yesterday’s effortful forgiveness or today’s effortless forgiveness? We praise the saints because through practice they make the difficult look easy. Anything is easy once you know how. The computer repair geek who can fix a complex problem in a half hour is worth more than the sincere novice who struggles for the entire morning and fixes only 90% of the problem. What we are moving towards is a spacious graciousness of mind that makes it look easy to enter into the sacred mystery of the divine presence in all things. What if Officer Goodlaw had come to Sr. Mary Virginia’s third grade class and taught you the “Stop, Look, and Listen” method for dealing with the agitations and negative emotions that even children have to face? If you had been practicing this simple but profound method since then, you would perform now with the grace and ease of an Olympic athlete. Or what if in the fourth grade, you had been taught to review your day or any action in it according to the “good in the beginning, middle and end” method? It would now be second nature for you to to to , if your teachers had drilled you and quizzed you on this the way they did on the catechism. How big would the frame have to be now to enclose your mental picture of the sky-like nature of mind! When faced with a mental dilemma or perplexing fork-in-the-road decision, if you had trained yourself by ing to ask the question, “Do I want to be right or do I want to be free?” you would have armed yourself by now with a crap detector set on hair trigger. This practical wisdom would tolerate neither fools nor con artists. Whether the specious cons arose from business chicanery, political flattery or the indulgence of your own self-promotion, you would have trained yourself in detecting the course that aligns you with true freedom rather than self righteousness.

A shorthand and frequently misunderstood statement from Plato in the West goes “Knowledge is virtue.” A shorthand and also misunderstood statement, this time from Buddha in the East goes, “Ignorance is non virtue.” Closer to what they meant would be “Knowledge of a certain kind flows into virtuous activity” and “ignorance of a certain kind precipitates into non virtuous activity.” Plato is the philosopher the West has principally chosen to follow, in as much as his thought has been incorporated by St. Augustine and developed in the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas. Plato believed that balance, harmony and political stability could only be achieved when either the powerful became wise or when the wise came into power. The West is just beginning to acquaint itself with the Buddha so as to incorporate the wisdom of his teaching. He believed that ignorance was the inability to directly perceive one’s innate wisdom nature. The fundamental mistake of taking one’s self-promoting nature to be one’s essential self leads to pride, greed, anger and all the suffering that flows from this unholy triad. Plato’s famous metaphor of the cave develops an analogy for the human condition that will allow us, at this point, to unite some of the wisdom elements from both West and East. This union will allow us to both broaden our entryway into the divine presence and to realize more deeply its spacious graciousness. Plato asks us to imagine ourselves down inside a dark cave with the entryway open above and behind us, if we could only turn around to see it. However, our unfortunate condition is to be so imprisoned (chains of our own making?) that we can only face the wall in front of us. All that we know about that world above is from the shadows cast on our wall by what es between the sun and the opening of the cave. But one day, one of us breaks free and climbs toward the light. Totally unaccustomed to it, let alone the direct sight of the sun, he is at first blinded. The total clarity of the cloudless sky he perceives as darkness, and he is tempted to retreat back down into the comfortable shadows of the cave. However, his discomfort changes to amazement as his eyes gradually adjust. What is this brave new world that appears in full color and three dimensions! His wonder turns to something like comion as he re his companions locked in the shadowy cave. He returns to relate to them all the wonders of this fully illumined world. They can’t or won’t believe it, and they refuse to leave the only world they know.

The cave metaphor has been used to teach various lessons, but as we know, hearing the lesson is one thing, but ing it and acting on it are two quite different things. The lesson usually taught is how the iron chains of habit keep us bound so that we mistake the shadows for the full light of truth that casts them. The lesson I would like to highlight, however, is less frequently emphasized: the paradoxical nature of our situation vis-à-vis the divine. There are shadows that appear to those in the cave, and there is the absolute light of reality outside the cave. Ultimately, the two coexist and go together, but they are not two and they are not one. Absolute transcendence manifests itself in impermanent forms that seem like shadows. But according to Plato, there is no manifest form without transcendence and no transcendence without its relation to manifest form. Now the Buddha uses different words, but says the same thing. When the paradoxical “not two, not one” coexistence of light and shadows is rendered simplistically, a dualism results, and we get serious problems. In the West, these problems show up, on the one hand, as the error of empiricism and its god, pantheism. These mistake the “sum total of the shadows in the cave with the Light beyond the cave” or, in other words, the “totality of the universe with that which is radically prior” or transcendent to the universe. The spiritual pitfall and delusion from this view is that, if the sum total of all that is manifests as shadows in the cave, then one sees no need to get out of the cave.(15) For our purposes, the other pitfall is perhaps the more germane, as it has characterized the penitential character of Catholic spirituality for a long time. This is what Ken Wilbur calls a “hatred of the shadows.”

“It shows up in a violent asceticism, in anti-materialism, and especially in antisexual ethic and life repression. The idea is that the world itself is somehow evil, whereas all that is evil is the world perceived apart from, or other to, God.

When God is seen to be in the world, as the world, the world is radically divine. Grace, as St. Thomas said, is supposed to perfect nature, not obliterate it.”(16)

The spiritual seeker wants practical guidance to go deeper, and may have little

patience with what is perceived as the niceties of metaphysics. However, sometimes there is nothing so physically practical as a good metaphysics, and this is one of those times. The paradox of God’s transcendent immanence, or immanent transcendence if you prefer, is actually the key to going beyond the vestibule and into the holy sanctuary of the divine presence in all things. Recall that initially, our cave escapee was blinded by the light, and felt momentarily in a deeper darkness than ever he experienced inside the cave. But he was unprepared. Our preparation has taken us from the baptismal paradigm of initiation through a confirmation process which strengthened both our resolve and our habit of making new beginnings with pure motivation. The purification process continued with the sacrament of Penance, where gross obscurations that obscure the sky-like clarity of mind were dissolved. Also, we have gotten much better at several skills: a) listening, b) ing to make a check up for a possible course correction of misalignments once underway, and c) asking the right question which by itself creates some mental space. We are ready and expectant now… and there’s the problem: we are all too ready with expectations. The paradoxical presence of manifest transcendence (or immanent hiddeness of the Divine) invites a corresponding paradoxical attitude in us. Otherwise, we will be left waiting indefinitely in the vestibule for the doors of sacred mystery to open. But wait a moment: expectant readiness or ready expectancy—isn’t that close enough to paradox? Not hardly. As St. Thomas once remarked—a principle our rocket scientists apply all the time—a little error at the beginning results in a huge misalignment at the end. Without those constant course corrections, the Mars rover would miss the red planet by such a huge margin that it would end up heading out of the solar system. So what we need now is an application of metaphysics that leads to the most practical results, namely, the moment by moment with the divine presence. Since we have already done a lot of preparatory work to get ready, let’s examine the true nature of spiritual readiness. In the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the exercitant practices a variety of meditations both as preparation and as confirmation. She seeks to know how best to orient her life for the greater glory of God. Sometimes this brings her to a life changing course correction. To prepare the exercitant to be free enough and clear enough to hear the voice of divine direction, Ignatius has put the one making retreat through a purification process that culminates in an attitude of mind that he calls “indifference.” We discussed this in an earlier chapter, but it bears repeating. Properly understood, “indifference” is the polar opposite of a blasé-blasé state of mind. Our word “detachment” is a little better, if we that what the exercitant is

detached from are the various impulses towards self promotion. What is meant, and ideally achieved at this stage in the retreat, is a readiness that is eager to go any way as divinely guided, detached from the impulses of self promotion and indifferent to the difficulties this new course of action might entail. That’s “readiness” properly understood. Now expectations carry such mundane baggage that they must necessarily weigh the spiritual seeker down. Like the cave dweller, who has only seen the shadowy manifestations of the world as it es by the cave opening, we too have usually only had very shadowy clues about what to expect if we ever were in the presence of the divine. When about to leave the vestibule, the best advice is to drop all expectations entirely. Expect nothing. Mundane expectations will only obscure the real presence, that is, the appearance of the divine mystery manifesting itself within ordinary appearances. So the practical guidance for the seeker, at this point, calls for the paradoxical attitude of readiness free from all expectations. Paradoxically, the wisdom of East and West meet and see eye to eye around the idea of blindness. The impure and unprepared mind, in the presence of absolute clear Light, is blinded and reports that the divine appears as darkness. The tamed and trained mind, gradually accustomed to brilliant clarity, reports that the divine is empty. It is empty of any of the impurities and obscurations that the conceptual mind must necessarily impose on the divine. On the one hand, light is mistaken for darkness: on the other, clear luminosity is interpreted as emptiness. We have now left the vestibule and are walking through the sanctuary. When profane intruders broke into the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem, they were stunned that it appeared entirely empty. Untrained and unprepared to meet the transcendent Lord of the universe, we too can mistake what appears as emptiness for an absence, a void or vacuum. But those who have 1) done the work of preparation, 2) paid the cost for the pearl of great price, and 3) have aligned their hearts with a readiness that is free of expectations, the moment of revelation is at hand for these lovers of wisdom. In this moment of loving encounter, the empty essence of divine wisdom nakedly dawns. In the next chapter, the eucharistic consequences of this wisdom revelation will make their presence known. The paradoxical consequence of the transcendent immanence of the divine, appearing to the tamed and trained mind as the wisdom of emptiness, is that there is nowhere that it may not appear. Empty yet

unceasing, the divine may present itself as anything whatsoever.

Such wonder ought to be celebrated in the song of a poet:

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out like shining from shook foil;”(17)

“I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes, Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour; And, eyes, heart, what looks, what lips yet gave you a Rapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?

And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder Majestic—as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet!— These things, these things were here and but the beholder Wanting; which two when they once meet, The heart rears wings bold and bolder And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.”(18)

Chapter Seven

EUCHARISTIC PRESENCE

It is my experience, ed I believe by theology and dogma, that all the sacraments culminate in the Eucharistic feast and are in some sense derivative from it. The records we have of Jesus with his disciples at the Last Supper are the clearest indication that he intended the eating of this meal as a sacred commemoration of what his life and death is meant to stand for. The church has always directed its flock to the communion rail—today, or course, usually just a step separating the pews from the altar sanctuary. There they receive, with open hands or open mouths, the body and blood of the Lord Jesus, spiritual nourishment and sustenance par excellence. For long periods of history, however, Christians were required only to make confession and receive communion once a year, but then it was also the norm in those days to bathe just as seldom. Fortunately, we have learned that health could be greatly improved if the spacing for both was minimized. When I was a child, I took my mother’s hand, and every morning we walked the short distance to our parish church for 7:30 a.m. Mass and communion. That practice continued even after I was old enough to walk by myself. After high school taught by the Jesuits, I ed the Jesuits; and I lived a rather medieval monastic life for the first four years of that long fourteen year training program. Of course there was daily Mass and communion, usually high Mass involving the entire monastic community. However, because more donations were given to sing high Masses than could be offered in the main chapel, most of the priests on staff regularly sang high Mass in small crypt chapels accompanied by a Jesuit scholastic in training. I did this for four years. Besides altar boy duties, I had to sing antiphonally with the priest, plus sing solo all the “ordinaries” (Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnes Dei) as well as some of the “propers” of the day (Introit, Offering prayer, Secret, etc.). These all had to be sung in correct Gregorian chant. I can report, that at the successful completion of such a task, I gave rise to special feelings of thanksgiving.

Even though Mass took place very early in the day, we were taught to regard the sacred mysteries as the center of our day. We were instructed to be mindful of this centrality throughout the day. When you did have to speak, it was in Latin; idle, distracting talk was thereby kept to a minimum. We were being trained by the best to do the best thing that a human being could do with his life: serve God as a monk and as a priest within the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Ever since the Coptic hermit, Antony, took flight from Alexandria into the Egyptian desert in the third century, and Pachomious in the fourth century organized communities of ascetics into a disciplined rule of life in common called monasticism, celibate monks, not martyrs, have been the gold standard for the imitation of Christ.(19) I entered the Society of Jesus in 1960 with the largest class, before or since, of forty-four young men. Only six were ordained thirteen years later. The shortage of monks and priests is becoming so critical that lay people are assuming priestly responsibilities in various parts of the world. The age of the laity is in full flower. Even before I left the Jesuits, my reflections about the relative merits of the monastic life versus the lay life were not entirely orthodox. I was taught to regard my way of life as a monk as the best, and for me it was, at that time. It seemed to me then, and I feel even more sure of it now, that the concrete estimation of relative merit must be decided based on the virtues each life gives evidence of. By their fruits shall you know them. It makes minimal academic sense to extol one way of life in the abstract as better than another. The real question is whether that life is better for me or you. If, for example, one is a monk, having taken vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, but is guilty of frequently compromising those vows in practice, then it seems clear that the monastic life is not really the best—for him or her. The simple decision-making principle in practice is this: the best is what leads to the best. Adopt the highest ideals and lead a disciplined life that embodies those ideals—excellent choice. Adopt these ideals with impure motivation; live them haphazardly with corresponding results—not so much. The church long ago developed the distinction between opus operatum and opus operantis to for impure priests performing the sacraments.(20) Basically the teaching is that a properly consecrated priest can effect the efficacious sign (opus operatum), even though his personal life is a sinful disgrace (opus

operantis). The person receiving communion from such a one, for example, may cringe, but still have perfect confidence that the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ has been effected. The words of such a one still effect what they signify. From the beginning, the church has leaned heavily on the trustworthiness of words. In the beginning was the Word (In principio erat Verbum). The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. The Nicene Creed was crafted in the fourth century at the command of the emperor Constantine in order to end the gang violence and bloodshed in the streets by factions fighting over the nature of Christ. Was the Word made flesh, the only Son of the Father, equal to the father (“homo ousion”) or similar but subordinate (“homoi ousion”)? And so on down through the centuries by way of councils, encyclicals, papal bulls, etc. Perhaps there is a book to be written about how the Greek language itself somewhat mesmerized the theologians using it into thinking they could some how “ef” the ineffable, “preg” the impregnable and “conceive” the inconceivable. The Greek language has hundreds of verb forms, seemingly endless conjugations in a variety of voices (active, ive and others), multiple tenses expressing subtle shades of mood and a very rich vocabulary. Perhaps the net it casts over reality was fine enough to capture the mystery of the divine presence in the world. This is not that book. I am writing as a layman for lay people raised as Catholic Christians and nourished by the sacraments. These are folks who are adults now, and perhaps are looking to use a renewed understanding of the sacraments as holy stepping stones into a deepening appreciation of the divine mystery. These are not monastics who have in any way separated themselves from the world. The question these folks ask is: how do I use the daily grind to create a blend of inspiration and methodology that guides me to go deeper. I am writing as a married man who was once a Jesuit. I know both Western and Eastern monasticism intimately. As we move deeper into the mystery of the divine presence via the Eucharist, I want to be very cautious about the use of words. The reality that we are trying to buy into (the pearl of great price, , is not filthy lucre) requires that we pay attention more to silence than to speech. Words must know their place. When the silence can’t be improved upon, it is best that we just say nothing. If we include “attention” to the mix of “detachment,” “indifference” and “lack of expectations” that defines “readiness,” we have the proper attitude for entering into the eucharistic presence. Where Shakespeare said “Readiness is all,” we

now say “Readiness is almost all.”(21) Recall that the last chapter began with a quote that claimed we become wise once we have learned to forgive ourselves. That stage of forgiveness is truly a facet of wisdom, but it is not the complete picture. Once all the big stones of ill will, grievances and guilt (not yet transformed into salutary remorse) have been removed from the jar, there are still all the smaller stones and the sandy grit that must be washed clear. The clear, empty jar is our metaphor now for almost allthere-is to the readiness above. This is what I am calling the “wisdom of emptiness.” Earlier we spoke of an emptiness that was not an absence, neither a void nor a vacuum. It is interesting to note in ing that science on both the microcosmic (subatomic) and macrocosmic (astrophysics) level is discovering such an emptiness. What was formerly perceived as a void or vacuum is now conceived to be a “something” that yet has no characteristics of any conceivable thing. It is theoretically thought to be an energetic, information-packed emptiness. Nevertheless, it is paradoxically conceived to be so charged with the potential to manifest, that only a poverty of imagination could call it an absence. The spiritual seeker has done the preparatory work outlined by the baptismal paradigm of initiation and confirmed that auspicious beginning by a continuous confirmation that their priorities are not misaligned. Also, the thorough purification process of the sacrament of Penance gives witness to this purified accomplishment. Having persevered to this point, the spiritual seeker is ready. Unlike the profane intruder into the Holy of Holies, the mind of the seeker at this point does not mistake emptiness for an absence. The sanctuary is potent with an energetic presence, and that sanctuary, that holy ground, is everywhere. The gift of a moment like this is a profound but amazingly simple realization: “these things were here and but the beholder wanting.” The transcendent immanence of the Lord God Almighty has always been present, but the ability to see it and feast on it was wanting. Absent this inability, “the world is charged with the grandeur of God.” The gift of this charged and energizing presence is not just given to the poet or the monastic contemplative. Mr. and Mrs. Joe Layman have been invited to the same feast. When the Layman’s wisdom-emptiness corresponds in its own way to the emptiness which is the presence of immanent transcendence that resides at the

essential center of all things, then the moment by moment eucharistic feast may begin. This is why I issued a caution about words and speech in the sanctuary, and also why we early on commented that prayer ought to be a lot more like listening than talking. The Lord already knows what we know or don’t know. Our talking may clarify things for us, but not for Him. At any rate, what the seekers seek at this stage is not the sound of their own voice, but to feast on an undeniable presence that nourishes, sustains and totally energizes them… body, mind and spirit. Wisdom-emptiness, therefore, is the last ingredient that eliminates the “almost” from “readiness is almost all.” Transcendent immanence—immanent transcendence, the sacred mystery resident at the heart of all phenomena—has always been there, present moment by moment, ready to be feasted on. This is the eucharistic presence that is available anywhere and everywhere. It is a timeless, ever fresh gift that went unnoticed, either because we were distracted, misaligned, or too busy with our projects of self promotion. Or because we were not just ready to accept that the Almighty could disguise itself in the mundane, apparently unsacramental trappings of our ordinary walk-about world. We always knew it would be special to be in the presence of the Lord, but we never guessed at the paradox: being able to meet the Lord, no place special, would be the most extraordinary thing of all. The Sacrament of the Eucharist is the feast of thanksgiving; “Eucharist” of course means “thanksgiving.” The eucharistic presence, that doesn’t require the opus operatum of the priest to make it available, is the feast that transcendent immanence makes available everywhere. Once the seeker has done the preparatory work that leads to readiness and that special kind of wisdomemptiness, the words of the poet Walt Whitman can be turned upside down. Instead of “all flesh is grass” which is a memento mori, a reminder of our impermanence and mortality, the seeker can say, “all grass is flesh.” Divine food and energizing nourishment is as readily available as the grass in the fields, only the beholder wanting. Seen for what it truly is, namely, the disguised presence of the transcendent Almighty, the eucharistic feast is present throughout the sanctuary of creation. Is there anything that calls for a “rapturous love’s greeting of a realer, of rounder replies” of thanksgiving than this!

Chapter Eight

THE WISDOM OF EMPTINESS

Olympic competitors, let alone champions, require a detailed plan of practice and the motivation and discipline to stick to it. While the gold is their goal, if they didn’t love the practice itself and its effects, they would not stick with it. The same goes for anyone aspiring to and achieving excellence in any of the performing arts. One skill that merits our attention here is the ability to listen. Coaches can and should be demanding, but listening to their critique day in and out can feel like a monk’s hair shirt. Performing excellence also demands one listen carefully to the body. There is a kind of discriminating wisdom that must distinguish between pain that can be played through and pain which requires a surrender that is not a demeaning capitulation. Then there are one’s family and friends who often want to weigh in on one’s progress. They offer counsel, sometimes requested, often not. One must hear that they mean well, but frequently, one must then not listen in the sense of not being distracted or put off point by what they say. Is the spiritual seeker any different? And if so, how? Perhaps my readers are inclined to disqualify themselves from such elite comparisons. Or if the spiritual journey is in some sense a race to be run, is it really meant to be all that competitive? But I’m not the one who asked the question about what you would pay for the pearl of great price.(22) Quite some time ago, the get-by modus operandi of moral mediocrity was dismissed as unworthy of the lover in search of the sacred mystery. Yes, “the world is too much with us.” The getting and the spending of wealth exhaust our life energy. What is there left over at the end of the day for the day laborer trying to make ends meet? Olympic athletes can train full time because they are in some sense subsidized. Excellent performing artists usually make big bucks, and the aspiring ones, church-mice poor, are probably not trying to and keep a family together. The complaint is clear. I hear it. But have you or have you not been baptized into the death of Jesus? If you accepted the program outlined in principle by the baptismal paradigm, then the question now should be: given the limitations of

my layman’s life, how can I still perform with excellence? This chapter attempts to outline a method that builds on the sacramental steps we’ve already taken. First, another word about words. The method to be developed is intended to engage the Lord, resident at the center of each and every phenomenon, in silence. This method, called the wisdom of emptiness, will detail a practice of listening designed to produce performance excellence. Once within the practice environment created by the wisdom-of-emptiness method, the only word the spiritual seeker is permitted to speak is “yes.” Many words will be heard, perhaps. At least the concepts and images that give rise to words will be more than you may want to hear. There is a method to deal with each and everyone, but “yes” in response to the unconditional “yes” of the Lord of sacred space is to be our only utterance. Before we begin our methodical approach to method, a final word is in order about the placement of this chapter. In the New Testament, the Greek word usually translated “conversion” is metanoia, which literally means “a change of mind and heart.”(23) The preceding chapters have attempted to present the sequence of the sacraments leading up to the Eucharist in a way that will change the readers’ mind and heart about them. Of course, this is not an attempt at “conversion” in the technical sense. Rather, the hope is that some readers will be converted to a renewed practice of their faith, taking some renewal and refreshing inspiration where they find it, and making the application to their walk-about lives where they can. I know, from my own experience, that I required a lot of guidance in the practice of a proven methodology before I was able to walk through the vestibule door and into that sacred sanctuary which is everywhere. Unfortunately, in this regard, the church vis-à-vis the layman, has typically been long on exhortation and short on methodology. This chapter is an attempt to begin to remedy that imbalance. The method I am proposing, for entering more deeply into the sacred mystery of the divine presence in all things, is actually one we have met before, with the application now to the skill of listening as silent prayer. It is the method of (1) good in the beginning, (2) good in the middle, (3) good at the end. Let’s adopt the shorthand “meditation” for the “skill of listening as silent prayer to engage the sacred mystery of the divine presence in all things.”

1. The Good Beginning.

(A) Before sitting down to practice—in the beginning it will seem more like practice than prayer perhaps—you make a silent contract with yourself. The contract goes something like this: “Since I’ve decided to devote the next five, ten or fifteen minutes—no longer at the start—to practice, I will not permit outside distractions to interrupt me, nor will I give in to my own bodily irritations.” For example, if you have to pee, do it now. (B) Choose a space that is as free from outside noise and interruption as you can conveniently find. This is not a suggestion to find or build a little hermitage hut in the country. But your prayer place should be made clean and clear of clutter. Gradually, you will feel it becoming more sacred because of your practice; so make it nice. If you like, a little ritual, before you sit, of lighting a votive candle and/or a stick of incense, is fine. Also, if it helps your devotion to have sacred images in the room or on the table with the candle, please do. I had a meditation teacher who said that until you can meditate on the subway or in the mall, you haven’t reached performance excellence, but he was very clear that those places were not where the beginner starts his practice. (C) Be comfortable and relaxed. If you want to sit on a cushion on the floor, fine, but it is not necessary. Absorption in meditation ritual and paraphernalia gets you right to the heart of the periphery. However, a straight-backed chair is preferable to a lounge chair because of breathing. Your breath is your secret ally, and you don’t want to restrict it. Your feet should be flat on the floor, if you’re in a chair; keep your back straight but not rigid, and your head “floats” above your shoulders as though it were a helium balloon on a string. If your head slumps forward it pinches your ally the breath.

A final word about posture and the placement of your hands: forget your images of New Age would-be yogis balanced on a seaside rock with hands upturned resting on their knees, thumbs and forefingers touching. This appearance of a lotus notwithstanding, the most important point about hand posture is placement so you don’t finger-fidget. Rest the palms naturally on the knees or thighs,

whichever is more comfortable. There is an added benefit, however, to placing the left palm up resting in your lap, right hand over the left with thumbs touching lightly. The thumbs in this position act as a kind of dashboard gauge. During your meditation practice, if your attention on the breath is not alert and relaxed, like an experienced surfboarder riding a modest wave, your thumbs will press each other too tightly indicating a concentration that is too severe. Notice this, take a deep breath, and begin again with relaxed but alert attention. Similarly, should you look down at your thumb gauge, and notice them wide apart, this is usually a good indication that your mind is wandering and needs to sharpen its focus. Good-in-the-beginning posture is only what we’ve discussed so far. In formal meditation, posture is important. Later on, having acquired performance excellence skills, you will be able to “improvise,” like a jazz musician. Engaging the divine presence in all things means just that: the ability outside the confines of your quasi hermitage prayer room to meet and greet the Lord wherever and whenever.

(D) Now is the time to what you learned from the baptismal paradigm about the importance of pure intention at the beginning. Your effort to achieve performance excellence begins by placing your effort on the altar. In other words, you make a mental consecration of what you are about to do by uniting it with the salvific offering of Jesus for the church and the world. It may seem like a minuscule thing you are offering, but how often do people STOP, LOOK and LISTEN to dedicate a portion of their day to the salvation of the world? How often do you do it? Like the offertory prayers at Mass, this is the moment when any similar intentions are appropriate. If you suddenly died now, and never got past the pure intention start to your practice, you would on within a sacred state of mindfulness—no mean accomplishment!

2. The Good Middle. We come now to the difficult training and taming of the mind to be silent, so as to become skilled at listening. Recall the theory behind the practice: if your mind is busy, busy, busy with this, that and the other, how is God going to get a word in edgewise, especially if his typical M.O. is silent communication.

(A) Your posture, both physical and mental, has placed you in a state of readiness to awaken to the wisdom of emptiness. (B) Your breath is your ally. Start by just noticing how it flows at the moment. Become aware of the rise and fall of your belly as you breathe. Can you sense the temperature difference in your nostrils between an inhalation and an exhalation? Just relax and be comfortable for a moment in the total presence of your ally the breath. (C) In this type of meditation, your eyes remain open, half-lidded perhaps. There are many meditation styles, some close the eyes, but this one doesn’t. The theory behind the practice is this: you are training your mind for the times when you are out and about, when you have to keep you eyes open. It won’t do to train to listen with closed eyes, only to become perplexed at how to do it with eyes open. Now pick a point on the floor in front of you, down at about a forty-five degree angle. Put a grain of rice or something there, if it helps keep your eyes from wandering. (D) Allow your breath to flow as it will. It doesn’t matter whether the breaths are short or long, as long as you don’t force them to be one way or another. Just relax, be comfortable, and just breathe naturally. (E) The next step of the Good Middle is just to notice in a special way how busy and noisy your mind typically is. This is not going to be fun, but your contract. The way you start to do this is by silently counting your breaths. Allowing the breath to flow as it will, count each exhalation from one to ten, and then start over. When you lose count, just start over at one. Now everybody loses count; that’s what happens at the beginning. The point is that when you lose count, you have clear evidence of being distracted. You may find it humbling how often this happens in a ten minute session.

Warning: the self promotion side of your mind will complain, object, and suggest all manner of specious reasons why you should stop this nonsense right now. I can guarantee this will happen. Please review the specious objections raised in Chapter 3, number 3, the section where Officer Goodlaw talks about LISTENING. When I said to “pay close attention to the rationalization your

mind makes for giving in to your frustration,” this applies especially now.

As you relax into counting your breath, part of your mind listens so as to familiarize itself with its own specious objections. If meditation did nothing else except make you aware of what a superb con artist the self-promoting aspect of your mind can be, you would have gotten great benefit from it.

(F) So, after some practice, there will be less difficulty keeping count without distraction. The excessive busyness of mind will become a little more still. Your practice now requires a subtle shift from complete attention on the flow and count of your breath to what arises in your mind. Again, the practice is just to notice, not try to control these thoughts.

The skill that comes with the practice of just noticing is huge: freedom from identification with what goes on in your mind! Stop and consider the question that revealed the patch of blue sky space amidst the cloudy confusion of your mind, namely, “Do I want to be right or do I want to be free?” Wanting to be right is a clear indication of how identified we can become with our thoughts, the way we think, and the conclusions our thoughts have brought us to. “That’s me. Just look at the way I think, if you want to know who I am.” But is that really who I am? The process of just noticing your thoughts, not editing or judging or manipulating them in anyway, will create more clear space in your mind. You will have your own experience of the paradox: that the mind is not purely mental. That is, an awareness will become clear that is undeniable, yet it has nothing to do with conceptualization or any other mental thought process. The connection between the ability to disengage from identification with one’s thoughts and the ability to engage the divine mystery should be made clear. Where do you think the Lord prefers to dwell? In the sanctuary created by the empty, pure spaciousness of your mind or in the mucky-muck of your distracted self promotion? And in which arena is clear undistorted communication more likely to happen? The answer is why we practice this wisdom of emptiness: not so that you can become a good meditator, but so that your mind can become free and clear enough to meet the Lord anywhere and everywhere.

(G) Good in the middle has a simple yet subtle gauge for evaluating progress: the degree of freedom from grasping or attachment. If you maintain a practice schedule of frequent short meditation sessions—and there will be no performance excellence if you don’t—you will gradually become aware of aspects of your mind that previously escaped your notice. You will notice, from the disengaged observation of your own thoughts, that grasping and attachment to them, especially “inordinate attachment,” leads to all kinds of suffering. Conversely, when you release this grasping to thoughts, the relaxed state of mind frees itself from this self-imposed condition of suffering.

Now grasping and attachment span a very broad spectrum. Consider, for example, the gross attachment to rising to the top no matter who gets stepped on versus the frustration felt (a clear sign of attachment) when your wife says, “I’ll be there in just a second, honey” and ten minutes later she shows up. Even more subtle than that would be the desire expressed so: “I really had such a great meditation yesterday. I want another one just like that again today.” Expectations are a subtle form of grasping and attachment. A way to calibrate your gauge of the good middle is to examine your meditation practice from the point of view of readiness and its defining characteristics: detachment, indifference and freedom from expectations. Once again, the theory behind the practice is this: that even though the Lord is sovereign, able to do as he pleases, he is perhaps more pleased to engage you when your mind is free and clear of grasping and attachments. It perhaps goes without saying that volumes have been written about meditation and meditation technique, though not so many about Eastern meditation practices as an adjunct to Christian prayer and contemplation. The reader must suspect that real progress towards performance excellence will require the help of a skillful coach. My experience leads me to say that because the seeker is “leaving it all on the field of play”—as the coach at halftime frequently reminds his players—in pursuit of this highest and purest of goals, the Lord will not leave you hanging. Out of the silent stillness of your mental spaciousness and clarity, the wisdom for how to best proceed will be given. In fact, this guidance may well be the first evidence that your effort, to give all for the pearl of great price by developing the wisdom of emptiness, is starting to pay dividends.

3. The Good End. Recall that Plato called “wisdom” the knowledge that flowed into virtue, and by “virtue” he meant “arête” (rhymes with “faraway”). Arête in classical Greece was the end or culmination of the entire educational process (paideia) that led to performance excellence, whether as an athlete, an artisan, a lover of wisdom or philosopher. The Buddha, a near contemporary of Plato from northern India, called “wisdom” the knowledge that neutralized the ignorance of the empty nature of all phenomena. And by “empty” (shunyata) he meant having no permanent, substantial, fixed identity. This wisdom of emptiness knowledge flows into the relaxation of all grasping and inordinate attachments that lead to suffering in all its forms.

In this sense, there is virtually no end to the prayerful meditation practice that flows into the wisdom of emptiness. Only the fully enlightened ones attain the complete fullness of this wisdom, so as to never become misaligned by inordinate attachments nor, in fact, to ever be distracted from an awareness of the divine mystery. But this goal is not out of reach for the practitioner who has been anointed with the sacramental chrism. The oil of chrism applied externally becomes the seed for an internal charism. In this context, the charisma of internal blessing reveals itself in a gradual increase of performance excellence, leading to an ever increasing awareness of the gracious spaciousness resident at the heart of all phenomena.

The wisdom of emptiness, derived from a diligent and persevering practice of meditation, and guided by a skillful coach, is what gives direct and deeper entry into the sacred mystery of the divine presence resident at the heart of all phenomena.

The mind that is empty is free of the conceptualizations that fill the mind with righteous judgments and all the other elaborations that flow into self promotion. A mind that has been tamed and trained into this emptiness is wise; it knows when it is best to keep silent. It has learned the skill of relaxed yet acute listening that promotes clear and profound communication. This is why, in the end, if

seekers wish deep entry into the presence of the divine mystery, they must couple the practices suggested by the baptismal paradigm of initiation with meditation that leads to the wisdom of emptiness. Otherwise, to be blunt, it is too easy to mistake the ordinary voices in one’s head for a wireless transmission from the Lord. The end result of this mistake cannot help but be some degree of misalignment. And recalling what St. Thomas Aquinas said, a very small error at the beginning becomes magnified and huge in the end. Finally, to conclude this chapter, there is a protocol for properly ending a meditation practice session. Even as an athlete or dancer cools down after a rigorous practice session before moving on to begin something else, so the meditation session has its appropriate transition.

(A) First, there is the dedication of merit. I earlier mentioned that your apparently miniscule five, ten or fifteen minute practice session is actually no small thing. How many people STOP, LOOK and practice how to LISTEN consistently and with devotion? The bread and wine brought up to the altar could be considered no big deal either. But they are transformed into his Body and Blood. Who can measure the consequences? Likewise your small offering of time and attention began by placing it on the altar of your heart. That practice is transforming you. Who can measure the consequences of a spacious graciousness of mind put out into the world, instead of righteous judgment and the elaborations of self promotion? So when you make a dedication of merit at the end of your practice, you are making an offering of your efforts. By doing so, you “bank” it with the treasury of merit accumulated by all the saints and available for withdrawal by prayerful request from any of the faithful. (B) Thanksgiving. The sacrament of Eucharist is the thanksgiving feast made available through the church, the instrumentality of its ministers, but ultimately because of the undying, unconditional love of the Transcendent One. Be grateful for your effort to enter more deeply into this divine mystery through a practice of attentive listening and presence of mind. Be mindful of all the total confluence factors that unite to make your offering possible: (a) your health (b) the luxury of your life that permits you to give this time over to this effort (c) the house you live in and all the competent laborers who built it so that you don’t worry about it falling down even though it is storming outside (d) your last meal and all who made it available so that hunger is not a distraction (e) all your teachers who

helped bring you to this stage of understanding, and maybe finally (because once a thanksgiving feast gets really cooking, the table becomes so heavily laden it must be called “a groaning board”) f) the entire mystical body of Christ. You are grateful for becoming a more vital participating member. (C) Whoever said it first deserves our thanks for this wonderful turn of phrase: we give perpetual thanks for the gift of the moment; and that is why we call it “the present.” Usually, the first thing to happen as you rise up and leave your prayer room is forgetfulness. How hard it is to to to . If your mindfulness practice makes you more continuously aware of your ally the breath, you will maintain a “frame of mind” that is larger, with more clear sky in it. And, if out of this more spacious relaxed frame of mind, you allow your breath to come forth with a silent prayer of “thanks,” you will be following Jesus’ counsel to learn how to pray always. The medieval mystic, Meister Eckhart, once remarked: if you make only one prayer in your entire life, let it be “Thank You.” Perhaps the moment by moment breath of thanksgiving is the deeper meaning to what he meant.

Chapter Nine

EPILOGUE

There are a variety of world views. If they don’t always serve as guides for particular actions, they do establish a horizon in which certain kinds of actions make sense and can find their justification. For example, the first world view I was taught and memorized came from the Baltimore catechism: “Man was created to know, love and serve God in this world, and to be happy with Him in the next.” The main character, in a novel by James Clavell called Tai-Pan, espouses this world view: “I dinna regret a day. Na a day. A man has to go out into the world and make what he can of it, and himself. Is that na the purpose of life?”(24) The spelling attempts to capture Dirk Struan’s Scottish brogue. What the statement clearly captures, in context however, is the view that the self promotional drive to the top is self justifying. Any collateral damage along the way is justified in view of this first principle. One more example: “The essence of human life is to sur and surprise itself with ever new manifestations of the enormously potent divine seed potential.”(25) Words sometimes matter a lot, especially when expressing a world view or in the question, “Do I want to be right or do I want to be free?” There would be a huge difference if the question ended with the word “safe” or “saved.” The world view implied in the difference between “freedom as liberation” and “safety as salvation” is huge. Theologians sometimes try to articulate a oneness or unitary wholeness to the manifest universe in relation to its Creator. Or at least, the effort is made to think the relationship between a Transcendent Other and a somehow less transcendent subject, so as to bridge the metaphysical divide between Creator and creature. This effort, in the West, has never fully succeeded. The world view of the catechism, for example, is left to deal with an infectious dualism. Yes, the divine and mysterious One is omnipresent with a transcendence that escapes pantheism. Yes, the self has its transcendent aspect—the soul is potentially all things (anima est in potentia omnia.(26). But fundamentally and forever, these two relate, if not as subject and object, then as subject to subject at their best. However,

converting one term of the knowledge relationship from “object” to “subject” merely disguises the latent dualism. And, as we have discussed in the preceding pages, the method is not given for practically promoting the deeper engagement with Transcendence using one’s own transcendent potential. In practice, the reach and range of metaphysics is set aside in favor of a much more concrete point of with the divine. Just consider, for example, how the ideal of the Suffering Servant is held up, and how it informs the world view from the catechism: Man is created to know, love and serve God in this world, and be happy with Him in the next. Suffering is canonized and a kind of servitude is justified. The church has tried to understand suffering, and offer people a way to think about its opaque profundity, usually in one of three ways. 1) Often throughout history, suffering was presented as the consequence of sin. Not just the human condition as sinful by its very nature, but this particular suffering is the ad hoc retribution for this ad hoc behavior. 2) Suffering is the will of God. He permits it. We cannot understand His will. We must go forward on faith. 3) Suffering is the path to salvation and safety. Take up your cross and follow Jesus. Suffering is blessed and canonized as in fact the path itself. The servant image is heavily laden with so many political overtones from history: kings in relation to their subjects, serfs to their vassals, vassals to their lords, and lords to the king. There are so many hierarchies throughout history where a subordinate owes service to a superior, and the church simply imported this hierarchical structure. It is impossible to shed these overtones of obligation of an inferior to a superior, even with the most benign application of the word “service.” And so, the Suffering Servant image of the incarnate divine both canonizes and justifies suffering, and, at least to some degree, servitude. So why is this a problem? Is this not the price one has to pay for the safety of salvation? But is this really what the pearl of great price is intended to purchase? The nasty metaphysical truth is this: until that infectious residue of dualism is disposed of, some sort of relationship will always surface that has a hidden adversarial component. As long as subjects ground their being and their knowledge in a relation to objects, sooner or later, those objects will be encountered as objectionable. Or to reverse the polarity, the Transcendent Subject will find the subordinate subject objectionable.

The problem, as I view it, is that theologians can’t resist conceptualizing. Primary experience precedes, and in some sense is superior to, conceptualization. This is acknowledged at the outset by many theologians. Their immediate sequel, however, is always to spinning a web of conceptualization. If it doesn’t try to “ef” the ineffable, it is somewhat comparable to Augustine’s angel on the beach trying to empty the ocean into a hole dug in the sand. Neither can the conceptual net catch the transcendent ocean of the divine. It can only glisten with the liquid pearls that cling to its web. There is little effort, and practically no method, to explore in depth that which escapes the conceptual net. This would have to be done through the highly skilled and profound practice of non conceptual meditation, and typically, it isn’t. Because of the emphasis on conceptual elaboration, theologians tend to forget that what cannot be conceived can still be experienced. The gravitational pull away from entering into the non conceptual via that dimension of mind, which is itself non conceptual, can be traced to the lodestone of self. Beneath the discussion of the transcendent capabilities of the lesser subject in relation to the Transcendent Subject, there is the irreducible, essential, permanently fixed and substantial self. With the substantial and fixed identity of the substantial self, we reach metaphysical bedrock. Dualism is the root cause of so many negative consequences in the practical application of theology; and at the heart of dualism is the conceptual fiction of the substantial self. This conceptual fiction must be seen through, if an alternate paradigm to the suffering servant is to find its application. Absent this conception of the substantial, fixed identity of the self, a new relationship to the divine is able to come into play: co-creation. The co-creative relationship is the one implicit in this world view: the essence of human life is to sur and surprise itself with ever new manifestations of its enormously potent divine seed potential. This is the baptismal paradigm of initiation in full flower.

In closing, here is a poem to give impetus to a non conceptual meditation:

“I have a feeling that my boat has struck, down there in the depths,

against a great thing. And nothing happens! Silence. Waves… —Nothing happens? Or has everything happened, and are we standing now, quietly, in a new life?”

—Oceans, by Juan Ramon Jimenez

Afterword

A friend of mine owns a bar called The Wandering Nomad. His name is Mr. Bottiglia; Bigli for short; and he is also the bartender. Bigli has been practicing the wisdom of emptiness method so long that he is now an adept, able to pray on his feet without anyone noticing. His spirituality is disguised by behavior that appears perfectly ordinary to almost everyone. However, he has a curious spacious graciousness about him. This wisdom emptiness of mind is what helps create a spacious environment that is belied by the small size of the bar. He can serve up a wide variety of drinks at reasonable prices, but there is an indefinable something that gives his place its special relaxed feeling that puzzles reasonable explanation. Most of the typical vagabonds of the human scene have wandered into his bar at one time or another. Weary and in need of some respite, they look for it in a drink. The Wandering Nomad is an oasis that gives them that respite. Bigli serves up drinks with an open ear and a chaser of tolerant acceptance. If he has at length become inured against feeling sorry for his nomadic patrons, still his complete lack of righteous judgment lets them come and go without the added burden of his censure. Bigli himself never takes a drink. He isn’t “on the wagon” or in recovery, although his patrons couldn’t tell you this for sure. He simply doesn’t like the stuff. Only an intimate confidant would even glimpse the depth of his spiritual practice. He doesn’t hide it. In fact, it’s on display for everyone to see, but no one does. Bigli has tamed and trained his mind; he re to to . Every drink he serves comes with a silent wish: that whatever this patron is really thirsting for, might be satisfied. Every glass or mug he cleans and checks by holding up to the light is a reminder: check the impurities, obscurations, and misalignments that might have shown up in his mind since the last time he checked. He makes a point of putting top shelf liquor on the bottom shelf. When asked why, he says he likes the best to be within easy reach; but really, it is a gesture he makes to remind himself of the equality of all beings. It reminds him that behind the extremes of their apparent differences, he practices seeing them all as equal. And so his spiritual practice in the bar is continuous, because each patron is another opportunity to see past their illusory separateness

and inequality. Bigli doesn’t require the carefully controlled solitude of his prayer room any longer, although he began his meditation and formal mind training practice there. He took guidance and counsel from a variety of meditation teachers, but his real guru early on became the question: “Do I want to be right or do I want to be free.” This question challenged the deepest aspirations of his heart the way no pulpit homily ever had. Through his meditation practice, he learned to clearly see the host of demonic mental jailers that tried to keep him imprisoned in the cell of his own self promotion. In his effort to become liberated from this self imprisonment, he saw how all hierarchies (at least those in the human realm) were ed by righteous judgments. These judgments create the rankings on the hierarchical pyramid. Once this pyramidal hierarchy gets established, people view their world through this template. By ing to pose the question (Right? Or free?) again and again, Bigli saw how much his own mind naturally inclined toward this habit of inequality. By opting to answer the question with “I want to be free…” of all self promoting habits of mind, Bigli gradually came to view things differently. His perception relaxed into a more spacious awareness. This is what his bar patrons feel in a subliminal way. Freed from the constraint to be right, the doors of perception begin to clear. And from his vantage point behind the bar, this clarified perception made it easy for Bigli to see past and beneath the apparent differences of his patrons. Bigli spends a lot of time polishing the highly lacquered surface of his bar. Most people think he does this because it is antique, a highly prized possession in which he takes great pride. Actually, this is just another of his paradoxically covert spiritual practices. The mirror-like surface reflects every patron equally, no matter their disfigurement or refinement. In this sense, it is like the mind that has become intimately familiar with the wisdom of emptiness. It reflects everything equally but is not stained or scarred by anything. The skylike clarity of the wisdom mind is unable to be marred, no matter how severe the storm. Bigli would also pray that his patrons could catch a glimpse of their own true inner being reflected in the surface of his bar. Although Mr. Bottiglia doesn’t say much, everyone thought he was a great conversationalist. At least everyone enjoyed sitting at the bar and having a chance to talk to him. I think this was because he was such a good listener. One day, one of his regulars sat down at the bar, a Russian immigrant named Milo. This man was a devout Christian of the Eastern Orthodox tradition. He was

devoted to the Christ Pantacrator, the image typical of Russian and Greek gold leafed icons. Bigli has special regard for Milo because he sensed the man was searching for something more. On this day with the bar virtually empty, Milo asked Bigli to talk about his spiritual practice. He said he could tell from a close observation of Bigli’s behavior that something more than meets the eye was going on. There was something especially about what Bigli chose not to say that piqued his curiosity. Milo said that he had heard somewhere that esoteric, or hidden, spirituality was like a secret treasure chest with a hidden key to its practice. Bigli smiled at that remark, and said straight up like a bourbon served neat: the treasure is not hidden and a secret key is not needed to open it. Milo looked perplexed, but he just waited for Bigli to say more. Instead, he took an empty bottle from under the bar, and held it up to the light. “Here it is; this is the secret,” he said. Over the years, Milo had become familiar with Bottiglia’s sometimes enigmatic ways. He understood now that Bigli wouldn’t say any more until he himself had probed the meaning of the empty bottle. So Milo first ventured the thought that the empty bottle represented an earlier time in Bigli’s life, when he was too fond of drink. Having given it up, his head had cleared and this was the secret of his practice. But Bigli shook his head, “Nyet.” Milo’s next idea was that the empty bottle symbolized having drained life to the dregs. It was emblematic of the carpe diem lifestyle. Seize the moment and milk it for all it’s worth. Let nothing unsavored. Did the bottle then represent a non verbal “go for the gusto” motto? Bigli chuckled—what a secret life he must be leading outside the bar if this were true—but he wagged the bottle by the neck as a sign of niente affato, absolutely not. Milo sipped his vodka, and then got up from the bar to go relieve his bladder. Perhaps it was all the running water, but he came running back to float his last idea: the bottle had been thrown overboard by some mystic traveler. This mystic seafarer had distilled the wisdom of his adventures into a note sealed inside. Bigli had found the bottle on one of his strolls along the beach. No hidden chest, just a strange karmic intersection on the beach one day. No secret key, just a cork. Milo looked both relieved and pleased with himself at the inventiveness of this suggestion. Bigli just held up the bottle to the light again, and said, “Look. Outside, inside…

same, no difference.” The bottle symbolized the nature of equality. The space inside is the same as the space outside, separated only by the illusory boundary called glass. It is illusory because it persists only at the pleasure of the perceiver who can choose to persist in maintaining the illusion of separateness. If he would just let go, the bottle would drop and shatter. The illusion of separateness would likewise shatter. Milo straightened his back on the bar stool the way one naturally does with the breath of inspiration. He recalled that Bigli often wore a T-shirt with the saying: “We are here to overcome the illusion of our separateness.” At this moment in Club Wandering Nomad, Milo experienced a rush of revelation. He received a liberation to see what he had overlooked until now by not clearly looking. Hold the bottle to the light; the inside is the same as the outside. Here is unmistakable evidence of equality for everyone to see. The empty bottle is emblematic of the wisdom emptiness resident at the heart of all things. This treasure is hidden only from those who won’t STOP, LOOK, and learn how to really LISTEN. If one would only release the grasping and let the bottle go, the illusion of separation would shatter. The illusion of separation is the last thing preventing the seeker from entering into the depths of the divine mystery. The method is to clear the mind of all those grasping tendencies that foster the habit of self promotion. STOP that; really LOOK into the consequences for development of the wisdom of emptiness; and then LISTEN to the divine communication speaking clearly yet silently in and through all things. Bigli could see Milo’s moment of revelation. Milo had suddenly awakened to the dazzling simplicity of it all: how Bigli didn’t hide it, yet until now, he had never really seen it. Since no words could improve upon the silent recognition both men shared at that moment, Bigli simply offered the bottle to Milo. Later, when guests visited Milo’s home, they would often comment on the empty bottle lying on its side on the mantle, and say, “There’s no ship in that bottle.” And Milo would always reply, “That’s Mr. Bottiglia’s bottle. There’s more than meets the eye in that bottle.”

Footnotes to Real Presence

(1) Karl Rahner, Foundations of the Christian Faith, trans. by Wm. V. Dych (Crossroad, NY, 1966), p.415f. Hereafter, FCF. (2) Ibid. p.412. (3) Psalm 46:10 (4) Wisdom 8:1 (5) FCF, p.413. (6) Ibid., p.414. (7) William Wordsworth, “The world is too much with us,” pub. 1807, From Goldsmith to Thomas Hardy, vol. II (Doubleday, 1924) p. 124. (8) Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur” from Poems and Prose of G.M.Hopkins (Penguin Books, 1963), p.27. (9) FCF, pp.21-22: see “The Unthematic Knowledge of God” regarding “mystery in its incomprehensibility is what is self-evident” in human life. If this is not a statement of paradox, I don’t know what is, namely, that the most incomprehensible should be the most self evident! (10) Ibid., p.20. (11) T.S.Eliot, from “Murder in the Cathedral” (Harcourt Brace & Co., 1967) (12) I owe this idea to Ram Dass from one of his lecture series on tape. (13) As is obvious, I am having some fun at Sister Mary Virginia’s expense. I used to think, well, she did her best with what she was given to work with. That is, until I realized that the Baltimore Catechism we used in the ’50’s dated to 1884, itself an adaptation from the 16th century catechisms of Peter Canisius (1559) and Robert Bellarmine (1598). However, a revised catechetical approach had been initiated in about 1900, called the “Munich Method.” Rather

than rote memorization of answers to questions, its pedagogy encouraged the integration of faith with every day life following these steps: a) preparation b) presentation c) explanation d) association and e) application. Why weren’t we exposed to this approach in the ’50’s? Since my primary school days and well past Vatican II, the Congregation for the Clergy has brought out a new catechism called “General Directory for Catechesis” (GDC). This manual attempts a unification of the kerygmatic and experiential approaches where catechesis first emphasizes a conversion to Jesus and then apprenticeship to his path. The rubber hits the road when the family and faith community, as catechetical agents, are supposed to deliver a “Christian education more witnessed than taught, more occasional than systematic, more on-going than structured into periods.” (GDC, #255) Formal catechisms were only first published in response to Luther and the Protestant Reformation. After five hundred years, the church is reworking its evangelization practices in an effort to simply let Christian witness speak for itself and be a model for others to imitate. This approach completely begs the question: how does one imitate Jesus’ connection to the Father so that it becomes evidence of a life divine, one that is given for others, so that they might have life more abundantly? We are told to “imitate the pedagogy of God and Jesus” (GDC #38). But that is the problem: Jesus’ very short ministry did not leave time for a detailed pedagogy to be given. The church has ever since been long on exhortation and short on methodology. It simply won’t do to emphasize “conversion to Jesus” and then say “Now follow his path.” What seekers require is methodical instruction in praxis, not kerygma primarily and certainly not dogma. What do I do on a daily, moment by moment basis, to awaken the divine mystery in my family, in my parish and neighborhood community, and in the world at large? Another revitalized version of exhortation disguised as methodology simply won’t produce champions of the faith. Champions require detailed methodology and expert coaches to monitor their progress. Which brings me to my final critique: there is no clear methodology without a clear goal. The imitation of Christ is not a clear goal; it is an exhortation that sometimes inspires aspiration towards a goal. The goal must be experiential. Even if it is open-ended, something approached asymptotically but never fully finished, there must be evidential steps that clearly define and measure one’s progress. Without such a goal, one has exhortation but not methodology. A revised catechism of revived

exhortations will not take the place of a method producing champions of the faith. The information about the “General Directory for Catechesis” and other catechisms comes from Thomas H. Groome, “Handing on the Faith: More than Instruction,” in C21 Resources, Fall, 2012, a publication of Boston College Press. See also his Catholic Spiritual Practices, A Treasury of Old and New (Paraclete Press, 2012).

(14) The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford University Press, 1974). See the entry under “Penance,” pp.1059-60. (15) Ken Wilbur, from “Reflections on the New Age Paradigm,” in The Holographic Paradigm (Shambala Press, 1985), pp.249 ff. (16) Ibid., p 251. (17) Gerard Manley Hopkins from “God’s Grandeur,” p.27. (18) Ibid., from “Hurrahing in Harvest” p.31. (19) Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion, (Henry Holt & Co., 1997), pp.26-27. (20) FCF, p.413 f. (21) Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2. (22) Matthew, 13:44-46 (23) Matthew, 4:17 (24) James Clavel, Tai-Pan (Atheneum Publishers, 1966), chapter one. (25) Robert Colacurcio,The Virtual Self: Beyond the Gap in Buddhist Philosophy (Xlibris Publishers, 2012), im. (26) De Anima, Bk. III, Chapter 8, The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (Random House, 1941), p.595.

Dedication

By this effort may all beings be free of suffering, May their minds be filled with the nectar of virtue. In this way may all causes resulting in suffering be extinguished, And only the light of comion shine throughout all realms.