Comment on NYT articles on Contemplatives--personal statement replying to Ross Douthat

by Peter Menkin

This article from “The New York Times” (NYT) was noted on a list read by this writer. Here is an editorial comment of a more personal kind to The Times piece, found here under the title Mass Market Epiphany on a NYT blog.

The article by ROSS DOUTHAT published March, 2010, starts:

Mysticism is dying, and taking true religion with it. Monasteries have dwindled. Contemplative orders have declined. Our religious leaders no longer preach the renunciation of the world; our culture scoffs at the idea. The closest most Americans come to real asceticism is giving up chocolate, cappuccinos, or (in my own not-quite-Francis-of-Assisi case) meat for lunch for Lent.

This, at least, is the stern message of Luke Timothy Johnson, writing in the latest issue of the Catholic journal Commonweal. As society has become steadily more materialistic, Johnson declares, our churches have followed suit, giving up on the ascetic and ecstatic aspects of religion and emphasizing only the more worldly expressions of faith. Conservative believers fixate on the culture wars, religious liberals preach social justice, and neither leaves room for what should be a central focus of religion ­ the quest for the numinous, the pursuit of the unnamable, the tremor of bliss and the dark night of the soul.

This writer’s notations and comment for Ross Douthat posted originally as an email:

Are we contemplatives coming into fashion, for here is an article that is backward compliment for contemplatives?

I suppose the literary world's preoccupation with confessional and personal experience also jars with the quiet, even private though community practice of the contemplative life, and continues at odds with contemplation. Religion is not in fashion, but contemplation, so the article implies—saying really both should be. Narcissi are not a real or valued element of the contemplative way for union with God. Ours is a self involved American way, and maybe we should say, Tch, Tch.

The contemplative way is a life of surrender, and individualism is not a road to surrender. Not as I understand it.

I am happy to see the conversation by article in The New York Times and will look at the paper itself to see the comments.

The contemplative life is not just about union with God, alone, as in everything mystical. It is a form of being, and though the mystical may be sought or practiced by many, to a great degree it is a whole way of life, of seeing the world. The life with God is not solo, per se.

There is a photograph I've got on my computer by amateur photographer Henry Worthy, Oblate, who lives in London, of a woman standing gazing away from the camera on what is a spring day. She is looking at a field of flowers. She is seeing the world, and it is being done in God's presence with a sense of his presence. I call this the sense of creation. God is creator.

Again, the work of Arthur Poulin, a Camaldolese Priest and Monk makes in his painting work contemplative statement, even call it reality. I call this vision. Father Arthur lives and works in Berkeley, California at Incarnation Monastery. His work is found at the I. Wold gallery in St. Helena, Napa, County. They are also found at Immaculate Heart Hermitage, Big Sur, California.

So as I dare to make these remarks as comment to the article, and I am glad for Ross Douthat’s posting, I guess the writer knows little about the Camaldolese Oblate witness. For the number of these Benedictine Oblates was small when I began about 16 or so years ago; now there are so many more: Maybe 500 or so.

My point is that this is a lot of contemplatives, and they are in the world, being a light to the world and a presence for good. If I am right in recollecting, there have not at any time in history that great a number of contemplatives, but the writer's point is broader. He suggests there be a more serious exercise in religion, an inspired one. As for me, Christ is inspiration as Christ is truth. The heart is moved.

To go on, we are in America so distracted a society, a society that is individualistic and seeks diversion and distraction, that it is likely that the writer Ross Douthat's thesis is even more genuine. Note cell phones and their ubiquity.

I think it would be enough if more people said, felt, and sought God in a sense that they began to recognize that God loves them. For God does love them. For me, this is an important recognition, not Epiphany, for that this is a friendly universe is a helpful starting point for a larger faith. I think Mr. Douthat is asking that we all seek a larger faith. Is that not to a degree what Lent is about, a return and seeking larger faith. We look towards Easter.

Addendum:

From The Times…

Ross Douthat joined The New York Times as an Op-Ed columnist in April 2009. Previously, he was a senior editor at the Atlantic and a blogger for theatlantic.com. He is the author of "Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class" (Hyperion, 2005) and the co-author, with Reihan Salam, of "Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream" (Doubleday, 2008). He is the film critic for National Review. A native of New Haven, Conn., he now lives in Washington, D.C.

Image (1) Photo of monks at Communion by Henry Worthy. (2) Photo of woman at contemplation by Henry Worthy. (3) Painting "Radiant Light" by Father Arthur Poulin, OSB Camaldolese. (4) Ross Douthat by Susan Etheridge for The New York Times.

Book Review: Centered on Jesus

Seeking the beloved makes sense to John of The Cross, the mystic. He considers such desire and action Christian progress: “Christian progress means: searching for the one who is giving joy to my life, who seems to believe in me, who makes me alive. When I am with him, every moment is a discovery; and being without him is like dying.”

So the poet is quoted in the wonderful and inspiring book, “The Impact of God, Soundings from St John of The Cross” by Iain Matthew, published by Hodder and Stoughton, London, England. This work discusses the Saint, his poetry, and his doctrine. The great John of the Cross is a writer of wonderful love poetry, poetry directed at Christ, and his doctrine includes the idea that one cannot know God, for to ascend in contemplative prayer is to reach nothingness. He writes in a poem:

To come to savour all
Seek to find savour in nothing;
To come to possess all,
Seek possession in nothing,
To come to be all,
Seek in all to be nothing….
To come to what you know not
You must go by way where you know not
To come to what you are not
You must go by a way where you are not.

The author of this book explains this love poem, and many others, and the doctrine of the Spanish Saint. A Discalced Carmelite himself, the author is prior of a Carmelite Monastery in Dublin. As the jacket blurb aptly puts it, “John of the Cross testifies to a God who longs to meet us and to love us in our deepest need.” I, as reviewer, think the writer is successful in meeting this description, and the book is very worthwhile reading before reading any of St. John’s works (afterward, too, as did I).

John of the Cross writes love poems out of encounter with Christ. Here is an example regarding Easter morning. Iain Matthew says it is about a visitation St. John received:

My beloved, the mountains,
Lonely wooded valleys,
Rare islands,
Thundering rivers,
The whisper of love, carried by the breeze.

The tranquil night
At one with the rising dawn,
The silence of music,
The mighty sound of solitude
The feast where love makes all new. (Canticle A 13-14)

Jean Vanier writes a short introduction to the book (mine in paperback, and loaned to me by an Episcopal Deacon—good fortune for me to be introduced to the book). At the end of the introduction, this quote:

“For some people, John of the Cross, the John of Pain and of Ecstasy, seems too austere and complicated: for others he seems too pantheistic, not sufficiently Christ-centered. Iain Matthew reveals beautifully the true John, firmly centered in Jesus, in love with Jesus, the John who through all his life and teaching shows the path to inner liberation and union with God.” I found the book a lesson on John of the Cross, the liberator.

An unusual thing to say, yes, but there are many lessons in this book that have helped me to value and enjoy, understand the writings and poetry of John of the Cross. One important lesson and activity of John of the Cross is clear. John of the Cross points to Jesus. As Iain Matthew writes of the Saint’s dictum, “Essentially…choose the person of Christ, and get used to making him, not your feelings, your ultimate basis for action.” Lots of doctrine and good thoughts in this book.

Here is one of my favorite quotes from “The Impact of God: Soundings from St John of the Cross.” I think this is a sounding. It is also a strong statement on love. Love is explored in the book. I brought to this quotation a sense that the Ascension of Christ brings not only the perfected humanity of Jesus, but also the humanity of human kind. I found myself thinking about what was offered and brought my own questions right along as I read. The concepts of hunger, ache, dignity, being shaped for Christ resonated with me:

"So our needs--for answers or love or solutions to our problems ache is the price of our dignity. If we are meant for this much, we shall suffer that hunger.

"John designates that dignity by the term 'bride'. In the Ballads, creation was intended to furnish the Son with a 'bride', a whole people who would be his own. In Canticle, the bride is found and wedded beneath the 'apple tree' of the cross, where 'the Son of God redeemed, and so betrothed, human nature, and so each soul, with himself'. This means that humankind, and each person in it, has, necessarily, a bridal shape. We are, from our origin, shaped for Christ, a capacity, a need for Christ.

"That -- our incompleteness -- is our dignity, and when we feel it we are most truly ourselves. When we utter our appeal from there, we are being mature, being what we were meant to be. That appeal is prayer. For the human person, then, prayer is a supreme value."

The book has Chapter names like: “Prayer, a ‘Being With’,” “The Gospel Has Eyes,” “The Right Kind of Emptiness,” “There is Somewhere to go,” “It Has to be God,” and “The Experience of God…”

If you as a reader find the following words by the writer of the book ones that resonate with you, then by all means read this book. Regarding prayer, Iain Matthew says of John of the Cross: “But in each as the need, though real, is a symptom of a deeper need, of a craving that is as close and as vital as we are to ourselves. The mystic sounds human needs; and about the person John has said many magnificent things. But the most real thing he says about us is that we are created to need God—‘infinite capacity,’ for God.” The book and John of the Cross speak to people who have a need, craving, vital arousal in the heart for God.

--Peter Menkin, Pentecost 2008

In the flame of the candle unknowable vastness (2001)

by Peter Menkin

God's presence arrives,

listening to the lighted

candle. The flame

communicates the aware

devotion of silence, making

things seen and unseen

prayerful notices. These conversations

continue reverently in the room

where we were on vigil Eastertime.

Those prayers remain still. How soothing it is to listen

to prayer; the Yes, be awake in spirit

and mind

as during the engagement with God

there is room for the fiery envelopment

elicited within and enjoined

to others in a rising embrace

by unknowable vastness. Given

a moment to be aware

of God's presence.

Receive the season

that astounds, despite slowness

of heart. Say "Stay with us..."

At the back of the Church,

at the foot of the Cross in the Cathedral,

by the sacrament in private on the mountain,

in the chapel at noon time,

on the road,

in the light of day,

during work, how it is to recall

the spirit.

Times eternal unending. Here remember:

Others know, too.

When she goes to pray, an intimate

time of life, we know love

embraces us as love embraces her.

On Sunday, first the flame listens

best; later all week the heart be open, love invites

on the road. Feed us, You do

in the breaking of bread.

Take the cup. A moment and minutes that love offers,

this is the sweet enduring spirit.

Continue the ongoing conversation.

This poem has a third revision, and it is a response that is part of the series "Conversations with the Holy Spirit." Written after reading the end of Luke in the New Testament (NSRV), and mostly begun in response to the suggestion "Take a moment to be aware of God's presence," one line requires its own place about the middle of the now shorter work. "First the flame listens;" is the line. I'll make that change.

This makes sense to me because the setting of the poem is the Sunday Church service. The poem is written as a prelude to the coming Sunday, and the reading from Luke is where two apostles are going down towards the village Emmaus, and they come across a stranger who they talk to about a man who was before God, walked with God, was God and Man. They talk about being astounded by the women of their group who were at the tomb of Christ in the early morning. Here they speak of their joy and a promise that is given of something wonderful and mysterious, a spirit that will come among them.

I am reminded of the flame of the candle that is lit by the worshipper in Church, and the prayers of the heart that are burning. Mostly, I attempt to render the experience of the spirit. This is a kind of listening experience that I believe is known to many people.

Here is a line from that book by Luke (24:13-53), "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?"

These notes are from the original posting on July 12, 2001. That along with the poems, also posted then on the same board (The Atlantic Monthly Writer's Workshop). Should the reader of this blog wonder how 2001 and poems with notes from them make a journal entry for today, January 23, 2008, understand it takes a while to get around to things. Though this is the season of Epiphany in the Church I attend, I am looking forward to Lent and Easter. Also, afterall, I am also working on poems from as many as 7 years ago. For some reason, I am happy with this particular incarnation in two versions, and the notes about them from 2001.

Book Review: "Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the 'Saint of Calcutta'"

by Peter Menkin

This is the story of a holy woman's journey with Christ, her growth in relationship and spirit told through her letters, with narration by a man of the Roman Catholic cloth. A stunning and revealing story, "Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the `Saint of Calcutta'" edited and with commentary by Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C., Ph.D. tells us of Christ's thirst, his loneliness for human souls, and the same expression returned in love through need by reciprocity--a mirror of living the Cross in letters and in service to others by a Roman Catholic Nun. There is lots of light in this book.

In the chapter, "God Shows his Nothingness to Show his Greatness," Mother Teresa's spiritual experience is described:

"Her long experience of darkness, her sense of rejection, her loneliness, the terrible and unsatisfied longing for God, each sacrifice and pain had become for her as one more `drop of oil' that she readily offered to God, to keep the lamp--the life of Jesus within her--burning, radiating His love to others and so dispelling the darkness."

A sometimes apophatic experience of Christ, after years of much darkness and unknowing, Mother Teresa came to recognize and live the Christ experience as a knowing by his feeling of God's abandonment on the Cross, and his tears and need, his suffering and darkness at his time of the Cross and during his life. Mother Teresa found a union of understanding with Christ--through Christ a holiness of spirit and a gift to mankind.

This is a work of religious history, through letters of intimacy; the work is a service of literary religious feeling and belief. The book reveals her service to the poorest of the poor. Her obedience to the Church and her obedience in faith is literally a marvel of discipline and rigor. It is by the strength of God that she was given such Obedience, and to God she devoted her life in service. So this book demonstrates in words and letters.

A marvelous revelation of personal letter writing, the confession of an unknowing-knowing journey and suffering which she recognized as sharing in the suffering of Christ. Observers have claimed that her journey was a failure of faith, and a darkness of spirit that made her despair. True, she experiences despair and writes of her pain, but evidenced by her continued work and prayer, she maintained faith and journey with Christ in the most holy of ways. So I postulate based on her letters and the narrative written by Father Kolodiejchuk, a member of the Missionaries who works towards the Cause of Beatification and Canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

A famous Nun of her time in the 20th Century, Mother Teresa's book of letters and her life as a light of Christ, will have a place in religious literature for decades to come. This book is a most interesting and fulfilling book for people interested in the religious life, and living with Christ through their own relationship and religious life as Christians. For Mother Theresa and her religious worked tirelessly for the poorest of the poor, in a special way of religious devotion. Many of these poor lived and live on the streets of Calcutta, in a hole, or a dirt floor shack. The religious Order Mother Teresa founded, the Missionaries of Charity, provide their service in many cities in India and other parts of the world including the United States.

Many or much of the poor helped by Missionaries of Charity (mostly Nuns, but a few Brothers and some Priests), are as poor or many significantly poorer than those poor described in the sociology book "Poor People," by William T. Vollmann. From the Rules of her Order, started and led during her lifetime mostly as Mother Superior:

"The General End of the Missionaries of Charity is to satiate the thirst of Jesus Christ on the Cross for the love and souls by the Sisters [through] absolute poverty, angelic charity, cheerful obedience." To do this they carry "...Christ into the homes and streets of the slums, [among] the sick, dying, the beggars and the little street children..."

People all over the world admired this woman who was born in Skopje, Macedonia, in 1910 and died 1997. The Roman Catholic Church beatified her in 2003. The dust cover quotes her famously: "If I ever become a Saint--I will surely be one of darkness. I will continually be absent from Heaven--to light the light of those in darkness on earth." A chilling note, a note enough to give one a chill, Mother Teresa lived a good life and her Order remains active today. They bring light to darkness.

This calling is a noble means of doing God's work, and in the religious life serving and connecting to Christ. The book tells of this work and its development, both the order itself as a developing group of religious, but mainly of Mother Teresa's relationship and struggles of spiritual and religious significance in her saintly life and holy connection to Jesus Christ: Letters that cast a light on Christ and his relationship with mankind.

--Peter Menkin, 4th week of Advent (Sunday) 2007

Book Review: "The Way of Jesus"

I come to recognize publishers that publish books interesting to me, specifically with titles of spiritual and religious topics. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company of Michigan, USA and Cambridge, United Kingdom is one such publisher. A friend loaned me the book titled, “The Way of Jesus,” I am happy to recommend this anonymous work after reading it. I admit I may have found myself overlooking the title if it had not been brought to my attention. This is a book helpful in knowing Christ and living the Christian life.

The book was originally discovered in Germany in 1516 under the title “Theologia Germanica,” published by Martin Luther. A contemporary style helps with understanding the work, it was translated into the contemporary English by Tony D’Souza, who lives in London, England. The writing contains a certain charm without being difficult to the 21st Century American reader; hence the editing is successful if only containing a whiff of plainness and kind of simplicity. This may be to its credit, after reading the entire book and looking back on it.

You guess this is a mystical work, probably, and you guess right. Written in short segments, one may read it on a daily basis finding time to reflect on each chapter. I read it straight through, so to speak, not reading it as a devotional, but as an instructive and illuminating work on Christ and my relationship and understanding of him in my life. Fortunately, I found this satisfying and illuminating. The work is an illuminating book, 140 pages and introduces itself on the cover as, “a contemporary edition of a spiritual classic.” Tony D’Souza is noted as “editor,” by the way. Just to be clear on the matter and give proper credit to him.

From the start, the book offers evidence and instruction: “…[O]ur knowledge of God should become so perfect that we see that none of our gifts or will, love or good works come from ourselves but that they all come from God, from whom all good proceeds.” Perhaps you as reader of this review say, “How obvious.” But I recall a situation where I confused my own sense of smallness before God instead of his largeness; instead my posture required an attitude of humility that accepts and acknowledges His goodness and greatness. This is not so large an error, or far from a way to humility, yet to get on a better path to the Way of Jesus this book is helpful in sorting out relationship and truths. There is discernment on its pages.

Again, in the same line, as the author says early in the book, “…[I]t is better that God should be loved, praised, and honored even if we vainly imagine that we love or praise God. This is preferable to God being left unloved, unpraised, and unhonored, because when the vain imagination turns into understanding of truth, then claiming anything for our own will fall away naturally…’Poor fool that I was, I imagined it was me, but all the time it was God.’” Simple, yes, but clarifying and also helpful in bringing the reader to an insight to Christ’s significant and special relationship with mankind (womankind, too, of course.)

It is by degrees and example, by various dictums the writer lets us know something of perspective: “Four Things Are Necessary Before a Person Can Receive Divine Truth and Become Possessed by the Spirit of God.”

Possessed by the spirit of God? I ask, and I wonder. This statement about divine truth is novel to my ears, as are discussions of evil personified by the Devil. Yet as a reviewer I urge you to buy the book to read on and persevere; the reader will find this endeavor of a book both entertaining and also written so that its certain realities are recognizable in our century. Reading a classic work does take some leaps and jumps, especially when written almost 500 years ago.

Christ says blessed are the poor. He means material poverty, and that is common knowledge. But he also says, blessed are the poor in spirit, and the author who is imparting “knowledge,” or a way of knowing, ends a chapter with the promise of his teachings: “Out of this grows that poverty of spirit of which Christ said…” One gets the firm intention of learning something about spiritual poverty by this work, and thereby a humility. To this end, the chapter headings are like aphorisms, such as the chapter just noted: “There is a Deep and True Humility and Poverty of Spirit in a Person Who Shares in the Divinity of God.” I thought these a kind of Zen Koan. But slightly so. More a puzzle made statement than an exercise in special construction. Yet the book is that, too, in its own way. There you have a sense of the way mystery is constructed by the modern edition, I guess the modern language is true to the original since a noteworthy publisher publishes the book. Here is another “aphorism”, clearer and less puzzling, but a puzzle: “What Sin Is, and How We Must Not Claim Any Good thing for Ourselves, because All Good Belongs to the True Good Alone.”

I was glad to find this book title available through Amazon.com, for I tried searching on it (the title), but could not find the book. I tried a search on the editor, Tony D’Souza, and found the book on Amazon.com. This particular copy, which was loaned to me, was purchased at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, California (USA) where my friend said she found it by browsing.

I am happy she thought it suited my interests and tastes, and also that I would appreciate something that takes a desire for a special religious flavor of instruction. My Deacon friend practices contemplation in the morning, and knowing my own interest in contemplative prayer is correct in her recognition that contemplatives will find the book, “The Way of Jesus,” helpful in living a Christian life. That is a lot to say about a book, but I am sure if you’ve gotten this far in this review, you have an interest that will make this a work beneficial to your own life, contemplative in leaning or not. This is also a book for the active life in Christ, for it clarifies and instructs on understanding this historic person and God. A helpful book in living a Christian life.

--Peter Menkin, Pentecost 2007


This amateur review of mine appears on Amazon.com.