Volume 25, No. 3-Fall, 2001
Table of Contents
Conversions of Consciousness
by Rose Mary Dougherty
Let's Get Available
by Patricia Gibler Clark
The Vengeance Reflex
by Gerald May
Going Slowly
by Carole Crumley
The Night Sky
by Nancy Eggert
The Thing is Very Close To You: A Reflection
by Rabbi Amy Eilberg
Conversions of Consciousness
by Rose Mary Dougherty
"Jesus is concerned with eliciting a conversion of consciousness from those not yet able to understand, and not with imparting information to a deluded pattern of consciousness." -John P. Keenan, The Gospel of Mark: A Mahayana Reading
As I reflect on the events of September 11 and our nation's way of responding, I realize that what my heart seeks for myself is what it seeks for our nation-collective conversion of consciousness.
I read these words of Keenan in August just as I was entering into some extended time of retreat. As I had been preparing for that time, I had no clear sense of what the time would be about or why I was taking it. The best I could say to myself or to anyone else was that I sensed some hollowing out that needed to happen and I wanted to give myself to the process. It seemed I was responding to an invitation.
I had never heard the term "conversion of consciousness" before, but it touched something deep inside me. It became another expression of the invitation to a faithfulness in showing up for my part in whatever the process of hollowing out would be. As far as I could tell, my part seemed to have more to do with "not doing," with desisting from my perpetual "figuring out" and judging so that something deeper inside me could show itself.
As I sat with that awareness, I remembered the story a monk had told about what I would now call a "conversion of consciousness." He talked about a particularly painful time in his life when he struggled to know how he was supposed to live/to respond in the midst of the pain. The more he tried to know, the more confused he became. Finally one day he just breathed a heavy sigh into the pain and gave up his efforts to know. He described what happened after that by saying, "It was like my eyes had been 'Windexed.' I began to see the situation and my role in it clearly. Something deep inside me was released. I knew what I needed to do."
The "something deep inside" that was released I would call wisdom. It wasn't as though the monk was suddenly given wisdom. Wisdom was always there. It was rather as though, in his heavy sigh, he breathed into the place where wisdom was waiting to be accessed. He returned to himself.
As I thought about the monk's story, I began to understand what conversion of consciousness has come to mean to me and what my retreat time might be about. It wasn't about getting something, unless the "something" would be a new perspective. It was more about returning to myself, to that place where Wisdom dwells, to make myself available to her. It felt as though I needed to be apart, in an intentionally listening/seeing space for that to happen.
I reflect on Wisdom's voice in Proverbs 4:11, "I was there from the beginning," and in Proverbs 1, "I will sink into your marrow." Wisdom is not something we seek to create in times of confusion. She is an abiding presence in each of us. Fullness of Wisdom resides in each of us, in the very stuff of our lives. As a Zen sutra reminds us, "Each moment, life as it is, the only teacher." I might modify this to read, "Each moment, life as it is, Wisdom's teaching." I didn't need to be on retreat to get wisdom; I needed to be there to return to her presence in my life, to recognize her. Retreat became the "Windexing" of my heart's eye, as it were.
And now that the retreat has ended, how do I stay in touch with Wisdom? How do I make myself available to her presence? How do I keep the lens of my heart clear for seeing? Probably by living as intentionally in my daily life as I wanted to live during the retreat. I can't do that by myself, but I can be open to it. I can put myself in the company of people who will remind me that this is what I want. I can give myself to practices that help me stay awake even when I might prefer to sleep. Instead of picking and choosing among the parts of life I will give attention, I can give my attention equally to all, allowing Wisdom to be unmask-ed where she will. I can be willing to let go of the prejudices of my own knowing and judging so that Wisdom can reveal herself. I can seek the heart of wisdom made manifest in love.
Perhaps the events of September 11 invite all of us together to expose the film of the illusion of power which clouds our vision to the "Windex" of compassionate wisdom. Then we can see with the eye of the heart how we are to respond, how we are to live as a nation.
Let's Get Available
by Patricia Gibler Clark
"Not a fig shall I care then for all the devils in hell: it is they who will fear me. I do not understand these fears. 'Oh, the devil, the devil' we say, when we might be saying 'God! God!' and making the devil tremble. Of course we might, for we know he cannot move a finger unless the Lord permits it. Whatever are we thinking of? I am quite sure I am more afraid of people who are themselves terrified of the devil than I am of the devil himself. For he cannot harm me in the least, whereas they...can upset people a great deal.... Blessed be the Lord, Who has been of such real help to me!" -from Teresa of Avila's Life
Like many of you, my response to the terrorist attacks was, "I'm available." I had just finalized my plans for "moving on" from Shalem and had begun a six-month sabbatical in a new home. Life was already strange and challenging. Like the firefighters who could not hold back, I felt this was a time to act. My 20 years of working to support the mission of prayer at Shalem felt like it perhaps was having some fruits. If God created all this stress for me, perhaps it was for the purpose of simple presence. I can and am willing to pray. So here I am, like many of you, praying more.
I think all of us who have any experience in prayer find ourselves using this irrepressible language of spirit to move within our world's dilemma somehow into a space of radical trust. I find myself holding out for the unknown, for the space of something being created beyond I-know-not-what. Don't you too feel like the planet has cracked open? Don't you feel that somehow the knowledge that there are women in the world who are brutally punished for painting their fingernails is somehow connected to our longing to feel safe as we snuggle up with our dogs and lovers and eiderdown pillows? "Think global, act local." For me this action is prayer and inner wisdom that I am cultivating for peace.
As I've worked through this transition, I've found myself reading about and studying the monarch butterfly. Isn't this life just a migration? In her book Four Wings and a Prayer, Sue Halpern writes about a scientist she is traveling with who has devoted his life to studying the monarch. "'A butterfly born in Minnesota and one born in New York State end up in the same valley in Mexico because of a focusing device.' the scientist, Bill Calvert says. 'When they start out they're spread two thousand miles across the continent, but when they get into Mexico they're condensed into just fifty miles. Wherever they join the mountain ranges of the Sierra Madre Oriental, they turn and follow it.'"
He goes on to say that this hypothesis is basically unprovable. He ticks off a list of questions that could be answered, it seems, only by sticking a radio transmitter on a monarch butterfly. "How accurate are these creatures, anyhow? How do they know when to stop? Are they really directional?" Halpern writes: "It is seductive, this search of his, this responsibility to nothing but the questions."
I offer the mystery of the radio telemetry of a monarch butterfly into the equation of how we are to survive as a species together on this beautiful and fragile planet. How do we know when to stop? How do we develop an orientation that allows us to trust in what is unprovable? How can we cultivate our capacity to live within the questions and the mystery and to hold the unknown until something free comes, from the mystery, on the wings of prayer? How can we continue to navigate our heart toward God, with the passion of a terrorist bomber, with the abandon of a monarch butterfly?
In the meantime, I am thankful for my freedom to pray as I can. And I offer my overflowing gratitude to the One who stands with us as we take these baby steps to freedom and love.
The Vengeance Reflex
by Gerald May
Twenty years ago I wrote in Will and Spirit that vengeance is the paradigm of human evil. My reasoning was that other forms of destructive willfulness can be traced to some motive of self-preservation or defense, but vengeance seemed to serve no such purpose. Revenge certainly does not prevent recurrence of injury; it only increases violence. Nor could I find any other way, no matter how depraved, in which revenge might be seen as self-serving. It exists, I concluded, for no other reason than to get even.
Yet revenge is an almost universal human reaction. Its role is obvious in all levels of human conflict, from ugly divorces through feuds within and between families, to the great ethnic atrocities that have so scarred our world. I had seen it first-hand in Vietnam and in Bosnia, and I had to admit I'd felt its ugly movement within myself in my reactions to affronts by others.
The dynamics are obvious. One person injures another, who in turn tries to get even, and the conflict escalates. The destruction can become extreme and complex, but the vengeance that drives it is an utterly simple reflex. From the time we first develop self-identity as little children, our capacity for revenge is in place. It is horrifyingly natural.
Then I learned about some psychological studies of children from Bosnia and from American inner cities who had been terribly traumatized by violence. The findings haunt me to this day. In short, they showed that the children who functioned the best, those who were least paralyzed by depression, were the ones who had adopted a mentality of revenge.
As much as I hated to face that observation, it began to show me that vengeance does indeed have a function. It is a way of avoiding the reality of one's own injury. When one has been so terribly wronged that the depths of devastation are too much to bear, vengeance stands ready to occupy one's mind and heart, consuming attention with rage. When one has been beaten so low as to feel utterly degraded, vengeance offers the energy to strike out in the hope of regaining a sense of power and control.
In the absence of revenge, we are left with the bare pain of our loss, the sheer awful fact of it. Without revenge, we must try to bear what may seem unbearable: bottomless grief and despair. And if we do not retaliate, we are left with self-images that seem ruined. We are weak, humiliated, degraded victims.
Can this really be what God asks of us? Does turning the other cheek mean we must fully experience our own devastation and humiliation? As terrible as it may seem, I think it is true. I think God wants us to bear the truth of every situation, to be immersed in the reality of our woundedness to the full extent of our being. Only in this way can we discover and discern how we are called to respond. If instead we let revenge take us away from our pain and into retaliation, we act on reflex alone. There is no space for Wisdom to light a path towards real justice and lasting peace. Getting even is all that counts.
If we are to respond effectively to cruelty, I think we must go without anesthesia as much as we can. We need to feel our pain and grief and humiliation-and our rage-before taking action. As unbearable as it may seem, there is immense possibility in that precious time between the shock of injury and the reflex of retaliation. Wisdom can come in that moment, guiding an accurate response to what really is. Compassion may rise then too, and even a realization of communion. That moment is precious, but it is also very delicate. To even glimpse it, we cannot give in to the vengeance reflex. I believe that at the very time we feel most wounded, we are called to remain vulnerable.
The word vulnerable means "able to be wounded." It is hard-sometimes seemingly impossible-to even consider remaining vulnerable when everything in us wants to strike out. Yet the moment is always offering itself, in every breath, in the slightest pause of self-defense. I think God calls us in each of those moments, inviting us to feel. The call is to feel our own woundedness, the woundedness of others, the woundedness of God. If God is ultimately loving, then God must also be ultimately vulnerable-a Divine Heart embracing both the joy and the suffering of all creation. I think God desires, needs us to share that vulnerability. Sometimes, in that precious moment between injury and retaliation when we most feel our own vulnerability, we realize communion. The tears we shed and the emptiness we feel flow with the suffering of others into God's own broken heart.
Going Slowly
by Carole Crumley
Every Tuesday and Thursday, our faithful Shalem volunteer Jim spends the morning answering phones and doing a variety of other tasks. At exactly 12:30, however, he stops and announces in a loud voice, "LUNCH TIME." Somewhere in my memory I hear echoes of other voices, long ago, calling children home for evening meals. Like children we all pile out of our offices, into the kitchen, grateful to pause in the midst of our activities to enjoy each other's company and the food we have brought. No matter how urgent tasks seem, the lunchtime call is more compelling.
There is nothing unusual about lunchtime at Shalem except that it is slow. Our kitchen table conversations meander all over the place, sometimes personal, sometimes political, often ridiculous. We don't discuss business at lunch. Virtually nothing important is accomplished. It could look like wasted time. Yet there is a simple goodness in this ritual that feeds both body and soul, something more than taking a break in the middle of the day. In our land of fast food and multi-tasking, a slow lunch, that has no other purpose than to enjoy each other and the food, can seem like a counter-cultural activity.
Recently I read about the Slow Food movement in Europe which began in 1986 (I'm slow to find out about these things). Originally it was a reaction to the proliferation of McDonald's outlets around Italy and, perhaps in a larger way, the global spread of the American compulsive work culture. The movement now has 66,000 adherents around the world mobilizing to protect local products from being driven into extinction by global brands. And, true to their name, they hold lots of really long lunches and dinners.
Slow Food gave birth to the Slow City movement which is now spreading throughout Italy. This network of communities promotes local goods and environmentally sound policies, trying to preserve what is best about their lifestyle. Tourists are flocking to these cities for a chance to slow down and return (even temporarily) to a way of life that is truly life-giving but seems to be quickly disappearing.
In contemplative practice, perhaps Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese author, poet, Zen Master and peace activist, has been my best teacher in the value of going slowly. I first read one of his books 25 years ago when I had just broken my leg. Thay (Vietnamese for "teacher") was writing about "slow walk," that is walking slowly enough to notice and appreciate life as it is, the flowers, butterflies, smiles of others. He said that walking in this way, with awareness of each moment, is more of a miracle than being able to walk on water. My broken leg slowed me down considerably. I began to notice things I had never seen before or paid attention to, including what a miracle it is to be able to walk at all.
Some years later, Thay came to the National Cathedral and I had the opportunity to coordinate his visit and evening talk. The cathedral was full to capacity that night with 2,000 seekers eager to hear from this much-revered teacher. I was to lead Thay and the other participants out to the platform where they would speak. Anxious to "get the show on the road," I started walking at a rapid clip, fully expecting them to follow right behind me. When I arrived at the platform and turned around, Thay and the others were nowhere in sight. They were still at the back of the aisle, walking slowly, breathing, smiling, present to every moment.
That vivid memory stays with me, especially when I am anxious about something and find myself speeding up internally and externally, trying to go faster or to arrive quickly at a decision or a destination. And when I am caught up in free-floating anxiety about national concerns or world affairs, then I remember that way of walking, breathing deeply, smiling and going slowly. Not ahead, not behind, just in step with the present moment.
Lately I've been choosing to go to work the slow way, driving on back roads, through a neighborhood that has many stop signs and speed bumps designed to keep traffic moving at a snail's pace. Going slowly, I notice the landscape, the changing colors and foliage, the children playing, the beauty of each season. It is a feast of slow images for the eyes. This banquet of images nourishes my whole being for the day ahead, keeping me mindful of God's presence in all of creation and in each moment. I'm not racing ahead, not lagging behind. Just going slowly enough to be present.
How I wish I could say my whole day was like that! Once at work, it is easy to get caught up in busyness, concerned with doing many things, doing it right and getting it all done quickly. Then the "LUNCH TIME" announcement comes and calls me home.
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I wrote this article before September 11 and wondered whether to change it or to wait and use it some other time. In the end it seemed better just to add these few thoughts.
It was our volunteer Jim who brought us the news that the World Trade Center Towers in New York had been struck by airplanes. He heard it on the car radio on his way to Shalem. In addition to our regular staff and volunteers, a large number of Shalem's development committee was here for an early morning meeting. We interrupted their session to tell them the news and ask for their fervent prayers. Then our attention turned to further events unfolding here in Washington, New York and Pennsylvania. It was a sad and somber day full of prayer and heartbreak.
I realized later that I might have been in New York that day, one block from ground zero. Trinity Church was sponsoring a special videotaping of Archbishop Rowan Williams of Wales, and some folks in the Episcopal spirituality network had been invited to be present. I had looked at my September schedule and decided that I couldn't go. The group was just gathering when the first plane hit. I heard that Rowan Williams said later that he was sure he was going to die. Then he decided that, should that come to pass, he would be honored to die in the company of such kindred souls.
It is good to be with kindred souls at any time, but especially in these tender and troubling days. We invite you to join us here at Shalem on Wednesdays from 12:00-1:00 as we gather to offer prayers for peace, or pause wherever you are during your lunchtime to be with us in spirit and to offer your own prayers for this beloved world of ours.
The Night Sky
by Nancy Eggert
There is a subtle shift in the night sky as I view the stars from my lawn chair.
It is a warm, peaceful autumn evening. The full moon rises and illuminates the scattered clouds. But since September 11, absent is the steady procession of planes following the familiar National Airport flight path over the distant Potomac River. In their place, an F-16 fighter plane traces a wide protective circle over Washington, DC. The changed horizon presents a paradox of vulnerability.
Some of the changes that have occurred since September 11 are not subtle, but horrific- thousands of innocent lives destroyed, families devastated. Power-fully symbolic buildings have been reduced to rubble. A national psyche has been shattered. The peaceful night sky now whispers persistently to me, "We are vulnerable."
I muse drowsily. Are we any more vulnerable than we were September 10? What do our ancestors say to us as they huddle around their ancient campfires that illumine small circles of warmth beyond which lurk the sabertooth tigers, famine and disease, the myriad and deadly threats that are their constant companions?
Our illusion of invulnerability was also a casualty of that horrific Tuesday. The thin veil was ripped in two, exposing our naked finitude and insecurity. A fundamental insecurity, a raw dependency leaches into the depths of our souls. Looming behind the smoking ruins is a susceptibility, a vulnerability, a defenselessness that we cannot escape. To be human is to be vulnerable and finite: life is a "temporary" vocation. To dare to live at all is a risk. We fly without a parachute. No, we jump without a parachute! But how we wish that were not so! How we flail about to build sand castles of immortality as the tide rolls in-anything to shore up our sense of being Something or Somebody. (Oh, that's another story!) And now I sit stunned with my illusions shattered. I have felt for weeks as if I were slogging through molasses-all but paralyzed by our shared tragedy.
The thin clouds drift by, creating a rolling pattern of stars and darkness. Another night scene washes across my imagina-tion, another story of vulnerability and risk. I see a bunch of ordinary guys, including a big ego named Peter, who have been out in a boat until the wee hours, being tossed about by wind and waves, trying to make it to safety. This is long before Caribbean cruises with midnight buffets, when stormy water meant Chaos-all that is insecure, uncontrollable, dangerous, beyond understanding. Jesus is walking toward the boat about three o'clock in the morning-walking on the water. The men in the boat are terrified. "Don't be afraid, it's just me." Peter pushes the envelope of his own fear, "Oh, yeah-well then, tell me to come to you on the water." And Jesus does beckon, he invites Peter to come to him. Peter goes-out of the boat, walking over the water!
But then...was it the wind that spooked him? Did he look down and see the chaos? Did Peter remember he was supposed to be afraid? "Oh, my God! I'm walking on water!" He begins to sink and cries out for help. Jesus reaches out and catches him. "Oh you, Little-Faith! What made you doubt?" (Matt 14:31) What made you lose your nerve like that?
What makes me doubt? Why do I lose my nerve like that? Arising from the stormy waters is a summons to life, an invitation to dare to venture out over our chaos. An invitation to vulnerability and nakedness and finiteness. Not alone, but in the company of the One who loves us and will never let us go. Walking on nothing-no certainty, no guarantees, nothing to cling to. Nothing but the loving Mystery that "stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea; who made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades" (Job 9:8f) and now stretches out a hand to us. Nothing but a sure hand and an invitation to get out of the boat and walk!
The moon is now high in the sky. I cease my starlit reveries, head back inside the house, set the burglar alarm and go to bed.
The Thing is Very Close To You: A Reflection
by Rabbi Amy Eilberg
My High Holy Day prepara-tion began early this year, in an unlikely way. It was June-far before the spiritually rarefied days of Elul (the month preceding the Jewish holy days of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, focused on self-examination and repentance), and the setting was a mostly-Christian prayer retreat for spiritual directors.
Sitting in a large circle, we were asked to close our eyes, notice our breathing for a moment, and allow mental chatter to quiet down. Then, as though this were the simplest of questions, the retreat leader asked us to go inside and find the place where God's Spirit lives within us.
Remarkably, with just the slightest effort, I was able to locate such a place within my own body. I had a visceral sensation of God's Presence deep inside my chest, as if there were an enormous expanse all around my heart, a beautiful, silent sanctuary. I literally felt a sense of the Divine filling that space. Just as remarkably, when I have since had the chance to ask others this question, each person found her own unique sacred place within. One woman said she located the Divine Presence right near her womb, another said she felt God moving through her arteries.
Of course, God's Glory pervades all of creation, not only particular places within our own bodies. Yet, in this experience, I learned that it is possible to transform the concept of the tselem Elokim (the image of God) from just an idea or intellectual construct to a vivid personal experience, grounded in my own body. I learned that the exquisite description of God's closeness in this week's Torah portion is not mere poetry but real.
"Surely, this commandment which I give you this day is not too wondrous for you, nor is it beyond reach. It is not in the heavens, that you should say, 'Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?' Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who among us can cross to the other side of the sea and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?' No, the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it." (Deuteronomy 30:11-14)
In the experience I described, I was privileged to sense for a moment the literal truth of this magnificent text. The Divine is not only far away, on a heavenly throne, perceptible only in the midst of miraculous events to which none of us has access. The Spirit is surely present in the grandeur of creation, in the large mysteries of life, in the power of truth and justice and freedom. And the Presence is also right here, in the center of my body and yours and everyone's, literally in the midst of every aspect of Creation.
I have interpreted this beautiful text to describe the radical nearness of the Divine. But the Torah points to the exquisite accessibility of this mitzvah (commandment)-understood by various commentators to refer to all of the commandments, the Torah itself, or, the particular sacred practice of teshuva (self-examination, repentance, turning).
Think of these verses as referring to the process of examining our lives at this holy season, and it conveys a message something like this: Don't think that this [work of self-examination and repentance] is too hard for you, too distant from your way of life, only suited to your grandparents or to pious, poetic souls. Don't think that you would have to travel to an impossibly distant place-to be a different person-to live this teaching fully. You can do it, right here, in the midst of your life. It is in your own mouth, in your own heart, as near as your own breath. You need only choose it.
If the "image of God" is a reality, not a mere concept, if we embody a spark of the spirit of truth and goodness, then we don't need to go far to find out what it is that we need to do this holiday season. If God speaks within our own hearts and bodies and souls, as the Torah teaches, then we need only get quiet and listen, and we will know in what ways we need to change, and in what ways we are already living lives that are true and holy.
As Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav (the Hasidic master) puts it, only the road to hell is difficult and bitter, requiring days without rest and sleepless nights. The road to Eden, he says, is short and sweet. Teshuva (the holy work of self-examination) is a coming home to who we already are, if we can but recognize it.
May this season usher in a new season of goodness, blessing and peace, for us and for all the world.
Rabbi Amy Eilberg is a Conservative rabbi who serves as a pastoral counselor and spiritual director in Palo Alto, California. She is currently in Shalem's Spiritual Guidance Program, Summer 2002 class. This reflection was originally published as a weekly Bible column in the Northern California Jewish Bulletin.