Peekaboo faith

Bill Moyers and Christian Wiman, renowned poet and editor of Poetry magazine, were talking about me the other day.

Here is the thing. I have been feeling faithless recently. I used to have a kind of cynical mantra about faith, “Anything works for a little while,” which means, any new insight, any religious experience, even any new diet will make you feel good for a while, as if you have the ultimate answer, and then it will stop working and it will seem like a blip on the flatline radar screen of “real” life.

I haven’t thought about that recently. I thought I really had reached a new level of serenity and belief and even comfort with my many unbeliefs. I felt like what I’ve been writing here really expressed all that and perhaps could help other people find new paths to their own faith. Dreams. Energy and bodywork. What happens in church. New looks at Jesus. Our relationship to the earth and our allies in nature. The delights, the holy ground, to be found in the everyday.

But none of that seems to be working for me now, not this week. I can’t even bring myself to try to remember my dreams. That no-burp diet has reduced my digestive problems but I haven’t lost weight. I am disillusioned with the idealistic and visionary parts of my environmental work. My enthrallment with the political Jesus lasted a few weeks and then, nyah. I should go out to visit Sister Tree but I doubt that she will shake me from this.

But I always doubt, even in the midst of the experience and certainly afterward. This doubt is far more certain and tenacious, in fact, than the faith, which seems to be encapsulated in evanescent experiences. Now you see them, now you don’t, and mostly you don’t. If you say you believe anyhow, without the catch in the heart that came with the initial, or former, or even recent experience, you are fooling yourself into treating faith as a matter of the intellect. A head thing rather than a heart thing. Which, by the way, is what most religions depend on to keep going. But I insist on considering faith a matter of real experience, not a set of beliefs, because I have experienced it that way and, having experienced that, I cannot accept any substitutes.

I was feeling that ho-humness, that distance from faith experience last Sunday afternoon when I tuned in to Bill Moyers and found him talking to Christian Wiman who, incidentally, is dying of a rare cancer and so his radar is sharply tuned to meaning. I highly recommend the whole interview because if they were talking about me they were perhaps talking about you, too.

Here is a segment that directly addressed this peekaboo quality of faith:

 ***

CHRISTIAN WIMAN: I think in retrospect, [not writing any poems for six years] certainly was a crisis of faith. I think I mean, a crisis of faith is the only crisis there is. We're always having it. Everyone's always having it. We mistake it for other things. 'It's a crisis of my job. It's a crisis of my marriage. It's a crisis of this.'

I think it's always a crisis of how are we relating to our ultimate concern? If life is messing up, it's messing up because we are somehow out of whack with our ultimate concerns. There may be things that we've got to take care of, there often are. But you can't fix your life if the ground of your being is messed up. If the ground of your being is unsure, then your life will always be unsure.

BILL MOYERS: It sounds to me as if this is what you mean when you write, two or three times, “Every expression of faith is provisional."

CHRISTIAN WIMAN: I think so, because I may speak constantly about faith, but I'll fall away the minute I walk out of here. You know, I think we are condemned to express things provisionally, to live in contingency. And I think that's just, that's just the way it is. That's why I'm so moved by Christ, the notion of Christ, the incarnation, because that is an intrusion of God into reality, into the contingent nature of our lives.

 ***

Amen.

Making maple syrup

Loren Eash and his sap shack

It is snowing today. The sap probably isn’t running. February tricked the brothers into tapping the trees two weeks early and now she is going back on her promises. Freezing nights and days in the 40s are what you want. I see the forecast is for 46 tomorrow so maybe it will start up again. But I’m glad I got over to the woods last Saturday. I wonder how the trees manage on short-run years? I suppose they endure. They produce their leaves on what juice they have.

My brothers and I depend on this annual ritual of making maple syrup to keep the family juices flowing. The patch of woods belonged to our grandfather, then to our father, and now to my brother Loren. My older brothers remember how Grandpa Eash used to boil sap in a crude setup in an outbuilding on his farm a short distance from the wooded acreage. All I remember is Grandma Eash’s maple taffy, so sweet it almost made your teeth fall out just to bite into it.

We all remember coming over to the sap shack our dad built in the woods itself when we were children. He installed a proper wood-fired evaporator but it was also a crude setup, the dirt-floored shack. We would come over after school to help empty the sap buckets into the tank pulled by a small tractor over increasingly muddy tracks. Then Mom, who always tended the fire, would open the fire door and roast hot dogs in the inferno. Or we would make a bonfire outside. The hunger, the chill, the burned salty dogs, the mud, and, wafting through it all, the maple-scented steam: these anchored the drab days of early March in our family year as firmly as Christmas and Easter.

Tending the inferno

Although we lived on a farm and worked a lot together, making maple syrup was the only thing we all really loved doing together. The rest of it was just work. Chores. Production—not fun. Perhaps we could have made it fun but that was not in our parents’ nature. But making maple syrup was entirely frivolous, unnecessary work. All it produced was way more maple syrup than we needed. I got tired of maple syrup when I was a kid. Aunt Jemima’s on pancakes—now, that was a treat. But I never got tired of the spring ritual.

Adrian Tobias Eash, great-grandson of Tobias Eash, the original syrup maker, comes every year to help his dad.

After the shack was destroyed in a fire the woods stood empty for many years. Mom and Dad passed away. And then, not long ago, Loren took possession of the stand of maples and built a sap shack on it. The setup was better than the old system, but not too much better. Crudeness is part of the flavor of real maple syrup. He enlisted brother Dale, who lived nearby, to help him renew the tradition.

We’ve refined the ritual a bit. Beer and swearing are allowed in our sap shack. We cook the hotdogs and brats in sap on a potbelly stove, simmering them until they are coated in sticky maple. We leave the hard work of gathering to members of the fourth and fifth generations who may be on hand. But my brothers and I, in our 60s and 70s, are just kids again, hanging out. You don't have to be a grownup all the time.

Being a grownup

It is surprising how hard it is to act like a grownup day in and day out, even at age 67. 

I knew for instance that my response to yesterday’s email was not a grownup response. The email came from Katie, who is associate director, and conveyed the gist of her conversation with Carolyn, the executive director. Katie asked me to write certain things based on this conversation, using a particular set of Carolyn’s ideas.

I took offense. Who was Katie to pass on orders to me from Carolyn? Why didn’t Carolyn have this conversation with me, like she usually does? And anyhow, why am I in a subordinate position to either of these women, who are younger than me? That’s probably my own fault, I should work harder and be more ambitious, yada yada. In my mind a hierarchy immediately set itself up, with me on the bottom rung of the ladder, blaming other people as well as myself for that. This is not a grownup response.

I will not characterize my response as childish—that casts children in an unfair light. Still, these instinctual responses show up in childhood and we have to outgrow them. They are ungrownup.

Working at home has its disadvantages and advantages. A disadvantage is communication, as this email demonstrated. It was like playing the telephone game: here is what I heard her say so you should do this. An advantage of being separated from your colleagues, however, is that you don’t have to go with your first response. You can go to the kitchen and make a nice lunch. You can build up the fire. And then you can do the work on your own feelings, which is a major part of being a grownup, before you respond.

I asked myself two questions that help me work through unhelpful feelings.

1) How does this particular thought that is bugging me--“Katie should not be giving me orders from Carolyn”--make me feel? Answer: “Like about two inches tall.”

And then, 2) How would I feel without that thought? Answer: “Like maybe there is a communication snafu here among colleagues.” I realized both my colleagues had been in a hurry about different things and the urgency had gotten in the way of helpful process. I realized that I could restore good communication rather than perpetuate bad process.

While preparing lunch I came up with a plan not to act like a two-inch-tall inferior and powerless person. I called Katie and we talked about what the situation called for, what she needed from me and I from her.

And then, having done the necessary work on myself and with my colleague, I did the necessary work for the organization, like the grownup that I am capable of being. But the work on being a grownup apparently never ends.

Oh Imperfect Love

“Oh Perfect Love” used to be sung at almost every Mennonite wedding. It’s about God’s love but we thought it applied to us.

Recently I came across a book titled Wabi Sabi Love: The Ancient Art of Finding Perfect Love in Imperfect Relationships.

“The truth is you’re not perfect, and neither is your partner. But you can be perfectly imperfect together. In Wabi Sabi Love, international bestselling author and relationship expert Arielle Ford applies the wisdom of Wabi Sabi—the ancient Japanese idea of illuminating the beauty in imperfection—to love relationships.”

(I have a quibble with using the concept of wabi/sabi this way because I know something about the Japanese aesthetic but I will set that aside for now.)

I thought, this is a book I do not need to read because I am writing it in my life every day. It has taken me some time to get to this point in a relationship that is now, goodness, nearly 44 years old and it has been an up and down path. But Valentine season is a good time to make a special effort and take stock.

The book came to mind when I thought about what I had done to mark the day itself: I had made reservations. In past years I would have waited in vain for Vic to do this. I know he’s been wanting to take me to a certain popular restaurant but he never thinks about such things far enough in advance to actually get a spot. So I did it for him, my Valentine’s treat. I gave him the gift of my foresight.

As it turns out even I am too late, 5 days in advance, to get us a table on the day itself, so I settle for Valentine’s Eve.

While he is still away in Chicago working, I give myself the gift of a clean house. I know this gift will not last when he returns. The dining room table will be a fresh canvas on which to spread his papers, the couch will receive another dusting of peanut crumbs on the first evening of his return. But these crumbs will be lovingly laid down as we watch a movie together. I gather the remotes and headphones in the basket in anticipation.

I empty the dishwasher and put everything away where it belongs. Everything. I clear the countertops of everything that has a place elsewhere. Cleaning the kitchen is his job but he enjoys stopping before it is entirely finished, so things collect. This plastic tub, that empty olive oil bottle, a few dirty dishes that are stacked at the end of the island countertop that he doesn’t see because it is too far away from the dishwasher.

As I clean out the drain traps, I remember how much he hates to do this. So do I. Every time I clean the drain traps it is a test of my love. Do I love him enough to do this distasteful task and refrain from scolding him when he is here? But he is not here when I do this and I miss him.

I have a whole evening to enjoy the clean house by myself before he gets home. It is a small compensation for being alone.

He is here today. I put my hearing aids in to hear his silence. I listen for the clicks of his keyboard in the next room. I remember hating the amount of time he spends with his computer. I am happy now that he is spending that time in my presence as well as the computer’s. We are his beloveds, the computer and I, our family, the cat. He is a man of strong feeling and few words.

I have the words but they don’t carry the feeling, not even close.

Congo wardrobe

Alone on a gray day yesterday I needed something to look forward to. So I decided to go through my closet and check out what I had to wear for my trip to Congo in May.

I went through my clothes and found quite a few gaudy, flowy things that I hardly ever wear here but that would be appropriate to wear in Kinshasa. I tried on outfits and made a pile of clothes all ready to pack. The trip is three months away!

This exercise gave me a taste of my inner colorful self. I do not wear such things here because I am self-conscious about drawing attention to myself. The self-help guru Byron Katie asks what you believed when you were 5 that may still be guiding you in unhelpful ways. Well, that’s one for me.

Ever since I was 5, wearing a dress, and demonstrated to my brother’s 7-year-old friends my ability to somersault and heard Duane say, “I see her pants, I see her pants” with every revolution, I have associated getting attention with embarrassment. This was confirmed in many ways throughout grade school. Already in first grade I felt others looking at me funny because I always had the answers so I stopped raising my hand, even to go to the bathroom (besides, I was afraid of the self-flushing toilets). This led to acute embarrassment one afternoon as I got off the school bus and had to pee in the lane, causing my brothers to snicker. You see, I remember these incidents. There are a few more. They are my only vivid memories of childhood.

Let’s not get into how shunning attention for fear of embarrassment has affected my professional life but it has. Instead, let’s keep it to the innocent level of clothes. I love color and pattern, but my habits of dress are strongly influenced by my environment; that is, by what seems appropriate; that is, by what other people are wearing. I am not obsessed about this but I am aware. I have found, for example, that what I wear to church has changed since I moved to a different community.

There is not a drastic difference in how people dress in my old church and new one—the range is wide in both. You’ll see people in jeans and men in suits and ties. What I notice, though, is that, surrounded by more people my age, as I am in the new church, I lean toward dressing more like them. For example, I did not own a single pair of dress pants for some time but I suddenly found it necessary to acquire some. Now I often go to church in the dress-pants-and-sweater uniform, sometimes topped with a jacket, which a dozen other respectable Mennonite ladies my age are wearing on any given Sunday. Weird.

Sometimes I try to trick myself into nonconformity by, for instance, throwing on a gaudy Russian shawl. 

People notice and give me compliments. The compliments make me uncomfortable. They stir up that old association of attention with embarrassment. But I don’t like to fade into the woodwork, either. So I seem to ration my fashion statements. This week two scarves intertwined, next week simple sweater and pants. One week a Congo cloth jacket over a plain outfit. Then many weeks later, purple flowy pants with a plain top. Weird indeed.

I acquired most of my colorful, flowy things in other places like Russia or California. The last time I was in Africa, nearly four years ago, I found that I had been starved for color. I feasted my eyes on the bright colors and the marketplace cloth. But I didn’t buy much, knowing I wouldn’t wear it back home.

Now I am involved with the Congo Cloth Connection and going on this trip back to the country where I fell in love with color some 40 years ago. The trip is more about developing human relationships than about cloth. I am truly grateful that both of my churches and the Congo story project are supporting me on this trip—and trying not to be embarrassed about that kind of attention.

But I know that, on a dreary February day in the Midwest, I have an inner fashionista who is starving for color and can’t wait to get to those shops and markets.

What I see with my eyes shut

Yesterday I spoke in a church class about a matter that I have kept almost entirely private except in a recent blog—what I see with my eyes closed.

The class theme was learning to pay attention in order to discover the holy ground on which we walk every day. During the meditative part of the class I paid attention, as I often do, to what was going on behind my eyelids.

If I close my eyes and assume that I am seeing nothing, I see nothing. But if I keep looking I see, at first, undifferentiated graininess in tones of brownish orange, if it is daylight, or blackish brown if it is dark. There are afterimages, of course, of what I have been looking at before I closed my eyes. Those soon disappear. Gradually the graininess begins to move and take shape, differentiate. Often the first thing to pop out from the graininess will be a ball near the center of my vision that looks like a cluster of pebbles, spinning.

When I was a child I used to watch this spinning ball as I went to sleep. Perhaps this is something other children do. In the movie The Black Balloon a young girl tells her new boyfriend how to really look at what you see with your eyes shut.

The most interesting phenomena appear when I keep my eyes closed for a fairly long time and keep watching in a relaxed, meditative state.  I begin to see blobs and waves. Then the waves become regular pulses and patterns. Blobs emerge one after the other, moving right to left or left to right or far to near. The waves have fluttering edges like the ruffles of jellyfish and the blobs dissipate and explode. Colors will emerge. The usual pattern includes a pale, luminous green and a deep indigo. I can watch pulsing waves and bursting blobs of indigo for a long time; the longer I watch, the more intense they become. When this happens, even more dynamic shapes may emerge from the blobs, sometimes twisting flame shapes, one after the other, like computer-generated fractal imagery.

Over time I have learned to look for the indigo. It seems to be associated with a relaxed, meditative state; with deep, active prayer; or with strong energy flow, as in the session I reported recently with Vic when I was in the hospital.

When I am meditating it usually takes a while for the blue to come through. When I am in the presence of good energy vibes, however, it starts almost immediately. During yesterday’s class I saw blue right away and enjoyed it all through the several minutes of guided meditation. That is why I reported it to the other members of the class. I thought the prevalence of blue marked the class itself as holy ground.

This beautiful light show is not well studied, although in the 19^th century it was called Eigenlicht: self-light or intrinsic light. There are less-than-satisfactory articles about it on the Internet, including Wikipedia, which calls it “closed-eye hallucinations.”

The nice thing about Eigenlicht is that everybody has this capacity. It can be a kind of entertaining feedback mechanism on your internal state and the environment you are in. You just have to close your eyes and watch. Holy ground indeed.

Activism

I agree with activists but I find them annoying. Well, let’s not get personal. I agree with activism but I find it annoying. Why?

I know if I write this down I will seem a lot more certain than I am. Really, I am exploring a feeling, not judging right or wrong, good or bad.

First, I do agree with Occupy and respect and even admire those who put their bodies on the line and in the rain to make a point that is long overdue about the terrible, growing inequities brought on by out-of-control capitalism. I do agree that nuclear power has to go. I do agree that toxic chemicals must be kept out of our babies’ bodies. I am utterly opposed to war of all kinds. I am shocked and devastated by how we humans are altering the climate and the planet’s other life-support systems.

What is more, I have been an activist myself, or worked closely and in concert with activists, for more than 30 years. I have supported causes financially and professionally with my communication skills. Wow. That is a long time. I hadn’t realized. And still I find activists and activism slightly or greatly annoying.

I just checked my feelings this morning by going on Facebook and skimming the latest posts of my friends, many of whom are totally devoted activists. Yep. Still annoying. I skipped over the links to articles about everything I agree with but don’t want to read. I lingered over the personal posts, scrolled fast through the issue stuff.

Maybe the problem is me. Yes, probably it is. I have been at this too long. I am burned out. I am ready for something else. As I wrote recently, I am so tired of persuasion writing. This could be a personal burnout issue. Still, how can I leave it all behind, knowing what I do about the world’s messes and the urgency of the need to clean them up and stop making them?

At the same time, I am surely not the only person who is put off by activism. Perhaps I can use this feeling that is rising to the surface right now to empathize with those who not only find activists annoying but also outright disagree with the activists’ causes. Or transfer their annoyance with crusaders to the crusade.

Uh-oh. I see I am getting into persuasion theory, if not persuasion writing. That is, why aren’t activists more convincing? Why does activism so often divide rather than conquer?

Whole treatises have been written about this so perhaps my insight is neither new nor needed. I’m just exploring my own feelings here. What I feel is this:

Anger turns me away. Too much information about things I can do nothing about paralyzes me. Enforcement of behavior changes by rules and punishments (legislation, regulation, etc.) is necessary, but my nature is not suited to it.

On the other hand, I know that the road to change is difficult and involves many tasks to which we might be unsuited, such as persuasion, confrontation, tedious negotiations, knocking on doors, demonstrations, and even reading more than we ever wanted to know about the problems.

This is not fun. But here is the thing. Somebody’s got to do it. Somebody has to express the anger and grief that more of us would feel if we allowed ourselves to know. Somebody has to work to change the rules. Somebody has to push the boulder of public opinion up the hill until it rolls down the right side.

So why don’t we just say that joining the set of causes that represent the changes that need to be made—whether it is one cause or all of them—is like joining the army. You will be called upon to do difficult and even distasteful things. It will not do to think too much about all this once you are enlisted. We shouldn’t have to keep shoving information in front of each other. What will really get us through the hard stuff is what soldiers depend on—loyalty, friendship, mutual support, love.

I sense this among activists but I seldom hear it expressed. That is, the details are less important than the fact that what we are doing is really hard. So what is really important is that we have each other’s backs.