Not baffled, not employed – 5 April 2013

The mischievous in me has decided to start with two perhaps puzzling quotes.  The first is from Wendell Berry, an important American writer and thinker, who says, The mind that is not baffled, is not employed.  He thinks being baffled is OK and is part of wisdom.  The writer of the Cloud of Unknowing would certainly agree with that.  I know that my own spiritual journey changed very much for the better once I stopped expecting solutions and certainties, formulae and statements, which I could add to my spiritual recipe book.  The Bible insists that we do not see God, and we should stop making idols in our minds or any other way.

The other quote is from Richard Rohr, another of our contemporary teachers, a Franciscan friar, and leader of the Centre for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  He wrote:   The problem… is teaching Western wordy and over-thinking people how not to talk and not to think so much; it is usually not thinking anyway, but reactive commentary, and often narcissistic commentary, on some recent or upcoming situation. Oh, how long it took me to see that! Now it is obvious. This, of course, is very humiliating for people to admit, especially educated people and "proper" clergy persons. We really do like our thinking and our talking. It gives our mind and our mouth a job to do.

God is not found at the end of the thought process.  It is not like the hunt for the Higgs Boson.  Neither is God to be found as the solver of my problems.  And yet:

If I climb the heavens, you are there.

If I lie in the grave, you are there.

If I take the wings of the dawn

and dwell at the sea’s furthest end,

even there your hand will lead me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, Let the darkness hide me

and the light around me be night –

even darkness is not dark for you,

and the night is as clear as the day.

We have to teach people to be still, and to be lovers of silence.  I don’t know how we do that – but I do know it’s not really a matter of different personalities, Myers Briggs profiles or any such thing.  Some of the finest contemplatives I know are also extroverts and party-lovers.  Like all pilgrimage, I think, it is a matter of discovery.  We discover that it is possible to be still and listen – and also, that it is very important, and we don’t need to be afraid.  We discover that prayer is not about me, but about God and God’s world.  We discover that it is OK to relinquish control.  And we discover that there is a very central part of us we scarcely know, which is always open to love, and actually consents to change.