September NonRequired Reading List
Contemplify / NRR #82
‘To write, Chekhov says, you need “compassion down to your fingertips.” That is “the only method,” he says, by which to write and live. In general, I work to keep my heart open and limber, despite its deathless habit of puckering and petrifying. And I try to live an un-hijacked life, un-hijacked by gadgets, some (most?) of which seem improved means to an unimproved end. How the hell do poets these days have time to live poetically with iPhones / iPads / earbuds / personal websites / Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / YouTube / Zoom and all this other shit? It’s almost touchingly delusional to think a life bombarded thusly might conduce to song (not to mention love and meaning). (Kenneth Rexroth, were he around today, might call the blind drift of today’s technology the “Social Lie”; or, better yet, he might invoke a French phrase he cherished: hallucination publicitaire. And I do realize, with mixed emotions, that these words are being written on a gadget and will most likely be read on a gadget. I won’t try to patch up that contradiction.)”
The dirty dishwater conundrum. You fill a basin with soap and hot water. Scrub, rub, and wipe by any means available. You are a deep tissue masseuse for ceramic and cutlery. By the cleansing of each dish the froth of the sudsy water recedes into a thick wintery gray. Saturated eggs and breadcrumbs rise to the surface like lifeboats after a wreckage. These impromptu rescue boats reach across the debris and tie onto one another, becoming a flotilla of nasty origins. The question basically asks itself—at what point does the dish water reach an unpleasantness that demands a reset? This is the dishwasher’s dilemma.
Teddy Macker is a poet dear to me. His top shelf poems unstitch patches I have attempted to sew over reality. Reality unveiled, a quickening follows. A refraction of words strung together hits me—lightness or heaviness or dottiness—plumb down to my heart, rattling the floorboards I sit upon. In this tiny excerpt from an interview, Macker gathers the contradictions, spotlights the unresolved, and asks the sapient question.
How do you live an un-hijacked life? (First-rate poets always slip you an envelope full of wonder).
These are the thoughts that bump into each other and settle into the breakfast nook of my brain. Dishwashers and poets, kindred spirits to me. They both recognize the infiltration of all that invades the delicate symbiosis of a textured life. And that without resistance, they would be unemployed. Without syrup and egg yolks, the plate would not need scrubbing. Without confusion and crises, we would not require continual waking to the true, the good, and the beautiful. The practices that are essential are the ones full of contradiction, paradox, and oft hidden from sight. To quote my favorite 4-year old, I hope you did not “mis-under-heard me”. My intent here is to elevate the poet by naming them as vital and indispensable as a dishwasher, and to ennoble the dishwasher’s labor by poetic comparison. I hold both as necessities in high esteem, even as both are underappreciated and underseen.
This is why I refer to myself as a contemplative shoveler. Nothing special, simply clearing walkways and sidewalks to make it a touch easier to get home. Maybe heat up some cocoa with a dab of whiskey after. The practice is the practice of an un-hijacked life. Hidden and beautiful, even when its busted ends splay into public view. I hear from many sapid spirits whose days are shrouded with dallying practice. Contemplative dentists, dads, and drummers. Mystical mischief-makers, moms, and deli managers. We are the many, the hidden contemplatives of the world, who keep it spinning on an axis of love.
I have been sitting on an experiment. And like all good experiments, it might fail. But I care not because I am already living this experimental poetic contradiction, so the question becomes - is it a communal experiment?
I am starting Lo-Fi & Hushed Contemplative Practice Sessions.
Lo-Fi & Hushed is weekly space for the contemplative practice of lectio divina with poetry. This practice is graceful, unglamorous, transformative, and subdued. Lo-Fi & Hushed is available worldwide, on Riverside livestream, and you can participate from the hallows of your own home.
Lectio divina is an ancient Christian practice I do pert near every morning and I wanted to experiment with sharing it more broadly. It’s 30 minutes well spent, a chance to practice with mystical poetry (time-tested and recently inked), connect with the Beloved in word and silence, attend to the transformation of presence, and humbly reflect with others on what arises. Go tell it on the mountain.
Lo-Fi & Hushed might be a good fit if:
You are inspired by Christian contemplative practice
You know that life is practice, so if a kid/partner/spouse/housemate/pet/plant disturbs the practice, you roll with it
You practice independently and are seeking ways to practice communally
You want to be part of the next frontier of live dispersed practice and asynchronous reflection
You see the value of further integrating practice into the rhythm of your life
You want to support Contemplify (with a few bucks or by staying for free)
Details can be found at contemplify.com/hushnow.
After you check out contemplify.com/hushnow you will know what to expect from the first Lo-Fi & Hushed Contemplative Practice Sessions. Below my signature at the bottom of this post you will find the link and poem for the Autumn Equinox Lo-Fi & Hushed Practice Session at 6am MT (GMT – 7) on Wednesday, September 27th, 2023 for those who want to join.
It is a contradiction I am not trying to patch up. Both free and supporting options. Opportunities for supporting Lo-Fi & Hushed practices can be found at contemplify.com/hushnow or you can uptick your subscription here to paid.
Regardless of what you do, at the end of the day, my gratitude overflows for your continued presence at Contemplify. It helps me practice an un-hijacked life.
September NonRequired Reading List
What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk with Howard Thurman by Lerita Coleman Brown (Get it at the Public Library or Bookshop)
Howard Thurman is a contemplative juggernaut of the 20th Century. Thurman’s work was ahead of his time (which is one way of saying that he was ignored by dominant Christian culture), and will offer guidance, and grow in influence as the years pass. You might already know all of this, but in case you do not, Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited is necessary reading. And What Makes You Come Alive is a favorable spiritual companion for it.
The life lessons of this wise elder and teacher are the through lines of Lerita Coleman Brown’s What Makes You Come Alive. She examines the major moments, residual themes, and callings of Howard Thurman. Along the way Professor Brown invites the reader into her story and how she was introduced to Thurman’s work, and its revolutionary cascading of consciousness into her life. The covert mysticism and theological examination of conscious that Thurman embodied nipped at the heels of Brown’s own discerning call.
The wholeness of Howard Thurman is on full display as an exemplar of engaged contemplation; flashes of insight and concentrated study that instruct sustaining practices for an inner life, inner authority, and inner glory. The outer banks of understanding that recognize synchronicities and holy coincidences. The invisible bridges meet the inner and outer as the sound of genuine, in “neuro-theology”, and interfaith fellowship. Professor Brown helps us see that Howard Thurman was not ahead of his time, but like all great mystics was alive in deep time, the eternal now was crossing through him in the linearities of his life.
What Makes You Come Alive is for readers open to a mystical path flush with engagement of the here and now.
Ubuntu : I in You and You in Me by Michael Battle (Get it at the Public Library or Bookshop)
In 2003 I was introduced to the Zulu word ‘ubuntu’ - I am because you are. It was my senior year of college and I had the good fortune of taking a course on South African history, apartheid, and the liberation movement. After graduation, the class would travel to South Africa together. I did not know it would be the beginning of my travels there. The country rolled into me, and I returned the favor. My time there were beautiful, baffling, and beckoning. South Africa’s multifarious spirit enchanted and embraced me.
Michael Battle reanimated this for me in his spiritual treatise on how unbuntu offers a window to a more engaged and compassionate worldview. “A Christian Ubuntu is a great gift of the African church to the church in the West. As we integrate this gift into our lives and worldview, we come to see God in all creation and become like God to those who desperately need to know that they are loved by the living God of the universe. Like St. Francis o f Assisi, Ubuntu shows us how creation itself is our family brother sun and sister moon.”1 It is an organic interrelatedness. A Christian Ubuntu sleeps through sermons on dominion, dreaming of personhood that defies individualism by being rooted in the unified forces of spirit and matter (a oneness that Jesus made famous, and waking into action.
In Ubuntu Battle lays the contextual ground, gleans from the life and teachings of his mentor Desmond Tutu, and provides spiritual application with such utter clarity I could see through the pages into possibility. This is a philosophical book that shakes hand with a contemplative theologian. And there is one line that keeps returning to me in my practice begging for further rumination, “To pray is to erupt with God out of nothing.”2 Sit with that the next time you go to your practice.
Ubuntu is for contemplative readers capable of holding a word, known or unknown, with the humility of its depth. Battle traverses into the brilliance of ubuntu and he invites seekers from the West to do the same.
Contemplify Update
Season Four is honey sweet. Preserving a gratitude that lingers long. As always you can find the complete list of Contemplify episodes here and below are the episodes of Season Four so far.
David Shumate on When Words Become Thunder (Season 4, Ep 7)
Douglas E. Christie on Depth Without Resolution (Season 4, Ep 6)
Carmen Acevedo Butcher Follows the Mystical Tugs on the Heart (Season 4, Ep 5)
Lisa Wells on Holding a Fierce and Loving Gaze (Season 4, Ep 4)
Scott Avett on Being Here for the Feast (Season 4, Ep 3)
Haleh Liza Gafori on Putting Mystery in the Middle (Season 4, Ep 2)
Belden Lane on the Unbroken Desert of God (Season 4, Ep 1)
Your Naked Freedom (Season 4 Trailer)
All episodes are available from Contemplify through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you prefer to get your podcasts.
Arts & Articles
TO FALL IN LOVE WITH THE WORLD by Mary Manning & Brian Turner (NYT): The news of the week has been crushing, loss after loss, insanity upon insanity. This photo-poetry journey is a gift. Watch slowly, drink it in my friends, welcome the pattern of life, death, and resurrection.
AMERICANA MUSIC AWARDS (World Cafe): I turned this on for background music, but was quickly enraptured by the live performances. Americana as a music genre is tough to define, but it is transcendently accessible in the richness of its musicianship and lyricism by those who get affixed to that label.
All THAT IS SACRED directed by Scott Ballew (Variety): The documentary All That is Sacred premiered at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival. It is about a group artists I admire stretching their craft in a knuckle headed season of their lives. Ambition, drugs, and creativity all met in Key West. Read the premise and watch the trailer here and read some further thoughts here. The idea for this doc was spun up by friend of Contemplify, Scott Ballew. Can’t wait to see the whole shebang of this bygone era.
ON ANOTHER PANEL ABOUT CLIMATE, THEY ASK ME TO SELL THE FUTURE AND ALL I’VE GOT IS A LOVE POEM by Ayisha Siddiqa (OnBeing.org): This love poem maximizes. Read it slow, for it is fierce and on your side. (h/t to Mark)
Lo-fi & hushed,
we shovel
the walk together.
The un-hijacked life
of a poet, dishwasher,
or contemplative
can slip you an envelope
full of wonder.
In the contradiction,
Paul
P.S. The Autumn Equinox Lo-Fi & Hushed Practice is Wednesday, September 27th, 2023 at 6am MT (GMT – 7)! (Don’t forget to convert to your time zone here)
The Riverside link to participate live and for free is here (don’t forget to read the the minimal tech requirements here to get it set up).
Below is a photo of the poem we will use on Wednesday. I carried it around in my back pocket for months. A typed out version is below it.
Translation from my chicken scratch:
“I do not complain of suffering for love,
it becomes me always to submit to her,
whether she commands in storm or stillness,
one can know her only in herself.
This is an unconceivable wonder.
Which has thus filled my heart
and makes me stray in a wild desert.”
— Hadewijch of Antwerp
Reflections after the practice on Wednesday are welcome in the comments.
Lo-Fi & Hushed Contemplative Practice Session (September 2023 / Autumn Equinox)
A Few Guidelines for Sharing Reflections in the Comments after the Lo-Fi & Hushed Practice
Communal reflection can be powerful, restorative, and encouraging. That is what the comment space after a Lo-fi & Hushed session is for. To help orchestrate that, here are the snappy guidelines.
Share from the heart what you experienced in the practice. Let that guide what you post. Some insights are given in contemplative practice to be shared. Paradoxically, more is not always more. Contemplative teacher James Finley says that “brevity forces clarity.” Let that guide the length of your post.
Be good to yourself. Allow the Divine to hold what arises as you can. And be patient with yourself.
This is not a therapeutic space. Best to take therapy to the professionals.
Above all, be kind. If you post unkind things here your comments will be deleted and you will be booted from Contemplify. This is a place of written reflection to edify the journey. Do not self-promote or market (no urls to your website, books, sales, etc).
Enjoy the gift of sharing and learning from one another. Your contribution means a lot. Thank you!
Battle, Michael, and Desmond Tutu. Ubuntu: I in You and You in Me, Seabury Books, New York, 2009. p. 146 (digital version)
Ibid, p. 280.
Kicking off the reflection on this morning’s Lo-Fi & Hushed...the line that really spoke to me this morning in Lectio was “I do not complain of suffering for love”. The directness of it. My complaints that trip off my tongue are often tied to my comfort or expectations being disrupted. I chewed on what would not complaining look like for me? What complaints to I bring to the Beloved over and over again, and receive a compassionate ear or so I think...this morning I heard the call to dig beneath the complaint to see what is at play and roll around in what is unfinished there that needs my compassion and attention. This has been rising in and out of my thoughts like the tide today. I am trying to be gentle in response
So much in this poem spoke to me, but one phrase really sung to me: "This is an unconceivable wonder." It reflects how I feel every time I walk in the forest up the road. The wonders in nature feel to me like a gift from the Imagination of God. Always a surprise. I try to receive that gift-- that outpouring of Love-- and offer it back in my daily work clinically, at home, and by making art responses hinting at those unconceivable wonders. I also heard a reminder about the "she" in this poem-- the motherly image of Spirit who loves us and minds us, who has numbered every hair on our heads, who is always as close to us as the air rising and falling in our chests. All day, every day. Breathing with you all... peace.