Favorite Philosopher's Blog

I arrived for the beginning of the retreat at 6 p.m. for dinner and a short greeting after dinner.  One of our first assignments on the retreat was to decide what we were going to do first thing in the morning before breakfast. There were choices: attend the group silence meditation in the chapel or do a private meditation or yoga, tai chi, whatever.  The choice was not “nothing” though – i.e., sleep or hang out at the retreat house shop.  The other thing we were to consider was that our days should be alternating sitting and movement, sitting and movement throughout the day.  I found this quite helpful in terms of pacing my silence and calming myself and intended to continue some form of that at home.  (Hmmm.) And finally, we were to consider before retiring what we wanted-needed-expected from this retreat.

The next morning I chose to get up to hike the hills and then attend the group meditation.  The hills above San Damiano are steep and full of oaks and greenery.  Quite lovely.  There is a short path that passes by and old windmill, and old water tower; it has several benches along the way, and then you can veer off and up onto the summit trail, which I only hiked part of that first day, not knowing how far the summit was and wanting to get back in time for meditation.  I thought it would be difficult for me to get up and hike at 6 a.m., but it was easy.  My stress had already lifted and I knew I had nothing I “had” to do that day, so getting up and getting started at rejuvenating myself was painless.  It was a good start to the retreat.  After my hike,  I made my way to the chapel and waited for the tone that signalled the beginning of the meditation.  I was irritated that despite my decreased stress level, my brain was still racing along as usual.  It was quite difficult to even attempt to shut it down, to let the thoughts that entered move on through, even though I have been practiced in it and can do it quite easily at the end of a yoga session.  

I think it had something to do with the fact that I was nervous.  How was I going to shut up for three and a half days and another three nights?  That meant I had to just sit with me and the mystery of the universe.  It’s one thing to do it for half an hour, quite another to keep on; I was worried I was going to go a little nuts.  I also was nervous about the short presentations.  As previously mentioned, I shy away from group settings, and knew it was going to be a challenge to not excuse myself from the sessions. 

Sr. Ishpraya soon dispelled any thoughts I may have had about not going to each and every one.  She is about 70 I’d say, soft spoken with a gentle British accent that made me want to ask her to read me a story!  Her sense of humor was dry and her insights non-threatening but rather merely questioning.  No dogma, no opinion, just sharing questions about our future as humans. 

She began by stating what we all know to be true: religion seems irrelevant in today’s world.  The old order seems meaningless, not responsive to the needs of the world today.  The pious language, even the word “God” that gives us a sense that we can understand the mystery of the ultimate reality with our intellect or imagination, will not serve us if we intend to ignite the spirit of the mystery in our fellow humans on this earth. 

She reminded us as Christians of our story: The life of Jesus is relevant to our lives and gives us values to live by.  Then in His death, the relevance is obvious –  we all die.  Then the Resurrection, the realization that human life is not “it,” but rather the beginning; we come from the ultimate source, we return to it.   But wait, Jesus returns as apparition, appearing to His friends after the Resurrection, in fact confirming it and then, the Ascension, everything physical, everything understandable – goes.    What follows for us is fear until…the Spirit comes: now we are LIVING in the mystery.  We begin to get glimpses of that life before space and time and we must live it now.  The greatness of this mystery, the greatness of the Spirit is my life.  This process is how we become fully human. 

My dear friend Alan recently gave me this quote from Teilhard de Chardin, French Jesuit and philosopher, 1881-1955, who says it best: “We are not humans having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

So how do we follow the mystery?  We have to get the other stuff out of the way.  Sr. Ishpraya had us chuckling with this statement: “We are still hunter/gatherers, but now we use Google.”  Meaning that we are gathering increased knowledge, we have technological competence, and it is not going away.  However, this competence is useless, unless we allow it to meet the mystery around us and in us.  Otherwise, we will be efficient, but not wise. 

The important thing we had to keep in mind during this retreat (entitled, by the way, “Are You Ready for the Next Quantum Leap?) is that this is not going away.  This is the world we are in, it includes technology and mystery.  We can’t go back, the world is changing radically. 

Here she referenced a book: A New Religious America: How a “Christian Country” Has Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation by Diana L. Eck.  (Sorry, I don’t know how to underline on this site – there’s no little button, so it’s a technological mystery…)  I have not read the book, and my notes are a bit sketchy at this point, but she noted that religious affiliation in Europe is decreased, but in the US it has not, although there is a high value on creative thought and there are many churches.  The question is why are people going and what do they want – expect – need.   

Finally, she asked us to go off to our silence and consider the difference between the emotional reaction of experiencing the mystery and “mere” faith conviction.  How do we recognize the touch of God?  There really are no words for this, and our description cannot be understood by others.  So we went off with this question in our heads: When have I had a moment that I felt completely SURE that there is an ultimate reality – not emotions being raised as when we feel a beautiful sunset is “proof” that there is a God, but when we were grabbed from inside and held tight – and how would I describe it for myself.  For example, in the Christian world we describe God as a loving Father, which of course He is not – God is a mystery, but our experience is like that of a loving Father. 

She left us with this that first morning: When we as humans become truly at home with the mystery, with no words to describe it, that is when society will change. Quite the challenge, eh?

Tomorrow I will tell you my answer to the question “when did I feel completely sure….?”

Note: The next few days, possibly a week, will be on this subject.  If you are not interested, please do check back, I will get back to lighter fare before you know it.  There are some people who have been waiting to hear about the retreat, so I want to share it before too much times goes by.

First of all I’d like to say this is just a summary of the concepts presented at the retreat and my reflections on those concepts.  Much of the retreat was a “tune up” of what I have been taught and believe and experience as a Catholic woman.  The silence simply allowed me to experience it yet more deeply.  Since non-Catholics or ex-Catholics may read this,  I would like to make clear that despite the deep human failures of the Catholic Church over centuries, I remain Catholic to my core.  I can no more say I am not Catholic than I can say I am not a woman.   Right now I am very not into the community aspect of my religion; this is something that has waxed and waned my whole life thus far, right now it’s just in the waning phase.  I think it has to do with my general dislike of large groups – there’s only so much togetherness I can take, and then I just want to be alone. 

It is very painful to those of us who still cherish our association with Catholicism, that the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater.  The rich heritage of the Christian mystics, for example, should no more be tossed aside than the rich heritage of mystics of other religions.  The strong tradition of higher learning that the Church has nurtured should not be underestimated in the development of our intellectual abilities as humans.  The evil that some in the Church have committed is no more a reflection on the Church community as a whole than Jeffrey Dahmer was a reflection of his gentle parents who begged for him to be committed to a mental institution long before he committed his heinous acts.  The ferocity with which the community of Catholics has risen up in anger at the pedophilia scandals reflects the essential goodness of the “Church” – which is not the Vatican, but IS its community of people:  it was my Grandma, it is my Mom, it is my blessed friend Terri, it is the people with whom I share the Eucharist not just in my local parish, but the people with whom I share the Eucharist all over the world on any given day.  

I am not here to debate the “goodness” or “badness” of the Catholic Church.  I mention this because it is the prism through which I view the concepts presented during the retreat.  There were others at the retreat who were not Catholic.  It was not a prerequisite of attendance.  Although I am still a “practicing” Catholic, (like medicine, there’s a reason we call it “practice”)  I chose not to attend Mass each day at the retreat,  although going to Mass at that retreat house has always been a source of great joy and inspiration for me.  I just wanted more silence, and more silence, and more silence and was unwilling to give up even an hour of my silence for Mass.  I had to force myself to go to the short presentations that were, of course, necessary guides to the reflections during the silence.  Ultimately Catholicism is a deeply personal religion, despite the strong community aspect the world sees, and it was this personal meditation that called to me during that week.  This is the story of those meditations.

This blog thing started after I went to a three day/four night silent retreat at San Damiano Retreat house.  It is a Franciscan retreat house on a beautiful hillside just fifteen minutes from my home.  I was truly looking forward to the silence part.  Except for a 45 minute presentation in the morning and afternoon by Sr. Ishpraya http://www.upanishad.org/ishpriya/index.htm the rest of the time is spent in silence, thinking about nothing, thinking about questions Sr. Ishpraya posed, thinking about everything, reading, writing, hiking, meditating and of course sleeping.  As mentioned in a previous blog, I actually riled myself out of bed at 6 a.m. and hiked for an hour in the hills before breakfast.  My favorite part of silent retreats is that dinner is eaten in silence.  It is my worst nightmare to have to sit and talk small talk to strangers – a major downside of staying at bed and breakfast inns.  To be able to get my meal from the food line, sit at a table and not speak was heaven on earth to me.

The next few days I am going to review my notes from the retreat, both what Sr. Ishpraya spoke of and what my thoughts were.  I hope you enjoy it.