Yesterday I went back to the Episcopal church. And I did some thinking, some introspection, and some observation.
I sat behind a woman who I've noticed before at church. She reminds me of an elementary school teacher in her late 40's. She comes to church alone and goes through the service flawlessly and (at least from my perspective) seems to have a truly deep experience through the prayers and the Eucharist. I like watching her, because I like to imagine her growth in the church and how she must understand things better than I do.
What I realize, though, is that it is really easy to get lost in the proceedings of a high church service. I caught myself trying to make sure that my Book of Common Prayer was on the right page and that I would be able to not get lost. It isn't that it's that hard to follow. They give you a bulletin and announce the pages as they go. But I found myself caught in the keeping up, and not really experiencing the moments as they came and went.
This, I think, is the biggest experiential downfall of high church. One must have some grasp of how things will go. One needs to know the order of things and what is expected at each turn. And not just know them, but feel the progression and be able to respond to it without being preoccupied. I've had days like that, but for the most part, in the Episcopal church, I'm not really there. I cannot say that this is the fault of the church so much as a part of my lack of experience in it. That is to say that I am still learning and finding how it works in relation with what I know it is trying to accomplish.
As I was sitting in the pew and having already taken communion, I pulled a card out of the slot in front of me. It was neither a visitor card nor a "Doodle Card" as I had expected, but a card I'd never seen before. It was a bookmark sized piece of cardstock that had a list of prayers on it that I didn't know even existed. They were prayers for before worship, before communion, after communion, and after worship. (I'm probably forgetting one or two.) And the point of them is to make that bridge between the corporate worship and read prayers out of the BCP and the internal, personal spirit of the congregant. The prayers may be written ahead of time, which is not a bad thing per se, but they can become a robotic reading without internalization. This way, the church is not the only entity praying. I am praying.
That's the hardest part for me. It's hard for me to pray and read and respond at the same time. It's hard for me to put the requisite soul into my prayers as I'm reading them. But I'm learning. And now, since I have it, I'm praying as directed, for God to quiet my mind and focus my heart on worship.
As a final note, there is something that I highly appreciate in the Episcopal church. The confession of sins is a weekly thing. This is something that bothered me in the Baptist church. No one ever talked about sin as something personal, but as something "other" that needed to be confessed. There was no public confession. The other thing that I like about this tradition is that the confession is corporate.
The Deacon or Celebrant says
Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor.
Silence may be kept.
Minister and People
Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.
The Bishop, when present, or the Priest, stands and says
Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins
through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen you in all
goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in
eternal life. Amen.
T
Monday, November 15, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
Roots, Fruits, Cahoots
I'm living in the awkward in-between.
It has become painfully clear that I'm neither adult nor child. And with that made all but clear, I've realized that a certain freedom arises from this ambiguity. I can vote and smoke and play the lotto, but I can't seem to find a big boy job. I'm not getting married or having kids, but I've got a college degree to show that I'm not a baby anymore. I pay rent but not a mortgage. I have a dog.
I feel like one of those air plants that just exists by sucking nutrients out of the air. It's not a bad existence, per se, but it is also not a substantial one. It's a novelty. There is no fruit, there is no shade. It's because there are no real roots.
In the past four or five years, it seems that I've done a really good job at almost severing all of my roots. I don't really talk to my best friends from high school, and they are married. My college friends have begun the process of moving away or drifting away or getting distracted with the real world. It's a sad way that things go, really, but it also seems to be the natural order of things.
And so it is, I suppose, that my spiritual roots have been pruned. Not in an angry or malicious way. But in a way that is part, I think, or the maturation process. I don't know what I'm looking for, or if it is really there to be found. But I'm hopeful. I was talking to a friend several weeks ago, and she described herself as a hopeful agnostic. I don't know if I want to go that far, or if maybe I'm afraid of labels. But I understand in a very clear way what she meant.
I don't know. I don't know if I can know. But I sure hope.
T
It has become painfully clear that I'm neither adult nor child. And with that made all but clear, I've realized that a certain freedom arises from this ambiguity. I can vote and smoke and play the lotto, but I can't seem to find a big boy job. I'm not getting married or having kids, but I've got a college degree to show that I'm not a baby anymore. I pay rent but not a mortgage. I have a dog.
I feel like one of those air plants that just exists by sucking nutrients out of the air. It's not a bad existence, per se, but it is also not a substantial one. It's a novelty. There is no fruit, there is no shade. It's because there are no real roots.
In the past four or five years, it seems that I've done a really good job at almost severing all of my roots. I don't really talk to my best friends from high school, and they are married. My college friends have begun the process of moving away or drifting away or getting distracted with the real world. It's a sad way that things go, really, but it also seems to be the natural order of things.
And so it is, I suppose, that my spiritual roots have been pruned. Not in an angry or malicious way. But in a way that is part, I think, or the maturation process. I don't know what I'm looking for, or if it is really there to be found. But I'm hopeful. I was talking to a friend several weeks ago, and she described herself as a hopeful agnostic. I don't know if I want to go that far, or if maybe I'm afraid of labels. But I understand in a very clear way what she meant.
I don't know. I don't know if I can know. But I sure hope.
T
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Buddhism by way of a German novel
I've not been to church lately. It isn't that I haven't wanted to go. It's just that, for the most part, I've overslept or been hungover or whatever, and 10:30 comes awfully soon after 3am.
What an awful way to start a spirituality blog post.
The paradox, though, is that I have been thinking a lot about the metaphysical. Recently I read Herman Hesse's book, Siddhartha, and it was eye-opening in ways I didn't expect. What I found perhaps most interesting was that Siddhartha, the protagonist of the novel, goes on a journey similar to one I find myself on. He grows up under a certain structure, leaves it for a more intense religious way of life, then leaves that, too, for yet another piece of the world puzzle. And (and we're not here yet), he leaves that one, too. Siddhartha meets the Buddha, listens to his teachings, and then goes his own way without joining up.
What I find interesting about this whole system, as laid out in Hesse's work, is the idea that true knowledge is not gotten through teachers and teachings. It is gotten by experience, by knowing the world through knowing the self, and by (for lack of a better word) meditation upon what is beyond the self. Hesse has been criticized for extremely oversimplifying the world in his writing. I can agree, this pre-modern India is not like a technologically-infused USA. There is a lot of noise here, and a lot of possibility here. But it is also arguable that there is noise in every place, possibility in every place. The specifics change.
Ultimately, Siddhartha finds enlightenment not by an eightfold path or ten commandments, but by listening to a river. He calms himself and eliminates noise and excess and communes with the world around him. When I finished the book, I texted a friend and informed him that I would be henceforth living in a van down by the river until enlightenment strikes. He shot me down and reminded me that Hesse is, indeed a good writer, but his view is simplistic. Not to mention that he was a German explicating the underlying currents of Buddhism.
If there is an ultimate take-away from Siddhartha, though, it is to calm the noise, to calm the soul, to be still. God may be speaking through the river's babble. Or God may not be. God may be in the sound of thunder or the still small voice. In any event, one cannot hear very well with gadgets buzzing and blinking at every moment.
As a side note, Siddhartha is considered one of the great writings about Buddhism, kind of, I would say, like CS Lewis's writings for Christianity. And while I'm not planning to become a Buddhist (I'm not even an Episcopalian, as it were), but I am more than happy to learn from these that have learned before me. And I'll remember, as per Hesse, that it is not to hear teachings, but to listen to the quiet and to practice for myself that I might become.
T
What an awful way to start a spirituality blog post.
The paradox, though, is that I have been thinking a lot about the metaphysical. Recently I read Herman Hesse's book, Siddhartha, and it was eye-opening in ways I didn't expect. What I found perhaps most interesting was that Siddhartha, the protagonist of the novel, goes on a journey similar to one I find myself on. He grows up under a certain structure, leaves it for a more intense religious way of life, then leaves that, too, for yet another piece of the world puzzle. And (and we're not here yet), he leaves that one, too. Siddhartha meets the Buddha, listens to his teachings, and then goes his own way without joining up.
What I find interesting about this whole system, as laid out in Hesse's work, is the idea that true knowledge is not gotten through teachers and teachings. It is gotten by experience, by knowing the world through knowing the self, and by (for lack of a better word) meditation upon what is beyond the self. Hesse has been criticized for extremely oversimplifying the world in his writing. I can agree, this pre-modern India is not like a technologically-infused USA. There is a lot of noise here, and a lot of possibility here. But it is also arguable that there is noise in every place, possibility in every place. The specifics change.
Ultimately, Siddhartha finds enlightenment not by an eightfold path or ten commandments, but by listening to a river. He calms himself and eliminates noise and excess and communes with the world around him. When I finished the book, I texted a friend and informed him that I would be henceforth living in a van down by the river until enlightenment strikes. He shot me down and reminded me that Hesse is, indeed a good writer, but his view is simplistic. Not to mention that he was a German explicating the underlying currents of Buddhism.
If there is an ultimate take-away from Siddhartha, though, it is to calm the noise, to calm the soul, to be still. God may be speaking through the river's babble. Or God may not be. God may be in the sound of thunder or the still small voice. In any event, one cannot hear very well with gadgets buzzing and blinking at every moment.
As a side note, Siddhartha is considered one of the great writings about Buddhism, kind of, I would say, like CS Lewis's writings for Christianity. And while I'm not planning to become a Buddhist (I'm not even an Episcopalian, as it were), but I am more than happy to learn from these that have learned before me. And I'll remember, as per Hesse, that it is not to hear teachings, but to listen to the quiet and to practice for myself that I might become.
T
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