July NonRequired Reading List
Contemplify / NRR #68
“I pray to God who has given me, in my own mortal clay, a little of [God’s] own breath; so little, it is true, that at each instant I have to surrender my breath, so that it may be given to me anew.” - Jean-Pierre Lintanf
A dew-soaked breeze drifts up from the Cooper River through the venetian blinds to wet my eyes. The patterns on the carpet of the Charleston airport have become so familiar that I now see bucolic visions in its coffee stains. I am in South Carolina for a community retreat. My departure slides from exact takeoff time to liminal space. Delay after delay flashed across the monitor. Then after hours of this my flight home was cancelled. It was the careful attention of an airplane wrench that grounded the flight, and therefore me, in an airport hotel. Alone on Father’s Day1.
I am grateful for the attention of the mechanic, the fragile camaraderie of stranded travelers, and the ticket agent who paused my rebooking to take a call from her daughter, “Baby, the thought of hugging you and going on a walk after this day from hell is what is keeping me going.” Amen. My own longing for reunion rippled out of her mouth. No longer on the familiar airport carpet, the lonely soles of my shoes squeak across this hotel’s shiny floor. A call to practice attention and gratitude.
In spiritual practice I kiss both the cheeks of solitude and connection.
On retreat with my community we prayed the Divine Office2 with the monks. A practice I had committed to in a modified version. It burned bright at first, and then like ash from a cigarette tip, crumbled over time. Contemplative community and words from a sapient scholar reminded me of its original steady glow. Withholding the community conversation for the sake of privacy, I offer the other match that relit the discipline of this prayer in service to the fire.
After praying the Divine Office with the monks, I began to wonder if the purpose of praying the Office is praying the Office3. Douglas Christie writes this of praying the night office, it “cannot be easily or simply located on conventional maps of religious thought and practice. And this is part of their value…we can risk opening ourselves to this vastness and allow ourselves to be drawn into it, moved by its force and depth. This is not easy.”4 Perhaps it is a map unto itself, unfolding it is all a beginner like myself can fully understand.
The Divine Office has seven stops each day across the conveyor belt of linear time. But the vastness that Christie speaks of is not found in linear time. The mystery of the Office is that the prayer invokes the vastness already surrounding you. It is like joining a choir mid-song, only you discover that this ramshackle choir began singing this song both minutes ago and centuries ago. You learn as you go. Harmonizing with your neighbor. Memorizing chunks under the tides of familiarity. Awe sweeps up every now and then. The Psalms somehow reflect the news of the day, your life, and a flutter beyond your immediate grasp. You notice the song goes on within more than without. Death puts a hand on your shoulder. Bowing to Life, you put the Psalter down.
I quake a bit. It is a large presence to enter. To be present in this ancient practice brings a dull expectancy. Anticipation for the instantaneous glacial speed of transformation. It entices me to enter its nothingness. Enchanting. Droning. Bewildering. Boring. Praying the Office feels like being stuck in an airport hotel on Father’s Day. But what else is a lonely traveler after the heart of God to do?
July NonRequired Reading List
This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley (Get it at the Public Library or Bookshop)
This book is perfectly written. Cole Arthur Riley is a poet of contemplative verse. The beautiful pen she wields is a tool for storytelling that guts and stitches, but always for the sake of healing. The words radiate out what has and is forming Riley. In each chapter of This Here Flesh the reader witnesses a part of her story (or her family’s) and the spiritual ivy that grows, binds, wounds, liberates and holds us in graces.
“You might think justice is a form of choosing sides, choosing whom to stand behind. In a way, maybe it is. But justice doesn’t choose whose dignity is superior. It upholds the dignity of all those involved, no matter whom it offends or what it costs. Even when demanding retribution, justice does not demand the offender’s dignity; it affirms it. It communicates that what has been done is not what the offender was made for. They, too, were made for beauty. In justice, everyone becomes more human, everyone bears the image of the divine,. Justice does not ask us to choose.” (p.123)
This Here Flesh is for contemplatives who love poetry that faces reality, affirms dignity, and pursues liberation. Cole Arthur Riley has written a book to be savored on the tongue and spirit.
Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics by Mirabai Starr (Get it at the Public Library or Bookshop)
I listened to Wild Mercy. Ravishing in the ear. The author Mirabai Starr narrates and in her reading you can hear all of her power unite into insights dancing down your ear canals. Mirabai is another contemplative poet who resides in the interspiritual landscape. She can harmonize multiple traditions within one voice without going flat.
In Wild Mercy she draws upon the feminine mystic wisdom found in multiple religious traditions. Mirabai points to female saints and mystics whose expansive gifts (though not usually honored while they are alive) are received from their presence, work, and relationships in the world. She blinks away the fog of separation for a sacred seeing.
“For women mystics, contemplative life is not so much a matter of transcending the illusions of mundane existence or attaining states of perfect equanimity as it is about becoming as fully present as possible to the realities of the human experience. In showing up for what is, no matter how pedestrian or tedious, how aggravating or shameful, the what is begins to reveal itself as imbued with holiness. How do we make space in our lives for this kind of sacred seeing?”
Wild Mercy is for women, men, and all people who want to integrate the feminine mystic into their full bodied life (by-the-by the section of the book on “Householder Yoga” spoke directly to my heart as a contemplative parent. That doesn’t happen too often).
While We’ve Still Got Feet by David Budbill (Get it at the Public Library or Bookshop)
David Budbill is a poet who lurks around my desk. Funny as hell, spontaneous too. But then he also is dastardly deep in clear, simple poems. How does he do that? His book Moment by Moment was my companion for the first leg of the pandemic. The poet Todd Davis (featured in the April NRR for his peerless book Coffin Honey) turned me onto While We’ve Still Got Feet. I am so glad he did.
While We’ve Still Got Feet is for readers who can sit with simplicity until it unlocks a barn door to gratitude and wonder.
Contemplify Update
Covid looked up my address and spoiled all my plans. Season Three got delayed and Fauci won’t return my phone calls. If you want to lend your ears to a previous episode from Season Two, you can find the complete list here.
Production of Season Three is recovering from Covid brain fog.
All episodes are available from Contemplify through these fine outlets: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Podbean, or Overcast
Arts & Articles
THE INSURMOUNTABLE DARKNESS OF LOVE: MYSTICISM, LOVE & THE COMMON LIFE BY DOUGLAS CHRISTIE (Oxford Press): This is the title of Douglas Christie’s latest work. My copy just arrived. Oxford Press is offering a sneak peek at the first chapter for free and thirty percent off the book. Check it out here. Good people, this is not a paid advertisement nor am I getting any kickback for this. This is just my unfiltered fist-pumping joy for The Insurmountable Darkness of Love being available.
(You can check out my conversation with Douglas Christie on his previous work here)
THE ARTIST IS PRESENT (YouTube): As mentioned, I got Covid recently. I mostly watched movies that demanded very little from me. This documentary about the performance artist Marina Abramovi, The Artist is Present, was different. It is a knockdown slowdown documentary. I remember when it came out in 2012 and I was foolish enough to dismiss performance art. There is an intentional slowing one must do to approach Abramovi’s artwork. I found it more and more moving as the doc went on. Apologies to all performance artists for my judgement of your craft. My mind has been changed.
7 UP & SALTINES (YouTube) by Scott Ballew: Listen to “7 Up & Saltines”. This gem hit my ears on my Father’s Day when I was stuck in a hotel across the country from my family. A real peach of a tune by friend of Contemplify, Scott Ballew.
(You can hear my conversation with Scott here.)
one more from the master, David Budbill…
All This Ego
All this ego
all this drive
to get somewhere
when
at the finish line
death sits
one leg
over the other
hands folded
in his lap
a little smirk
on his face.
Wiping the smirk off his face,
Paul
Do not pity me, have compassion for my wife.
No, not The Office. British or American, though I enjoyed both immensely.
DOUGLAS E. CHRISTIE, in Insurmountable Darkness of Love: Mysticism, Loss, and the Common Life (S.l.: OXFORD UNIV PRESS, 2022), p. 25.
What a gift your writing is. Thank you for sharing. Sorry about Covid; hope you are well.