Into the Silent Canyon - Part One

The thirteen-mile, winding, deep-rutted dirt road that leads off the New Mexico highway into the the National Forest causes many a traveler to nervously gulp air. Prayers are whispered before one even rumbles up to the guesthouse of the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, the small Benedictine monastery set deep within the Chama River canyon. We arrived just after the sun bid its farewell behind the high western mountains across the river, and because the guesthouse does not have electricity, I and my classmates had to unpack and prepare our rooms in dim lamplight. But what greeted us most stunningly as we stumbled and staggered out of the fifteen passenger van (which, we were quite thankful, our assistant dean, Rene, had been able to navigate along a road that at times curves treacherously 200 feet above rushing rapids of the Chama River) was the utter silence of the place. Besides crickets, the faint trickle of the river, and the occasional warble of a nocturnal bird, there was nothing. No highway noise, no cacophonous chatter of human voices, no buzz or hum of creature-comfort appliances. This was the wilderness - we were immediately greeted by its spirit, and with hardly any prodding, we conformed to this nature. Our mouths closed; we blended into the silent night.
It is of such a silence that I write about on the blog in the first of my posts about this extraordinary trip. I have remained silent in my apartment before, as well as in my car, and at school, and even, if I'm feeling "centered" enough, at church. However, I have never experienced a silence like the silence in which I was washed at the monastery. Silence before this trip was merely the absence of sound, of me making noise. If we try hard enough, we can all achieve an atmosphere of this brand of silence. But this is the runt cousin of the silence I encountered in the Chama River canyon. This silence was not merely absence of sound. This was a silence that was alive. Behind the fullness of quiet, I could sense a presence. I recognize how sentimental and slightly dramatic that might read, but I am not making this up for the sake of spinning this post with a devotional flair. There was truly, to me, a noticeable presence behind the silence. I could not help but think back to the story of Elijah from which I posted an excerpt in the post I wrote before departing on the trip. Within the sheer silence Elijah encountered on the mountain, all ragged, downcast with fear, and covered in his mantle, there was the unmistakable presence of God.
I am not one of the people you often meet who say, "Well, today I was praying, and God told me this ..." or "I went hiking the other day and had a vision of God ..." or "I know that Jesus is telling me to do this ..." I have always been wary of attributing the ideas in my head, the drives to say or do something, to God. I have never heard God speak audibly. Some people claim they have - still others (who I assume are secretly insecure of their own faith) adamantly state that you aren't a real person of faith unless you have heard God speak to you audibly, or Jesus, or the Spirit, or whatever is their favorite character of the Trinity. I don't know if I ever will hear God speak audibly. I believe our ears and our eyes play more tricks on us sometimes than does our heart, and so the inaudible is perhaps a safer level on which God would communicate with us. I believe God speaks - or better yet, God reveals - his desires for us and for the world, on a much deeper level. And I'll be honest, I have yet to know exactly when this communication takes place, though I suspect it is happening in some slowly constant way, 99% of the time when I am not paying attention at all.
What is the point? Two things: 1) Being in the silent canyon at the monastery revealed to me the truth of the old saying, "Silence is golden." It is awkward at first, sure, to step out of our loud lives into silent worship, but once the initial shock wears off, the peace and tranquility found within it is the stuff of matchless wonder. Our normal activities, especially within our churches today, are so very tragically rushed, and often loud for the sake of attention-grabbing. We kick the beat of praise choruses with roto-tom fills and vociferous beats of a base drum, we attempt to double and triple-strum our guitars to make our worship songs more lavish, if only to keep worship energetic, engaging. Oh, if we would only seek the opposite - to be silent before our holy God. I believe we will recognize more of what he is tellings us when we come stripped down, empty, listening instead of broadcasting. 2) I am addicted to noise. It is a sick addiction, like anything else really. There are moments, like my time at the monastery, where I catch a glimpse of the peace and the calm that can be experienced when I quiet myself, when I chuck what I think is a need to constantly feed myself with noise, be it television, radio, conversation, or talking to myself, which is something I have begun to notice I do often. Perhaps I should consider a fast for my ears - a noise fast.
I do not know how to experience that living, breathing, speaking silence I encountered in the canyon, but I believe the presence I felt there is the same presence that is settled over me now, whether I choose to recognize it - trust that it is there - or not.
There is more to that deep silence than we realize. I understand that now. We have bought into the lie that silence is merely a sign that we should seek some noise to fill the void. We have wrongly allowed the world we live in to condition our bodies and minds to feel discomfort - even dread - when we encounter silence. Instead, the next time we find ourselves awash in the soft nothingness of quiet, let us not hug our trembling shoulders nervously, but open wide our arms to embrace the Maker of silence, for in it he often chooses to dwell.

The Wilderness Spirituality class in front of the chapel

(back: Rene, Kyle, Leslie, Jill, Brandon, front: Dr. Gloer, Jeff, Courtney, Vernon)

* This is the first of several posted reflections on my experience at Christ in the Desert Monastery.

Check back soon for new entries, as well as more pictures.

Chasing Epiphanies

In just under 36 hours, I will be piled into a rental van, headed west to New Mexico. My destination: The Monastery of Christ in the Desert. The reason: As an I-term class, my professor, Dr. Hulitt Gloer, makes a yearly visit to this secluded Benedictine monastery along with a small group of students. The class is called "Wilderness Spirituality," and through our interaction with the resident monks, with each other, and through reading of several works on prayer, the desert mystics, monastic traditions, and the like, we are brought communally to an understanding of this age-old (from the beginning of Scripture) tradition of meeting/hearing from God in the wilderness.
I am both excited, anticipating the journey and the week-long stay, as well as nervous. There is a significant amount of apprehension within me right now as I prepare for the trip. I have recently noticed I only count hours when I am uneasy about something, anticipating it with a mixture of joy and fear.
I have been looking forward to this class for about a year now (that is when I had to get on the waiting list to make sure I secured myself a spot for this year's trip). I am extremely intrigued by monastic lifestyle, as well as the supplemental things I am reading about, such as fixed-hour prayer, lectio divina, and hearing from God in and through wilderness surroundings.
However, I have found, to my chagrin, that in the past I end up disappointed by things into which I place too much hope. What I mean is, often I trust that a certain event, trip, or meeting with someone will produce a penitent redirection within me - that such a thing would inspire me, immerse me in epiphany. It is the equivalent of those cinematic moments in which the protagonist takes a lonely walk on the beach, spies a swooping seagull or pelican, or perhaps, if the film has no shame, a leaping dolphin just off-shore, and in this glorious moment, from this momentously solemn walk, he or she realizes the essential purpose of life, and forevermore lives in this manner, to the chiming bells of continual happiness. Give me a break ...
I find it hard to believe these moments when they transpire in movies. So why ... why ... do I believe they will happen to me in my real life, in the here and now? Perhaps an even more uncomfortable question is, why do I feel I need these moments? I am not denying that right now, in my life, I feel a deep, desperate need for spiritual renewal (refreshment, redirection ... call it what you will). Two years of seminary can wreak havoc on your mental and spiritual equilibrium. As a friend once warned me before I left for Truett, "It ain't Bible camp." I never thought it was.
I'm glad it is hard, this trying to find mental and spiritual balance in the midst of learning so very much. This struggle is good - it makes me feel like this balance I desire is worth fighting for, searching for, like Proverbs encourages in chapter 2. And most of the time I don't mind feeling on edge; I think we all need to stand precariously on the ledge for a time, if only to make eventual security feel actually that: secure. I would assume most of my friends, unless I wear my heart too high on my sleeve, have no idea all this is going on inside me. Then again, I suspect these feelings are going on inside a lot of us.

And so, the Monastery trip ... I am very wary of putting too much stock into it, hoping for some epiphanal moment out there in that New Mexico canyon. It would be nice, I won't lie. I would love to experience something like taking a long walk at sunset, the sandstone cliffs my horizon, when suddenly I look up through desperate eyes to see, soaring magnificently above me, a mighty eagle with a twinkle in its eye, and then, softly but unignorably in my mind, there sounds the voice of James Earl Jones or someone else with a god-like pitch, and he quotes Isaiah 40:28-31, and tears well up in my eyes, and the next thing you know, I am cured of all my internal shortcomings, I am free of all my inner demons. Wow!
Such things, though, do not happen, at least not in the way our imaginations choreograph them. They are much more subtle, much deeper beneath the surface. Epiphanies (that is, the good ones - the ones that last) do not come in a flash like a rumbling freight train, but rather like an old, wide river that flows so slowly you can hardly tell it is moving at all. And it has been flowing for an eternity - has always been there, and shall always be.
"Take me to the river," I suppose, is my prayer for this trip. I hope that you will pray this for me, whether you know me or not. In a way, you will be praying it for yourselves as well.

The Chapel at Christ in the Desert Monastery

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Yahweh said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of Yahweh, for Yahweh is about to pass by." Then a great and powerful wind tore the mounatins apart and shattered the rocks before Yahweh, but Yahweh was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but Yahweh was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but Yahweh was not in the fire. And after the fire came a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" - 1st Kings 19:11-13

Another 1000 Words on Christ in the Desert Monastery

In the canyon

1000 Words on Christ in the Desert Monastery

Guesthouse at Christ in the Desert Monastery

Gracie's Nemesis

My dog, Gracie, has a nemesis. This adversary torments her most days and sometimes even at night. It mocks her. It taunts her. It tempts her. And it always stays just a step ahead of her. I must tell you, Gracie is resilient in her pursuit of this enemy, but though they have fought many battles, the war continues to rage, and as my family observes day after day from our windows, the conflict shows no sign of ceasing.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing for Gracie is not that she has not overcome her enemy, so much as it seems like she should. After all, her adversary is not much to look at, and though Gracie is a bit on the portly side (she sometimes eats her sister's dinner when no one is watching), her quickness and strength seems to factor a victory for her against such a small opponent. Nevertheless, time after time her nemesis eludes capture.
Gracie's nemesis is a four and 1/2 pound brown squirrel that makes its home among the trees of ours and the neighbors' yards. With that holier-than-thou flick of its bushy tail, and that obnoxious scrunching of its nose, you just know the little thing is basking in its superiority to all the neighborhood dogs. It is no wonder Gracie wants this squirrel brought to the jaws of justice like an Old West Sheriff seeking to vanquish an unwanted outlaw who has taken up residence in town.
And it is not that Gracie doesn't try - that she doesn't do even more than a normal dog would do to exterminate this vermin. She has even figured out how to climb some of the trees in our yard, in an effort to communicate to the squirrel that it can run, but it cannot hide.


Gracie vs. the Squirrel

However, even being able to climb trees is not enough to rid the world of this enemy. Day after day she barks up at the tree where the squirrel waits for her to tire so it can make a break for it. Day after day she staggers through the pet door, tongue dragging on the linoleum, desperate for water and a way to forget the humiliation of another defeat. And so the squirrel taunts her. So it tempts her. And so her life is constantly placed on edge by the known presence of this nemesis.

Oh, I'm sure this may come across as a rather cheap comparison, but is this not so with our own lives, as we wage an endless war against the sin that cheapens us, fatigues us, sends us slumping back home, head down in defeat, at the end of each day? There are days when the battle we know we will face before day's end just seems too much. Yet we fight it anyway. We fight it and lose. And again we are taunted, tempted, and mocked.
We are unable to win this war. I know this - have understood this for a long time. We do not have the ability to rid ourselves of sin, no matter how many strategies or formulas for success we try to adopt. Capture, control, and disposal of our sin seems so closely within our grasp, we continually delude ourselves we have what it takes. We bark louder, we go longer without replenishing our thirst, we figure out how to climb trees ... perhaps this time we have done enough to secure a victory. The victory.

I think the reason why we do not have it within us to rid ourselves of this enemy is because ... the enemy is us. This is where the Gracie vs. the Squirrel metaphor breaks down. We are our own worst enemy. The problem in the Church today is we have found a way to divide the blame for our sins, projecting the guilt onto others. If I falter in some way, it wasn't all my fault. I merely bought into the lie somebody or something communicated to me. Yes, I was wrong, but so are they. Perhaps the worst lie the Church has bought into is the concept that "the devil made me do it." We personify our temptation to act and speak wrongly by attributing that temptation to the devil. Satan. While this holds some connection to New Testament scripture, it is a grave mistake to simply point to Satan as the originator of our rebellious act. It gives us an excusal, an out-plan when considering the level of our guilt. Sure, I confess I was wrong - but Satan tricked me. No, it begins and ends with us. We have to take responsibility for our actions.
I believe this is why so many young people (and possibly older people; I am not sure - I'm not "older" yet) constantly find themselves questioning their salvation. "Rededicating" their lives. One, we do not trust the all-encompassing grace and mercy of God. When we accept the forgiveness he offers, we are wholly forgiven - forever. Find a scripture in the Bible that proves this concept wrong. Two, we return to try the "prayer for salvation" again, because we have not accepted the complete rebelliousness of our character. We believe that if we bind ourselves up in more and more rules, another lifestyleformula, to protect from any waywardness where Satan or someone else might tempt us and cause us to sin, we will get it right this time. In reality, we get it right when we accept the fact that we are our own enemy, plain and simple. The wondrous salvation that Christ offers is not a rescue from Satan. It is a renovation of self. Christ saves us from our own sinfulness - by his mercy and grace we can become, in essence, a new person.
Still human, still understanding our tendency and appetite for sin ... but now aware that the fullness of Christ pours into the total emptiness of ourselves.

It boggles the mind, this forgiveness. There is no other word for it but "wonder." In the book of Romans, it is written, "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!" (11:33)

May I recognize my capacity for sin. May I also see my capability to wonder.

Willie

She is a woman in my church, an elderly, slightly diminuitive lady with short gray hair, a sharply southern, throaty singing voice, and a love for hymns. She cannot be more than five feet tall, so this means that there is not much you can see of her when she stands behind the pulpit to lead the hymns and share one of her many cherished songs on Sunday mornings. There is just her metronomic hand keeping rhythm and her calmly pious face as she voices verse after verse, her expression seeming pleasantly lost somewhere between the past moment in time in which the hymn was written and the present reality of Sunday morning worship in which we all sit and sing along.
Willie is cherished by the congregation as much as she cherishes her hymns. Come Christmas, she is called on several times to sing "O Holy Night" in her haunting, southern style. The pitch of her voice would ne'er make a record producer's head turn, but it commands the attention of every person in our sanctuary, young and old. It is shrill, but a beautiful shrillness that summons to your mind a tapestry of southern heritage. I can picture Willie's mother or grandmother sitting with her at an old, upright piano, teaching her the hymns that were probably not that old back then. She doesn't correct her daughter's unique voice; she simply nods and sings along and tells Willie how gorgeous she has performed the verses.
Today, Willie sang two hymns at the funeral of one of the deacons of our church. It occured to me how long she must have known the man, who had been a member of the church for over forty years. I was struck with the poignancy of it all. How much emotion must have gone into the singing of those hymns. She had sung "Amazing Grace" and "The Old Rugged Cross" many times before, but today they were meant as a tribute. A tribute to a wonderful man and his great Savior.
There are hymns she does not know, some that I or our pastor occasionally pick for the service, that she will admit in front of the entire congregation that she is unsure how to sing. Sometimes she will call out one hymn and accidentally sing the words of the one adjacent to it in the hymnbook. This can go on for several verses, but she doesn't stop. Getting lost in the words is more important to her than listening for the right musical cues or watching the congregation to make sure we are keeping up. I believe she would confidently tell you this if she was not so humble. It is hardly a wonder the church loves her. It is certainly a wonder someone like her exists.

In many ways, this post is merely a sketch of a woman I realize deserves her own tribute. But I also imagine what it would be like in the church today if more of us sought to be like Willie. Few of us have a voice for music that can captivate a congregation, but I believe all of us have something to offer that can serve as a diamond amidst the rough of this sojourn we tarry through on earth. The key is finding out what that is, though I don't think we necessarily have to be as proactive as many motivational speakers and badly-written lifestyle books stress we must. I don't think Willie ever intentionally decided to be the person my church sees. I think she just does what comes natural, and has been living as such for many years. What comes natural to her is that hauntingly shrill voice of beauty, and the way those timeless words of hymnody roll from her tongue.
If we truly seek to do what is natural, I think God will handle the rest. Of such are the true people of God. Of such is the Church.

A Baptist chapel in Kennebunkport

Getting Lucky

Last night, following a rather intense final study session for my final, difficult final exam (here as the semester reaches its final days), I took a much needed rest after my friends left my apartment. Sitting up there, alone again in a remarkably quiet building, I knew I needed some decompression time. What must be known about me is that I will always trade studying for sleep, confidence in what I've studied for semi-confidence and an hour of television. Some may call it lazy. They would probably be right.
Decompression for me can be achieved through a variety of different activities away from the computer, books, and hundred-page packets of assigned readings. Last night, it was a game of Xbox MVP Baseball (my Red Sox lost to KC 3-2, but they're still ahead in the AL East) followed by a glass of Kool-Aid while I watched a re-run of The West Wing. This is a show that I discovered late into its third season, but became totally captivated by. Thankfully Bravo airs old episodes constantly, so I have since caught up; though, because of my Wednesday schedule and my inability to pay for TiVo (c'mon, who really needs it?), I am completely out of the loop as to what is going on this season. However, I liked it better when Aaron Sorkin wrote for the show - as he did in the episode I watched last night, which brings me to the point of this post.
Toby Zeigler, the White House Communications Director, was responsible for meeting with the new Poet Laureate, Tabitha, played by Laura Dern. Tabitha has been requested as the featured speaker at an upcoming White House dinner, but has brought dread upon the White House because of her adamant position about the military's use of land mines (they are a horrifyingly bad weapon, in her opinion). The White House fears she might take the opportunity of speaking before the President and a large collection of government officials to admonish the administration for not choosing to sign an international agreement to no longer use land mines. The last thing the White House wants is for the President to be lectured by the Poet Laureate, thus Toby (who has a bit of a crush on Tabitha, a fellow writer) must meet with her several times in an attempt to dissuade her from her plan to point a finger at the President during the dinner. Long story short, Tabitha experiences a brief moment of crisis as her passion for poetry and her desire to speak the atrocious truth of such an issue collide. She questions what she should do: should she recite her 64 couplets on the American experience, or should she not back down from an opportunity to expose what she sees as a failure of the administration? Finally, things are resolved between her and Toby as well as her and the White House. And, toward the end of the show, as she speaks to Toby she says something quite extraordinary about which I could not stop thinking. It is a wonderful statement regarding artists/writers and what they are meant to be in society. She says (and I'm quoting as best I can recall), "The goal of an artist is not to communicate truth. An artist's goal is to captivate you for however long we've asked for your attention. If we stumble onto truth, we've gotten lucky."

At first, I took offense to this statement, but I soon realized that there is much truth to it. I have always considered my desire to write fiction a very pointed desire to communicate truth. Literary fiction, for me, is a type of commentary on the world, only placing make-believe people and places where real-life ones are. However, we cannot speak truth to those who are not captivated by us. I believe this statement transcends the television screen and the fictitious Bartlett administration, and speaks to the very heart of both secular and religious art, as well as Christian ministry. As a writer, many times I catch myself with a desire that seems to eat away at me, a desire to hold out truth as blatant and noticeable as possible, to make sure no one misses it, no one walks away living outside of it. Call it my own personal fundamentalism, but this is not the way. It was not the method used by Jesus 2000 years ago, nor should it be the way of one who is striving to live in a manner that honors him.
There is so much cramming of truth down the throats of people today, especially within the Church. I believe it is turning the stomach of the world - they have become purposely allergic to our heavy-fisted, white-knuckle messages of truth, not because of the truth itself, but because of the way we try to thrust it into the forefront of everything. We do not take into account feelings, personal emotions and histories, and all that makes humans what they are. We reject the need to captivate people. We accept only the assertion that they need truth and they need it NOW!
I hope, as both a writer and a minister, I will stumble onto truth often. I hope I will get lucky time and time again. I hope Someone will help me with that. But I hope I will never trade artistic beauty and charisma for blatant, in-your-face-whether-you-like-it-or-not truth. Such truth is bitter to taste, irritating to the eyes, and all in all adverse to the body. It does not build up, it does not mature, it does not make healthy. It only brings on the dry heaves to those who are desperate for real nourishment. Art, I believe, can be real nourishment. Our world does not need artists who are truthtellers as much as it needs truthtellers who are artists.

Speaking of art that communicates truth, I close this very long post with a plug. I have read an extraordinary novel by a writer who knows how to accentuate the wonder of life. She has recently been rewarded for this right effort with a little thing called the Pulitzer Prize. If you desire art that gets lucky with the truth, I strongly recommend the book below.


Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

May we all, in our own way, be artists, and may we be considered the luckiest people in the world.

Stuff of Wonder from Something of Earth ...

It has been a joy to become involved with blogging and all the cyberworld traveling that goes along with it. Today, as I post my first message on Blogspot, I feel much like a person who has moved into a new neighborhood in the same big city. For a short while I made a home for myself at Xanga, but the housing codes set forth by that community board disallowed any personal decoration without first lining their pockets with a small fee (they wouldn't let me post pictures for free), so I followed some of my friends over to Blogspot, where there is a much freer attitude toward adorning one's blog with images of special significance. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words, and perhaps this will be the only relief to those who might wander into my blog and realize, very soon off the bat, that I am notoriously long-winded. If there is any way to communicate a 1000-words worth of something, best it be a picture rather than a lengthy paragraph.
I look forward to posting both words and pictures, and I hope that any who follow my move from Xanga to here will enjoy what I have to say about whatever. I suppose a warning is in order for this maiden post: it must be mentioned that I have a tendency to look "too much" on the bright side of things. I have known some who find it rather odd that I search painstakingly for the wonderful within even the most tragic. Call it naive. Call it unwilling to accept reality. Call it "just plain stupid." However, as I see it, there is so little appreciation for the wonders of God these days, even by devout people. I feel it incumbent upon me, for the purpose of this blog as well as for the sake of my life, to hold fast to the glory even amidst the gloom, the beauty amidst the broken. Deep down, I feel that even in our gloom and our brokenness there is wonder coursing through the veins. After all, death is not tragic just because it brings loss and pain, but because our ability to view wonder in another person/thing is significantly dwindled - all that is left is memory.
So, while I live, let me seek the wonder in all things, for as long as I can. Maybe I am practicing for eternity. Perhaps I'm getting pretty good at it ...

"I asked for wonder, and he gave it to me." - Rabbi Abraham Heschel


Me