January NonRequired Reading List
Contemplify / NRR #86
“Birds are poems I haven’t caught yet.”
— Jim Harrison
“I just got out of Lake Michigan. She was taunting me and the wind was low, so I had to show her I had the stones. And it’s Epiphany. The only gift I have to offer this Christ-soaked world is my warm body in a cold lake.”
Words I sent a pal on that magical day called Epiphany. My wife and kids did not join me in the cold baptism, but they were shoreline to snap photos. After submerging myself in the clear blue water I came up bellowing. The pines shrieked back (or was that my family laughing?) and my bellowing continued. The tradition of an icy bath on Epiphany goes back way before any trendsters were setting up cold plunges in their backyard.
This Epiphany swim roused a slumbering memory of the first time I willingly jumped into a frozen lake. At a wilderness camp in northern Minnesota on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, I was part of a crew of stodgy teenagers who sat in a sauna sweating out gummed up hormones and waging surly, cold man competitions. We were told a hole was cut in the ice ten paces from the sauna and that we should partake in this ancient bath. If we were man enough. Peer pressure is both a bastard and friend, on this day he was a pal. We hustled to the ice hole one by one and plunked down, surfaced with breath shortened, swimsuits iced, and trotted out in a caveman style run back to the sauna. As my inconsolable skin splotched cherry red, the iceman challenges were spoken aloud—could you roll in the snow and then kerplunk in the ice hole? Challenge accepted, we could, and we did. It got worse. Could you roll in the snow, dunk in the water, roll in the snow before running your frozen self back into the sauna? We could and we did. Could you do that twice in a row? This went on for some time. My personal record—which I could not repeat today—was rolling in the snow, hopping in the hole in the lake, holding my breath under the water for 15 seconds, rolling back in the snow, and then holding my breath again under the ice water for 10 seconds. I read this now, and I doubt it all happened, yet know it is true. This daring feat was only peacocking amongst teenage boys. Pounding our barenaked chests vying for bragging rights. But what I discovered in those icicle measuring contests was not manhood, but a full body vibrancy and calm when you take a dip in a frozen lake.
I am cheering on the ice cold plunge trend and hope the bellowing fun does not get rooted out for health reasons. Adventurous joy seems to be in short supply and when I look at the declawing of ritual in most modern lives, I think it from lack of bellowing, lack of adventurous joy. Rituals need a hidden electrical current. The other extreme of course is to imagine that rituals need to be a heightened experience every time. Not so. Fidelity to wonder and discipline charge rituals. The results of rituals are actually not up to you, they are not your doing, and yet all of that nothingness spins you into a new being by your willingness to participate. You are putting yourself in the slipstream of God.
The moment I stepped into Lake Michigan (38°F / 3°C) on Epiphany, my big dumb feet were pricked with icy pins as blood retreated from my borders toward my vitals. My breath quickened. Every pore screamed for me to head back to shore. But a devotional thought kicked in, what would happen if I surrendered to the mystery of the ritual? So I balanced my breaths and kept stumbling into the naturally frigid water. It was shallow. I kept going until it reached my upper thighs. With my feet frozen and unfeeling, I sat. Then I put my entire body under. How would this Epiphany soak mark my day, my thoughts, my life? I will tell you how…by a primordial yelp of aliveness. Nothing profound. No white dove or voice was heard (other than my wife and daughter laughing and the echoing return of my howl). But there was contact with this world. An exchange that prodded my creatureliness to attention. Sublime wonder1 unwrapped this moment as I held a small of spittle of Lake Michigan in my mouth. Awakened wonder charge me with not wasting slippery seconds in the shallows, but thirsting onward.
There is so much magic in this world. Not the sleight of hand of the political magicians who puff, bluff, and belittle others down with their tricks and derivative half-truths. That is the trick they repeat ad nauseam, is it not? Cutting the truth in half. They do it right before our very eyes, imploring us—their audience—to choose a side, and never return the sawed-off truth to its whole self. We turn on each other instead of turning off the donkey in tails or elephant in a top hat. Our imagination is static and stuck. Yet, I say it again, there is real magic in this world that politicos forego with their scrambling for power2. I felt it in Lake Michigan on Epiphany. Last Christmas Eve My 5-year old son preached it when he prophetically exclaimed, “This is awful!” to the back few pews in the early moments of the sermon. This past Sunday at sunset on the Rio Grande my daughter and I saw it in hundreds of Sandhill Cranes descending to roost and hundreds of Geese ascending the waterway.3 And recently, I called upon it when I heard the gunshots of a drive-by shooter a few doors down while my children were playing outside.
John O’Donohue began his classic text Anam Cara, “It is strange to be here. The Mystery never leaves you alone.” It is my favorite opener ever. A posture of moon-faced humility on the strangeness of being under an enveloping Mystery. A Mystery too big for a haircut and too wild to dress up for polite society, try as we might. This is why rituals, formal and informal, are necessary to create conditions of possibility. Rituals enable humans to vividly experience the unfolding magic of incarnation. We are overly groomed bipeds who need to set up rituals as dunk tanks to immerse in Mystery.
If the stars align, I will return to Lake Michigan next Epiphany to plunge into wonder with this Christ-soaked world.
Mystery blows where it will.
NonRequired Assignment: If you feel the charge (or lack thereof) of rituals in your life, take a look at the rhythm of your day, week, month, season, and year. What rituals do you already see present there? How can you press the juice already present with attention and intention? Look at your religious tradition, what are the origin stories of those religious rituals and seasons? The fire of the original story often gets cooled after it has been copied grayscale. The world is enchanted, ritual helps us give her our due. And she bellows back at us. Awakening us to this wavering world and this life.
Contemplify is the joyful work of tending fire at a basecamp of contemplatives. Behind the jukebox near the back, there is a one-man shoveling shop. This is where I research conversations, get lit up by a song that touches the earth, chop it up with other contemplatives, write (and rewrite) words as digital etchings of a contemplative way of being more akin to my lived experience. The simplest way I can say it is this - Contemplify kindles the examined life for contemplatives in the world. Thank you to all who support Contemplify by dropping in on the offerings. For those who wish to support Contemplify press the button below. Becoming a paid subscriber is a kindness and show of support. It both humbles me and keeps the shop lights on. Some folks want to support just for the sake of supporting Contemplify (raising my glass higher at the thought of that), but paid subscribers are also automatically invited to the weekly Lo-Fi & Hushed Practice Session on Wednesday mornings. Good, clean, unglamorous contemplative fun.4 Hope to see you there.
January NonRequired Reading List
Practice of the Presence: A Revolutionary Translation by Carmen Acevedo Butcher (Get it at the Public Library or Bookshop)
There are times when a book is such a good friend that you gab all about it but neglect to slap it on a reading list. I am remedying that right now. Practice of the Presence is a new (and revolutionary) translation of Brother Lawrence’s classic text. An earlier translation jumpstarted my contemplative bones in high school, and thank God, Carmen Acevedo Butcher has brought new life to Brother Lawrence with a new translation.
In the 17th century, Carmelite Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection was a man of little means, living with a disability, and without formal education. There was an irresistible glow about him that drew others to seek his presence and counsel. It is easy to see why. He offered a simple of way of turning one’s attention to God in all things (“I flip my little omelet in the frying pan for the love of God.”). In his letters, Brother Lawrence’s plain speech and engaging relational metaphors for the Beloved (such as the intimacy found between a wet-nurse and baby) charms readers into direct contact with Mystery. Carmen Acevedo Butcher gracefully delivers Brother Lawrence’s mystic heart to the page with skillful interpretation in inclusive and boundaryless language for God, that never trips, but always smiles as it rolls off the tongue.
Practice of the Presence is a wonderful book for beginners and proficients on the contemplative path, always more gold in this stream. You can listen to my conversations with Carmen here and here too.
Essays After Eighty by Donald Hall (Get it at the Public Library or Bookshop)
A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety by Donald Hall (Get it at the Public Library or Bookshop)
These two books by Donald Hall are lumped together because they live in my brain as one piece of work. After finishing Essays After Eighty I immediately began A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety. A compliment to Hall I believe. Donald Hall was a poet, writer, critic, and U.S. Poet Laureate. An office he did not necessarily enjoy, but endured with a wink.
Donald Hall’s writing is frictionless. Every needless word has been stripped, leaving a story smooth, tight, and true as a playground slide. Hall writes about losing his dentures, solitude, having a beard, love, or trips to Washington D.C. with such riveting and detailed chops, each page turns itself. The essays still puttering on my heart focused on his late wife, Jane Kenyon. A poet in her own right, Jane died at the age of 47 in 1995. Hall spent the rest of his years missing her.
Essays After Eighty and A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety are for readers who want to read a well-reflected life. Life is so vibrant, we remember this by reading about the lives of others.
Contemplify Update
Season Four has been set down. Research has begun for Season Five. As always you can find the complete list of Contemplify episodes here and below are the five most recent episodes.
Lo-Fi & Hushed / 2023 Winter Solstice Session / To Know the Dark (Season 4, Ep 13 Bonus)
Listen to the Rice, the Rice Will Teach You Everything with Lucien Miller (Season 4, Ep 12)
In Hard Times, In All Times, Eat Sacred Words with Carmen Acevedo Butcher (Season 4, Ep 11)
Kim Haines-Eitzen on Practicing the Cello in the Dark and Sonorous Deserts (Season 4, Ep 10)
Lerita Coleman Brown on Waiting for a Word in the Heart (Season 4, Ep 9)
All episodes are available from Contemplify through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get the snazziest podcasts.
Arts & Articles
MERTON: AN INVITATION TO UNBIND HIM AND OURSELVES (Tuesdays with Merton): Lesyle Colvin will weave a tapestry that provides a fresh perspective of Thomas Merton interwoven with glimpses of her journey as a child of the Civil Rights Movement era, and the systems that bind us all. Register for free.
PAUL KINGSNORTH & MARTIN SHAW: A POET AND MYTHOLOGIST CONVERT (Surprising Rebirth of the Belief of God): Great tellings by Paul Kingsworth and Martin Shaw of their roads to a belief in God. (h/t to CAB)
WU-TANG CLAN: OF MICS AND MEN (YouTube): Wu-Tang Clan is a legendary hip-hop group that collectively has turns of phrases, callbacks, and cadences that set the high water mark. This four-part documentary charts the evolutions of the group’s rise, losses, and renewals. I studied it like a game tape. The single mindedness at the jump paired with their creativity, solidarity, and a vision made them master craftsmen. My respect for Wu-Tang ever increases.
HARD TRUTHS ABOUT SUFFERING, FROM A WRITER WHO’S LIVED TO TELL (NYT): Christian Wiman broke into my bookshelf with the My Bright Abyss: Meditations of a Modern Believer, then I exchanged his poems with some pals, read him in Harper’s and now we have Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair. This quote from a NYT review flip the shades up and crawl out the window for some fresh air, “He admits frustration with religion, “not simply the institutional manifestations, which even a saint could hate, but sometimes, too many times, all of it, the very meat of it, the whole goddamned shebang.”
Wu-Tang arrives
at the campfire
with a word,
“Kindness
and faith
are the foundation
Without them,
we can't
become
good people.”5
Looking for a lake,
Paul
All Bookshop links give a kickback to a local New Mexico bookstore and to Contemplify. What a kindness.
This wonder poked at the chaotic purposes of dropping bombs without pause to the cultural malfeasance of jet skis.
Make no mistake, it is real and frightening power.
The flap of the Cranes wings flying overhead sounds like whispers dancing on taut silk.
Contemplify never wants money to be a filthy barrier to practice, not everyone has the means. So if you want to practice weekly with this contemplative basecamp at Lo-Fi & Hushed but aren’t able to offer support, no sweat, follow the instructions here.
from “Campfire” by Wu-Tang Clan