New Foundations | Contemplfiy Quarantine Edition #8
New Foundations | Contemplify Quarantine Edition #8
Contemplative Friend,
What foundation are you able to lay today? Are you biding your time on Netflix and popping beer tops? Are you unemployed, praying your empty pantry will be restocked? Or worse still, are you sick and struggling with your next breath?
The pandemic is producing a reality show of absurd experiences. The poor and marginalized have it the worst. The proportions of those who are Black, Indigenous, or People of Color who are sick and dying is unfair and is a damning account of all our systems. The disregard for the well being of their bodies pollutes the land of the free and forecloses the home of the brave. The rich have escaped to vacation homes behind a moat of wealth, waiting for a vaccine. The middle class are holed up at home, working on screens that mirror back the same lifeless expression.
The absurdity is real.
Prayers are going unanswered and folks are wondering if God is on a ventilator. I reckon this is true. The God of the modern age, the be right rather than merciful God, the God of pure unfiltered dualistic reason, the God whose favor depends on how well you prop up the empire...this god is not going to make it through the pandemic. Or maybe even this email. The capital G has already dropped to a little g, soon this god will be gone.
The death of this god is necessary. A new version of the god of certainty and empire will replace the one on hospice, it is a pattern well documented in holy texts across traditions. This pattern of a micromanaging god emerges because there is too much freedom when one lives inside of a Divine Mystery who offers mercy willy-nilly to both the becoming and the unbecoming. A Mystery who makes the “sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Mt 5:45) What kind of foundation is this to build a life on?
Abba Silvanus believes it is the only foundation to build a life on. A 4th Century Palestian monk, Abba Silv as his pals called him (my unproven assumption), offers the option of laying a ‘new foundation at every moment’. The firm foundation of endless beginnings is only possible with the eyes of mercy and forgiveness. When you see through the lens of each, unified in one vision, absurdity can be forgiven and the suffering of Reality can be endured. This is what it means to continually hit refresh on Reality, to allow each moment to be its own foundation, to see with the third eye of grace.
Another monk, Abba Bessarion, speaks of this seeing at the point of his death, “The monk ought to be as the Cherubim and the Seraphim: all eye.” (p. 42, Sayings of the Desert Fathers). This draws Henry David Thoreau (well versed in monkish ways) to the center stage of this absurd reality show, who picks up the mic that Abba Bessarion dropped with his ‘all eye’ perspective, and speaks to what he carries in his own flesh; from vivid dreams down into experiments in living and laying new foundations.
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” (p.303, Walden)
A shift in perspective can widen your gaze and loosen your tongue to form new questions - What foundations quench my thirst for a life? What foundations wreak of death's odor? And what is mine to do with this refreshed sight to lay new foundations in every moment?
In whatever absurd segment of reality you find yourself in, I have no answers for you. But do I have dreams for your foundation...
If you or your beloveds are sick, you are called to tend to them and yourselves. I will pray for your well being and restored health. A few of you are called to lay new foundations to replace the old systems of oppression. I will pray fortitude, resilience, and humility guide the long road ahead. We will join you when you are ready for us. More of you are called to lay new foundations in your communities of belonging. I will pray that your capacity for non-judgement and compassion holds strong even while cracking. All of us are called to lay new foundations every moment within ourselves for the transformation of the whole. The personal readies the universal.
I pray that you become ‘all eye’.
Contemplify NonRequired Practices
May the Nonrequired Practices below provide a gate and window to your new foundations.
Morning Stroll
Walking is my most gratifying practice on this quarantined contemplative path right now. Is it mindful? Kinda. It is prayerful? Sorta. Is it heartful? Yes. Each day kicks off with my two kiddos and me gearing up and going outside (breakfast snacks included). The morning stroll to the park marks the morning hour of prayer and welcomes the Mystery of the day under a canopy of trees. God rushes to meet us there in the wind, the dew, and sun shining slant. God has a full wardrobe, she shows up in a new outfit each morning to play with us. When God’s presence tips my tea or splits the light in the tree branch, I breathe deeply and pray – Lord, have mercy. I take a breath in and feel the fullness of being a Dad, Husband, contemplative, and fool...and let go of it all with an exhalation. After the morning’s service has closed (or the sprinklers have turned on) we make our exit for home. I am dirtier, hungrier, and stiller than when we arrived.
Even when chaos rules the morning–the kids are wound up or the fierce New Meixco spring wind shoots up our noses–there is a flash of stillness, uninvited and yet wholly embraced in its bold arrival.
Dharma Bum
I missed Gary Snyder’s 90th birthday last week. A hero of mine and there is no way to properly honor him. In a meager attempt to do so, read his poem ‘Axe Handles’. Gift yourself a copy of his poetry during this pandemic. Might just save your muddy soul too.
May the week be steady above your foundations.
May you become like the Cherubim and Seraphim.
Experiment Boldly,
Paul
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P.P.S. The daily postings to kindle the examined life in a quarantined world are still being thumb tacked to wall under the banner Quarantined Qontemplative over at the Contemplify basecamp.