Contemplify NonRequired Reading List for November 28, 2021
Hot Dog, Happy Advent!
November NonRequired Reading List
Contemplative,
What does it mean to be human? A basic question of exquisite religious taste. The subtleties of my embodied response to this question linger on in daily life. I chew this essential question with my mouth agape. Apologies for all the crumbs that fall onto your lap.
Essential questions are pesky, they are a ridicule* of mockingbirds singing and hovering over my home. I step out to the front porch and greet this circling echo of inquiries. Soaring overhead, each question waits for the opportunity to seduce me with their song before they bowl me over. These encounters have taught me to speak decisive nos, discern^ bigger yeses, and show hospitality to the essential questions that I do invite in.
No, thank you is the blade this contemplative shoveler sharpens to shape the simple life so he can focus on the one essential thing.
Freshly in my forties, I sip a cup of mortality with my eggs (tastes like apple cider vinegar for the uninitiated). Meister Eckhart, the 14th century Dominican of dopeness, has been teaching me that Mystery is filling my empty cup until it hits the brim and spills over. The cup returns to its clanging void only to be eternally filled as long as I seek its emptiness. What a cutup. Meister Eckhart recognized that “although man has never ceased to be a citizen of the eternal now in his spiritual nature, he must nonetheless, through an apprenticeship, become what he is by nature. Understood in this way detachment appears as the means by which time is humanized and human nature is temporalized: “nature” does not come fully to itself except in a detached being.”** The cup of mortality draws from detachment to taste the eternal now, released from both past and future, the relentless presence of Mystery sips. It is a learned letting be that flavors, fulfills, and produces unforced fruit in the daily fray.
My rotating agendas of tasks confuse the way of wandering joy. My unreached goals yank on my chest hair. The frenzy of popular life pressures a lameass state of being in me. Chewing on the right question, saying No, thank you, and downing a cup of mortality each morning with the Meister keeps me on the straight and narrow.
May this Advent be rich with the poverty of emptiness, of letting be.
*I love that a group of mockingbirds is called a “ridicule” or an “echo”, check it out here.
^Discernment in spiritual longings, embraces, and non-clinging is as precise a craft as filleting a blowfish (fugu). One misplaced cut of the blowfish and it draws a poison more deadly than cyanide. Be cool, discern with gusto.
**p. 32 Wandering Joy: Meister Eckhart's Mystical Philosophy Translated by Reiner Schürmann
November NonRequired Reading List
World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil (Get it the Public Library or Bookshop)
In my recent conversation with J. Drew Lanham (find that here) he casually mentioned World of Wonders as a book that helps him retouch the earth. Not Drew’s exact words but that is how I heard them. I picked up a copy and fell into Aimee Nezhukumatahil’s rhythm of a vivid short introspective piece paired with a creature mirroring her own creatureliness in particular seasons of becoming. It is a memoir of poetry, or perhaps, a poetic memoir, nah, both are too limiting. World of Wonders is an illustrated religious yearbook of creaturely enchantment by and about Aimee Nezhukumatahil.
The book begins and closes with reflections on fireflies. I was moved by these passages. Nezhukumatahil seeks out the world’s offerings hidden in plain sight and fireflies became the motivating metaphor for me. I can be still and wakeful waiting for the flickers in the darkness between the fireflies. Over the course of my lifetime the visual silence of fireflies has increased and no one knows why (p.158). Nezhukumatahil’s point is to attend to the wonders in our midst. We do not know how long we will be in each other’s company. We can try to save them, but relating to them in their present and full creatureliness is a gift that is cultivated through skill that most screenbearers have lost. Resurrect it.
World of Wonders is for night sky prayers, poetry barkers, and worm gazers who seek the cross section of justice, personhood, and wildness through the eyes of wonder.
The First Christmas: A Story of New Beginnings by Stephen Mitchell (Get it the Public Library or Bookshop)
The story of the birth of Jesus is seared into the folds of your brain if you grew up in a church. Its central plot points are certainly embedded in popular culture too. The magical and mysterious story of Jesus’ birth loses its feathers when retold without gregorious heft. For these reasons I gleefully read and recommend The First Christmas. Stephen Mitchell is a translator of sacred texts and author who revivifies ancient stories and themes. The First Christmas is right in his sweet spot.
In The First Christmas each character shares their perspective and journey to the birth of Jesus. Drawing from the Gospel stories Mitchell drops them in a blender, spices it with historical context and humanity, and spikes it with poetic wisdom. Drinking in this fleshy story is satisfying in its imaginal explorations of the nativity scene and its implications for each of us making room in the inn for the birth of Christ in ourselves.
After each character gets their chance to spin their yarn, Mitchell chimes in with his perspective and purpose behind the story of each character, what he calls “Interludes”. The Interludes provide a natural space for droplets of wisdom to gather from this ancient story being reimagined in our times. One of my favorites is when Mitchell describes that one of the intangible gifts the Wise Men received from their journey to Jesus’ cribside was the understated truth that “everyday mind is the Way.” (p.165)
I recommend The First Christmas to all celebrators of Christmas eager to have their Nativity story shook up.
Sky Above, Great Wind: The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryokan by Kazuaki Tanahashi (Get it the Public Library or Bookshop)
I am drawn to the playful person. In books, deeds, or art, the person who sees the playground behind the school is the one I want to kick around with. Ryokan, a Zen hermit monk, is one such free person. We never crossed paths given that we were 200 years apart, but his spirit feels fresh and close to me thanks to Sky Above, Great Wind. I was able to feel how Ryokan’s penniless approach, irreverent humor, and direct expression pierces through illusion.
The careful reader of these monthly missives will recognize the name Kazuaki Tanahashi, whose work and teachings have surfaced before. Tanahashi delivers a character of Zen integrity by weaving Ryokan’s poetry, calligraphy, teaching by example, and tomfoolery. What sounds like basement dwelling laziness is quite the opposite in the poetry of Ryokan,
“As long as I don’t aim,
I won’t miss.
With the catalpa bow,
I shoot an arrow
toward the open sky.”
Sky Above, Great Wind is for readers who bring poetry to the bar, backporch, or the bedroom.
Contemplify Update
The first two episodes of Season Two are out now (and a new episode with Sr. Joan Chittister will seek out your ears this Friday…)
Slow Yourself to be Awed with J. Drew Lanham (Season 2, Episode 2)
Gary Nabhan (aka Brother Coyote) on Wisdom Gleaned from Fishers & Farmers (Season 2, Episode 1)
These episodes are available from Contemplify through these fine outlets: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Podbean, or Overcast
Arts & Articles
“The Five Spiritual Senses: Lessons from Maximus the Confessor and My Dog” by Amy Frykholm (Christian Century): Amy Frykholm (friend of Contemplify and upcoming guest on Season Two!) has written a piece on her dog, theologian Maximus the Confessor, the spiritual senses and how to cultivate them. Just delicious.
“Arvo Pärt : Spiegel im Spiegel (pour violon et piano)” by France Musique (YouTube): I am a big dum-dum when it comes to classical music, but this I do know, I love Arvo Pärt.
“Yuval Noah Harari Believes This Simple Story Can Save the Planet” by David Marchese (NYT): I have not read Sapiens, perhaps I will now after reading Yuval Noah Harari posit questions on being human. Tunneling back to the Christian Desert Tradition, battles over Christ’s divinity and humanity, gender identity, and transhumanism.
“Credo” by Dorthee Sollee (Luther Seminary): Imagine hearing these lines spoken in church,
"I believe in Jesus Christ
who was right when he
“as an individual who can’t do anything”
just like us
worked to alter every condition
and came to grief in so doing
how our intelligence is crippled,
our imagination suffocates,
and our exertion is in vain
because we do not live as he did
Every day I am afraid
that he died for nothing
because he is buried in our churches,"
How would you respond?
Thanks to my pal Lee for passing this "Credo" onto me.
May the ridicule
of mockingbirds
sing you out
into the dark light of Advent.
Draw down your pockets,
walk with emptiness.
Waiting, waiting, waiting
for the end
of the beginning.
The eternal begetting
is our wandering joy.
Toward the Open Sky,
Paul
P.S. Cheers to you kind reader this Advent season. May your egg nog be rich and thick. If a kindred spirit forwarded you this email and you'd like to get the next one sent directly to your inbox without any fanfare, sign up below.