Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel: on St Teresa's Eremitism

[[Dear Sister, I am still surprised at how you write about solitude. Your accent on the communal nature of it just seems different from what I understand hermits to be. It's hard to get it into my head. Do all hermits see eremitical solitude as a communal thing? How does a person know when they are living what you call eremitical solitude and when they are just wrecking that with contact with others? Do you measure your time in percentages or something like that, 90% solitude and 10% community, or something to be sure you are mainly living solitude?]] 

Great questions! I can't answer about all hermits but more and more the truth that becomes clearer to me is that hermits of all traditions see the integral link between solitude and community. Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam, stresses this in his excellent general approach to hermit life in the book The Eremitic Life. This week, partly because of today's Feast of OL of Mount Carmel, I was going back to Ruth Burrow's work, Essentials of Prayer. There is a chapter near the end of the book on Carmelite eremitism which draws not only from Burrow's experience but from the writings of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. What was striking in this chapter (which I had completely forgotten!) was Teresa's demand that her Sisters become not only nuns but also hermits. 

The basic point was that these Sisters entered Carmel in order to know truth and love -- both the truth of themselves and of God as they come to love themselves, their Sisters, and their God, more truly and deeply. This requires both solitude and community. (Here she seems using the term solitude somewhat differently than I do because it does not seem she is describing solitude as communal, but I suspect that I am mistaken in that conclusion. It is clear that though Burrows contrasts community and solitude, she also knows well that even the Sister's solitude in Carmel is a profoundly communal reality; not only is it lived for the sake of the larger community/charism, but it is lived because the community supports, ensures, and nurtures it. In all of this, the Cistercian and Carmelite approaches (and also that of the Camaldolese) to both solitude and community seem very close indeed.)

Below is some of what she says; I think you will also find real similarities to what I have said about solitude throughout the years here, along with what the Cistercians, the Camaldolese, the Franciscans, and even what the Carthusians say regarding the relationship of solitude and community. In all of these spiritualities there is a tension between solitude and community and each group works out this tension (or, maybe better said, negotiates and lives this tension creatively) in somewhat different ways. The tension is never simply ignored or obviated; it is lived faithfully, and the result is either a healthy and authentic coenobitism or a healthy and authentic eremitism.  Again, St. Teresa, for example, wanted nuns who would also be hermits and therefore, she created a coenobitical "eremitism" which at once cut Carmel off from the world around them with a strict enclosure -- stricter than occurred with the origin of the Order, perhaps; but at the same time, the desert she created was meant to allow for an exposure to reality (to God and one's deep self as well as to one's Sisters); it was a "solitude in which a woman's life could develop and expand"! Ruth Burrows, OCD, writes:

[[To be alone with Him Alone is, at bottom, to be detached from self, with mind and heart directed to pleasing God only --- something that is impossible without generous effort, searching purification, and --- let us not overlook it --- personal maturity. It is possible for someone to live in physical solitude, to follow a strict Rule of life, pray, experience great devotion or desolation, yet remain basically egotistical, undeveloped, and emotionally stunted: alone, not with God, but with the self and its projections of God. John of the Cross insists that we simply cannot, of ourselves, divest ourselves of our egotism. God has to act both directly and indirectly. Other people are his chosen instruments, and we have an absolute need of them in order to mature emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually and to learn how to love --- our life's greatest task.]] Later Burrows writes:

[[All human maturation and growth towards union with God demands a creative tension between solitude and community. Understood in a truly spiritual/Christian sense, we cannot have the one without the other, and each thrives in mutual proportion. Each of us must stand absolutely alone before God, assuming full responsibility for our attitudes and choices. At the same time, none of us can come to self-knowledge and maturity without others. The more truly solitary and personal the individual member, the more authentic the community --- a genuine communion of mind and heart. . .. Understanding the meaning of solitude and being faithful to it, and at the same time forgetting self in the service of community, enables divine Love to bring to being our true personhood. When that is so then, most truly, we are alone with God alone.]]

Regarding your question on percentages, I never measure anything regarding solitude and community in that way. It is not helpful at this point. Instead, I recognize I am called to live with and for God alone and I do what is necessary to ensure that. That will mean meeting with my Director regularly, joining with my faith community at the parish when I can, doing the personal work I have committed to as part of my ongoing personal formation, and being accessible if someone needs to meet with me, including spiritual direction clients. But it will also mean living most, if not all of every day, with God for the sake of God and others --- alone in my hermitage. So long as prayer continues to support these activities and these activities continue to call me back to prayer in solitude, and so long as I continue to experience God calling me to all of this and find myself growing as a person in Christ, I think I am living exactly the kind of solitude God calls me to. And, though I am not a cenobite, I think it is the same kind of solitude St. Teresa wanted for her Sisters, specifically, "a solitude in which a woman's life could develop and expand," and do so in and with God. 

Personal growth in God (that is, in Love) will always be the key, I think. Because of the way I understand the two things, I live community with an accent on solitude and solitude with an accent on its communal nature. I hope this makes sense to you because it requires giving up the kind of calculus you (and most others, by the way), understandably propose and ask about. Meanwhile, all good wishes and prayers for my Carmelite brothers and Sisters. I am thinking especially of Ruth Burrow's Carmel and also the Carmel in Reno where friends are celebrating with the community today! May this Feast be a gift in every way it possibly could!!

All quotations taken from Essence of Prayer, "Alone with Him Alone: St Teresa's creative understanding of eremiticism", by Ruth Burrows, OCD, Hidden Spring Press, 2006.

A Contemplative Moment: Listening to the Word

Listening to the Word

"The Word is very near you, it is in your mouth and in your heart" Nearer even than that, because you yourself are his creative word of love. You know God and can listen to him because you are his image, his icon, because he has mirrored himself in your being and his creative word is even now bringing out that likeness, and giving you to yourself. Your obedient listening to to his word is at its most fundamental in this humble, loving acceptance of yourself  as his word.

The word within you is your own center, your deepest reality and your freedom. It is God's utterance of your name, the name that reveals to you your destiny and meaning and all that you can become, as Jesus spoke Mary Magdalene's name to her in the garden. There is a growing sense of identification between ourselves and this word, and in this we are sharing in our fumbling way, in the experience of Jesus.

He is the Word, yet as man he had to listen, and still does listen, to the Word that he is. His listening was made perfect in his Easter reality where obedience meant only union, freedom, and joy. This is what the gift of the Spirit is, this consciousness of identification with the Word within: this is being a child of God, and we cannot but cry, "Abba!" Like Jesus you have to listen and listen. It will take you all your life to hear the Father's word of love for you; indeed, it will take you all your eternity.

by Sister Maria Boulding, OSB

Stanbrook Abbey, England

in The Coming of God

Questions On "Craziness", Solitude, and the Possibility of Healing

[[Hi Sister, in a question you answered for Nun's Life Ministry you said that though healing could happen in solitude you thought it best that someone needing healing mainly have that taken care of before trying to live as a hermit. But you have also quoted Thomas Merton where he says that a person cannot be truly crazy in solitude since real craziness requires other people and solitude can bring one to drop pretensions. It sounds to me like these two positions are in conflict. Why should a person have their healing "well in hand" before trying to live as a hermit? Do you agree with Merton as much as you seemed to when you quoted him?]]

Thanks for the questions. You've been doing some back reading it looks like. So, let me explain what I said in the three part Q and A Sister Julie initiated. It is true that healing can certainly be accomplished in solitude. In fact, for the personal healing sometimes necessary, especially that associated with bereavement and grieving, solitude can be a powerful context and catalyst for healing. In The Values of Solitude, John Barbour notes that healing is one of five major reasons people seek solitude and, in some cases anyway,  may live in extended physical solitude. But what is also true about solitude, and especially about eremitical or more absolute solitude which is a silent solitude, is that it breaks down and does so before it builds up.

Ordinarily, with temporary or transitional periods of solitude this is relatively gentle and limited, not least because it is "controlled" by the prospect of leaving the silence of solitude. But with eremitical or more absolute and permanent forms of solitude the absence of this same prospect actually intensifies the effect of physical solitude. The consoling and edifying power of solitude and its related silence may not be experienced sufficiently to offset this or to establish the full dialectic of solitude. If one is psychologically fragile or actually ill the results can be destructive. Moreover, even if one is entirely healthy, if one does not have a mature and balanced spiritual life which is focused on and allows for the metanoia of the whole self, such solitude can open one to the more destructive portions of one's own psyche. Thus, I believe that a person needs to have their own healing well in hand before choosing to live as a hermit.

You see,  if one does not proceed in this way a couple of things can happen: First, because the "tearing down" that happens in eremitical solitude is more intense and extensive than in occasional solitude,  it may morph into psychological decompensation.  One simply may not have the psychological health to defend oneself sufficiently, much less live without defenses, in this new and relatively alien context. When this happens, because one is alone one may not really appreciate the degree of decompensation occurring. This is especially true when psychological symptoms are covered by naive readings of traditional eremitical stories and justified with simplistic notions of spirituality which are themselves unhealthy or unbalanced and destructive in isolation. Secondly, one may actually be tempted to turn in a naive way to traditional stories about early hermits and stereotypical notions of the eremitical life to justify and/or deny the decompensation.

Merton's Comments on "Real Craziness"

My sense is that Merton's references to "craziness" and "real craziness" is not so much to mental illness per se, but to the "craziness" associated with a culture which is individualistic, geared to competition, social climbing, consumerism, and the constant need to do rather than be --- among so many other "dysfunctions" of our society. These ensure the development of the false self, a concept we also largely owe to Merton, and that kind of spiritual schizophrenia is the epitome of "craziness" for a monastic.

The pressure for all of these comes from other people and our tendency to measure ourselves accordingly. In this context Merton's comments about craziness needing other people and how real craziness cannot be sustained in the face of the sanity of trees and mountains make perfect sense and I agree completely. If we interpret his meaning to refer to actual diagnosable mental illness as found in the DSM V then his comments make less perfect sense. For instance, in some forms of mental illness isolation (physical solitude) will exacerbate the illness whereas significant contact with others will mitigate it. Merton's comments would be mistaken in such cases. That said, I can't be sure what Merton's intention actually was; I don't know of another place he spoke in the same way and clarified his terminology.

First day of Retreat: Traveling Light, Being Who I am.

One of the pieces of my life, one of the most important dynamics at play and one of the virtues I try to cultivate is transparency. Perhaps that is a contemporary way of speaking about the radical honesty we call humility. In any case, the habit, the cowl or other prayer garment requires that I be aware of any pretense that creeps into things. I am here at the Old Mission Santa Barbara for a week's retreat and that means that when I move from my room to the chapel (or elsewhere) to pray I wear my cowl over my habit. Now, there is nothing unusual in this really, monks and nuns and hermits have been doing it for centuries and centuries in the exact same way day in and day out. But, though I wear the cowl every day at the hermitage and always at liturgical prayer, moving from place to place in it is unusual for me! Add to that the public character of the mission setting and the effect is a little unsettling. And amazing. I am aware every day that I am part of a living tradition, that I do not need to pretend to anything; I simply need to be who I am. Today, I woke (late for me!) with the mission bells and walked in cowl and sandals through the mission on stones that were worn over centuries by all manner of persons. It was hard not to feel a little moved by the whole experience.

And concerned. At least a little at first --- about pretense and fantasy. Imagining the history of this place and the uniqueness of my own garb (though the Friars wear robes over their street clothes too, mine is clearly NOT Franciscan) it was easy to hear in my mind the slap of many friars' sandals and the quiet swish of monastic robes as I walked to chapel for Morning Prayer and Mass. It took a moment before I could actually realize afresh that I am a living part of this tradition, both the Franciscan, the monastic (which Franciscanism itself is not), and the eremitical. And at that point I let go of any remaining concern or self-consciousness. At that moment I prayed in gratitude to God who has allowed me in my own brokenness and littleness to be a graced part of this living stream. I was myself in this new place (it is only the second time I have made retreat here) and was at home.

That sense of being at home, of simply being oneself in Christ and the complete sufficiency of that, was echoed in the Gospel where the disciples are sent forth and told to take nothing extra with them. Our homilist, Fr Charles, drew a lesson from it for us: travel light. Heartache? Troublesome memories? Incomplete plans or unresolved problems? Leave them here (in the chapel and with the others here) today and travel light! (Charles told another great story about a passionate if naïve postulant too which I will save for another time!) So, I have come here, been warmly welcomed by old theology professors (we will make some time to get together for a while this week), old friends (ditto!), and new ones as well; God has welcomed me too with his little nudges about authenticity, transparency, and the wonderful reminder of how graced is my existence as a part of this vital confluence of traditions. How strange (well, wonderfully surprising -- yet again) to think that I never really ceased being Franciscan even as I took on Camaldolese Benedictinism, and how strange to find I really am at home. That sense of belonging wherever we go seems to me to be part of the heart of contemplative prayer and especially of Jesus' injunction to "pray always". In this silence I will be and become more and more the word --- indeed, the song --- I am called to be. What a gift to be able to BE here -- in every sense of that verb!

I will blog when I can and as the Spirit moves me. Writing helps me pray (not least by opening my mind and heart occasionally to the wider world I carry in my heart) so I will play/pray it by ear. I ask that you remember me in your prayers as well.

Abba Motius: Humility is to See Ourselves to Be the Same as the Rest

[[Dear Sister, you once wrote: [[What I am trying to say is there is a vast difference between fitting in because in one's basic Christianity one knows on a deep level how very like every other person one is, and therefore, truly belonging in any circumstance or set of circumstances, and trying to "blend in." The first is motivated by humility and carried along by one's genuine love of others. The second is too self-conscious and seems to me to not be motivated by humility or an honest love of others. Abba Motius of the Desert Fathers says it this way, "For this is humility: to see yourself to be the same as the rest." ]] If a person has certain gifts which make her stand apart from others is it really possible for her to affirm that "she is the same as all the rest"? If humility is a form of loving honesty as you have also written here, then is it honest or humble to deny the gifts which make one different from others? How does a person come to this kind of humility without denying their gifts? Is this another one of those Christian paradoxes you are so fond of?? Is it important to the kind of hermit you are?]]

Your question is amazingly timely because I have been thinking a lot this entire week about the gift of God which this conviction of how profoundly like others I really am truly is. In my own prayer life and in those experiences I might call "mystical," two gifts in particular have made all the difference in my ability to love and to be a person of genuine hope. The first has to do with a sense that the human heart is that place within us where God always bears witness to Godself, where God reveals Godself moment by moment as ever new and the source of a dynamic newness (and eternity) in us in a way which always transcends and is deeper than any woundedness or personal deficiency by which we might also be marked or marred. When there have been times I felt I could not face another day, when I had the sense that my own brokenness was too profound to be reached by the love of others or to allow me to love them, this sense that God was there within me 1) constituting a part of my very  existence which is deeper than any woundedess and 2) calling my name in an unceasing way that created genuine hope for a future both including and transcending all this, was really salvific for me.

The second gift which is related to this same prayer experience and which has been similarly transformative and lifegiving has been this sense that essentially I am "the same as all the rest of us." There was no striking direct revelation, no "locution" saying, "You are the same as everyone else!" or anything like that which convinced me of this. Instead it was the result of my reflection on the prayer experience I have spoken of here several times now where God was completely delighted to be able to "finally be here with [me] like this" and where I had the sense of having his entire attention.

What was pivotal here was the clear sense I had that 1) my own woundedness was no obstacle to God's delight, 2) that everyone delighted God in precisely this same way and 3) that everyone and everything else had God's entire attention just as I did. For me this became tremendously healing because it meant I was no longer burdened with the mistaken and personally crippling notion that my personal differences set me apart or isolated me from others in ways none of us could really ever overcome. It was this too that, at another point, allowed me to turn the corner on a solitary life rooted in isolation and unhealthy withdrawal and instead embrace one of authentic eremitical solitude and freedom.

For several significant reasons I came into early adulthood feeling that there were differences between myself and others which could never be bridged, much less healed or otherwise obviated. It was not merely that I was gifted in ways others might not have been (though there was some of that too) but instead that I came to realize that on some deep level I had the sense that my very humanity was wounded and changed in a way which could never allow me to truly love or be loved by others. It was as though I had been made different from others on a level that could never be healed or transfigured. While I actually got on well with others, was well-liked (even loved!), did well in studies and ministry, was (rightly) convinced I was called to serve God as a religious, etc, this profound sense of woundedness and "differentness" was a burden which sometimes made every step feel weighted with real sadness and despair --- even when most times that took the form of a kind of resignation and quiet grief or desperation. Whether due to personal giftedness, or deficiencies and woundedness, deep down I had the sense I could never truly embrace the Desert Father Motius' notion that I was the same as everyone else; thus, I also had the sense that authentic humanity, as well as loving and being loved was really forever beyond me.

And then, along with several other ongoing and supportive experiences of love and care by others, came the prayer experience I have briefly related here several times. It is because of that experience and my own reflection on that and similar but less seminal experiences over the next years that I am able to answer your questions with an assurance even a good theological background specializing in the theology of the cross (which is also VERY important here) might never have have allowed. Here then are those answers (so thanks for your patience). First of all you ask: [[If a person has certain gifts which make her stand apart from others is it really possible for her to affirm that "she is the same as all the rest"? If humility is a form of loving honesty as you have also written here, then is it honest or humble to deny the gifts which make one different from others?]]

In the first instance my answer is, yes, provided such a person knows who she is in God, and who others are in God as well. One must come to know oneself on this ultimately deep level, and she must come to know that all other persons --- no matter how different in talents, physical and intellectual abilities, family and psychosocial background, genetic makeup, health, etc, ---  are similarly grounded, similarly constituted, similarly called and loved in and by God. The word existence means to stand up out of (ex-istere); we stand up out of God who is the ground of being and meaning. That means that to some extent we are separate from one another in the very fact of our historical existence. However, it also means at a deeper (ultimate) level we are united with one another and all else that is.

In a way all I am saying here is we each share the very same humanity and all the gifts or deficiencies in the world cannot, will not, ever change that. To see reality in this way, to see creation as monastics tell us is the way of REALLY seeing, to see, that is, as GOD SEES is the basis of all of our security, our hope, and our ability to hold and carry both gifts and deficiencies lightly; this means we hold them in ways which do not isolate us from our brothers and sisters. My answer to your second question is that nothing need be denied in us or in others when we see ourselves and others this way. Yes, there will be differences, some of them pretty profound, but none so profound as the similarity and unity we share in God.

You also asked:  [[How does a person come to this kind of humility without denying their gifts? Is this another one of those Christian paradoxes you are so fond of?? Is it important to the kind of hermit you are?]] LOL! Yes, I guess this absolutely is one of those Christian paradoxes I am so delighted by and so very fond of. In fact, it is the very definition of paradox where apparent conflicts are allowed to stand because of a deeper unity in which resolution and even reconciliation is truly found.

I am not sure I can say much more about how a person comes to this humility. Certainly it is a grace. However, the things in my own life which allowed it include: 1) prayer in which I am loved (and allowed to love) beyond those things which make me either gifted or wounded and deficient in historico-temporal ways, 2) the Gospel of Christ which proclaims in fact that nothing can separate us from the love of God and so, reminds us that there is a deeper sustaining dynamism that is a constantly renewing source of life for us, 3) a faith which allows me to risk changing my mind and heart to embrace these realities and live from them, and 4) all of those people who mentored, taught, directed, pastored, treated, formed, supervised, or were friends to me out of their own faith in this transcendent reality and a belief in the person I most truly was and could be in light of it.

And regarding your final question, in one way and another everything I have written about eremitical life or the spiritual life here on this blog, every article I have published in Review for Religious, and so on, reflects the importance of all of these things for being the kind of hermit I am (not to mention the kinds of hermits I expect others to be as well)! I know first hand what it means to try and use canon 603 or eremitical life more generally to try to merely validate brokenness and isolation, but I also know what it means to live an authentic eremitical life in which these are redeemed and transformed into the silence of solitude and in which canon 603 is allowed to function as the Church really desired and needs it to function.

The same is true of contem-plative and/or mystical prayer. Certainly there are those who use pseudo mystical experiences to exacerbate their isolation and underscore their differentness from others. This is one of the problems which occurs when we focus on the "sensible furnishings" of the experience and fail to transcend these so that the real Wisdom of these experiences can take hold of us, shake us at our very foundations (Tillich), and remake us in mind, heart, and will.

Here is one of the places the work of Ruth Burrows I cited recently is so very important. (cf., On Pentecost, Ruth Burrows, OCD and the Real Experience in Mystical Prayer.) The same is also true of our true and false selves, where the true self is the "spontaneity" (Merton) or Event which is realized whenever the Spirit is allowed to grasp, shake, and transform (make true or verify) us entirely. Again, there is probably very little I have written about here and nothing of real significance that does not in some way owe its very existence to this "paradox" which is the key to understanding my experience in prayer and stands at the heart of all (but especially Christian) existence.  Certainly  there is nothing authentic in the kind of hermit I am which is not similarly indebted. Even something like the essential hiddenness of this vocation is illuminated by this paradox: cf  A Vocation to Extraordinary Ordinariness.

I am very grateful for your question. I don't know what made you look up that old post citing Abba Motius, Should Christians Try to Blend In? but that you did so this week and actually wrote me about it is a terrific gift. Thank you.

A Contemplative Moment: The Inner Self

The Inner Self

The inner self is not an ideal self, especially not an imaginary, perfect creature fabricated to measure up to our compulsive need for greatness, heroism, and infallibility. On the contrary, the real “I” is just simply ourself and nothing more. Nothing more, nothing less. Our self as we are in the eyes of God, to use Christian terms. Our self in all our uniqueness, dignity, littleness, and ineffable greatness: the greatness we have received from God our Father and that we share with Him because He is our Father and “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17: 28).

Merton, Thomas; Shannon, William H.  The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation

On Thinking About the True or Inner Self

[[Dear Sister Laurel, you referred recently to the "true self" and I have seen references to this in other writers dealing with spirituality. Keating and others in the Centering Prayer movement refer to this and I have the sense it is a monastic way of speaking. My problem is I have never found a good presentation of what it is or is not. I know that the false self is the ego self but is the true self our soul or our heart or what exactly is it? Is there someone I can read on this?]]

This is a great question because defining the true self is difficult and treating it as a kind of "little person," homunculus, or piece of ourselves somewhere inside us is a real danger. I tend to think of my true self as that self God envisions and calls me to be. If I need something a little more tangible (or that at least feels more tangible!) I think of it as the Name by which God knows and calls me. It is as much potential as it is real(ized).This emphatically does not mean that there is a kind of template, much less an invisible person hidden deep within us. The true self is not our soul nor perhaps even our "heart" (though as I understand "heart" the two are profoundly related). In any case, the true self is a dialogical event which comes to be in the very moment of obedient response to the Word and Summons of God. In a sense when we speak of the true self we are talking about a reality in the mind or heart of God as well as an event which is the result and embodiment of his love as it is received at any given moment in our own lives. It is that person we are when we are most truly alive, most truly ourselves, most truly living from and in God. Merton refers to it as "a spontaneity," and finds it in every deeply spiritual experience, "whether religious, moral, or even artistic." In The Inner Experience he writes:

[[The inner self [another term for the true self] is not part of our being, like a motor in a car. It is our entire substantial reality itself, on its highest and most existential level. It is like life, and it is life: it is our spiritual life when it is most alive. It is the life by which everything else in us lives and moves. . . .The inner self is as secret as God and, like Him, it evades every concept that tries to seize hold of it with full possession. It is a life that cannot be held and studied as object, because it is not "a thing." It is not reached and coaxed forth from hiding by any process under the sun, including meditation. All that we can do with any spiritual discipline is produce within ourselves something of the silence. the humility, the detachment, the purity of heart, and the indifference which are required if the inner self is to make some shy, unpredictable manifestation of his (its) presence.]]

One of the difficulties in speaking of the true self is our failure to understand it in terms of its dynamic and dialogical quality. We think of it as "already there" waiting passively --- apart in some sense from active participation in our relationship with God, apart, that is, from our participation in God's ongoing and eternal creative activity. But this, I think, is not the case. The true self is what exists to the extent and at the very moment we are in dialogue with God. It is that Self which is actively involved in the I-Thou relationship with God. In a sense it IS this I-Thou relationship embodied in space and time, this God-speaking-human being-hearkening Event we know as "incarnated Word". I have written before that God is eternal because God is always new (kainotes) and is eternal only to the extent that God is always new. I think we have to understand that the true self has a similar kind of existence. Merton's use of the term "a spontaneity" is especially apt --- but we must understand that because the true self always and only exists in and from God there is an eternity to it as well. Still, this eternity is not so much one of persistence (which is a temporal reality) as it is of an eternal now --- a moment by moment giveness and receivedness. My own use of the term Event is an attempt to do justice to the paradox of newness (spontaneity)  and eternity in God and in myself as well.

Similarly, I speak and think of true self in relation to the Name by which God calls me because it helps me remember that the true self is not a template or pattern of characteristics I must somehow embody or live up to. It wholly transcends this just as any Name does. I think it also allows us to speak here of the secret name by which God knows and calls us because often (always?) this is very different from the more usual name by which the whole world knows us or, even more emphatically so from the name we try to make for ourselves. At the same time focusing on Name immediately causes me to understand that existence is a gift I cannot give myself and that the true self is the result of God's own speech as hearkened to by the me it makes more real.

Finally, Name points to the embodiment of true freedom we are called to be and become. There is no pre-conceived "person" or "plan" attached to a name. Instead the bestowal of a name gives us a dignity, a capacity and even a commission which we ourselves will "fill" with content --- and yet, above all, that content is who we are in our relatedness with God and all that is from and of God. If one were to try to capture or define the content of a personal Name one would fail as surely as they would fail trying to capture a living brook or flowing river in a bucket. So too with the true self that, like Godself, is really more verb than noun. All of these things are sort of the counterpart to apophatic ways of knowing God. We know God only to the extent we are known by God and any worthwhile attempt to speak positively about the reality of God must center on saying clearly what God is not. Where finally we come to know God as (an) ultimate freedom so too do we come to know the true self as a contingent freedom --- that is, ourselves as we truly (and "spontaneously") exist in and from God.

Addendum:

One other way the true or inner self is often referred to is with the term "deep self." It is not a term I usually use personally but I was reminded of it and reflected on how it might illustrate what I wrote yesterday. Theologians like Paul Tillich (who was influential in Merton's own thought) refer to God and too, to the literally spiritual as the depth dimension of all reality. When, with Tillich, we refer to God as the ground of being and meaning we are referring to this same depth dimension -- a dimension which grounds and can penetrate and take hold of every aspect of our existences, a dimension of depth which is manifest in our religious, moral, intellectual, and aesthetic lives whenever we are grasped by meaning, truth, beauty, or future, etc --- that is, whenever we are grasped by (an ultimate) concern expressed by or through these.

The depth dimension in all of these human endeavors or functions is their participation in ultimacy and the transcendent. My sense is the "deep self" is that self which is grasped by this depth dimension whenever this occurs; this means it is real in the event of our everyday selves being grasped, shaken, and transformed by depth or Spirit. (Remember that because of Jesus' Ascension the Holy Spirit is also the Spirit of authentic humanity!) It is, in other words, all of ourselves taken hold of and shaken by ultimacy (and thus, by an ultimate concern), whether that occurs (as Merton pointed out as well) in the intellectual, the moral, religious, or the artistic realms of our lives. If this seems a bit too abstract or the language feels too foreign, notice how it continues the theme of spontaneity or reprises comments on the event nature of the true self. Because for Tillich faith is "the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern" the true self can be called that self which is taken hold of by faith -- not as believing in x or y, but in the sense of allowing ourselves to trustingly fall into the hands of the living God who, at that moment, makes all things new.

For a very accessible introduction to this notion of "depth dimension" cf Paul Tillich's sermon, "The Depth of Existence" in his book, The Shaking of the Foundations. Also helpful would be his sermon, "Our Ultimate Concern" in The New Being.

Tying up Loose Ends and Approaching Lent

The directions are appropriate!

Late last week in response to a question I posted on the meaning of Matthew 22:14: "All (composed of multitudes or the many) are called but few are chosen" within the context of the parable this saying concludes. In that post I also just added the translation Richard Rohr supplies in the book I began today: [[I am calling all of you, but so few allow yourselves to be chosen.]] The book is entitled, Immortal Diamond, The Search for our True Self, and I would recommend it for Lenten reading.

But as I read on from this first quotation, Rohr made an interesting assertion and observation which ties into the comments I made about chosenness and the call to see that everyone is chosen, everyone is special, everyone is called to a spousal relationship with God in Christ. Rohr is also very clear that elitism is contrary to true spirituality and the Christian Gospel. We are called on to believe a paradox; indeed we are ourselves a paradox, both completely unique and wholly the same as everyone else in terms of destiny and call. (Variations on this include the notions 1) that only some are called to exhaustive intimacy with God, and 2) that for this reason one can become truly holy only in a convent or monastery, but not in the secular world.) He writes: "Outer spiritual believing tends to say 'only here' or 'only there', while authentic inner knowing tends to say, 'Always and everywhere.' . . . Outer authority told us we were indeed special (that's the only way to get started), but maturing inner authority allows us to see everyone is special and unique, although it usually takes the maturity of the second half of life to see this. Young zealots still think it's all about them."

One Experience, Two Truths

In the prayer experience I described partially a couple of posts ago  (cf. Notes from Stillsong Hermitage: Once Again: On Infused Contemplation, Union With God, and Elitism) two impressions were especially unforgettable and seem to me today to be the bedrock of objective truth in my own life, and I suspect, the objective truth of the life of every human being.  In Rohr's work on the True Self, both of these elements figure largely in his analysis. The first truth turns on my sense that God was entirely delighted that I was "finally" there and that he had waited for SUCH a long time for this. Note well that I had not done anything much different than I always did in prayer;  there were no elaborate preparations and I certainly had not had to travel somewhere or do or learn something special to "get to" this place --- helpful as those things sometimes are. All of this happened as I sat quietly with my director, my hands resting in her own open hands, but in my own living room.

Similarly, I needed no post-grad courses in theology or special workshops in spirituality to teach me techniques to locate or travel to this place. The meeting with God was a matter of allowing myself to let go of fear and to move into my own heart; it was a matter of experiencing what was and is the essence of my True Self, namely, the profound communion with God I am most really and which I am called to let define everything I am and do. This communion occurring deep in my own heart helps make sense for me of an enigmatic story from the Desert Fathers and Mothers. You probably have heard it yourself. When one of the desert Fathers is asked what a disciple who is faithful to prayer and penance and the desert horarium needs still to do, he holds up his fingers, waves them back and forth, and says, "You can become all flame." We are not called merely to say prayers or to pray but to become prayer, to become all flame, to discover and become the communion with God we truly are.

Thus, I should also note that in this prayer experience I came home to myself, and I discovered that that was something I carried within myself all the time. This realization is part of the essence of Christian peace or Jewish shalom. It is what Jesus knew so well and what allowed him to live the poverty and marginality he did, to have no place to call his own, no place to lay his head and yet, be rich, centered, and completely at home wherever he went as well as compassionate and loving with whomever he dealt. Each of us is asked to recognize that "home" (what Rohr calls the true self) is a celebratory event within us where God and our selves cannot be teased apart; thus heaven exists proleptically within us in this way. Just as God is a trinitarian communion, so are we at our core a communion with God. This communion IS our true self and it is the essence of the human heart. If we are not feeling at home, if we are anxious and insecure, I think we must recognize that this ALWAYS happens to the extent we are separated from this core communion and live instead from our false selves. Quite often that means looking, often frantically and desperately for home apart from that core communion which constitutes us. The focus of Lent is on dealing with the separation from this communion that exists in our lives, but more about that later.

The second truth associated with the prayer experience I described, and part of the bedrock of personal truth I hold onto and try to live out more and more fully turns on my impression that while I had the WHOLE of God's attention, concern, love, etc, and while he was completely delighted in this communion we shared, every other person was loved as exhaustively, held God's attention in the same way, delighted God as completely and, in the core of their being WERE the very same all-consuming communion with God that I am in my deepest core. In my own life, especially in my youth, it was very easy to see myself as different from most others and, in fact, I was encouraged in that whether it was because of intelligence, academic achievement, an interest in classical music (not too common in my neck of the woods in kids my age!), musical talent, etc. Later other things supported and encouraged this way of seeing reality too: religious vocation and separation from that, chronic illness (and a unique or at least very rare form of that as well!),  an eremitical vocation, etc, etc. Our culture supports and nurtures this often merely-worldly way of seeing reality, this way of measuring and categorizing it which ignores the other side of the paradox. And in some ways, both legitimately and illegitimately, so do dimensions of our Church.

But prayer does not. God does not. A sound theology of the self does not. An inspired theology of vocation does not support or nurture this way of seeing reality or living our lives. Instead they call us to recognize our specialness while we recognize the same (and sameness!) in everyone else. More, they call us to recognize that God's love for us is what constitutes us as both special and the same as others. After all, God, as my prayer experience taught me, is great enough to hold these two parts of a profound paradox together without conflict. If that is so, then so must I and so must the Church, both as People of God, and the institution we identify with hierarchy --- or we cease to be true to ourselves and live from the false self rather than the true. Spirituality is about living and learning to live this foundational paradox.

The focus of Lent

The focus of Lent is therefore a perfect opportunity to take hold of this paradox. Penance, Prayer and almsgiving are all meant to allow us to embrace the deepest truth of ourselves and of others more fully. Penance demands we identify the areas of our lives which support the life of the false self. In terms of this post it is any discipline which helps us attend to what causes us to seek home (rest, peace, shalom, quies) apart from communion with God right where we are.  It is any discipline, or practice which helps strip away whatever prevents us from becoming all flame (true self, communion with God). It is any discipline or practice which assists us in overcoming the separation which exists between us and others because we cannot and will not see others as essentially the same as ourselves. It is any practice which helps us to pray our lives and become the living prayer God made us to be.

Prayer will both remind us of our separation from our true selves (the communion which exists at the heart of our being) and allow God to draw us more fully into that reality. It is the most fundamental way we become one with ourselves, with God, and with others. If it becomes a way of setting ourselves apart or distinguishing ourselves, then we have perverted it and should talk to someone who can assist us in this. Ideally, almsgiving is the opportunity to share our own specialness and gifts in a way which convinces others of their own specialness and gifts. We give not only because others have needs, but because we are convinced those others are every bit as special in this world, and certainly in God's Kingdom, as we are. It reminds us of our relation to others, and of the delight God experiences in loving them. If our almsgiving separates us from others, if it reinforces senses of our own superiority and  essential difference from others, then what was a near-occasion of grace has become instead at least a near-occasion of sin. (If we take on almsgiving to assert our difference and supposed superiority, it has crossed over into actual sin.)

The Call and Permission of Desert Spirituality

Like Jesus who was drawn into the desert by the Holy Spirit so that he could commune with God and consolidate his truest, deepest identity, Lent is given to us so we can, for just the space of 40 days, cut ourselves loose from the ways the world demands we see, establish, and identify ourselves and entertain a different truth, a more eternal identity, a more authentic self. The Church calls us to this, but more, her call gives us a freeing permission to do this while the world is clamoring that we embrace something else entirely. Lent is a chance for us to move from simply being called, remarkable as that is, to letting ourselves be God's chosen ones. It is an opportunity to make the paradox, "I am infinitely special and called to eternal communion with God; everyone is infinitely special and called to the same exhaustive and eternal communion with God" the bedrock upon which we live our lives. It is an opportunity to discover our truest at-homeness exists deep within us and is something we can live out even as we are profoundly marginalized in terms of the world. My prayer is we each find significant ways to let this Lenten opportunity grasp and transform us.