NSoC 1: What Is Contemplation?

See Notes on this series...
Merton begins the book in a necessary way by defining contemplation. In his Preface he warns that contemplation can be a misleading word by becoming magical or inspirational, and yet, he states in his Author's Note, contemplation is one thing that we all need - provided it springs from the love of God.

So he starts loftily and builds a tower from there. He speaks of contemplation as man's highest intellectual and spiritual realization that he is alive, and that realization is manifest in responses of awe, gratitude, and recognition of the source of life.

He adds height to the tower when he speaks of the "unknowing", even beyond "unknowing", transcendence of contemplation as it surpasses the mere aesthetics of poetry, music, and art. He suggests that contemplation is beyond all, and to enter its realm, one must die.

He builds higher still by further defining contemplation as a call from a voiceless God who has spoken all things into existence, especially us, and our echoing response to that call. Merton says we are both a question God asks and answers, implying two levels of awareness that culminate in the experience of "I AM." He explains that this is not some religious abstraction, but a "religious and transcendent gift" from God as the Scriptures teach of sonship, given by God as he awakens us to the fact that He dwells in us and we in Him (Gal 2.20).

Quaff:
I once taught a canned Bible study lesson that had C-O-N-F-E-S-S as its acrostic and 1 John 1.8-10 as its scripture reference. I try to tailor canned stuff to my audience and in order to do that I dwelt on the word confess. It is a word that loses it scriptural power when contemporary usage overlays it. In the contemporary sense, to confess is to admit to or to make known or to own up to. Often in our society it is done to confirm something dark after it has been uncovered. It is rarely voluntary.

Scripturally, however, I think it means something altogether different. The word confess in 1 John 8.9 is the Greek word homologeo, a compound word from homos (the same) and lego (to say). Literally it means "to say the same thing." Back in the day the word was used in contracts and covenants. To confess to God means more than a mere admission but a coming to terms. To confess to God means to agree with God when he says what he says about us and our sin. In order to come to this agreement, we must be drawn by a power outside ourselves. We don't have it in us to do this on our own. On our own, we will do whatever we can to justify ourselves and our actions.

Just as confess loses its meaning contemporarily, I believe contemplation does as well, if I'm reading Merton correctly. In our culture, contemplation is the opposite of transcendence. To contemplate is to meditate, and to meditate is to empty oneself of the external, turning inward for definition and validation. For me, that is the wrong direction entirely, for I know what a vile creature I can be. Thankfully, God awakened me to that realization, and I can say like David "Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment."

Query:
How can I focus on the transcendent when I hear the call to contemplate?

Notes on New Seeds of Contemplation Series

I don't pretend to be a Thomas Merton scholar, so I've jumped into New Seeds of Contemplation without much context. But the point of the series is not to become a Merton scholar, or even fan. The point is to explore the idea of contemplation during this season of Lent and to put into practice the call for reflection that the ashes from Wednesday night provided.

I realize that there will probably be points where I theologically disagree with Merton, however, I don't see dealing with those differences unless I just can't help it. My plan is to keep this devotional. Like when I eat ribs, I throw out the bones, but only after I've gnawed all the meat off them.

I also reserve the right to totally misunderstand Merton. Why should he have special privileges over everybody else?

I would also like to include some choice quotations from the book but that depends on whether I get permission to do so. Copyright stuff, you know...

If you are interested, here are some good Merton references:

• Abbey of Gethsemani
• The Thomas Merton Center
• Wikipedia
• The Monk Who Wouldn't Go Away, by Michael Spencer
• Serious About Merton?, by Michael Spencer

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

My exposure to the church calendar has been gradual.

I've been a church-goer for just over half my life. For most of that time I thought the church calendar consisted of Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July, Mother's Day, and Baptist Men's Day, and not necessarily in that order. Before I became a regular church-goer I don't remember ever going to church on Christmas, and Easter was just a reason for someone to give me a new polyester suit, stand me in front of their azaleas, take my photo, and then hide eggs and make me find them. Thankfully I grew out of that and came to know the real joy of Easter, and then a few years later one of my pastors introduced the idea of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday commemorations. I began to spend Christmases in church, and then in the year of our church sabbatical, I discovered Advent.

This year I add Lent to the list. Tonight, for the first time ever, I attended an Ash Wednesday service.

Pastor John shared from Joel 2.1-2, 12-17, Matthew 6.1-5, and Psalm 51. John challenged me to evaluate the state of my heart. Is it hard, covered with scar tissue from the hurts of the world, not allowing love to come in or to flow out? Is it broken by those who should have loved me well but have abandoned me? Is it fearful, asking the dreaded "what if" questions of life? Is it restless, searching for something more for fulfillment? He reminded me that the state of my heart is what matters to God, not the sacrifices I make or the good deeds I do. He challenged me, like Joel, to rend my heart and not my garment, putting my heart on the altar for Lent instead of simply setting aside some pleasure for a season as a token of tradition.

So what am I giving up for Lent? That's not really any of your business, but I will share with you that for the next forty days I plan to read and blog Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation.

I don't really consider myself a contemplative. I'm generally a quiet person and that sometimes evokes impressions like "still waters run deep," but I'm here to tell you, that ain't necessarily so. If I don't say much, it isn't because I can't think of anything to say as much as what I'm thinking isn't worth saying. It's not often that I'm pondering the great questions of the universe or evaluating the state of my heart. That's hard work and much too intimate. Better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you're stupid than to open it and prove that you are, right?

There are thirty-nine chapters in New Seeds of Contemplation. I plan to read one on each fast day of Lent and then post some thoughts and impressions. I'm hoping I haven't bitten off more than I can chew. We shall see. Since I've already told you how uncontemplative I am, I have no idea what form these posts will take. I expect they will evolve along with whatever contemplative skills I pick up along the way. I look forward to the attempt.

Super Bowl XLII

My regular readers (both of you) will remember that just after the NFC championship game I predicted a Giants victory in the Super Bowl. So in a spirit of humility, let me just say:


Carry on.

The Bishop of Rwanda

Bishop John Rucyahana spoke to our Bible study class this morning and then preached at morning worship.

Bishop John is bishop of the Shyira diocese of the Anglican church in Rwanda. He was instrumental in the spread of the Anglican Mission in the Americas beginning with his agreement to oversee one of the first AMiA churches in Little Rock, a decision that, as he puts it, "stirred up some dust."

I highly recommend his book, The Bishop of Rwanda: Finding Forgiveness Amidst a Pile of Bones. In it he tells the painful story of the Rwandan genocide in 1994 when over 1.1 million people were brutally murdered. He explains how external forces propagandized the Tutsi and Hutu ethnic groups into tribal differences that led to the massacre, and what steps are being taken to heal and restore Rwanda, which the bishop reports is the now the safest country in Africa.

One of Bishop Rucyahana's responsibilities is the Sonrise Orphans Ministry. There are between 400,000 and 600,000 orphans in Rwanda, many as result of the genocide. Two-thirds of the 900 or so students at Sonrise are orphans. The school provides them a home, hope for the future, and healing.

Someone asked the bishop a profound question during Q&A in Bible study: Is there any resentment towards Americans who come to Rwanda with material blessings but with seemingly (because of the recent crises in the Episcopal/Anglican communions) spiritual poverty? The bishop responded that given Rwanda's history of rejection in the world community, visits and touches mean more than even money to many Rwandans. I admit that I was only marginally aware of the genocide when it was happening, as I think most of the world can testify. That realization makes it all the more painful to contemplate recent developments in Darfur, and Burma, and now potentially in Kenya.

Bishop Rucyahana was gracious in signing my copy of his book. His signature makes this powerful volume all the more special to me.

Baby back?

Overheard today in Dreamland: Do you have baby back ribs?

Do these look like baby back ribs to you?



This ain't Memphis, son.

Sports Report: Super Bowl Prediction!

As January winds down I feel somewhat obligated to post on that greatest spectacle of sport, the crown jewel of competition, the arena of artistry, the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat: the Super Tuesday presidential primaries the Super Bowl.

I'm not much of an NFL fan but I did pay a modicum of interest to this season's playoffs, mainly because the Green Bay Packers had two home games - one in a blizzard and one in subzero temperatures.

I don't remember when or why I became a Packers fan. I guess it had something to do with the selection of authentic football uniforms available in the Sears catalog circa 1973. (This guy knows what I'm talking about.) My brother got the Dallas Cowboy uniform. I got the Packers. I'm sure my fandomness blossomed with knowledge that the Packer juggernaut was piloted by Bart Starr, Alabama born and bred, who taught the philistine cheeseheads what football was all about. Or whatever. It's just a blur, really.

My late grandmother bought me a Packers sweatshirt a few years ago and I wore it to Colorado for this year's Christmas vacation. It is thick and warm and comfortable and very green. It garnered a lot of attention at the airport in Texas because the Pack apparently stunk up a regular season game on the Sunday we traveled. I didn't know they were playing, much less who they were playing, but strange guys kept talking to me, saying things like You're coming back here for the playoffs, after today! and pointing at their NFL-logo'd caps like they were challenging me to a duel or something. In Denver, the pilot getting on the plane as we were exiting looked at me and said, They lost. Just like that. No Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings, or Happy Holidays. No We know you have a choice in air travel and we appreciate you choosing Southwest. Not even a Buh-bye. Just They lost. I didn't know how to respond, so I muttered an emphatic Crap! under my breath like I'd just lost my mortgage payment to the bookie working out of the storeroom of the diner out on the highway, and feigned enough sincerity to get me to the top of the jetway. It worked. Flyboy bought it hook, line, and sinker, just like the loser Dolphins fan that he probably is.

Even my uncle gave me the business out in the driveway before I got both feet out of the car. The Packers? he sneered. They played like crap today! He's a farmer and a Broncos fan so he knows crap when he sees it. I still didn't know who beat the Pack, but it was a heartbreaking loss, I gotta tell ya.

Anyway, after that humiliating defeat at the hands of _____________, I relegated the sweatshirt to the back of my closet, just like the loser Bears. Make a monkey outta me, huh? But still, we made the playoffs and beat _____________ in a blinding snowstorm before hosting the hapless Giants and their Peyton-wannabe quarterback Eli Manning in the third-coldest game in NFL history. The Giants' crappy kicker missed two field goals in the second half, the last one with four seconds left in the game. OT, baby! When the Pack won the coin toss I went to the closet to lay out my sweatshirt for work Monday, because there is no way Favre is going to lose the NFC championship game at home in overtime and -4 degrees, right? I mean, it's Lambeau and Lombardi and cheeseheads and Bikini Girls, Nitschke and Kramer, Lofton and Hornung! Favre is a southern boy gone up north to teach the Yankee horde about football, just like Bart Starr! If I'd still had my Packers helmet from Sears I would have crammed it down on my head, even if it snagged on my ears, just to block for ole number 4 from the warmth and safety of my living room. (I would not, however, don one of those cheesehead hats, because that is not dignified for a casual fan like myself.) But, alas, it was not to be! Favre threw an interception and a few plays later the crappy kicker for the Giants actually got one through the upright thingies, and just like that the sweatshirt went right back into the closet. Oh, the shame.

So the Super Bowl comes down to this:














I'm rooting for the Giants, for two reasons:
1. I root for underdogs (except when they play the Packers), and Eli Manning is an underdog to his brother Peyton. They have another brother but he's not in the NFL. If he was he'd probably be a loser Viking.
2. I root for underdogs (except when they play the Packers), and the Giants are underdogs to the 18-0 Patriots. The Red Sox won the World Series, so how much success does New England really deserve? Can you say Ted Kennedy? Mitt Romney? "Big Dig"? Even if they win and go 19-0, what's the big deal? Just ask Mercury Morris.

My prediction: Giants 30 (their crappy kicker misses all the extra points) - Patriots 28.

Go dogs.

One to One Hundred

(HT: jimCutlervoiceOvers)

Review: Inside Inside

For reasons that are meaningful only to me, I don't do new year's resolutions. I did plan to do two things (at one time) here in the new year that I haven't done before: read a Thomas Merton book, and blog about a book I'm reading.

I got sidetracked at the library, though, by a hefty volume on the New Arrivals rack: Inside Inside, by James Lipton.


James Lipton is the founder and former director of the Actor's Studio Drama School, and host of Bravo's Inside the Actor's Studio. I haven't had access to the Bravo network in several years, but when I did, Inside was one of my favorite shows.

This book is more about Lipton than about Inside, but in a sense Lipton is Inside, so that didn't bother me as much as it obviously bothered the reviewers at Amazon.com. But he's done much more than just his work with Actor's Studio. He wrote a novel and a literary work that has been in print for forty years, wrote two Broadway musicals, produced twelve Bob Hope specials and a Jimmy Carter inaugural concert, is a pilot and competitive horseman, was awarded a lifetime Emmy and France's Chevalier de l'ordre de Arts et des Lettres, was a pimp in a Parisian bordello (well, sort of; the nuance of the translation may have been lost on my sorry monolingual butt), and has the overwhelming admiration and respect of the arts and entertainment community. Except from maybe Barry Manilow and/or Bob Kerrey (read the book for that Inside inside joke).

The book clocks in at 492 pages and there isn't a lot of white space, let me tell you. Mr. Lipton doesn't interview actors from behind a stack of 500 blue notecards just because he has a cardboard fetish. He may have, for all I know, though he didn't feel it necessary to mention in the book. He did mentioned a bunch of other stuff, though, like how he almost crashed a plane in Alaska, got thrown off a horse, had a [Warning: NSFW] print of his naked wife published by George Plimpton in The Paris Review [I warned you], and listened to Bob Hope and Ronald Reagan exchange raunchy anecdotes in the Lincoln Bedroom after taping a dialog for one of the Hope specials, resulting in Secret Service confiscation and erasure of an 18 minute portion of the tape. Not the first time that's happened in the White House, huh? Come to think of it, it probably wasn't the first time raunchy anecdotes were exchanged in the Lincoln Bedroom either. Or the last.

But I digress. By now you must know that I am untrained in the art of the book review, so I take no shame in saying that this was a swell book. And in the spirit of Inside the Actor's Studio, I shall end with the infamous Bernard Pivot Questionnaire:

What is your favorite word? Papa
What is your least favorite word? Irregardless
What turns you on? The smell of roasting pork
What turns you off? Wastefulness
What sound or noise do you love? Sleet landing on fallen leaves
What sound or noise do you hate? A ringing telephone
What is your favorite curse word? Crap
What profession would you like to attempt? Professional book reviewer
What profession would you not like to attempt? Donald Trump's hairstylist
Finally, if heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? Son, what had you so keyed up? Well, forget it, you have the rest of eternity to unwind.


Bravo, Mr. Lipton...

What is this white stuff in my rain gauge?

UPDATED: NWS Birmingham explains. Thanks!

Southern kids can't sled

Let the children come...

I am a credobaptist and a pedocommunionist. Maybe I'm confused and you can't be both, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Both my kids have always partaken of the Supper when it has been offered to them. I've even served them myself (which makes me anti-sacerdotal; I'm just not mad about it).

Something happened during Holy Communion this morning that confirmed my conviction. From my seat it appeared that everyone had been served, but our pastor remained in the aisle, waiting. Seconds later a lady walked briskly toward him, her hands cupped to receive the bread. A few steps behind her rushed a little girl who couldn't have been more than three. The little girl walked right up to Pastor John, who knelt to serve her. Then the little girl turned to a deacon and dipped her bread in the cup and ate it without hesitation. She turned and followed her mom back down the aisle.

I whispered to Joan, "Suffer not the little children to come unto me."

Oh, for the faith of that child.

Snowball Fight!

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What it was, was football

The football team at my son's high school made it to the state championship this year and Joan and I took the kids down to the Old Gray Lady to watch the game.

Legion Field had an upper deck the last time I went to a game there but the ravages of time and the fear of liability has changed that. (This photo was obviously taken before the upperdeckectomy.) Still it is an imposing place and it has a charged atmosphere for the biggest game of the highest classification in the state. It could use a coat of paint, though. And some serious parking lot work. Maybe when Mayor Langford finishes his demolition of downtown he'll get to that. Or not.

I have fond memories of Legion Field. My parents took me to a World Football League game there back in 1974. Our team, the Birmingham Americans, went on to win the first and only World Bowl later that year. The next year the team was renamed the Birmingham Vulcans and the league folded before the end of the season. Not the last time that would happen to us. (Another highlight of that evening was the pregame meal at Ollie's Barbecue. Alas, Ollie's too has folded, but it survived a much longer and successful run than the WFL. And the CFL. And the XFL. And the USFL. And the WLAF. Combined.)

A few years later, when I was in middle school, my future high school made it to the state championship, the Walker Vikings vs. the Berry Buccaneers. "We" lost, 21-0. Berry had a tight end named Bart Kraut, who later played for Alabama, who was twice as big as "our" guys, and he literally ran all over "us". Even the great Linnie Patrick couldn't help.

In 1981, I went to an Alabama-Tennessee game with a high school friend who was a girl. She drove, and we sat in the upper deck. Alabama won. That's all I have to say about that.

Unfortunately for my son, his high school team didn't fare any better than mine. I may have jinxed it. I've been to two state championship games and neither team I've rooted for has even scored. Hopefully it won't take his team as long to get back to the top as it has mine (and after 30 years, I'm still waiting).

Anyway, it is a great excuse to listen to this classic from Andy Griffith. Enjoy.

Read the @&(# Handbook

It's been 26 years since I took a driver's exam but I assume they still give a written test from the Driver's Handbook. I say "assume," because I encounter scads of drivers who seemingly have never read the thing.

This morning I met a driver with yield issues so bad that I'm willing to bet s/he even spells it "yeild."

Today I drove down a nice, tree-lined, four-lane divided parkway toward a parking lot. As I pulled into the crossover I saw a fast-moving SUV approaching from the other direction. I stopped to wait for the driver to make a right turn into the lot.

The driver pulled to within five feet of the lot entrance and stopped. In the middle of the road. To wave me across.

Never mind that s/he had the right of way. Or that s/he was in danger of being creamed from behind by approaching traffic (of which thankfully there was none). Or that s/he had violated one of my biggest peeves.

I hate with that happens. Why do people do that? I hate standing on a curb waiting to cross the road at the mall or grocery store because if there is a vehicle approaching, nine times out of ten it will stop and try to wave me across. This is Alabama, people, where vehicle worship is second only to football, and where most urban areas are designed for you and your precious, depreciating at a sickening rate, asset. Keep it moving, and get it out of the way. Courtesy be damned. Because I will not cross. Not until after you are gone. And to show you how passive-aggressively serious I am about this, I will not make eye contact with you. I will look the opposite way for approaching traffic, or at the wads of gum embedded in the sidewalk, or at jet contrails, but I will not be your accomplice as you flaunt the law. I will exercise my rights as a pedestrian to remain immobile until you have lawfully cleared the area. Audemus jura nostra defendere.

So I treated this morning's driver the same way. No eye contact. The more s/he waved, the more I stared at the intersection behind him/her. S/he finally gave up, mercifully before s/he was rear-ended, thus making me later for an appointment, by subjecting me to witnessing an accident, than I already was.

People, read the handbook (pdf warning). In the immortal words of Brad Hamilton, "Learn it. Know it. Live it."



And please, stop waving at me.