Author: phil.farmer@gmail.com

I don’t feel old. I see the world and myself like I am still 25 or 30. Now, I will confess that the mirror and my driver’s license tell a different story. That kind of honesty is tough to take, but heck I am past 60 so it is a truth I have to live with. I notice the differences though, I have to be wise about how I do my martial arts, work in the yard, live life each day. That is wisdom, to work smarter not harder.

From a martial arts viewpoint, the day you get to black belt is your birthday. From then on, it is about wisdom, about how to be more effective and efficient. I think the same is true in education. I learned that my bachelor’s degree simply gave me a platform to know enough to study more. The master’s provided depth to my knowledge. Then, to my amazement, the Ph.D. is where I examined the foundation of it all, the wisdom if you will, of my entire field. I guess that is why achieving my doctorate was humbling, I suddenly realized how little I really had ever known.

I think the Christian path is the same. In Proverbs, we learn of Wisdom, called by many the Hagia Sophia.  In Proverbs, it says that Wisdom was the first of all creation. That makes sense if you think about it. You have to have a point of view before you begin any work. Even God needed a point of view, a wisdom about what he was doing. Paul talks about seeing the tough things that happen to us from a point of view, a wisdom, that tells us that God makes good on all promises and goes with us through it all. This is a choice we make, just like God,  as to how we will see the world.

I have two dear friends that lost their son to a murder. I cannot imagine the incredible pain they are experiencing. They both love God and when I saw my friend, he said it “comes and goes”. I know them both to be people of deep faith and though I know I cannot help with the pain, I do know they will not be alone in this time of hurt. That renews my faith, knowing they will be loved by the Eternal beyond any mortal thing I can do for them.

And, that is wisdom, to choose a view that says even when horrible things happen, I choose to see a world that is filled with goodness, joy, beauty, and pain, hurt, tragedy. Wisdom of these sixty plus years tells me that how I view the world is my choice. I did not start that way, but by being told how I “had to” see the world as a Christian. I don’t do well with have tos. As a contemplative, a mystic, I have learned that have tos are a way to control others, a blind alley bereft of wisdom. No, instead, the mystery is that the Eternal will never, ever abandon us.

Jesus was the embodiment of both logos, the Word, and the Hagia Sophia, the wisdom. It is why all were attracted to Him. Yes, they either were threatened by him or drawn to his Love, but they were attracted. We are called to embody both the word and the wisdom. To do good in this world, but to be wise about it. The word, without wisdom (a world view, innocent as a child) is simply rules. Jesus came to the world  to say, it is not a list of commandments but a way to see the Eternal and the world. Through the eyes of love. It is a choice, to be wise.

TMM

My house, these days, has the five day per week presence of a grandchild, which my wife joyously cares for every day. Watching a child grow is amazing and they grow so quickly that you can almost see it. Laughing, attending to stimuli, demanding,  and so much more. Sorry, sounds kinda technical but I teach human growth and development after all.

There are other kinds of birth as well. Our yard, this time of spring is seeing the birth of baby birds, baby squirrels and all sorts of plants. It is that time of year for renewal and rebirth. So why is it most people are not lost in amazement at all that is being born? I mean it, how can we not just sit in the grass and watch hummingbirds feed, black capped chickadees get seeds, and the plants bloom everywhere?

And there is also the birth of new ideas and new ways to just be. I was reading a Vigils reading from the Abbey. In it, Guerric of Igny (interesting name) talks about the Virgin Mary. Now I understand that She is the example of absolute faith. But Guerric discusses another view that I had not considered and that is that Her faith gave birth to the Savior of the world. And then he goes on to say that it is what we are called to, to give birth each day, to the Savior within ourselves.

Now, imagine a life where we each give birth to the Living Christ each morning when we get up. This is heady stuff and heavy stuff. That would be a world I could live in. That is the world I strive to live in. Wanna join me?

 

TMM

I learned of this word and idea a year ago at my College. It seems that this is a Ghanaian word and has a special meaning. It is depicted by a flying bird that is looking back to retrieve an egg of its back. The literal meaning is that it is okay to go back and get something, but more importantly, the cultural meaning is that it is not wrong to go back and get what you have forgotten. And, what is more, the culture speaks of this idea of taking the good things from the past and bringing them into the present in order to make positive progress through the benevolent use of knowledge.

Now, I realize that lots of people will not identify with the whole idea of some African proverb, so let me bring it to the moment for mystics and wishful mystics. Richard Rohr notes in one of his reflections that the contemplative life is not about assigning value and meaning to life events. Instead, contemplative life is about observing the Sacred presence in all that happens. This was the point of the Old Testament, to have a book that would call people to remember all of the things God has done for them.

It is  also the point of the call in Church to remember our Baptism. In this way, like reciting the Apostle’s Creed, we are called to remember why we are at church and in the Christian life for. Rohr cites an author who says it this way, “we are sitting backward rowing the boat and we watch the world unfold behind us as we move forward.

And then it dawned on me, this is sankofa! This is the contemplative life, to see the works of the Eternal unfold as we move through this life. Scripture says “be still and know” and that fits. I know this first hand because of the changes in my life over the past several years. Once I gave up on the idea that I had to be in control of  my life and that I had to assign some great meaning to everything that happens, I began to truly be contemplative and my life brightened.

I have the great support of a wife who helps me live this way. I now start most days looking for the patterns that happen. All of my recent contemplation and reading keeps pushing me to live in the moment and to bring the positives of the past with me as I reflect on the day that has unfolded. It has worked well for me for the last five years or so and it keeps getting better.

The best part of sankofa is that I don’t have to be in control of things. I don’t have to seek the meaning in every moment. Instead, I can live free of the have to’s that were from the first half of my spiritual life. These days I try to let life unfold and just enjoy the ride. I think being out of control, so to speak, is the true contemplative life. I know who is in control, so I do not have to worry anymore.

TMM

I have been lucky in my life to have “arrived” in a lot of places: South Africa, India, Europe, Washington, D.C.  Each arrival  was usually associated with relief because the plane had landed after hours in the air. Perhaps the best arrivals are the ones associated with home. It is always good to be safely home.

As I was thinking about arrivals it dawned on me that for many Christians, their spiritual life is about arriving. In all my years in church, so many sermons were about our guaranteed place in Heaven. I realize many people take great comfort in knowing that their final destination is assured. It always bothered me, though, to realize that I was being taught that what mattered was that I had to be good so I could go to heaven. Only in my later years did I begin to understand that a focus on the arrival meant I missed the entire trip.

On all of those flights, to all of those places, the excitement was about the trip. Only after long hours (once 15 hours in the air) in transit did I begin to relish arriving.  I think this is what the spiritual life is about, what Jesus meant when he kept telling his followers to live in the moment. I have discovered that the spiritual life is not about the destination, it is about the journey.

Christians spend so much time worried about their eternal salvation that they fail to live their lives daily. That is where life happens, along the path. I believe that is why Jesus said he was going to prepare a place for us. It frees us to stop worrying about arriving. Richard Rohr talks about the two phases of the spiritual life and I have lived it. Once I began to realize that the destination was assured, I began to look at life differently. And, frankly, those sermons about heaven and salvation and following all of the rules no longer meant anything to me. Sermons and readings about how to live life fully right now, right here mean everything.

I agree with the writer that said true spirituality is the ability to live with ambiguity. Now that is real life. It is ambiguous. There is joy, fear, death, birth, growth, stagnation, failure and success. This is true spirituality, realizing that no matter what happens, the creator of all of life is on the journey with us. Not to protect us from the bad things, but to stand with us and even hold us up when the bad things come.

So, stop worrying about arriving, you already have or you never will. You may be missing the entire journey if you only think ahead to arrival. Every moment of the journey has something to offer if we can but look. And hey, sometimes the offering of life is to just be. Do nothing, just be you, just waste a few minutes doing nothing. Your Best Friend will enjoy the moment with you.

 

TMM

I have supervised and taught many folks over the years. I have also been supervised and taught by many folks over the years. I have learned a few things the hard way, some the easy way. But, if you know me, most have been the hard way.

I once had a supervisor, during my evaluation tell me I needed to change. Now, I am surely not perfect, but he said this after saying I did well with clients, got along very well with my colleagues, and was a hard worker. I was very concerned and said what do I need to change? His answer was, “well if you don’t know, I can’t tell you.” Hmmm, Ph.D in psychology from a major university and he couldn’t tell me? Well, needless to say, I did not change, though I wish I could have figured out what the issue was for him.

This was one of the most important lessons I have ever learned in my professional and personal life. I think he was telling me to look within and be self-examining. I wish he had said that, but instead, several years after that I found contemplation. When a staff member fails, or a student, I start with me. What did I do, or not do that kept them from succeeding? It has served me well but surprised a few employees and students.

I am in good company in this idea. In reading the sayings of the Desert Fathers, one in particular stopped me. A monk asked “what if I am attacked by robbers and I best them, should I kill them myself?” The Abbot said, no, start by realizing that evil came to you because of your sins, confess them first and then let the dispensation of the wisdom of God show you the rest.”  Now, the Desert Fathers and Mothers had a strange way about them, but wisdom is found there.

So, the wisdom is right there, just as I discovered years ago. In each thing, we must begin with ourselves: what is our part in this? how did we contribute to the situation? what could we have done differently? The answer may be that we did our best in the situation, but most often we will discover that we are not blameless. And if we are not blameless, then how shall we blame another?

TMM

I quit. I give up. I’m done. Each of these short phrases strike fear in most people. If we are talking your job, then of course we are afraid. If we are talking a relationship, then of course we are sad and hurt and afraid. If we are talking about a contest, then giving up means we lose. And, I hate to lose. As an athlete, I never learned how to be a good loser. Now, that doesn’t mean I was a “sore loser” or acted badly, just that I was not good at losing, it felt bad.

And, then, I grew up. I finally figured out that if all I worried about was winning or losing I was going to be upset at least fifty percent of the time. I was a really good hitter in baseball. No, seriously, really good……..and I still failed sixty percent of the time. A .400 batting average is really good, but we forget that means we fail 60 percent of the time. And yet, when I was a player I was angry every time I did not get a hit. Really angry. Break the bat (yeah, they were wood in those days) angry. And I have spent a large portion of my life angry because I did not win.

I began to change this when I discovered Christian mysticism, being a contemplative. All of those “have to’s” I heard in church started making less and less sense. Seeing the Bible as a set of rules to be followed was just plain frustrating and impossible. I began to see there was a different way. And then, very recently, I read a meditation by Richard Rohr. He said that “the biblical revelation is about awakening, not accomplishing. It is about realization not performance.” And I finally have a way to sum it up. The Scriptures are not about doing, they are about being. No wonder I and you are so frustrated, we have gone about reading this book all wrong.

What if, instead of trying to see the great deeds of the biblical characters, we began to see the progressive awakening of the character. Start with Genesis 1. Instead of counting the “days” we began to look at the creation of the world as a progressive revelation. Where the Eternal does one thing, looks at it and says, “well that’s pretty good, I wonder what I can reveal next, oh, how about over time, I reveal something called life?” Or, how about we don’t see Abraham as doing an act of great faith in attempting to sacrifice his son. Instead, we see him engaged in a progressive awakening to the Eternal. I can relate to that story better.

I am going to quit. No, not at the college, I love that crazy place and the students and even a few colleagues. No, I am going to quit trying to do God’s will. I am not good enough anyway so what is the point? Instead, I am going to BE God’s will. I am going to realize that the Eternal, the Creator of All, is already me, in me around me, through me. Instead of seeking to do…….. I am going to let God’s will happen and watch it, awaken to it, see it unfold.

That is what the Scriptures are about, ongoing revelation. They are not about endless doing or achieving. A recent bible study on Revelation was indeed “revealing” in that most people strive to understand all that is written in that book. They have to make maps, interpret characters, divine what the hidden truth might be. It is an impossible task. Revelation means hidden writing, so why not look at the hidden writing as a progressive awakening to the possibilities instead of a prediction of the probabilities.

Yep, I am quitting. Being is so much more fulfilling. And I am not going to try to be, I am going to learn to let it be.

 

TMM

I learned from coaching and teaching martial arts that people love to practice what they are good at and hate to practice what they are not good at. No surprise there, we hate to fail and we love to feel comfortable. That’s why they refer to it as “your comfort zone”. It is just easier to remain in that comfort zone, to just stay the way you are, to be that way. Whatever that way is.

We are the same way at our work. We will do what we are good at all day long, but let the boss ask us to do something new or different and we often think and even say, “that’s not in my job description”. And, every job I have ever had has a phrase in the description: “and other duties as assigned”. Every boss’ trump card. So, we do what we are told, but we don’t like it and we don’t enjoy it and we gripe about it the whole time.

Now, let’s move to our spiritual life. I know, I went from preachin’ to meddlin’ again. We engage in spiritual practices: prayer, lectio divina, witnessing, doing good deeds, missions, and so much more. I have taught classes on those practices. But what is the job description? Love God with all your heart, mind and soul and your neighbor as yourself. Notice that there is not that dreaded phrase “and other duties as assigned.” And, that’s it, the entire job description. How we each do the job us up to us.

Are you shocked? Most of us are by this notion that we can do the job of spirituality any way we like. Why should we be? We were created for this, to Love! Like other jobs we have, we should do what is easy for us, what we are good at…….Love. All of those practices are not ends in themselves, but means or tools to the single end: Love! However I am a Christian (or Muslim or Jew) is how I am. In Christ, I learn that I am good enough just the way I am and, what is more, I learn that I was created to be loving and wonderful and caring.

I am part of a lay monastic group. We meet via teleconferencing on a monthly basis. It is a wonderful spiritual family. I love these people and love the Abbey we are all part of and appreciate the family itself. Every month we discuss what we are reading, discuss what we are doing, discuss how we worship, even when we worship. That is good stuff, don’t get me wrong, I need it and I think my friends need it too. But it dawned on me today: why are we working so hard at doing what is natural within us? What would happen if we had an entire worship where we just chatted about who we are and how we practice loving God, each other and ourselves?

I read a quote about a seeker who went to the great guru and asked how to become enlightened. He was told to meditate exactly one way every day. Twenty years later, he sees the guru again and says, “I am not enlightened”. The guru says, “oh my that was not the right way for you.” Upset, the seeker goes back to his cave and does the only thing he can, he meditates. At that moment, when all is lost, he discovers that he is indeed enlightened. It was only when, in despair, he gave up trying and became what he sought.

I am not saying we don’t need spiritual discipline. I get up early every day to practice my own disciplines. But I am figuring out that how I do it is good enough. I am figuring out that being what I was created to be will come naturally if I stop trying to be good enough, smart enough, loving enough and just BE!

TMM

Lost in the wilderness! A fear of any backpacker is to get lost in the wilderness. A very real fear depending on how you are equipped and which wilderness you are lost in.  Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Most of us are urban or suburban and the idea of even being in the wilderness is disconcerting if not down right terrifying.

The college I teach at is located in a rather rural area of East Texas. The two nearest towns are about 1500 people each. The college sits on 1000 acres, of which only about 250 acres are actually developed and have buildings and such. On our property is a very nice nature trail, along with oil and gas wells (welcome to Texas) and that trail is 99.9% devoid of human traffic. Our urban students are frightened to go back there. To them, that is the wilderness, even with a clearly marked trail. This is a world they will never know and that is sad to me.

In contrast, the Abbey of Gethsemani, in the knobs of Kentucky, sits on 2,500 acres and it invites every retreatant and every monk to explore the wilderness. Most of the visitors there are urban or suburban dwellers, so why the difference? It is because of the context and expectations. At the Abbey, one goes there to get away, to explore the solitude of that wilderness and the wilderness that is our very soul. At the college, students believe they are there for much more than an education and so they have no time for exploring the wilderness, especially the one in their soul. What makes me even sadder is that they are terrified of silence and of themselves.

How sad, that the four years that could be used to discover vocation and calling are not seen as that at all. They are four years to get your “union card” and go do a job for the rest of your life. A very expensive “union card” to say the least.  And the students do not want to change, don’t expect to change and resist being changed. And yet, if you leave college just like you came to college, both the school and the student have failed miserably.

Jesus went to the wilderness all of the time. Sent the disciples there as well. It was not for punishment, it was for refreshment. It was to pray and be in relationship with the Creator of the Universe. It was to “get your head straight” so to speak. Well, actually your heart, but you get it. Jesus started his ministry with forty days in the wilderness. It was not there that he was tempted, it was after he left the wilderness and was coming back to his ministry that the temptations arose. Like all of us, it isn’t when we are in prayer that we are tempted, it is when we have to return to the world that it gets difficult to remember that we are “bought with a price”.

Wandering in the wilderness is a good thing, not a bad thing. It is where we go to be honest with ourselves, to love God, and to refresh our very souls. No, you don’t need a forest or acres of land. The wilderness is within. There you are free to be who you were created to be. There you are forgiven. There you are deeply loved and there you get to love God deeply. So, let’s go to the wilderness and Love. Does it shock you to realize that the Eternal God not only wants to meet you there but it makes God happy!!!! Imagine that, God is always happy to see you and walk with you in the Wilderness of your very soul.

TMM

I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day. They are pursuing religious studies and had to read a chapter on sin. The questions at the end of the chapter were rather personal, not at all what you would expect to encounter in an academic text. The whole notion of sin is deeply personal, to each of us.  The questions from that book were clearly biased toward a view of sin that says that all sin is evil and should be hated.

That made me think of this whole notion of every sin being something evil. In the New Testament, sin is a greek word that means missing the mark. It is a hunting term. Doesn’t matter how far you miss the mark, it is a miss. It implies that you tried, doesn’t it? And I think that is what I find problematic with sin always being evil in nature. Was Eve engaging in evil? She was simply exercising her free will when she ate of the forbidden fruit. The disobedience was in going her own way, letting her ego (and Adam too!) lead the way to her actions. And that is sin, when we let our own ego lead us, instead of the ways of the Eternal for our lives.

See the difference? We would rather categorize everything in black and white terms, either/or if you will. But sin, going our ego’s way, is not either/or. It is, instead, both/and. We can do a list of good deeds that are sinful, if they are done to satisfy our ego, our own need. We can sin while we worship, if we enter worship for any reason other than to spend time with the Lover of our souls. Not what most of us have been taught at church is it? Sinners, in Jesus time, were those who could not pay the temple tax for their forgiveness. It was simply a state of being, a separateness. Good and evil were really not at issue, just the state they were in.

I don’t believe in “original sin”. For my Reformed brothers and sisters, I am sorry to say that I do not believe in “utter depravity”, a Calvinist term that says we are all bad, depraved from our very birth. Sorry, that does not jibe with the Creator looking at creation and saying, it is good! I believe we are all born with the capacity for great good. When we are old enough to actually choose our behavior, we are also old enough to choose to go our own way, to let our ego lead us. To let what we want lead us, instead of what is best for us.

The only thing that book got right was that sin is deeply personal. But instead of hating anything, especially ourselves, we need to embrace the sin of our own ego. Until we love ourselves, sin and all, we cannot lover or forgive others. In all the years I have been a therapist, it has become clear that the “demon” that binds most people is the demon of self-loathing. That demon that says you are not worth forgiving, cannot be forgiven, that you are unlovable. Now that is true sin, to believe that the Eternal can forgive anyone else, but you. In a strange way, that is the ultimate egotistical thinking, that you are the only one who is unforgiveable.

On the Cross, Jesus said, “tetalestai”, it is finished. Why can’t we believe that? Why is it so hard for us to receive the tender love and forgiveness of Abba, Daddy? It is finished you know? Once and forever and we are restored to the Garden of Eden, which has always represented the perfect relationship of love with the Eternal. When Jesus healed someone and said, “go and sin no more” did he really believe that the person would never sin again? Of course not! In the context of his time, Jesus was saying that the person should go and be free of the idea that they were still a sinner because they did not go to the Temple and pay for the sacrifice. He was saying, go on with your life and quit believing that you are damaged goods, a sinner. It is why I reject the utter depravity notion. That teaches the opposite of what Christ said. We are not damaged goods, we are wonderful creations full of potential to heal the world.

Today, let’s all go and “sin no more”. Today, let us believe that it truly is finished and that we no longer have to believe that we are sinners. Let us do as St. Francis suggested,  “Preach the Gospel at all times, use words if necessary”. Let’s forgive ourselves first, forgive the world second,  and Love with all our might.

 

TMM

Pause. I remember my parents, born in the 20’s, referencing the “pause that refreshes” which was a tag line for a Coca Cola advertising campaign from their childhoods. If you go back to those old ads, it is at home, at work, on vacation or anywhere. Coke would somehow make the pause more refreshing. They wanted Coke to be everywhere. That would make for a wonderful spiritual campaign. In his book, Sanctuary, Terry Hershey talks about this in terms of finding sanctuary in our days, in our lives. That time when we don’t seek to do anything. That time when we just “are”.

I talked about this with my college classes, this idea of being instead of doing. It was like speaking French to them (which they do not understand either). The entire idea of being instead of doing is so foreign to them that they were upset about the whole idea of it. “You have to have goals, you have to have drive, you have to achieve”. That was from one young man in class and when I pointed out that his very language was filled with “hurry sickness” he just could not get it. How sad that it is terrifying to my students, to most of the people in our society to consider doing nothing, just being.

Are we so infected by this life we live that we cannot pause? The pitcher, Satchel Paige once said, “never look back, you never know who might be gaining on you”. But he was also credited (I doubt it was original with him) with saying, “sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits”. Does it really matter who is gaining on us? Does it really have to be done right now? Today? Why can’t we just pause?

I believe that we are all making a choice. That we don’t have to hurry about much of anything. Yes, I get it, I have to go to work, teach my classes, advise students, serve on committees, etc. I do not have to hurry through life and miss the important things. We need pauses because it is the only time we can hear the “still, small voice” of the Eternal rising up within us. It is why I love the Abbey and the “thunderous peace” I always find there. They don’t hurry there. They sing the psalms at the same pace they have sung them for over 900 years.

I am going to take pause more often. I am going to stop missing important things in this wonderful creation. I am, in the midst of so many things to do, plan pauses into the day. I think we need to practice moments of Sabbath throughout the day. That is why my monastic brothers at the Abbey observe the Hours of the Liturgy. Seven pauses during the day, seven mini-Sabbaths during the day, when all things stop and we pause to hear the Creator’s voice in all that is around us. If we each do this, I believe we would find peace and we could discard most of those have toos we are dominated by. So………let’s……….just……..pause.

TMM