Early Music

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music, praise God, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Keating, uplifting

There is no chance that this day will be less than spectacular! It is just approaching 7:00 A.M. and I have already been lifted high by Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. I was ready for that as it is a piece that has a permanent home in my iPhone. It came up this morning in my email as a tribute piece to Thomas Keating whose face is that of a 95 year-old who is reaching out in bliss for his eternal reward which he achieved in late 2018.

What I had not expected was an email from my sister who got it from her friend Lyn…that is a good example of something going viral. It goes a long way to counteract the virus that has been dampening spirits around the world. Not only is the music inspiring but the faces of the performers create a perfect image of how we ought to see ourselves as diverse children together praising the Creator – however we conjecture and name God. This one brought me to tears – of joy, of course. I hope that you will take the time to watch Baba Yetu performed in Swahili by the Stellenbosch University Choir of South Africa. It is worth the watch!

P.S. 7:20AM: The sun is shining!

Remembering Thomas

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consciousness, divine heart, Divine Presence, reason, spiritual journey, the living God, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Keating, unconditional forgiveness

In these often busy days of summer I am always grateful to receive words from “one of the great ones” of the spiritual life. Such was my joy yesterday in picking up The Contemplative Outreach News to see the smiling face of Rev. Thomas Keating. Father Thomas left this world on October 25, 2018 at the age of 95 years but his spirit is as alive as ever and his words remain a goad and challenge for those desiring a deeper spiritual life. Two paragraphs from his brief front-page article require my attention and reflection today. In the first there is solace for people who seem to have too many thoughts to engage at once. In a later paragraph I find a possible answer to my distress at the painful side of life.

1. For those progressing on the spiritual journey, even when the consoling aspect of the Divine Presence dissipates because of excessive activity or too much thinking, an interior presence arises that becomes more and more permanent. A shift in consciousness begins to take place. Our rational consciousness is transcended by the awakening of intuitive consciousness. The rational level is not rejected; we simply become free of its limitations. Reason remains available and functional for ordinary daily life, human relationships , and all the needs of embodied activity, but does not overshadow or take away the deeper and abiding awareness of the Divine Presence.
   
   
2. To know the living God we have to share the sorrow of the Divine Heart. God puts up with endless human error, excess, and sometimes malice, in order to get across to us the most important realities of life, of which God’s unconditional forgiveness and love for everyone is the foremost.

St. Benedict

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Hebrews, hospitality, Joan Chittister, monasteries without walls, monasticism, prayer, St. Benedict, the Benedictine Way, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Keating, Thomas Merton, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily, work

There is much to say about St. Benedict, whose feast is today, known the world over as the man who brought monasticism to the western world. Although Benedict lived 1,500 years ago his influence is still felt and one might say is being proliferated more broadly than ever before because of a movement called “monasteries without walls.” Lay people who are interested in deepening their spiritual life often turn to The Rule of St. Benedict for guidance and a way to live his principles in secular society.

Most prominent in “the Benedictine Way” is ora et labora. That phrase, meaning “prayer and work” speaks of the balanced way in which the day is designed in his Rule. It includes work alone and work with others as well as prayer alone and prayer with others, experienced in a rhythm that gives not only form but meaning to each day and thus to all of life. (See Joan Chittister, OSB: Wisdom Distilled From the Daily, chapter 6 for a brilliant explanation of this concept.) In this world of excess for some and lack for others as well as in the use of time, we could do well to reflect on how we spend our days.

In tandem with this concept of balance is the call to hospitality. Based on Hebrews 13:2 that says “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares,” St. Benedict preached the necessity of welcoming everyone that we meet. How our world would change today if we took that advice to heart!

As we think of the influence of well-known people in our own day like Joan Chittister, Thomas Merton and Thomas Keating who have followed the rule of Benedict and shared it with the world, let us pray in thanksgiving also for the countless Benedictine monks and nuns through the centuries who have lived the life and carried the legacy of Benedict faithfully into the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

O King of All Nations, Come!

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contemplative prayer, Dalai Lama, deepest center, heart, hope, joy, king, King of All the Nations, O Antiphons, Peace, Pope Francis, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Keating, Thomas Merton, unity

It seems beyond human capacity that a world of several billion persons could come together under one ruler. There are so many countervailing factors. Just think about the diversity of languages or food choices, religious beliefs and so much more. That said, I think of efforts being made in spiritual circles to appreciate the values and practices of others that are birthing new hope for finding commonality that will lead at least to peaceful co-existence.

I think of Thomas Merton who, in addition to his correspondence with many spiritual writers and thinkers, traveled 50 years ago to Asia to address a conference of religious leaders on issues of peace. Had his untimely death not ended his brilliant and enthusiastic work, who knows what understanding might have come from it. Even now, Merton scholars continue to plumb the depths of his work, although lacking the essential quality of his person as inspiration.

Benedictine monk, Thomas Keating, tells of his experience as abbot in the Spencer, Massachusetts monastery in the early 1970s when many young people began to knock on the door asking, “Is this the Buddhist place?” Keating directed them to a building not far away on the same road. Finally, he and his colleagues, Fathers William Meninger and Basil Pennington, asked themselves: “What have they got that we haven’t got?” and went to visit the temple. There they found prayer not dissimilar to the monastic practice described by Thomas Merton in his book Contemplative Prayer as “a return to the heart…finding one’s deepest center, awakening the profound depths of our being.” From that beginning was born the Christian movement called Contemplative Outreach which now boasts hundreds of thousands of practitioners the world over.

So this “King of All the Nations” clearly cannot rule in a political sphere but only in the hearts of each person who longs for justice and the peace that comes from loving acceptance of diversity. Will we ever get there? The intimations are present in people like Pope Francis, for example, and the Dalai Lama. It remains for us to find the will to follow. I saved a column I found as the millennium was turning that spoke of possibility in the following words. Let us heed their message today.

“Some may not like the image of king but kingship evokes deep-felt longing. The antiphon points to a world better than any government we have known up till now, an order that recognizes no differences except to exalt the lowliest. And who knows? This millennium might bring that stunning reversal. So we pray: Come, one who draws us beyond our disputes, who silences our complaints in your great good order. Bring us the vital joy of diversity, the secure peace of unity. In you our plea is not contradictory, our hope is not disappointed.”

 

 

 

 

 

Stop Judging!

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Center Prayer and Inner Awakening, centering prayer, clarify, Cynthia Bourgeault, hearsay, honesty, Jesus, judge, Matthew, Ope Mind Open Heart, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Keating

One of the “tricky” faculties of the human mind is our ability to judge. We need to be “razor-sharp” in using the quality of discrimination – knowing first the two sides of that “coin” – while refraining from making judgments based on insufficient information, hearsay or our own narrow perspective. To clarify what might sound rather complicated in that sentence, I have two examples.

1. In Matthew’s gospel text for this morning I heard Jesus say to his disciples: Stop judging, that you may not be judged…Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?…(MT 7:1-5) Jesus is so clear in asking us to look in the mirror of honesty rather than thinking too much of ourselves in relationship to others.
2. I always explain to people who ask, that the major positive effect that my ten years of centering prayer* has had in my life is that it has made me a less judgmental person. The practice of letting go of thoughts during the prayer allows me to “let go” of other things in daily living. Circumstances that would have previously caused me consternation are often “just the way it is” now – including times when I have felt myself less than successful. That helps me to allow other people to be imperfect as well.

The key to all of this discrimination (the good side of seeing honestly, i.e. the difference between one thing and another, as in “discrimination between right and wrong” rather than a prejudicial stance toward a category of things – or people) is awareness. We need to wake up to our thoughts and where they come from, to our motivations and where they move us. Walking mindfully through our days is a goal to be achieved one moment at a time.

*See Cynthia Bourgeault’s book Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening and/or Thomas Keating’s Open Mind, Open Heart.