Month: August 2019

This wonderful blog post by Matthew Fox speaks to the entreaty from Mary Oliver “I want to tell you everything I have learned about life.  Life is about three things: 1. Pay attention.  2.  Be astonished.  3. Share your astonishment.”

He compares the way she looks at life to Hildegard of Bingen and shares some beautiful poetry from both of these feminine mystical icons.

Please enjoy:

This comes from Fr Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations blog and is a thoughtful look at ways in which we can use meditative practices to help us “move through suffering and find creative responses.”

From the post:

“Meditation teacher Ruth King helps people cultivate awareness of how we impact each other and ourselves, especially being “mindful of race.” For those of us who are white, thinking about our own race can be unfamiliar and uncomfortable. For people of color whose ancestors and they themselves have experienced oppression, this exploration can be quite painful. But the path toward healing for all of us includes attending to the details, as Holmes suggests, and seeing reality as it is. “

Practice: Attending to Details

The mystic’s concern with the imperative for social action is not merely . . . to feed the hungry, not merely to relieve human suffering and human misery. If this were all, in and of itself, it would be important surely. But . . . the basic consideration has to do with the removal of all that prevents God from coming to . . . [fullness] in the life of the individual. Whatever there is that blocks this, calls for action. —Howard Thurman [1]

Each Saturday we offer an invitation to contemplative practice. You may not always choose to try the practice we suggest, but I hope you will explore today’s, even if you have a regular contemplative practice.

One of our Living School teachers, Dr. Barbara Holmes, writes about “crisis contemplation” as a way to express grief and find refuge in the midst of danger. We need practices to move through suffering and find creative responses. One example of crisis contemplation occurred on plantations:

Here, enslaved Africans created narratives of survival that depended on personal courage and God’s deliverance. The word courageous within the context of slavery is problematic because it has incongruous but romantic overtones. Those who attempt to describe the horrors of one holocaust or another inevitably use language that mythically denies, romanticizes, or diminishes the oppression. When history is collapsed into myth, responsibilities become diffused, and repentance and reconciliation become impossible.

In the inflated realm of mythical oppression, villains are so villainous that no one sees themselves reflected in the image. Few can trace accrued privileges to specific and intentional evil acts. Similarly, victims become so quintessentially and epically victimized that all escape routes from the condition are sealed off by a maze of self-doubt, blaming, and low self-esteem. The antidote to this phenomenon is to attend to the details, to understand the specific events, ancestors, life stories, causes of oppression, and avenues of social change. Historical and spiritual specificity is salvific. Then and only then can the movement toward moral flourishing begin. [2]

Meditation teacher Ruth King helps people cultivate awareness of how we impact each other and ourselves, especially being “mindful of race.” For those of us who are white, thinking about our own race can be unfamiliar and uncomfortable. For people of color whose ancestors and they themselves have experienced oppression, this exploration can be quite painful. But the path toward healing for all of us includes attending to the details, as Holmes suggests, and seeing reality as it is.

Find some uninterrupted time to reflect on Ruth King’s questions below. After you’ve held these with an open heart, you may wish to do some research with an open mind.  

• Where in your life do you feel numb, shut down, dismembered, disrespected, or disconnected? What is your earliest memory of feeling this way? What events or circumstances do you believe gave birth to these experiences? What do you believe such feelings keep you from knowing?
   
• What racial identities or ethnicities have shaped how you have come to know yourself as a race?
   
• What views did your ancestors, elders, parents, or caretakers have about race? How did their views impact you? In what ways were/are your views similar or different?
   
• What are the roots of your racial lineage? Given your lineage, what has your race gained or lost throughout the generations? How have these gains or losses influenced your racial views today? [3]

[1] Howard Thurman, “Mysticism and Social Action,” cited in Alton B. Pollard III, Mysticism and Social Change: The Social Witness of Howard Thurman (Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers: 1992), 65.

[2] Barbara Holmes, Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church, 2nd ed. (Fortress Press: 2017), 80.

[3] Ruth King, Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out (Sounds True: 2018), 173, 174.

This is such a sweet and needed meditation practice in these times.

From the article:

“In my hermitage, I have planted beautiful trees. When I do walking meditation, I often stop and hug one of the trees, breathing in and out. It’s very nourishing. The tree gives me strength, and it always seems to me that the tree responds to my hugging and breathing.”

“Hugging meditation is a chance to practice our awareness of impermanence. Each time we hug, we know it may be the last time. Our deep awareness of the impermanent nature of things inspires us to be very mindful, and we naturally hug each other in a deep, authentic way, appreciating each other completely.”

At the end of the article, he outlines the steps for his hugging meditation practice. Absolutely worth finding a time and place to try it out. Next time I see you, let’s give it a try!

After the last week of horror and continuing despair, I am feeling the importance of remembering joy. I hope you will find this “On Being” episode as refreshing as I have.

“There is a question floating around the world right now: “How can we be joyful in a moment like this?” To which writer Ross Gay responds: “How can we not be joyful, especially in a moment like this?” He says joy has nothing to do with ease and “everything to do with the fact that we’re all going to die.” The ephemeral nature of our being allows him to find delight in all sorts of places (especially his community garden). To be with Ross Gay is to train your gaze to see the wonderful alongside the terrible, to attend to and meditate on what you love, even in the work of justice.“

Click on the link below to hear the podcast:

Tending Joy and Practicing Delight with Ross Gay

One of the greatest influences on Starr King School for Ministry which I am attending has been Dr. Ibrahim Farajaje Baba who acted as provost for nearly 20 years. He was a uniquely gifted orator, teacher, lover, and champion of intersectional awareness. I feel so blessed to bask in the legacy he has left us.

This video is of a lecture he gave for a Faculty Summit in 2010. The whole thing is worth listening to, but please at least skip forward to the beautiful spoken word poetry that starts at around 26:20.