Small Moves (I-I Blogopalooza Day 4)

Small Moves:  Reflections From Your Friendly Neighborhood Contemplative

I love that scene near the end of the movie Contact, after astronomer Ellie Arroway (played by Jodie Foster) has been tesseracted through several wormholes to meet with an alien intelligence. This intelligence has "uploaded" her memories, appearing as her beloved father on a starlit beach - a wisely hospitable gesture that, the alien explains, makes such momentous meetings easier on the newbie, the one who is having her first close encounter. Ellie has many, many questions she wants to ask: who are you, what is the history of your species, how did you create this traveling machine, to which the alien answers -- using a well-worn phrase of her father's: "small moves, Ellie. Small moves." In other words: this is only the initial meeting, a first step of many. Let us take our time on this journey, foot by foot, bit by bit. There is no need to know everything, say everything, solve everything, at this particular moment. Answers and actions unfold in the by and by ... Even then, don't they usually lead to more questions, more uncertainties, more wild and woolly paradoxes...?  And though evolution and transformation does have its grand cataclysmic moments, much of it seems to occur through seemingly small, even hidden, moves tucked deep within the folds of time. Imagine the countless adaptations and mutations it took for humans to become what they are now. Or how a drop of water, which, joined with millions of other drops over the eons, carves great canyons into rock.

A few years ago the French Carmelite mystic Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897) paid me a visit in one of my dreams. Therese, often referred to as the "Little Flower," is a kind of saint of "small moves." Fresh from an Air France flight, camouflaged in a wool cap and Nirvana T-shirt, Therese a la grunge, she wanted to take a tour of my life - touch all its tiny little details, the textures of my day to day existence. I was a little ashamed to let her see my messy home office, our sink full of gummy dishes, our backyard overgrown with half-dead weeds. What must this young nun, accustomed to a neat and orderly convent life, think of all this mess? But Therese seemed to enjoy the external disorder of my life. With a grin, she peered at one of my disheveled bookshelves as if it were a field of exotic wildflowers.

Therese's "mission" in her short life was to teach the "little way," that is: the way of spiritual childhood, the path of trust and surrender - a way that we find right where we are, day by day, in the messy sacredness of the small, the momentary, and the ordinary. Although there are New Testament references, in the gospels, about the necessity of "becoming as little children," Therese usually referred to texts from the Hebrew scriptures when explicitly teaching her little way: "Whoever is a little one, let him come to me" (Proverbs 9:4). "For to him that is little, mercy will be shown" (Wisdom 6:7). There is nothing cloyingly sentimental about spiritual childhood. It is a situating of oneself, with awe, reverence, and curiosity, before this wild Mystery that births us and surrounds us, with a trust that the Kosmos is quietly unfolding as it should, in us, through us, and with us. It is the delighted recognition that we arrived here through a Mother and Father, through forces beyond our grasp. From this perspective, then (referred to by integralistas as "the second face of God") humility is never a demeaning of oneself. It is an embracing of what is.

These days my life is characterized by small moves rather than grand cataclysmic shifts. (Though of course, that could change at any moment!) Living with dysthymia - an on-and-off mild depression that I currently manage with supplements, frequent walks in sunlight, talks with a spiritual director, laughter, and prayer - is teaching me to focus my limited energy into small projects and tiny disciplines: toothbrushing as a spiritual practice, writing as prayer, editing as cognitive workout and income, the yoga of napping with cats, small-group contemplative volunteer work, and - when ambition has got the better of me - dishwashing and pulling weeds.

And bathing. I really dig bathing: soaking in the sacrament of the present moment.

Lectio Divina

She would never have defined it as such, but back in the day my mom practiced Lectio Divina ("divine reading") in the bathtub - often with the bathroom door open, so that a passerby might catch a glimpse of her relaxing in the hot water, reading her leatherbound King James Bible and smoking Kent cigarettes. What long, luxurious, holy baths! She usually kept her bathing Bible on the shelf underneath the medicine cabinet. I'd open it sometimes while using the toilet. Its water-wrinkled pages were full of tiny little pencil marks - apparently she kept track of where she started and ended her readings. I saw that she would read just little bits at a time - from a few verses to a few paragraphs.

Long after she'd lost patience with churchrules, until the day she died, my mother maintained a downhome devotional life by sitting and smoking and soaking in the Word.

Lectio Divina is an ancient art - apparently practiced at one time by all Christians and kept alive in the monastic tradition - involving a slow, contemplative praying of the scriptures. Monastics divide Lectio in to four "movements": lectio (reading/listening), meditatio (meditation), oratio (prayer), and contemplatio (contemplation).

Lectio - the first movement in the prayer, requires us to quiet down and read slowly - usually just a few lines, perhaps a couple of paragraphs. Since the voice of Spirit often speaks very softly and intimately, one reads with an attitude of silence and reverence. In this receptive mode, we listen for one word or short phrase that attracts us, that speaks to us in a personal way. During meditatio - the second movement in the prayer, we take that chosen word or phrase and ruminate on it, ponder it. We turn it over in our minds, and allow it to interact with our inner world of memories, concerns, and ideas. Thirdly, during oratio, we inwardly speak to God, interacting honestly with the Spirit as you would with a deeply loving other. Depending on the selected word or the phrase, one might express yearning, gratitude, anger, desolation, love, sadness, joy, peace, etc. Finally, with contemplatio, one rests in silence with the chosen word, simply being present to Presence.

Lectio Divina has alternative forms, and can be adapted in a variety of ways for practice with small groups. Today practitioners see it as a way to open up and "pray with" a sacred book. "Sacred book" can be broadly defined -- the New Testament, a collection of Rumi's poetry, a non-scriptural text, the realms of nature, a painting, events in history, one's own life experience. . .

Most often I practice Lectio with the written word - and once in a while with song lyrics. On occasion I'll keep a notebook of the phrases I've chosen for pondering. I may spend several days or a week or more with a particular phrase, listening to various nuances, inquiring into its meaning, hearing its truths, responding or reacting to it, observing with interest when it synchronistically resonates with some event in my life, perhaps encouraging me to take some action, offering me a long-awaited answer to an inner dilemma, or even kicking me in the ass.

A few of my past lectio phrases include:

"Seek, and you will miss." (Anthony de Mello)

"Love one another as I have loved you" One-word version: "Love." (gospel of John)

"There are thousands of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." (Rumi)

"How long must I climb?" (Coldplay)

"You came out of nothing, isn't that something?" (Fr. Thomas Keating)

"Faith is the bird that sings in the night" (Tagore)

"Persevere" (Hebrews 12:1)

"All I need is your extra time and your kiss." (Prince)

"Jesus wept." (one of the gospels)

The practice of Lectio can allow a single word or phrase to bloom and release its hidden fragrances into our lives. It can also liberate myth. As Beatrice Bruteau writes in Radical Optimism: "The [biblical] stories are about us. It is to us that the angel of the Anunciation proclaims that through the power of the Holy Spirit we will bring forth from our emptiness divine life...

            "It is to us that the baptismal voice is addressed, saying, ‘You are my beloved child with whom I am well pleased.' And if we really hear that, we will be driven into a wilderness wherein we will struggle with the question of what that means and what its implications are. And eventually we will find, as was foreshadowed at our birth, that we are lying in the manger as food for the world."

I most often use the Bible for both solo and group Lectio. Over the years, its wisdom has washed through me and through my Lectio comrades like a cool subterranean stream. Or perhaps we're... luxuriously soaking in it. I guess I really am my mother's daughter.

Centering in the Hood

For several years, I facilitated a centering prayer group at a Catholic church in a poor neighborhood near downtown San Diego. We would meet once a week to do a 20-30 minute centering sit together, followed up with group Lectio Divina, informal sharing, or one of Thomas Keating's Spiritual Journey videotapes. (An excellent series of videos, by the way, which elucidates the Christian journey in light of recent understandings about development, spiritual stages, psychology, etc. These videos are where I first heard about Ken Wilber).

It was a lively little group of diverse folks leading busy lives. And the church, situated just a few yards away from a busy trolley stop, was never a quiet place. We'd sometimes use electric fans to create white noise while we meditated, but usually the sounds of the city would come through - the trolley horn, police sirens, young men yelling and breaking out in fights. The Ballet Folklorico used the church's rec room to practice, so there would usually be Latin beats coming through the walls. Kids ran up and down the hall outside of the room where we met. So we often joked that we were getting in some very good centering practice - learning to sit still and let all those wild distractions come and go as we inhaled and exhaled ...

Centering prayer involves consistently consenting to the presence and action of the Spirit within. Consent is anchored through the use of a short "sacred word," (not the same as a mantra) which is silently repeated only when meditator becomes actively engaged with thoughts - including sense perceptions, feelings, images, memories, reflections, etc. The idea is to gently let the thoughts come and go while maintaining the intention. With practice, one eventually "falls into" contemplation, a state which, in Keating's words, involves "the opening of mind and heart - our whole being - to God, the Ultimate Mystery, beyond thoughts, words, and emotions." It can be a deeply restful time; it also helps folks become more present to the present moment during their lives outside of the sit. As one practices nonattachment by letting the thoughts come and go, one can more readily offer their mind and their heart to whatever the moment requires.

Anyway, I just have to share this story. I know this is long already.

We had been listening to taped discussions on the relationship between contemplation and action. I think we had also recently done a group lectio on Matthew 25: 31-46: "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you ... a stranger and make you welcome ... sick or in prison and go to see you?" ... "In so far as you did this to one of the least ... you did it to me."

Dennis, the attorney-saxophonist in our group, and our most steadfast contemplative, suggested that we needed to do something active together as a group. Our church was surrounded by the sick and the hungry: homeless people who slept on nearby sidewalks, not too far from the trolley tracks. Why not gather some items to hand out to them, and have this gesture become the "active" part of our group contemplative prayer?

I resisted. I already had my neat, tidy, and safe ways of serving the destitute - by donating to charities and giving old clothes to Goodwill or St. Vincent de Paul. And since I was the facilitator of this group and all, I took it upon myself to explain that activity per se was not really the purpose of a centering prayer group. Although our contemplative practices should naturally weave themselves into our actions - into our lives outside of the two 20-minute sits a day - that "weaving" need not take form as a group activity in any explicit way. And I did my spiel of: "Ultimately contemplation is not personal and private, even though we usually practice the prayer solo. True contemplation is never ‘kept to one's self,' but instead charges all our interactions and becomes a part of everything we do, whether we are eating, changing a diaper, teaching, nursing a dying friend, playing, suffering through an illness, managing a business, fighting injustice ...." Etcetera., etcetera.  In other words: Um, let's not get that close to the homeless people.

But Dennis gently persisted. And when Rosie, everyone's favorite Mexican tia, felt persuaded toward this group action, I figured: well, I suppose there's nothing wrong with giving it a try, as long as we still do the centering prayer. Group members can choose whether or not they want to participate in these giveaways. We might solicit donations from friends and congregants, and pass out goods every other month or so.

Dennis had a very simple plan. (It turned out that this was kind of his thing, giving odds and ends to homeless people. He often kept extra blankets in his car, and on a cold night, if he was driving around and happened to see a street person who looked like he needed a blanket, he'd offer it to him. "They also like bottled water and new white socks," he told us.)

So we began gathering bottled water, crew socks, nutrition bars, and plastic grocery bags. On the day of the handout, we'd place two waters, two pairs of socks, and two food bars in each bag, pile them into the back of Dennis' van, and drive around to the variety of "street camps" nearby. (San Diego has a lot of them, comprised largely of the mentally ill, alcoholics and addicts - and the occasional family with children.)

As a group (generally it was just three of us who did the handouts), we would slowly approach people, and simply ask, "would you like some water and some new socks?"

Almost always, folks really, really wanted the water and the socks. (And only one time did a man ask for more. Reeking of alcohol, he slurred, "baby, what I want iz a hug!" Dennis and I simply grinned, but sweet aunt Rosie took him into her arms. She told us later than he licked her ear.) Especially, heartbreakingly, the street peeps rejoiced over the socks. I was completely undone during that first handout trek, to see the looks of sincere gratitude for a pair of new cotton socks. You would have thought we were giving away gold. I actually felt an odd, sad, shame - oh dear people, can these socks, these small things, make such a difference in your day? Oh please do not thank me so much for these few paltry items - I'm giving you nothing, really ...

I had not expected their gratitude to bring tears to my eyes. Socks! Such ordinary things. Such small moves.

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Link to the Blogopalooza Thread in the I-I Pod

Pelle's post
Jane's post
Ewan's post
Colin's post
Wolfspirit's post
Timelody's post