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2At times I wish I had a wilderness hut,
a backwoods cabin,
Where I could get away from my people
and never see them again.
They're a faithless, feckless bunch,
a congregation of degenerates.
(Jeremiah 9, The Message)
2. Manipulation
We can look around and inquire, “How do the movers-and-shakers do it?” Well, here are key words: power, deceit, money, position, status, personality, youthfulness, sexuality, good looks, strategy, positive thinking, God—yes, “God,” … We can seek, therefore, to approach history in the same way. We can get tired of feeling ignored and walked on, so, “Why not join the ones being noticed and doing the walking on?”
When this exploitative strategy is applied to spiritual community or our personal spiritual Practice, we have entered another subtle temptation. We focus on being the powerful, the in-control, the productive, and the successful. And the blasphemy of doing this religiously is that we drag the name of God, or whatever is our word for the Infinite, along to support our exploitation. Then, we might exploit and get results, through status, power, money, personality, … and say, “Thanks be to God!”
Manipulation happens when we separate the means of accomplishment from the process of surrender to God and spiritual discernment of just how and where the Spirit might be leading us. Manipulation happens when we exploit Means of Grace to gain materialistic ends or become spiritual adepts, accomplishing goals apart from Grace, which is, after all, part of Means of Grace. When Means is separated from Grace, we are in a graceless technology, even if it clothes itself in the traditional forms of religious devotion and service.
3. Mindfulness
This is the way of Presence. This is the contemplative way, the way of the saint, the way of the sage, the way of the truly holy men and women of all religions. This is incarnate spirituality. This way assumes that we are not in control, that we are called, first and foremost, to be present, wholly and mindfully. We trust that the Will of God arises from the context in which we are called to be. Even when the context does not appear productive, we know the Spirit is working in mysterious, unseen ways. We know that there are seasons of tilling, planting, and reaping; we learn to be wholly, trustingly present in the seasons. Then, others around us, even not knowing it, feel more permission to enjoy the Journey, without checking the accomplishment pulse constantly.
Kabat-Zinn remarks, “We want to see results, even if it is only a pleasant feeling.” He notes an exception to this goal-driven life: meditation. “Meditation is the only intentional, systematic human activity which at bottom is about not trying to improve yourself or get anywhere else, but simply to realize where you already are.” And, “Maybe we all need to do one thing in our lives simply for its own sake.”
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I am uncomfortable, for example, with the popularization of the language Purpose Driven Life and Purpose Driven Church. I neither what a Purpose Driven Life nor a Purpose Driven Church, if driven implies driven-ness. How about this? Spirit Led, rather than Purpose Driven? Purpose Discerning? Those sound like the mindfulness approach to being in this wildly crazy, amazing, and messy thing we call history. If we are driven we will likely create more of a mess, even in trying to clean up the mess. It is far too easy in being driven to get somewhere and not to have done the most important thing along the way: Lived the Journey. I would rather be going nowhere with God, in the moment, than be going without God anywhere else.
Kabat-Zinn remarks—Listen!—“From the perspective of meditation, every state is a special state, every moment a special moment.”
Silence
Refrigerator Humming
“God!”
Someone can question this that I write, “Well, what is practical about this being fully here-and-now?” I reply, “What is impractical about it, especially since, ironically, you can only be here, now?” Learning a mindful way of living in history allows us time to discern, out of this moment, how to proceed with life. Too often, even in spirituality or spiritual systems, we are running around like our rears are on fire, without even knowing where we really are. If we cannot, consistently, return and be here-and-now, how in the world will we provide space to listen deeply to the Spirit? If we do not live in history mindfully, then, I know of no other alternative but one: mindlessly. We may accomplish much in mindlessness, but the cost will be the diminishment of our relationships, ourselves, and the potential that Spirit could have done through us, if we had trusted enough to be and listen, in Love.
Spiritual Exercise
1. What is meant by the maxim, “Haste makes waste”?
2. What is the link between mindfulness and these Christian concepts—Trust? Practicing the Presence of God? Abandonment to Divine Providence?
3. Reflect on the opening quote from Abhishiktānanda. How, according to him, does one learn “where” others truly are? What do you think he might say to the question, “Abhishiktānanda, where do we, through contemplation, learn everyone is?”
4. Have you ever sensed you entered the “aloneness of God”? What was that like for you?
5. Is there a possible difference between being “busy” and “busyness”? Explain.
6. Do your daily meditation.
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