How to Go to Church

Bekah is in Nashville on an "Alternative Winter Break" service project with a group from George Washington University. Although the trip itself and the work to be done are neither explicitly "faith-based" nor religious in nature, the students are being housed at the Belle Meade United Methodist Church in Nashville. (Bekah tells us that Belle Meade is the part of Nashville where Al Gore lives--an affluent residential area, in other words.)

As a kind of thank you to their hosts and perhaps even as a way of enjoying the support of the Belle Meade UMC congregation, the group from GW is attending church there this morning. Bekah was relieved to know they'd be attending the "traditional service" rather than the "praise service" earlier in the day. Still, at risk of putting words in her mouth, I believe it's reasonably safe to say Bekah has at least some misgivings about attending church in the south, where even mainstream denominations like Methodists and Presbyterians are apt to have a decidedly different, often more conservative or more evangelical, flavor than what she prefers.

This morning I texted her the following suggestion: "Pretend your are a visitor from another planet, and be very very curious and very observant. Like, 'Wow, that's intriguing!' And enjoy singing."

I find that this kind of "from another planet, very very curious, semi-detached observer" stance can be very helpful when I decide to go to church. Sometimes from my observer stance I notice just how horrible a lot of the prayers and hymn texts are, even as I sing along to marvelous, beloved tunes. On All Saints' Day, for example, the hymns were so laden with images of earthly strife, struggle, pain, sadness, toil, battle, burden, and darkness associated with life here and now, while only life hereafter got joy, light, freedom, that I honestly wondered: "Who in their right mind would want to be part of THIS group?!"

As I've said in an earlier post, drawing in church, especially during the sermon, also helps. It brings out a different sort of observer in me--one that's happy to focus on some physical shapes and details in my immediate surroundings. Since drawing is an activity that often boosts my internal happiness, it puts me in a good space for enjoying what I enjoy, noticing what I don't, and letting that roll off my back as best I can.

Which relates to my best of all church-going advice to myself: to keep my expectations very very low. I feel kind of bad saying this, since I remember all too well how much I wanted to know that what I did as a priest in church, and especially what I said in my sermons, really made a significant positive difference in people's lives, and that the liturgies we offered were vehicles of grace. In addition, some of my friends are still clergy with similar hopes. But what's a blog worth if I don't tell the truth?

These days I'm happiest if I remember not to go to church needy, not to go looking for and hoping for affirmation or inspiration or inner peace or intimate community. To that end, it helps if I do my best to care for the happiness and well-being of my soul at home. And then, if I happen to glean a teeny taste of one of those aforementioned things at church (affirmation, inspiration inner peace, etc.), or even if I simply get to sing a hymn I like, or find myself amused at my inter-planetary observations, or feel a tad glad to participate in that ancient ritual of the eucharist (but really, I'd be SO much happier to eat something having more resemblance to real bread than those tasteless, wimpy, papery, stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth wafers, thank you very much), and to imagine that David's glad to have my company in church for a change--any one of those circumstances might warrant being called "a good day in church"!

The Universe and Commitment Thing

Lots of people these days "preach" the idea that the universe is supportive of our dreams and desires. Marci Shimoff, the "Happy for Nor Reason" guru, makes this one of the foundations of beginning to take responsibility for your own happiness. She calls it "Guiding Principle #2": "The Universe is out to support you."

Of course others have said it long before this current age. The American sage Ralph Waldo Emerson being one of them; his version is this: "Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen."

(OK, I'm aware that Jesus probably said something sort of like this somewhere along the way, too, but since Jesus isn't on my current reading list, I'm not going down that road right now!)

And there's that quote that often gets attributed to Goethe but that was really written by author and mountaineer William Hutchinson Murray in his  1951 book, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition. He speaks of Providence where others might say the Universe, or a host of other variations. These are Murray's words:

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way."

Why am I writing this here and now? I'm not entirely sure! Mostly it's because I think this supportive universe idea may be one of the themes or sub-texts of the story I'm unwinding (and discovering as I go) in writing this blog.

There have been moments, especially over the past four years, when I've been given glimmers of this reality, although I hasten to add that my native tendency toward skepticism over what can only be called an elemental form of "faith" has often dismissed such glimmers as insignificant or merely coincidental. (So much depends upon how you choose to see things--as well as upon "a red wheel/barrow/ glazed with rain/water/beside the white/chickens"!)

One of the great gifts of writing a story is being given, and taking, the chance to see things differently. To see connections that might have been missed the first time through, or that might have been briefly acknowledged, then brushed aside or dismissed.

I have to say that somewhere between writing yesterday's post (based on writings from 2006) and this morning, it has occurred to me that the hummingbird's visit to me as I stood dripping wet in cool morning air was a pretty damn good "unforeseen incident and meeting" for someone who had only hours before stated her intention to let herself "be taken" by the natural world! And who only weeks before had written about wanting to start over,

"to know what I know
and feel what I feel,
from earth to skin,
blood and bone,
blossom and leaf bloom."


Not to put too fine a point on it, but who cares whether one embraces God or godlessness, providence or universe, all or none? As long as you are alive and sensing and responding to this amazing world? And on top of that, or on the basis of that, or in response to that, gathering and patching together glimmer after glimmer, and then daring to imagine a Universe that is out to support you (and to go on trusting that Universe even when the evidence isn't forthcoming). Hmmm . . . .

Of course the possibility of this being all illusion or delusion or wishful thinking is never far away, but if it makes for a happier life, then . . . .

False Thinking Number One

I have no idea just how many posts about "false thinking" I could or may eventually write. Trust me, I have no interest in actually sitting down to analyze, categorize, and count up! And trust me again, we all might get a little fatigued and bored if I wrote about every last itty bitty one.

I'm sure there are lots of variations on false thinking that will crop up as I proceed, so it's likely there will be more posts related to this one.

The kinds of false thinking I'm thinking about usually relate to fear. Fear, especially the unacknowledged subterranean kind, conjures all sorts of stories, scenarios, reasons, strange logic, and the like, all designed to keep us safe and sound, and for me that usually means, stuck, hidden, playing small kinds of stuff.

A perfect example cropped up a couple of weeks ago after I saw the movie Julie and Julia. I called it "The Julie/Julia Syndrome" and blogged about it over on Trusting Delight. The basic gist of it was this, the fruit of the old, familiar deadly comparison game:

"Well, clearly I haven't got the right kind of blog to become a big hit and turn into a book and a popular movie starring Meryl Streep, so . . . why bother?" and "I keep reading and being told that no one reads blogs anymore, so . . . why bother?" and "Blogs are SO passe internet phenom, so . . . " You get the rather repetitive idea."

The current example (so, I suppose this should be called "False Thinking Number Two" or maybe even Two Thousand and Twenty-Nine) is the suggestion--no, it's more than a suggestion; let's call it a forceful, pig-headed opinion (and I mean no offense to pigs).

This particular stubborn and false-thinking opinion holds that I have no right, no authority from which to tell my "journey to freedom" story until I have gotten to the promised land. What do I know about the way to freedom if I haven't really gotten all the way yet? (Questions like how will I even know when I've gotten "all the way" are not considered relevant by the manager of the false thinking factory.) Why should anyone trust me?

Even though trusted friends as well as people who barely know me seem to agree that the real, raw story of traveling to freedom is what interests them. That is, the pitfalls and false starts and wrong turns and the keeping going make for a more compelling, real, and accessible story than if I were to write from some obnoxious higher ground of invulnerability or perfection.

And there's always that possibility that the process of writing the story little bit by little bit might also be part of the key to freedom, might even be the last little vessel or vehicle needed to cross the last bit of territory. Because writing, like most every creative endeavor, has the power to carry the creator to new and usually unexpected, or at least hard to control, "places".

"Places" such as the promised land and freedom are of course not really places on a map, places to arrive at where you plunk down your bags and set up shop and stay put happily ever after. Freedom, to state the obvious, is much more likely to be an ongoing process, a matter of personal commitment to keep facing my fears when they arise, to being open to learning new tools and practices for staring down, or better yet, befriending the fears and moving forward with them rather than waiting for a time when they cease to exist.

Moses is said to have seen the promised land from afar just before he died, but he wasn't allowed to cross over and actually to set foot in it and on it. But really, the promised land, the territory of freedom (happiness, joy, creativity, and so  much more), is an inside job, not an outside location. And that means we get to be there now, moment by moment. And that's plenty to sing and dance about right now! And now. And now.

Hallelujah!

Working Things Out

So, what would it mean to try to write regularly and more often in this blog? It feels somehow exhilarating to contemplate. As long as I can continue to write from a place of relaxed ease. At least most of the time.

As I've said before over on my other blog "Trusting Delight", my goal--as that name implies--is to stop doing things when I begin to sense I am doing them from a place of struggle and burdensome effort. Which, I now see more clearly than ever, doesn't mean that I have to stop doing them entirely and utterly.

It may mean quite simply that I take a break. Go for a walk. Chill out. Look for another way forward. Or as one of my once-upon-a-time favorite monks once said to the mother superior of a neighboring convent, "Lighten up, Sister!"

I honestly believe that doing this gets to be fun, at least most of the time. When I'm tracking well, I remember a photo that Martha Beck included in a blog post on this topic. It showed a dog leaping in the air to catch a frisbee whizzing toward it. Maybe the dog's jaw was just clamping down on the frisbee.

And underneath Martha had written the words: "It gets to be like this!"

And she meant it. Which makes me want to find a photo of a dog catching a frisbee (or if it were my dog's happy endeavor it might even be his eating a pile of his own s**t, but that doesn't make me happy, so . . . never mind) or of some other creature unburdened by self-doubt or excessive self-consciousness or religious crap doing what it loves to do.

Which reminds me of some of Walt Whitman's lovely lines in "Song of Myself":

"I think I could turn and live with animals . . .

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,

Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,

Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth."

So doing this blog in the way that I wish to do it (at least most of the time, so that I don't come to hate it and wish I'd never started it and decide to abandon it, again) requires vigilance. I think I hear the refrain of Mad-Eye Moody to Harry Potter, "Constant vigilance, Potter!" Am I making that up?

Or maybe I could find a lighter, more fun-sounding word than vigilance, yet not as airy-fairy, new-agey sounding as "awareness" and not as teacher-scolding-kid-daydreaming as "pay attention"! Maybe. This finding of a lighter word may not happen overnight.

The thing is, I am finally (not "finally" as in "for the last time because now I really get it and am an expert and will never falter" but "finally" as in "it's about time") getting that this requires not only vigilance but really, really taking responsibility for myself, for noticing my states of mind and body and being willing to do something about them. Not waiting for someone else to do it. Not waiting for some magic potion solution. Not thinking that I've arrived somewhere (like "enlightenment"?) and now am exempt from having to pay attention.

It's part of valuing myself, honoring myself, loving myself, and especially it's part of staying committed to my own happiness (and from that, I believe, my own living with generosity and compassion and making my best possible contribution to the world).

And while I could beat myself up a bit or talk myself down a bit for not having figured this out before now, for not having gotten it all pulled together in my thirties or forties the way Elizabeth Gilbert did, or Natalie Goldberg did, or Christine Kane, or any number of my other personal heroes, that's just a big waste of time and energy and a violation of all that I've just said above.

To the best of my ability I commit to being done with that. At least I'm getting it at age fifty-five instead of sixty-five, seventy-five, or whatever. At least I'm not dead yet.