If the idea of God giving us imagination puts you off, then why did evolution, or the universe, give it to us?
It seems to me that, fairly early on in human history, the ability to visualize something other than what is front of us must have had marvelous implications for thriving in the world. The ability to imagine something different is what lies at the root of technology (“wouldn’t it be good if I could create something to ward off that hungry tiger?”). To this day we human beings are inventors, but how could that capacity even exist without the prior capacity to imagine something different than what is in front of our noses?
The ability to imagine carries us further beyond than just the capacity to see our physical environment in new ways. Take dreams, for example. They are a function of the imagination, simply delivered to us while we sleep, and therefore unencumbered by the normal distractions of the waking mind, which is why they are so vivid and “real.”
We know that dreams can have a powerful impact on creativity (for example, it’s common knowledge that Paul McCartney first imagined the melody for “Yesterday” in a dream) — well, so do daydreams (and the waking imagination in any form). Dreaming, or imagining, a lovely little song may not make our lives any better, at least in a material sense — but it does offer us enjoyment and/or meaning. So the imagination is a wellspring for creating meaning in our lives and that relates to creating purpose.
If I imagine a world without racism, I am better able to find the resources within me to begin to do the hard work to dismantle social privilege and help bring an end to racist systems. Ultimately, of course, this takes us to the big questions: about God, about the meaning and purpose of life in toto, about what it means to be human and our ultimate destiny, and so forth. In other words, what difference does it make to imagine that God exists? Does that make God more “real”? Or more possible? Is the imagination actually a type of “spiritual sense” that gives us access to something unavailable to our bodily senses?
Is “finding God in all things” ultimately a function of the imagination? Am I able to “behold God in all” because I can imagine “the Divine Presence is everywhere”? These quotes come from St. Ignatius of Loyola, Julian of Norwich, and St. Benedict, respectively. These three spiritual teachers lived many centuries apart, and yet they all call us into this essential spiritual practice. But I cannot see God the way I see my computer or my keyboard, physically present in front of me. I have to imagine God and that’s what enables me to believe, to behold, to find. Some people are only capable of imagining God if they picture God far away — up in heaven. Others cannot imagine God at all.
Perhaps atheism, ultimately, represents a failure of the imagination. It’s interesting that many atheists are well-educated, often scientifically-minded people. But they have been trained to subjugate the imagination to what is empirically measurable and verifiable. I hope most people, regardless of belief, can find ways to value the imagination, even if only on a purely material level. “Imagination is more important than knowledge” — I don’t think Einstein said this in precisely these words, but it gets to the point of what I’m trying to say.
And it takes me back to the mystics: to the author of The Cloud of Unknowing telling us that God can never be fully “thought” but God can be fully “loved” — so we know God in our hearts more surely than in our minds. And I believe our hearts are the seat of our imagination — at least as much as our minds are. We do know that the second highest concentration of nerve cells, after the brain, are found in the heart. I think what we commonly think of as “hunches” or “intuition” are often the sub-verbal cognition of the heart’s neural center.
So this leads me to wonder, what is the relationship between imagination and intuition? And is there something transpersonal or spiritual about either? This reminds me of the story of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter composed one of Grateful Dead’s signature songs, “Terrapin Station.” One day during a lightning storm, Hunter wrote the lyrics for the first part of the song in a single sitting, apparently unusual for him. On the same day, Garcia was out for a drive and as he crossed the Richmond-San Rafael bridge, a melody just popped into his head. It was so real, so vivid, that he had to turn around and go straight home and write it down before it escaped him. The two met up the next day, and when Hunter showed Garcia his new lyrics, they fit the melody perfectly. Thus the song was born; in Hunter’s words, the music and words “dovetailed perfectly and Terrapin edged into this dimension.”
If one musician (Paul McCartney) can receive a song in a dream, why not two musicians receive one through a kind of shared intuition? Agnostics will scoff that this is random, a monkeys-at-the-typewriter sort of thing. And maybe it is. But maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s a hint that there’s something far more marvelous at work in our intuitions — and imagination — than meets the eye.
So what does all this have to do with being a person of faith, or a person of prayer, or a writer, here in the first half of the twenty-first century? Simply this: that my ability to grow as a writer seems to be intimately bound up in my willingness to play with my imagination. This is part of the reason why I love reading fantasy literature, or even reading books like Jeff VanderMeer’s Wonderbook about the composition of fantasy and other non-ordinary fiction. I doubt I’ll be writing fiction anytime soon (although, never say never). But the imagination is just as important for the creation of mystical and contemplative non-fiction as it is for creating visionary fiction.
So how do we cultivate the sacred imagination?
Reading helps, listening to music and seeing art helps, a carefully curated diet of limited TV and movie-watching helps too. Perhaps most important is a daily practice: for me, that means writing every day, in concert with a daily round of silent prayer and meditation. Silence is important, it seems to me, for nourishing the imagination. It gives the mind and heart the space to think, to wonder, to explore possibilities, and to envision. Give the intuition and imagination space to play, and the Spirit will take care of the rest. Of this I am sure.
Shortly after the shelter-in-place orders started to show up at local and state governments across the land, I read somewhere — I don’t remember where — that dolphins had been seen in the canals of Venice. Perhaps it was this tweet:
Venice hasn't seen clear canal water in a very long time. Dolphins showing up too. Nature just hit the reset button on us https://t.co/RzqOq8ftCj
Other stories were making their way around the interwebs. Not only dolphins, but swans were showing up in Venice. Wolves and other animals were walking into cities, emboldened by the lack of traffic. Even elephants were wandering into villages and China — and taking naps!
For me, and I suppose for many people (look at the over 37,000 likes the tweet above got), these stories represented some real hope, that even with the economic problems and general fear associated with the spread of COVID-19, that there was nevertheless hope to be found, if you knew where to look for it.
I brought up the dolphins on at least one or two of the Encountering Silence podcasts recorded recently. Talked it up with a number of friends as well. “Dolphins in Venice” became my mantra for hope in the midst of so much uncertainty.
Today we were recording another episode of the podcast, and I brought up the dolphins again — and my cohosts pointed out to me that it wasn’t a true story.
Nowadays we call this kind of thing fake news — a vulgar term made popular by a vulgar president. But not too long ago we would have just said this was an urban legend.
I hope we can reclaim the notion of urban legends. Not because I want to promote stories that aren’t true — like David Beard, I agree that those who debunk false stories are performing a public service. Snopes.com is one of my favorite websites.
But the concept of “urban legend” occupies a different kind of mythic space than does “fake news.” Fake news implies bad faith — a willful and perhaps even malevolent intent to deceive. An urban legend, on the other hand, might just be a story told for entertainment purposes, or to give kids the creeps around a summer campfire, or — as I believe is the case with the dolphins of Venice — intended to inspire a bit of hope or courage.
When people say the Holocaust never happened, that’s fake news. It’s disinformation spread with bad faith. But when we tell our children that Santa will bring presents to the good children, that’s more properly called an urban legend. Parents are not intentionally hoodwinking their children or bribing them to be good. They are inviting their children into a space of mythical or magical thinking — where what is “true” or “false” is not just about what can be verified or measured, but rather about what can ignite the imagination, cultivate a sense of wonder, or inspire a willingness to hope and believe.
Santa Claus is “real” not because there is some fell0w up in the arctic circle who runs a toy-making conglomerate only to give away all his products over a single night. Anyone over 8 years old knows that’s not true.
But like the movie Polar Express points out, Santa is “the spirit of Christmas.” Believing in Santa means believing in generosity, in giving, in kindness and celebration and good cheer.
If, when a child learns (or figures out) that the gifts under the tree come from Mom and Dad, what should we tell that child? Should it be “Oh, glad you finally figured that we were fooling you all this time” or maybe “It’s true that Santa only exists in our imagination, but he stands for something beautiful and real, so even us grown-ups still believe.” I’m pretty clear what I would say. A child discovering that Santa isn’t “real” has a wonderful opportunity to learn that truth comes in many forms — not just on what could pass muster for the nightly news, or the Skeptics Society.
Once again, let me hasten to point out how much I admire the work of Snopes. Skepticism has its place — and the science lab and the nightly news are places where it belongs.
I think it’s only fair for people to know that the dolphins haven’t made it back to Venice — at least, not yet. But if you are like me, and that story inspired you, don’t see this as an invitation to despair, or to retreat into cynicism. Let it be an urban legend, rather than fake news.
Remind yourself why this story spoke to you so much in the first place. Maybe you loved it because you want to see a world where humanity and nature are partners rather than adversaries. Maybe you want to see a little bit of wildness even in our urban centers.
Whatever your reason for being inspired, hold on to that. That’s your hope, your dream, your vision. That’s what’s true. And what I mean by “true” is not whether or not it currently exists, but whether or not it’s worth believing in — as in, “What can we do, individually and collectively, to make this world a better place?” That’s the question we all need to be asking, and hopefully the question that will guide us in the choices we make, especially after the shelter-at-home restrictions are lifted.
What can you and I do, to help make the world the kind of place where, just maybe, someday the dolphins will return to Venice? Answer that question, and put your answer into action — and then the urban legend will have served its purpose.
I have a guilty pleasure that I don’t think I’ve ever written about, here on my blog. Well, here goes: I’m a fan of Neil Gaiman.
Years ago somebody told me I simply had to read the Sandman comics. At the time I just filed that recommendation away for future reference (I’m slowly making my way through them now). On a trip to England about fifteen years ago now, when a friend learned that I had never read Good Omens he immediately went to a bookstore and bought a copy, which he gave to me to read on my flight home. Which I did, and I laughed all the way across the Atlantic (my apologies to whomever was sitting next to me).
Then movies like Stardust and (especially) Coraline made me pay closer attention to Gaiman and his unique blend of myth, fantasy and just a touch of horror. Normally I don’t have much taste for horror at all, but Gaiman is such a skillful storyteller that even the icky stuff in his work I find insightful and thought-provoking.
Gaiman’s writing appeals to the same part of me that loves Narnia and Hogwarts: my appreciation for stories that deal in archetypes and the imagination, that recognize there’s more to life than meets the eye even if sometimes what’s lurking in the dark is actually kinda scary.
While no one would ever mistake Gaiman for a “Christian author,” religion does crop up, but usually in a manner that many people of faith might find discomfiting. Good Omens — which you may know from the 2019 BBC/Amazon TV adaptation — is a playfully flippant, but ultimately warm-hearted, reimagining of the Christian apocalypse, replete with evil nuns, the Antichrist as a boy, and the four horseman of the apocalypse keeping up with modern times by riding motorcycles. Literal-minded Christians might look askance at the story’s central premise: that an angel and a demon might join forces to thwart the apocalypse — but beneath the story’s seeming impiety, it in fact offers some meaningful insights into religion and spirituality for those who watch with an open mind.
Perhaps more objectionable to some would be Gaiman’s short story, “The Problem of Susan” (found in his book Fragile Things), which reflects on the fate of the character from the Narnia books who is “left behind” because she preferred lipstick and nylons to the stories of Aslan. Whether Lewis was profiling the sin of vanity or displaying a subconscious misogyny is open for debate, but Gaiman caps this story with a violent/erotic dream sequence that might be too offensive — and bereft of redemption — for many Christians.
Mythology and Meaning
I read Neil Gaiman neither because of nor in spite of his irreligiosity (or irreverence), but rather because of his ability to weave imaginative dream-worlds that are neither beholden to, nor constrained by, the ordinary neoplatonic cosmology which shapes the mystical and contemplative writing I spend most of my time reading (whether such writing originated in the twelfth century or the twenty-first). As Christians we may not like to admit it, but our world-view is as “mythical” as anything found in the fantasy aisles of your neighborhood used bookstore.
In one of his letters, C. S. Lewis once said of Christianity, “Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened.” This was the conclusion he reached after struggling with the fact that the myth of a dying-and-rising god is found in many mythologies around the world. He wrote that letter in 1931, and many critics today might want to argue about what “really happened” means — or doesn’t mean. As I have noted elsewhere, myth has a power to influence and even transform its listeners, even when the stories of myth clearly have no foundation in history.
Good modernist that he was, for Lewis it was necessary for something to have “really happened” before he could accept its authority in his life. A postmodernist, trying to balance the authority of faith with the reality of historical criticism, might say “Can we ever truly know what ‘really’ happened? Of course not. But we can measure how whatever did happen — and certainly something did, for the followers of Christ were motivated enough to launch a worldwide spiritual movement — and, perhaps most important of all, we can enter into the story for ourselves and see what really happens to us, when we open our hearts to that story.”
J. R. R. Tolkien once noted about The Lord of Rings that “the tale grew in the telling.” Isn’t that the way of all myth? Think about how the story of Christ is more complex, more nuanced, today than it was even two hundred years ago. The foundational text (i.e., the New Testament) is the same, but we have surrounded that text with liturgy, folk customs, music, art, drama, film — just consider the story of the Nativity. Can we imagine telling that story without all the trappings of Advent and Christmas? Yet much of what we think of as “traditional” customs associated with the celebration of the nativity only go back to the Victorian age.
Or consider the concept of hell — Jon Sweeney’s insightful book Inventing Hellexplores how so much of our cultural understanding of the punishment that God will mete out to the damned comes not from the Biblical, but from later sources — like Dante’s Divine Comedy.
A good story helps us to make sense of the world we live in. But our stories also shape how we relate to things, whether for good or ill. There’s a buzz among Beatles fans right now, because Peter Jackson (who directed the film version of The Lord of the Rings — man, Tolkien is all over this blog post!) has been commissioned to create a new documentary called Get Back which will be, in essence, a new version of the last Beatles film, Let it Be. Let it Be is a somber film because it zeroes in on the conflicts within the band, conflicts that would contribute to their split just a few months later. But Jackson reviewed over 50 hours of unreleased footage, and has decided to tell a different story — emphasizing that even with the tensions between the band members, there was still plenty of joy and camaraderie between them as they made music together.
Same event, same basic story, but told in two different ways. Which version is the most “true”? The answer, of course, is yes.
Imagination and Insight
All this is to say: the reason why writers like Neil Gaiman, or Tolkien, or Lewis, or J.K. Rowling, sell millions of books is the same reason why movies based on Marvel Comics continue to be blockbusters: stories that ignite the human imagination, that invite us into the mythic space where anything seems possible, help us to know who we are and how we fit in to a mysterious and sometimes challenging universe.
And while I write spiritual nonfiction and am inspired primarily by contemplatives who lived centuries ago, I like to read books by the likes of Gaiman because his stories give my imagination a workout — even when I might forcefully disagree with the spiritual implications of what he has to say.
In the contemplative world, perhaps the best guide to encountering the Mystery of God through the stories of our imagination is St. Ignatius of Loyola, whose Spiritual Exercises is based on the idea of using your imagination to encounter Christ — here and now, in your own heart, your own mind’s eye. If our imagination can create a sense of meaning and a framework for interpreting the world as we encounter it, doesn’t it only stand to reason that the Spirit (who, after all, is in our hearts) can use our imagination to inspire us or surprise us?
In Ignatian prayer, we imagine ourselves encountering Christ during one of the stories from the Gospels. Ignatius encourages his directees to use their imagination as vividly as possible. Imagine being in Christ’s presence — and then imagine having a conversation with Jesus. What would you say to him? What questions would you ask? For that matter, what would he say to you and what questions would he pose to you?
Our imaginations are not infallible, so anything we experience in this type of prayer needs to be subject to discernment. But don’t let that caveat dissuade you from exploring the mystery of Christ through he storylines of your imagination. You might be amazed at the unexpected insights awaiting you.
Fifty years ago today — on April 10, 1970 — the Beatles announced that they were breaking up. We now know that this had been brewing for at least two years, as the members of the band grew apart both creatively and personally. But just like there is a difference between a troubled marriage and a marriage where the couple has decided to get a divorce, so too it seemed that everything changed on that spring day half a century ago.
I remember well when I discovered that the Beatles were splitting up. It may not have been that exact day, but it was certainly not long after. It was the spring of my 3rd grade year — also the year of the first Earth Day, which would take place just twelve days later. One of my classmates broke the news to me. “Did you hear the Beatles are breaking up?” he asked, with a seriousness as if he were announcing the death of Santa Claus. Having loved the Beatles ever since as a 3-year-old I watched them on Ed Sullivan, this news really did feel like learning of a loved one’s passing.
If you were born after about 1980, you will have no recollection of this — but until John Lennon was murdered, there was always some speculation in the air about “would the Beatles get back together?” Impresarios like Bill Graham offered them millions of dollars to agree to just one tour — or even just one concert. It certainly didn’t seem likely — Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison all used both interviews and lyrics of some of their solo songs to implicitly (or explicitly) attack one another. Only Ringo seemed to be above the fray, managing on at least one album to get all three of his former bandmates to appear as guest stars (although not on the same track).
It would eventually come out that Paul and John had managed to some extent to salvage their friendship by the mid-70s, but only in the privacy of their homes. But then a deranged, cowardly fan shot Lennon five times in the back, and a Beatles reunion became an impossibility. Even when the three survivors would work together in the mid 1990s to produce their “Anthology” series, the story goes that they talked about re-recording “Let it Be” together, as a trio — but the absence of John was just too much to bear, and all they could manage to do was play a few oldies together.
All four ex-Beatles had respectable solo careers, but all four also released some pretty mediocre-to-awful material as solo artists (or in McCartney’s case, as a member of Wings). Considering how creative and visionary the Beatles were even on their last group effort (Abbey Road, even though it was released prior to the less magnificent but still eminently listenable Let it Be), we could argue that the Beatles were brilliant in their timing: they broke up at an optimal moment, where each could find a way to shine as a solo artist, and yet their body of work as a group was protected from the kind of decline that mars the later work of so many other bands.
To commemorate this sad, if inevitable, day, I’d like to reflect on four songs, one from each of the individual Beatles. Ringo’s song comes from Abbey Road, but the other three are all songs from their solo careers (or in McCartney’s case, from Wings). Each of these songs is instantly recognizable as a signature song of each individual Beatle — indeed, two of these were #1 hits when first released — but I also think they are songs that, taken together, speak to the kind of fragmented spiritual life that characterizes our culture over the last 50 years. When the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan’s Show in 1964, it was a moment of cultural unity, at least for white Americans. But a decade later, we were already beginning to see the fissures in our cultural identity that separated liberals from conservatives, hippies from capitalists, true believers from hardcore atheists, and activists from ostrich-in-the-sand-ists — basically, the kinds of splits that have gone on to ignite what we now call the culture wars.
Maybe I’m overstating the case a bit, but I’d like to suggest that one of the reasons why the Beatles continue to fascinate us, half a century after they went their separate ways, is precisely because the psychological differences that contributed to their split are similar to the problems that we face as an entire society. Maybe we can learn something from how each of the Beatles sees the world in their own particular way.
I should also point out that, as popular and influential as they were, the solo Beatles certainly do not offer a comprehensive commentary on our culture: they were all men, all white, to the best of my knowledge all straight, and by the time of their solo careers all quite wealthy. So there are limitations to how they represent the fragmentation of our culture. But even so, I think it’s interesting to consider how these four signature songs really do represent four radically different points of view. Check them out — and consider which of these songs do (or don’t) speak to your values and your way of relating to the world.
God love the Beatles. “And in the end, the love we take is equal to the love we make.”
John Lennon — Imagine
John Lennon’s signature song is still very much part of our cultural zeitgeist — consider the controversy when Gal Gadot gathered a group of her celebrity buddies to sing this song as a kind of pep talk for the teeming masses as we have encountered the challenge of COVID-19. The fact of the matter is, the song combines a wistful “let’s all live as one” idealism with Lennon’s notorious disdain for religion — the man who announced in 1966 that the Beatles where “more popular than Jesus” and doubled down after the predictable firestorm by insisting that Christians were “thick and ordinary” would naturally combine his political idealism with a kind of aggressive agnosticism that ultimately seems narcissistic. On his much lesser known but more revealing song “God,” he offers a litany of what he doesn’t believe in — not only does he reject the Bible and Jesus, but he has no use for Hitler, the Buddha or yoga, either. He ends by announcing “I don’t believe in Beatles” (as if the Beatles were something to be believed in!) and then reveals what anyone could have suspected: “I just believe in me, Yoko and me.”
As a young adult, John Lennon was my favorite solo Beatle, and his anger at religion (and the politics of war) was helpful for me as I had to sort out my own sense of having been betrayed by the shadow side of our culture’s institutions. But a friend recently asked me who my favorite Beatle was, and I had to say — without even thinking about it — “It used to be John, but these days it’s George.” My friend remarked, “John’s anger doesn’t really age well.” It’s sad that Lennon’s life was so absurdly, meaninglessly cut short — had he lived into his 70s, how might he have revisited his own angry youth? We’ll never know, but just spend a few minutes on Twitter and you can see what that kind of unfiltered anger has morphed into in our time. And it’s not pretty.
Paul McCartney — Silly Love Songs
I saw an interview recorded fairly recently, where a septuagenarian Paul McCartney, asked for what must have been the bejillionth time what he thought was the secret of the Beatles’ success, replied rather humbly that he thought they were just a really good, really tight little band. And that’s true enough. But there have been a lot of really good, really tight little bands over the years, but they didn’t have what the Beatles had: three genius songwriters (some people might say only John and Paul were geniuses, but I think George deserves equal billing: his output may have been much smaller, but with songs like “Something” or “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” he reached the same heights as his more renowned bandmates).
Still, the heart of the Beatles-as-songwriting-juggernaut was the partnership between Lennon and McCartney. Even though by Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Bandthey were clearly mostly writing songs as individuals — a divide that continued to sharpen until their bitter split — at their best, they continued to rely on each other if for nothing else than brilliant cross-fertilization. You see hints of what was to come in 1967, when McCartney’s unabashedly sentimental “Penny Lane” was paired with Lennon’s dreamy and nihilistic “Strawberry Fields Forever.” Later that year, Paul would chirp “It’s getting better all the time” while John would offer his dour counterpoint: “It can’t get no worse!” By 1968’s The Beatles (aka TheWhite Album), the lines were drawn: Lennon was singing about heroin and revolution and teenaged girls lost in meditation; McCartney opted for ditties about his pet sheepdog, reggae singers, and English music halls. In other words, Lennon’s music was gritty, cynical, political, and angry; McCartney’s was sentimental, playful, upbeat and sometimes saccharine.
Each one of them could bust out of this stereotype: McCartney’s “Helter Skelter” was a gritty enough rocker to inspire the dark fantasies of Charles Manson, while Lennon’s “Goodnight” (sung by Ringo) sounds like McCartney at his sugary worst. “Blackbird” on the surface was more McCartney sweetness, but the lyrics had a political edge — his reflection on the trauma of American racism. But stereotypes often exist because they point to something that’s really happening, and anyone who listens to the 1970s albums by Lennon and McCartney can see that, for the most part, they both embodied this kind of dark/light division in their creative personas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh15LOppcWQ
McCartney wasn’t technically a solo artist — for much of the 70s he and his wife Linda were members of a band called Wings — but nobody was fooled: Wings consisted of one ex-Beatle and a bunch of other musicians. In 1976 Wings had the top selling single of the year (something McCartney had done twice before, with the Beatles) with “Silly Love Songs” — a mellow confection of a funky pop song that was McCartney’s way of saying “So what?” to all his critics (including Lennon) who derided him for just writing, well, silly love songs. “Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs — and what’s wrong with that?”
The man has got a point. The Beatles built their success on silly love songs (listen to “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You” and tell me I’m wrong). So did Michael Jackson, Hall & Oates, Taylor Swift, and a host of other top-selling musicians. So while John Lennon’s motto might have been “If you aren’t enraged, you aren’t paying attention!” Paul McCartney’s rejoinder is simply “Love makes the world go ’round.” John’s intensity, expressed in righteous anger at how politics and religion fail us, is matched by Paul’s sunny optimism, where falling in love and staying in love is really all we need to get happy and be happy.
John and George represent a yin and yang in their relationship to spirituality — George was the mystic, John the skeptic — whereas Paul (and Ringo) are content to simply be secular. “All You Need is Love” may have been John’s song, but Paul seems to have more truly embodied its message. The last survivor of the three songwriting Beatles, Macca is now a billionaire who sells out his concerts by happily delivering setlists filled to the brim with familiar hits — from both his bands. At least for him, love really has been enough.
George Harrison — My Sweet Lord
All the Beatles released solo albums in 1970; John’s bitterly angry Plastic Ono Band, Ringo’s countrified Beaucoups of Blues, and Paul’s uneven McCartney. And then there was George: the so-called “quiet Beatle” released the triple-LP All Things Must Pass which, for my money, is hands down the best solo album by any ex-Beatle. By turns psychedelic, folky, rootsy, dreamy, and straight-ahead rock and roll, the album featured some great guest musicians (Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Ringo), and proof positive that, once liberated from having to function in the shadow of Lennon-McCartney, that Harrison could more than easily stand on his own as a writer, lead singer, and “star.”
The lead single from the album, “My Sweet Lord” became a huge hit, topping the charts on both sides of the Atlantic and cementing Harrison’s reputation as the “mystical” Beatle. Alas, the song’s melody was so similar to a 1963 hit single by the Chiffons, “He’s So Fine,” that Harrison became embroiled in a plagiarism suit that would forever tarnish the song’s reputation. The judge eventually decided that Harrison had “subconsciously” copied the earlier song.
But whatever we might think of the history of “My Sweet Lord’s” musical composition, what makes the song truly unique is its lyrics. Not only is it an unabashed hymn of spiritual devotion; it is no doubt the first (and, to date, only) international hit song that is explicitly interspiritual in nature: Harrison’s backing vocalists exchange a chant of “Alleluia” with “Hare Krishna” and various other lines of Sanskrit devotion that make the song almost a kind of pop-kirtan. It so clearly represents its moment in history: 1970 was probably about the only year in which a song that so beautifully wove together devotional language from both eastern and western spirituality could literally make it to the top of the pop charts. So while John Lennon was telling the world he didn’t believe in yoga, George Harrison offered a joyful song of ecstatic spirituality that brought different cultures together — in a mystical way.
For Lennon, “the world will live as one” only when we get rid of religion; For McCartney, unity comes not through political action but through a private experience of romantic love, whereas Harrison found oneness by uniting the great spiritual traditions of the world. Unfortunately, in the half century that has followed the release of “My Sweet Lord,” fundamentalist religion has made it increasingly difficult for members of different spiritual traditions to come together in a shared experience of devotion; although we have a thriving interspiritual movement thanks to organizations like the Parliament of World Religions and the work of visionary individuals like Wayne Teasdale, Mirabai Starr and Anthony deMello, it seems that among “average folks” far more people are comfortable adopting the skepticism of John Lennon, the secularism of Paul McCartney, or the fundamentalism that has characterized the religious right over the last forty years.
Still, for those of us who embrace the contemplative path — even if we anchor ourselves in the context of a single religious tradition — the joyful exuberance of “My Sweet Lord” is a reminder that a kind of unitive spirituality that transcends our religious differences really is possible, even if it’s hardly a mainstream reality in our day.
Ringo Starr — Octopus’s Garden
Finally we come to dear Ringo. No one accuses Ringo Starr of being a great songwriter. His greatness had to do with performance — McCartney’s praise of Ringo when inducting him in the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame centered on his virtuosity as a drummer: not flashy like many later rock drummers, but steady and reliable. Songs like “Tomorrow Never Knows,” “Here Comes the Sun,” and “Rain” show his capacity for mastering intricate rhythms and rapid changes in time signature.
But Ringo has written or co-written a handful of songs over the years, with perhaps his most renowned composition being “Octopus’s Garden” from Abbey Road. On the surface it’s a playful counterpoint to Lennon-McCartney’s 1966 gem “Yellow Submarine;” both songs are whimsical fantasias on what might be possible deep under the sea. But where “Yellow Submarine” is just a playful children’s song, “Octopus’s Garden” has a darker tone. “I’d like to be, under the sea, in an octopus’ garden, in the shade,” begins the song, but eventually Ringo reveals what he’s really feeling:
We would be so happy you and me
No one there to tell us what to do
The story goes that Ringo began writing the song while on vacation during a break from recording the White Album; he was unhappy with the conflicts brewing in the band and so he escaped, both physically (by going on vacation) and psychologically (by writing this song about his “little hideaway beneath the waves”).
Ringo’s song, then, is ultimately a song about escapism. And it parallels with a dark chapter in the drummer’s life: from the time of the Beatles’ breakup until the late 1980s, Starr struggled with alcoholism. Eventually he went into rehab, and like Paul McCartney he has survived — and now thrives as an elder statesman of the rock and roll world: he may not attract as big crowds as his former bandmate, but his shows have a reputation for fun, and as Ringo closes in on his 80th birthday, he can take some satisfaction not only in having been a member of the greatest rock band in history, but also in being the wealthiest drummer on the planet.
But we all know that alcoholism — and other forms of escape — don’t always have such happy endings. Nicotine shortened George Harrison’s life, and other musicians who were the Beatles’ peers were destroyed by heroin — or booze. The reality is, many of us do choose the path of escape. For some, it’s a bad detour through life, whereas for others, it leads to more ominous consequences.
Four Ways of Living
In writing this post, my purpose is not to decide which ex-Beatle is “best” or which one offers us the most helpful approach to life. I’ve already said that as a young man I appreciated Lennon’s iconoclasm, whereas in getting older I find more comfort in Harrison’s heartfelt devotion. But even McCartney’s romanticism has its place; and while I hope we can all avoid the dark side of escapism, at his best even Ringo Starr’s playful spirit is something to enjoy and celebrate.
The world needs true believers like George Harrison, dedicated skeptics like John Lennon, unabashed lovers like Paul McCartney, and lovable goofs like Ringo Starr. The Beatles were brilliant because these four immensely talented — and very different — blokes from Liverpool managed to make magic out of their very different approaches to life. Maybe they represent archetypes, and each of us need a little bit of each in our lives. We need to be careful: Lennon’s anger can lead to bitterness and nihilism; McCartney’s romanticism can be soppy and saccharine; Harrison’s devotionalism blinded him from the creative mistakes he made; and Starr’s childlike escapism opened up into the dangers of substance abuse. So if you find you favor one Beatle or another, try to cultivate the energies of the other three. I think they can be correctives to each other. The true believer needs a dash of skepticism. The iconoclast needs some optimistic love. The escapist needs both hope and the gumption to fight for what he believes in.
It’s sad that the Beatles broke up so bitterly, and it’s a shame we never found out what magic they might have co-created in their mature years. But let’s keep listening to the joyful music of their youth, and perhaps we can “reunite” the Beatles in our own hearts: by weaving together the best dimensions of each of their archetypes in our own spiritual lives.
Today I had a conversation with a friend who is working on a manuscript for a book to be published in the next year or so. We were chatting about the joys and challenges of writing.
I told her a story about Stanley and Rayner Unwin, who were the British publishers of J.R.R. Tolkien, among many other authors. Stanley founded the publishing house George Allen and Unwin in the early 20th century; in 1936 he was approached by J.R.R. Tolkien to publish The Hobbit.
The elder Unwin enlisted the aid of his son, who was then 10 years old, to read the manuscript and write a review. The boy wrote a short but favorable assessment of the book, and it was published. After its success, the publisher encouraged Tolkien to write a sequel, but more than fifteen years would pass by before Tolkien presented a manuscript to his publisher.
It was now the early 1950s, and Stanley Unwin was no long actively involved in the daily operations of the publisher, but his son, now a young man in his mid-20s, worked for the family business. Once again, he was tasked with assessing Tolkien’s manuscript for its suitability for publication. The book, of course, was The Lord of Rings, approximately six times as long as The Hobbit, and written for adults rather than children.
The story goes that Rayner Unwin liked the manuscript, but given its size could not imagine a profitable way to publish it. No matter how he crunched the numbers, it seemed to him that the publisher would lose £1000 (that’s a thousand pounds in 1954 — which in today’s money would be about £27,500 or about $34,000!). Not sure what to do, he reached out to his father for advice.
Surprisingly, his father seemed less interested in the book’s marketability and more in its literary merit. In Stanley Unwin’s words, “If you think this to be a work of genius, then you may lose a thousand pounds.”
Risky Business
We all know how the story goes from there. Clearly Rayner was sufficiently confident that The Lord of the Rings was a work of genius, for he published it in three volumes, and it has gone on to sell over 150 million copies worldwide and is widely regarded as one of the great English-language novels of the 20th century.
But young Rayner Unwin had no way of knowing that when he committed to publishing it in the early 1950s. For all he knew, the book could have bombed and this “work of genius” might have ended up an obscure collector’s item — and a very costly line on his company’s ledger.
It seems to me that there are several lessons that authors might take from the story of the Unwins and their commitment to publishing a work of genius, even at great financial risk.
First, we need to remember that this story is remarkable precisely because it is so unlikely. Publishers are businesses, and like any business they need to turn a profit in order to survive. We can assume that George Allen & Unwin must have been quite successful in order to take a £1000 gamble in the 1950s. Most publishers, then or now, simply wouldn’t take the chance, no matter how good a book is.
Every book published represents a financial invest (read: risk), and if it bombs, it’s simply money lost — and if a publisher has too many turkeys, the entire business could be at risk. This is why editors often seem to be only interested in how well the book will sell. A good editor understands that a truly successful book needs to be a work of art and eminently marketable — not either/or. Like it or not, literary greatness in itself does not pay the bills.
What does this mean for authors? Simply this: it is incumbent upon us authors to balance a book’s immediate marketability with its unquantifiable value as a work of art. We have to be the custodians of its long-term literary value. Our editors and the entire publishing team will help us to hone the book’s title, hook, sales copy, and marketing plan — so they have got our backs when it comes to the money part of the equation. But that means the author has to continually balance making a book marketable with making it a true work of art.
It’s foolish to think that commercial success and artistic merit cannot coexist — Tolkien, the Beatles, J.K. Rowling, and Charles Dickens are just a few examples of artists whose creative genius led to financial glory. By the same token, no creative professional should ever take it upon themselves to reject editorial guidance because their commitment to art will brook no compromise. For every Tolkien there are thousands of authors who are forgotten because their brilliant idea never found an audience. Like it or not, we authors need the machinery of commerce to get our books in the hands of readers — and royalty checks into our banks.
The Ultimate Lesson (at Least for Authors and Other Creative Types)
But here’s the real lesson from the story of Tolkien and the Unwins. If Stanley and Rayner Unwin were willing to risk losing a huge sum of money on “a work of genius,” then shouldn’t we, as authors, do everything humanly possible to make sure our books are true works of art?
And this holds true for all creative professionals: your book, your music, your poetry, your art, your graphic design… whatever you create, you have a choice to just “phone it in,” creating run-0f-the-mill work that some people will like, others will dislike and many will ultimately forget. Or, you have the choice to put everything you can into your work. Maybe you don’t have a thousand pounds (or thirty thousand dollars) to bet on your “work of genius.” But when you create something, can you put enough of yourself into it, that it would be worth betting half a year’s salary on?
That, to me, is the lesson here. To wrap this up in a contemplative way: The Jewish and Christian traditions say humans are created in the image and likeness of God. What is God, if not the ultimate creator? (We often use the word “Creator” as a synonym for God). Part of being a contemplative is creating the space in your mind and heart to access the limitless creativity of God.
Not all of us are called to be writers or musicians or artists, it is true. But I believe we are all called to be creative in some way.
And like the Unwins, I believe we all need to find ways to be so creative that it’s worth taking a risk for — if not financially, than spiritually, or psychologically. Is your work of art good enough to bet everything on? I’m not saying you should bet everything — but if your work of art isn’t that good, then what can you do to make it that good? I think this is a question every artist, writer, musician, or other creative professional should ask of themselves. I know it’s a question I ask of myself.
Go, then, Image of God — be creative. And be bold and gutsy in doing so.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Featured image: Fran and Carl McColman at the grave of Edith and J.R.R. Tolkien, Oxford, England, July 3, 2017. Photo by David Cole of Waymark Ministries.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
When I thought I would write about Martin Luther King, Jr., that was the first quote that came to mind. Apparently King used this line more than once — a brief Google search reveals he said this in an essay he wrote in 1958, and in a Baccalaureate sermon he preached in 1964. But in the essay, he puts the line in quotation marks, showing that he did not consider this his original thought; indeed, it comes form the ideas of a nineteenth century Unitarian minister, Theodore Parker. There’s an informative post on the “Quote Investigator” website that traces the history of this particular soundbite.
Nelson Mandela has become associated with the lines “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us,” even though they were actually written by Marianne Williamson. In a similar way, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice” has become linked in our cultural group mind with Martin Luther King, Jr., even though he didn’t come up with the idea — he just popularized it. But that’s enough for the idea to become “his” in its own way.
But my purpose is not to trace the genealogy of a quotation, but rather to reflect on its merits. On Saturday, Fran and I had brunch with a group of friends that we regularly spend time; they are all people of faith, politically engaged, and great conversationalists — wonderful associates for a morning salon. Fran and I had seen the movie Just Mercy the night before, so naturally our conversation explored questions of criminal justice, racism, the culture of the American south, and our current political divide.
That last matter inspired one man at the table to lament, “When I look at the forces that keep us divided in America today, the situation seems hopeless.” He was referring to how entrenched tribalism has divided the major political parties, with partisan media pundits, the rancor on social media, and competing narratives for how we identify problems in our society and the steps we need to take to fix them. It seems that we are so divided, not only in our values but even in the way we think and the stories we tell each other about the world we live in, that the possibility of actually bringing people together is, well, almost hopeless.
Most of the people around the table disagreed — hopefully we were kind in doing so! I cited “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,” and then I told a story about Cynthia Bourgeault, found in her book Love is the Answer, What is the Question?
In her essay “Lines of My Own Composed Above Tintern Abbey, November 11, 2016,” Bourgeault recounts visiting the ruins of the Cistercian Abbey in Wales, made famous by William Wordsworth. She was there at dusk on November 7 — the night before the election in America when Donald Trump upset Hilary Clinton to be elected the 45th president of the USA. Like many people who supported Clinton, Bourgeault saw the possibility of a Trump presidency as a moral disaster — a triumph for racism, for nativism, for the wolf of economic inequality masquerading as the sheep of “pro-business” politics. Meditating on the solemn but sad beauty of the monastic ruins, she thought about how this was a place where the light of prayer shone for centuries, only to be snuffed out by the violence of Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries. In Bourgeault’s words,
Monks were deposed or slaughtered, the building was sacked and vandalized, its treasures were confiscated for the crown. Three centuries of peaceful and compassionate striving in this ‘school for the Lord’s service’ ended in an orgy of violence.
It might be easy to see these silent ruins as a witness to the triumph of fear over faith, of religious resentment over meditative prayer (of course, others might see it as a triumph of Protestant enlightenment over Catholic superstition, but that would just be the party line of those who perpetrated the violence). But at that moment, Bourgeault received a powerful insight, intuitively coming to her from the very walls of the ruined abbey itself.
Do not look upon us as a destroyed monastery, but as a living transmission. Know that what is forged in the alchemy of love is beyond the ravages of time. All else may dissolve; this alone remains. But in your own transfigured heart, you will always find it.
“I already knew beyond any doubt what the election results would be,” Bourgeault wrote. “My heart ached, but I was at last ready to face it.”
Faith really is “the evidence of things not seen.” It really does support us through those terrible moments when all appears to be lost. It is a reminder that “Love is as strong as death,” but death will someday die, and when it does, only love remains.
This morning as I scanned the Internet trying to understand the history of “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,” I was saddened to find a cynical article by liberal pundit Chris Hayes, who flatly declares “The idea that the moral universe inherently bends towards justice is inspiring. It’s also wrong.” According to Hayes, “this story, and the analogy of the long imperceptibly trending line of progress, is wrong. It does not allow for what is perhaps the most significant feature of the story of racial justice in America: backlash and backwards movement. And 50 years after King’s death, that’s the most brutal reality we must confront.”
He supports his cynical view by noting how white supremacism has been an integral part of American culture since its founding, and that many of the gains of the Civil Rights movement have actually been eroded or reversed in recent decades. All of which, of course, is true, and must be addressed by all people of good faith and conscience, regardless of race.
But Hayes’s lack of faith is based on two faulty premises: first that he thinks “the arc of history” is only about America (it’s much bigger than that), and second, that the “bend toward justice” must be smooth and consistent.
As any biologist can tell you, evolution meanders. There are false starts and wrong turns on the long march toward growth and natural progression. What is true biologically is just as true socially or politically.
As Bourgeault could see, it’s hell when we are in those times of “backlash and backwards movement,” whether its violence against monasteries or the ascendency of white supremacism following the election of a racist president. But it is precisely in those times of apparent defeat that we must not lose faith, or hope.
Hayes acknowledges that “Nothing bends towards justice without us bending it.” What he doesn’t see is that if one generation fails, the next generation has the opportunity to clean up the mess. And sooner or later, that happens. The moral arc of the universe is long — which means we can’t expect one generation to solve all our problems, frustrating as that may be. But it bends toward justice precisely because of the good work that people of conscience do in every generation — even when we’re in the minority.
So let’s not lose the hope that the “moral arc” offers us. Let’s remember that it is a long arc, and let’s take up the challenge that it only bends when we do the hard work to make it so. But let’s also remember “the alchemy of love that is beyond the ravages of time.” If we lose today’s battle, tomorrow still offers us hope. And it is that hope that enables us to carry on — and that demands we do so.
At the climax of the first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, young Harry meets his nemesis, the evil Lord Voldemort, who was functioning like a parasite being hosted in the body of one of Harry’s professors at Hogwarts. Voldemort makes the following declaration of his philosophy of life:
There is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it.
Harry rejects this philosophy — and so should we all. It’s only the beginning of a seven-year-long struggle between the malevolent Voldemort and the principled Harry, who unlike his adversary very much believes in good and evil.
I’m afraid, however, that Voldemort’s amoral philosophy regarding good, evil, and power is not unique to him. A more succinct way of describing Voldemort’s philosophy is simply this: might makes right.
There’s a cynical little joke that goes, “Where does a 900-pound gorilla sit?” The answer: “Anywhere he wants.” The punchline gets its “punch” from a recognition that power affords privilege: if I am strong enough, mean enough, wealthy enough, influential enough, or even just attractive enough, I can more easily do what I want. That’s how the world works.
And those of us who aren’t rich, strong, mean, etc.? We are among those Voldemort contemptuously dismisses as “too weak to seek” power for ourselves.
Later in the Harry Potter books we learn that Voldemort is sociopathic — he has no friends, and only relates to people in instrumental ways: if someone is useful to him, he will seek to gain what he can from them; once a person is no longer useful, that can be disposed of — as Professor Snape learns toward the end of the final volume.
The moral of the Voldemort story seems to be this: that if a person orients their life only to power, they will sacrifice everything else — including love.
The Paradox of Powerlessness
And while Voldemort, the character, no doubt truly believed that the world only functioned in terms of power and the lack thereof, the world we live in clearly reveals that, paradoxical though it may seem, sometimes powerlessness is in its way truly powerful.
Another great fantasy epic — J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings — demonstrates this well. In the movie version of the first part of the story, The Fellowship of the Ring, a council of elves, dwarves and humans determine that the One Ring of Power must be destroyed, by taking it back to fires of the volcano in Mordor where it was originally forged by the evil lord Sauron. The warrior Boromir scoffs at this plan. “One does not simply walk into Mordor. It’s Black Gates are guarded by more than just Orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep, and the Great Eye is ever-watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust. The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume. Not with ten thousand men could you do this. It is folly.”
But of course, the story of the destruction of the One Ring is not about ten thousand men storming the gates of Mordor. It is about a small group of pilgrims, eventually reduced to just a couple of hobbits — diminutive creatures, who by all ordinary standard are the epitome of powerlessness — who by their very littleness manage to get the ring destroyed, and thereby save Middle-Earth.
This is something that the Voldemorts of the world simply cannot grasp. And yet it is central not only to Christian spirituality, but indeed to all forms of contemplative practice.
When Saint Paul writes to the Corinthians, he talks about a “thorn in his flesh” — some sort of affliction, the exact nature of which he never reveals, but we can assume that this problem, whether physical or psychological in nature, seemed to be a weakness to him. He writes,
Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power[c] is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. (II Corinthians 12:8-10)
Paradoxical language, this. “Whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” This doesn’t sound like the kind of thinking that wins sporting events or military campaigns — but it does represent a spiritual approach to things that understands there is more to life than always being top dog. The weakness that is strong: a powerlessness that is powerful — to contemplatives, this is the virtue of humility, the recognition that in our vulnerability we create the space in our hearts for a Divine power over which we have no control to direct the course of our lives.
Powerless Possibilities
It is this Divine power, made present in our human powerlessness, that makes it possible for us to truly love — and be loved. It is this Divine power, made present in our vulnerability, that makes it possible for us to age gracefully and die peacefully. It is this Divine power, made present in our wounded and broken lives, that enables us to be a force for healing and reconciliation in the lives of others — building community, not through domination, but through tenderness and mercy and forgiveness.
Contemplative practice emphasizes silence, and attentiveness, and unknowing, and wondering. It’s not about exercising our earthly power, but actually about surrendering our power in the interest of allowing God’s power to work through us. But it must be a real surrender, which means that, paradoxically, it feels like dying. “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” “I live now, not I, but Christ in me.” This is profoundly countercultural, especially given our cultural emphasis on politics and power. Might makes right, alas, is alive in well in most of our secular institutions (and it even shows up far too often in our religious institutions as well). But we do not have to choose the path of Voldemort. We can align ourselves with the little and vulnerable ones — like Harry Potter or the hobbits. We can choose love first — not to reject all power, but always to keep our earthly power subject to the demands of love. For then, whenever we are weak, in Christ we are strong.
I don’t think it’s very shocking to acknowledge that we live in a cynical1I don’t mean “cynical” in the classical philosophical sense, but in the contemporary, popular understanding of “predisposed to assume the worst in others.” world.
We have learned, especially over the last fifty years, to take pretty much everything our political and cultural leaders say with a hefty grain of salt. In the 1960s, it was fashionable for young people to say, “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” Of course, those same young people — if they lived long enough — soon were over thirty themselves! So perhaps an entire generation learned that trust simply wasn’t a value worth cultivating.
Meanwhile, in the academic world you find the idea of “the hermeneutics of suspicion” along with the concept of “deconstruction.” These are two examples of philosophical approaches to human knowledge that emphasize an attitude of skepticism that characterizes the quest for human knowing. Every text, every book, every philosophy or meaning system, are suspect: they can contain encoded ideas that are racist, sexist, classist, or otherwise harmful to some segments of the human population. Don’t get me wrong: I applaud efforts to understand our cultural blind spots and to learn to identify ways in which human beings exclude and oppress one another.
But my point is this: in our quest to be more “suspicious” of our cultural blind spots and to “deconstruct” our unconscious systems of privilege, have we actually created an entirely new way of thinking that is based so totally on skepticism and mistrust that we have unwittingly become slaves to cynicism?
I think we have. In fact, I believe we have become so cynical, so negative in our habitual way of thinking, that many of us have forgotten that it is possible to relate to others in a spirit of trust and goodwill.
The Spirit of Suspicion in Social Media
Recently this was brought home to me when I read a fascinating article on foreign attempts to influence our society through social media disinformation. The article, found by Darren Linvill & Patrick Warren, has the attention-grabbing title “That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It.” If you haven’t read it, please click on this link and do so.
Linvill & Warren are professors at Clemson who study the behavior of Russian and other foreign “trolls” who work to spread harmful ideas through Twitter and other social media outlets. They point out that the masters of disinformation work very subtly and target Americans of all political and social identities. They are too clever to just harangue us with blatant political dog-whistles. No, the expert disinformation-mongers work hard to earn our trust by posting “nice” or inspiring tweets, but eventually they begin to circulate tweets that have subtle negative messages. For example, one such account, which aimed its tweets at liberal urban Americans, circulated the following statement:
“My cousin is studying sociology in university. Last week she and her classmates polled over 1,000 conservative Christians. ‘What would you do if you discovered that your child was a homo sapiens?’ 55% said they would disown them and force them to leave their home.”
Linvill and Warren note that the statement points to an old urban legend, with no basis in fact. But since the tweet was aimed at people who are already disposed to think that conservative Christians are bigoted and uneducated, it had the effect of confirming their cynical views. The authors go on to say,
This tweet, which suggested conservative Christians are not only homophobic but also ignorant, was subtle enough to not feel overtly hateful, but was also aimed directly at multiple cultural stress points, driving a wedge at the point where religiosity and ideology meet. The tweet was also wildly successful, receiving more than 90,000 retweets and nearly 300,000 likes.
If you’re a conservative, don’t get smug here. The Russian trolls send out plenty of tweets aimed at you: tweets that are designed to make you feel more cynically superior to all those dumb liberal snowflakes.
Linvill and Warren point out that the cumulative result of these cynical tweets is to encourage Americans to mistrust one another — and to mistrust our public institutions. In other words, the trolls are simply trying to undermine the very fabric of democratic society — from within.
And we are letting them — because we are so enamored of our cynical rejection of one another.
A Contemplative Response
It is a mark of human intelligence that we learn to question the motives of others, especially those who we have good reason not to trust. “Let the buyer beware” is a rock-solid piece of good common sense. In politics, in foreign policy, in business (especially high-stakes or competitive fields), it is necessary that we carefully examine any ideas or opinions that we do not know for a fact is reliable.
But as Linvill and Warren point out, we are not always very good at smelling a rat. Have we learned to question everything except for the voice that tells us we should question everything?
Linvill and Warren end their article by calling for “digital civility” — they don’t define this term, but I think that we can fill in the gaps ourselves.
Digital civility, it seems to me, should begin with these principles:
Only post, or share, statements that serve to build up our community and society, rather than to tear it down. Think about Thumper: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” But even more than “nice,” let’s emphasize sharing ideas that bring us together, rather than divides us.
Before you accept a statement that criticizes another group of people, verify that it is more than just hearsay (no more “My cousin is…” — look for references to real news outlets or real researchers who can be independently verified).
Be mindful of how the material you read online makes you feel. If a statement makes you angry or frightened or fills you with disgust, it’s worth double checking. Yes, we need to be aware of the bad news that really happens. But we also need to protect ourselves against negative disinformation.
Why do I call this a “contemplative” response? Because I believe that a contemplative approach to life is one that listens first, discerns carefully, accepts ambiguity, takes time before acting or reacting, and seeks the common good before just promoting its own viewpoint.
Perhaps part of the reason why disinformation tweets (like the one quoted above) get tens of thousands of retweets is because, in our rush toward a more cynical way of seeing things, we have forgotten how to listen and how to discern. Learning a more contemplative approach to life can help us to restore these essential skills.
Unfortunately, the people who want to harm our society are delighted by how polarized we have become and how much animosity we hold toward one another. We have got to find a way to restore a basic willingness to affirm the humanity of our neighbors and fellow citizens, even when we strongly disagree about things. If our society continues to erode, the likelihood of civil unrest will only increase. This is a scenario none of us want. So we all have to work together to create a more humane, civil, and — I believe — contemplative future.
I’m writing this on the second day of January 2020 — and I’m mindful of an amusing meme that made its way around Facebook last week. By the time you are reading this, it will be a stale joke, but imagine you saw this on December 26, 2019, and perhaps you can appreciate the humor.
And of course, as I scrolled through Facebook to find this one image, I had to wade through all the various announcements for “Roaring Twenties” New Years Eve Parties that took place on 12/31/2019.
Why are we so in love with the 1920s?
Maybe a better question: what is there not to love about that decade!? It was the jazz age— the age of flappers and the Charleston, of The Great Gatsby and Downton Abbey, of Art Deco and women’s suffrage. The 20s was the heyday of Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe; of Louis Armstrong and George Gershwin, of Babe Ruth and Coco Chanel and Gertrude Stein and James Joyce. Virginia Woolf was smoking cigars while T.S. Eliot mused on the wasteland. On top of all these cultural riches, the economy was booming… at least, until it wasn’t.
It was also the time when Evelyn Underhill was widely respected as a modern day authority on mysticism, while Pierre Teilhard de Chardin went off to China where he celebrated the “Mass on the World” later immortalized in his Hymn of the Universe — so while it may not be a decade we think of as a hotbed of contemplative activity, nevertheless we can see that the Spirit was up to some cool stuff. During the roaring 20s, Thomas Keating was born, Edith Stein was baptized, and C. S. Lewis abandoned atheism for a meaningful, living faith in God. Howard Thurman went to seminary, and met the Quaker mystic Rufus Jones who became one of his mentors.
Moral of the story: even in the midst of a big fat secular party decade, some deeply transformational spiritual stuff just might be going on — even though it might not bear fruit for years to come.
If C. S. Lewis hadn’t said “Yes” to God in 1929, we would in all likelihood never have been brought to the wonders of Narnia. Without Thurman’s hard work as a seminarian in the 20s, his career might have taken him on a path other than becoming the spiritual godfather of the American Civil Rights movement. Without Edith Stein’s carefully reasoned conversion, mystical classics such as The Science of the Crossmight never have been written.
It’s always so tempting to isolate key moments in our lives — or in the lives of people we admire. I do it myself — I continue to emphasize February 5, 1977 as if that one date is the only one where God ever bothered to love me! Then there’s Julian of Norwich (although, to be fair, no one knows if her “special” date was May 8 or 13, 1373). Likewise, so many Merton fans pay particular attention to “special” dates in his life (like March 18, 1958) that after a while you might begin to think that contemplation is really only about the “peak experiences.”
But that’s just not how contemplation rolls.
At Thomas Merton Square in Louisville, KY in 2014 (when I still had a furry face).
Yes, sometimes we have particular days or moments in our lives that are singularly meaningful. That’s what happened to me in 1977, and I suppose many people can report something similar from their childhood or adolescent years. But my spiritual awakening wouldn’t be worth the electrons this webpage is printed on, if I didn’t follow it up with a lifetime of saying “Yes” (some years more fervently than others) to the Spirit. On the other hand, let’s never forget that the mind-expanding epiphany that Merton experienced on 3/18/58 only came about after he had been praying daily at the monastery for over sixteen years!
So when I sit and think about the Roaring 20s, I don’t think about all the spiritual fervent that rocked American society like it did in the 1960s or 1970s. But I do remember that people were praying, and living, and writing, and reflecting, in ways that would impact others for years to come.
Which brings me to today. I’m writing this on January 2, 2020, and it’s my first blog post for the new “Roaring 20s.” Living in a time when there is so much political division, partisan anger, suspicion toward religious institutions, and mainstream skepticism toward spirituality or mysticism, it would be easy to get cynical about the moment we find ourselves in. Forty-nine years ago this week, George Harrison’s interspiritual anthem, “My Sweet Lord” was a number one hit, receiving near-constant airplay. Would such an unabashedly idealistic love song to God be a #1 hit record today? I really doubt it, and that, frankly, breaks my heart.
But the point of this post is not to get cynical or discouraged, if the moment we find ourselves in tends to “roar” more than “contemplate.” Make no mistake: I’m all for sustainable economic growth, for cultural expression, for the flowering of literature and music and dance and fashion. I love the roaring twenties, and I hope this new decade will “roar” too.
Of course, I’d like to see us dodge some of the shadow sides of a century ago: we could do without the stock market crash of 1929, the great depression, or the rise of fascism and Nazism. History does repeat itself for those who fail to heed its lessons, so let us all work together to learn the lessons the 20s, so that this time around we can do things better.
But back to contemplation. When it seems like not very many people are interested in such things as meditation or contemplation or deep interior work, it is incumbent upon those of us who are interested in these things to persevere, even if in relative solitude. After all, the choices we make, the communities we form, the books we write, and the love we generate, all will bear meaningful spiritual fruit — even if not for years to come. But eventually the blossoms will come; the fruit will be borne.
So, may the 2020s roar! May we all embrace the best of culture and prosperity that our society can offer us. And for those of us we sense we are called not just to roar, but to be silent, to listen within for the still small voice of the Divine, let’s be sure to do that as well. After all, we have no idea what adventures in the Spirit await us — tomorrow, next year or even four decades from now.
I suppose most writers don’t like to talk about writers’ block. It’s not a pretty sight — to have a deadline looming, and every time you sit down at the blank screen, you just get lost in the void of it all.
And instead of writing… nothing.
It’s such an ominous part of the writer’s life that you can find lists online of movies devoted to the topic. I can think of two off the top of my head: Shakespeare in Love and Ruby Sparks. Both are humorous stories, and in each film, the writer — who is male — finds his creative spark restored through the influence of a beautiful female muse (what critics have called “the manic pixie dream girl”).
Okay, not all writers are men, and certainly not every artist (writer or otherwise) is going to get their own personal muse to help magically jump-start their creative flow. Sorry about that. For most of us, we need to find a more realistic, down-to-earth solution to our lack of inspiration.
The other day I was chatting with a friend about the challenges of writer’s block. He pointed out to me that it often seems to be related to perfectionism. I nodded my head in agreement. It’s not merely not having an idea (although sometimes that’s the case), but it’s also the fear that, whatever words I do manage to put down to my file (or paper) will simply not be very good. People who read it will find out the terrible truth: that I’m just a “lousy writer!”
Such catastrophizing is a giveaway that what is really at work here is perfectionism: that nasty thought, lodged deep in our skulls, that our work must be perfect to have any value at all.
Yecch. It looks really irrational, in plain black and white. So why is it such a hard notion to liberate ourselves from?
Perfectionism is really lazy way of looking at the world: it’s an insistence that everything is black or white, good or bad, perfect or lousy, with nothing in between. It ignores the radiant beauty of a world filled with literally millions of colors.
(A lot of people like to say that the antidote to seeing things in black and white is to learn to know the “shades of grey.” But I think even that is too limiting. What makes life sparkle is not 32 layers of greyscale, but an almost infinite array of eye-nurturing color.)
I think one of perfectionism’s nasty little tricks is to always compare ourselves (unfavorably, of course) with the writers or other artists whom we admire. How can I ever amount to anything as a writer, when my work is so lackluster compared to the shimmering genius of ________? (fill in the blank with your favorite writer).
But I think we can beat the inner-perfectionist at his or her own game. And I realized this by thinking about one of my favorite bands, the Beatles.
It’s been nearly fifty years since the Beatles disbanded in an acrimonious split — but they are still the top-selling pop music group of all time. None of them were yet 30 years old, and their entire recorded output consisted of just under ten hours of music. Some of their songs have become truly iconic: “Yesterday,” “In My Life,” “Hey Jude,” “All You Need is Love” “Let it Be,” “Come Together,” “Something,” — just to name a few. The Beatles featured not one, not two, but three brilliant songwriters; when they split up, every member of the band went on to enjoy a successful solo career. The two surviving Beatles, both in their late seventies, are still going strong as we approach the 60th anniversary of the band’s founding.
It’s reasonable to say the Beatles were geniuses.
I’m not a songwriter, but the perfectionist in me has no scruples about comparing my lack-of-genius to the geniuses of another art form. But that road goes both ways. And by thinking about the creative work of brilliant songwriters like John Lennon and Paul McCartney, ironically I can find a way to talk back to my inner perfectionist.
Here’s what occurred to me the other day. I was listening to The White Album — a brilliant recording, to be sure, but notoriously uneven. There are plenty of tracks on this album, released in 1968, that were experimental, or avant-garde, or just plain weird. Don’t take my word for it — cue up Spotify and listen to tracks like “Wild Honey Pie,” “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road,” or “Revolution #9.”
In other words, geniuses aren’t perfect. And if they don’t have to be perfect, why should you and I be?
Pushing this line of thought a bit further, I thought about the Beatles’ all-time most celebrated song, “A Day in the Life” from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It’s an artsy song, featuring a symphony orchestra and impressionistic lyrics in which John Lennon’s almost cynical commentary on the daily news is punctuated by Paul McCartney’s playful narrative of a worker’s mundane morning routine. It wasn’t a hit song like “Hey Jude” or “She Loves You,” but it still sounds fresh and relevant after more than fifty years; and the song seems to epitomize the critical consensus about Beatles music: that Lennon and McCartney were each great songwriters on their own, but when they composed a song together, they truly were far, far more than the sum of their parts.
Genius, right?
But before your inner perfectionist gets all worked up… compare that to the Beatles’ first-ever hit single, a surprisingly modest number recorded in 1962: “Love Me Do.” It’s a mid-tempo rock and roll love song, with lyrics that could easily be dismissed as banal; aside from a sassy harmonica line played by Lennon, it’s actually a fairly ordinary song.
But it was a hit song for the Beatles, and nearly sixty years later, Paul McCartney still regularly performs it live. It’s charming to watch a video recording of McCartney at Dodger Stadium in 2019, introducing the song and admitting that he was so nervous when recording it (at barely 20 years old), that you can clearly hear the quavering in his voice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12WZ46RH0bA
It’s not the song he’ll be remembered for: it’s not “Yesterday” or “Let it Be” or “Penny Lane.” But it was good enough.
And that’s the key: good enough.
“Love Me Do” was good enough for the Beatles to have a hit record in 1962, and it’s good enough for Paul McCartney to keep it in his setlist in 2019. But nobody would accuse it of being a perfect song.
It’s not — because it doesn’t have to be. It’s good enough, and that’s good enough.
The next time I experience writer’s block, I’m going to listen to “Love Me Do” — and maybe even see if I can manage to get all the way through “Revolution #9.” Since I can forgive the Beatles for releasing a song as bad as “Wild Honey Pie,” and appreciate them for a run-of-the-mill song like “Love Me Do,” then I can certainly give myself permission to engage in my own writing in a less-than-perfect way.
Now, in 1962, the Beatles probably were not even capable of writing masterpieces like “Come Together” or “Hey Jude.” At least, not yet. Those songs were the result of years of practice and performance and hard work in the studio. But what if, in 1962, the “perfectionist” inside Lennon’s and McCartney’s heads wouldn’t give them any peace because all they could manage was something like “Love Me Do”?
They might have given up. And the world would be so much the poorer for it.
So the next time you have a little conversation with your inner perfectionist, listen to the Beatles. And tell your perfectionist that maybe all you’re capable of doing is writing something about as good as “Love Me Do.” But that’s good enough. By doing your “good enough” best today, maybe tomorrow — or next year, or 10 years from now — you really could create a work of genius. If the Beatles could grow into it, why not you? But that’s for the future. No pressure to be a genius today. For today, just do the best you can.
Terrence Malick is arguably the most contemplative director working in Hollywood today. Films like The Tree of Lifeand To The Wonder invite the viewer into Malick’s unique and perhaps idiosyncratic vision, combining strikingly beautiful cinematography with an impressionistic approach to the film’s story, resulting in an almost dreamlike narrative arc. Malick’s films don’t seem to tell stories so much as to invite the viewer into the middle of them.
His work has been described as “sacramental” and now here I’m calling him “contemplative,” but I think it’s worth mentioning that not everyone recognizes Malick as a genius. Some critics dismiss his films as self-indulgent, meandering, and pointless. Others suggest his work is uneven (I would concur: of the two movies I mentioned, I think The Tree of Life is a masterpiece while To the Wonder is, at best, an interesting failure). While I love the ethereal feel of Malick’s films, I must confess to sometimes feeling frustrated by what can feel like a self-conscious artsiness that obscures the tale he attempts to tell.
With all this in mind, I was cautiously hopeful about his latest film, A Hidden Life, which recounts the story of Blessed Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian martyr whose refusal to sign an oath of loyalty to Hitler led to his execution in 1943. Knowing that Malick was recounting a true story — or, at least, a “story inspired by true events” — I hoped this would provide him the necessary structure to tell a straightforward story but in his own lush, allusive style.
And that’s exactly what Malick has done, and the result is a breathtaking beautiful — and heartbreaking — film, that tells this deeply spiritual story in a most deserving manner — as a contemplative parable of love.
The story is simple enough to be recounted in a short Wikipedia article. Franz (1907-1943) was an Austrian farmer who, after marrying his deeply religious wife Fani (1913-2013), embraced the way of faith himself, eventually becoming a Secular (Third Order) Franciscan. After Nazi Germany annexed Austria in the spring of 1938 — a move which Jägerstätter opposed, the only man in his village to do so — this farmer came to understand, as a matter of conscience, that he could not support the Nazi regime, fight for it, or swear any kind of allegiance to it. When in 1943 he was drafted, he presented himself to the authorities, and although numerous attempts were made to talk him out of his conviction, he remained steadfast, leading to his death by guillotine in August of that year.
https://vimeo.com/228284320
Terrence Malick stretches this incredibly straightforward story into a movie almost three hours long, and does so by allowing the story to unfold at a profoundly leisurely pace. The first third of the film is gorgeous, depicting the simple life of farmers in this bucolic Alpine paradise. Franz and Fani are depicted as utterly, joyfully, sensually in love. They are generous people, opening their home to his mother and her sister, along with their three children. They work hard to farm their land, and live simply and well.
Soon enough, though, clouds appear on the horizon, from the sound of military aircraft buzzing in the distance to villagers collecting money for the war effort — and giving Franz dirty looks when he refuses to contribute. The story progresses by focussing on the farmer’s moral dilemma, and the advice he seeks from both his neighbors and the authorities of the church. When his bishop flatly tells him “You have a duty to the fatherland,” Franz makes an excuse for him, assuming the bishop may have feared that he was a spy.
Like so much of Malick’s work, the movie lingers over the natural beauty of the countryside and the simple pleasures of this twentieth-century peasant world. But when Franz is conscripted and reports to the army, he is immediately singled out for his refusal to take the oath. Malick is careful to take just as much time unpacking the hell of Franz’s imprisonment as he previously tarried over the joys of his rural life. As the story progresses from garrison to prison to military tribunal in Berlin, it feels like a slow-motion precursor to Koyaanisqatsi— as the backdrop of the story becomes increasingly urban, grimy, and congested. Like all wise contemplatives, Malick understands that we must be present to life’s horrors as surely as we cherish its joys.
The director treats his subject with almost hagiographical reverence — even on the day of his execution, Franz Jägerstätter is depicted comforting another distraught condemned man. At the same time, he refuses to downplay the brokenness of the institutional Catholic Church. Throughout the film, the ecclesial authorities are shown as willing conformists to the Nazi order, instructing the conscientious objector that his stance is meaningless, unfair to his family, and ultimately a betrayal of his country. We should not lose sight of the fact that when Jägerstätter was beatified in 2007, he received this honor from Pope Benedict XVI, who had been a member of the Hitler youth in his childhood.
Contemplative viewers of this film who know how the story will end, may find solace in trusting in the “larger story” of Jägerstätter’s eventual vindication in the eyes of the world. The farmer’s eventual recognition as a hero and a martyr lends an irony to the many people in the film who harangued him about how his conscientious objection would make no difference.
What I appreciated about the film was not only the thoughtful, slow-moving pace which enabled me to appreciate the story as a gradual unfolding of how a man came to form his conscience — but also the truly moving depiction of his love for his wife and children. Actors August Diehl and Valerie Pachner have a passionate on-screen chemistry that makes the love of Franz and Fani not only believable, but delectable. At the risk of sounding pious, their relationship as presented in this film seems truly sacramental. This was a movie as much about the sacrament of marriage as about the faith of a martyr.
For my money, it’s the best spiritual film I’ve seen since 2010’s Of Gods and Men — a very different story about martyrs, albeit told in a similar contemplative way. But A Hidden Life is not only contemplative, but profoundly beautiful — even while it never flinches from how heartbreaking the story is that it has to tell.
Incidentally, Thomas Merton fans may recognize the story of Franz Jägerstätter which Merton recounted in his book Faith and Violence.
1969 was quite a year, and so in 2019 we’ve had plenty of “50th Anniversary” moments: marking the fiftieth anniversary of the first humans on the moon, of the Woodstock Festival, and of the Beatles’ last recorded album, Abbey Road. It was the year that Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Sesame Street premiered on television, and some movies from this year included Midnight Cowboy, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Easy Rider. Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Fivewere among the books published in 1969. So it was a remarkable year, and there’s plenty for us to commemorate now, fifty years later.
But there was a dark side to 1969. The Vietnam War was raging on, and student unrest was simmering in America (which would boil over the following spring with the Kent State shootings). It was the year of the Tate-Labianca murders, with the Manson Family becoming the first highly visible sign that the peace and love generation had its own violent, dangerous shadow side. And then, on December 6 — fifty years ago today — came Altamont.
The Shadow Side of Woodstock
This morning, the Washington Post published a lengthy feature profiling the free concert at the Altamont Speedway, east of San Francisco. It was meant to be a “West Coast Woodstock,” featuring bands like the Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Santana, and Crosby Stills Nash and Young. But with over 300,000 people showing up for the free concert, almost no logistical infrastructure to handle a crowd that size and “security” provided by the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Gang (!), it turned out to be the “Anti-Woodstock” — and since the Stones were being filmed, the violence and chaos that culminated in the murder of a man in the audience was all recorded, showing up in the documentary Gimme Shelter.
With the exception of the Rolling Stones, all the bands that were scheduled to play at Altamonte (Grateful Dead never played; spooked by the violent energy in the crowd, they simply refused to perform) were part of the California hippie scene; most of the bands had played at Woodstock, and they all represented the “peace and love” ethos of the counterculture of the time. They branded themselves as the sane alternative to the insanity going on in southeast Asia. And yet, their free concert devolved into violence.
In the bitter words of a song John Lennon would record the following year, “The Dream is Over.”
I love the hippie music of the late sixties, but it’s sobering to consider that Woodstock and Altamont were less than four months apart. It seems that the groovy anti-war idealism of the ’60s counterculture had a pretty short shelf-life. It’s important to remember that the violence of both the Manson Family and Altamont had racist overtones (the man killed at Altamont was African-American; his white killer was acquitted after claiming he acted in self defense). Apparently, the songs and poetry of hippie peace and love were not enough to confront the dark underbelly of racism and privilege, which — sorry to say — remains a problem in our society today.
Echoes of Altamont
As I read the Washington Post article, with its detailed exposition of everything that went wrong on that day — at what was supposed to be a happy, free concert — I found myself thinking of several other moments in time that reveal the depth of the human shadow: the slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem after the birth of Jesus; the concentration camps of Auschwitz; the massacre of villagers at My Lai, Vietnam; and the caging of children along the U.S./Mexico border in our own time.
The slaughter of the innocents is to the nativity what Altamont was to Woodstock. I don’t like contemplating either of them, but they both need to be reckoned with, at least from a contemplative perspective. Granted, the slaughter of the innocents as recorded in Matthew 2:16 is mythological. But it’s hardly the only example of wanton killing of innocent people by soldiers — indeed, it was thinking about the Holy Innocents that reminded me of the My Lai Massacre.
The Massacre of the Innocents at Bethlehem, by Matteo di Giovanni (c. 1430-1495)
The My Lai massacre took place in March 1968 but become public knowledge in November 1969, just days before Altamont. It was during an operation in Vietnam (where American soldiers were attempting to defeat the Viet Cong, the communist organization that U.S. Troops were fighting). In a classic example of “we had to destroy the village in order to save it,” somewhere between 300 and 500 civilians were killed that day, including women and children; many of the women raped prior to being executed. This was all done supposedly in the interest of neutralizing a communist threat. But even if most of the My Lai villagers really were part of (or sympathetic to) the Viet Cong, would that justify the brutality? Of course not.
It was a slaughter of the innocents, in our lifetime. I remember My Lai, I remember the controversy surrounding the trial of Lt. William Calley, the only person convicted for this war crime. What I don’t recall (but learned from a Google search just now) was that the public was actually sympathetic to his defense that he was just “following orders” — the dark side of obedience. And I didn’t realize that the man who ordered him to commit the atrocities was acquitted of any wrongdoing, thanks to being defended by a high-powered lawyer.
It all stinks. Looking back, I realize that my own commitment to nonviolence and justice, to resisting militarism, probably began when as an 8-year boy my conscience was troubled by My Lai. Ironically, though, I walked away from the military culture my father represented, into the world of the hippies and the Grateful Dead: the world of Woodstock, but also of Altamont.
Contemplating These Infamous Moments
I never was part of the military, but I think everyone should ask ourselves some hard questions. If I were a soldier at My Lai, would I have just “followed orders” and killed the civilians? If I were a soldier in King Herod’s army, would I have obeyed a command to kill baby boys?
Or would I have found the courage to stand up for what is right? Of course, I prefer to think that I would do the right thing, and I hope everyone reading these words would be just as clear in your convictions. But I am also humble enough to realize that so many of the people who commit atrocities — think of the German citizens who staffed concentration camps like Auschwitz — have been “normal” and “good” people, upstanding members of their communities. It’s the nature of evil that it thrives in dysfunctional systems. Whether it’s a rock concert that is badly managed, or a rogue military operation, or a policy of incarcerating undocumented immigrants in a way that separates families and leaves children in cages.
In 1969 Richard Nixon was president, and just a few years later he would resign in disgrace to avoid impeachment. Today, we are facing another impeachment process; if we include Nixon’s, this makes the fourth incidence of impeachment in our nation’s almost 250 years. Three of those have occurred in the last 50 years. I wonder what that signifies?
Depending on who you talk to, the current impeachment process is a necessary effort to hold a corrupt leader accountable — or, a politically motivated effort to attack that same leader on (pardon the pun) Trumped-up charges. What confounds me is how both of these narratives seem to be almost totally at odds with each other, yet depending on whether you get your news from Fox or CNN, you are likely to believe in one and dismiss the other out of hand.
So what does all this have to do with contemplation?
What does it mean to be a contemplative in a world where innocent people get murdered by soldiers? Or concertgoers experience violence that could have been prevented? What does it mean to navigate morality and ethics in a world where refugee populations have reached crisis proportions, and some governments respond by closing their borders or treating those who seek entry like common criminals?
Back to the story of the Holy Innocents. Even though this story was most certainly a kind of folk-tale, it carries plenty of spiritual meaning that is worth exploring. Systematic forces of evil react violently in response to an unjust king’s fearful hold on power. But in the midst of that, we have a story of quiet heroism, as Joseph and Mary flee to Egypt to protect their son — becoming refugees themselves in the process.
So when we find ourselves in the midst of evil, even systemic evil over which we have little or no control, there may still be the possibility of making moral choices. Our actions can still make a difference, even if we can’t stem the tide of the evil. After all, Joseph’s actions saved Jesus’ life, and paved the way for Jesus to literally change history.
I think we need to sit with the paradox of this baby — the incarnation of Love — being born in the midst of such dark violence and fear. How can we invite that baby, that incarnation of Love, into our darkest and most fearful places? Into our partisan politics, and our mistreatment of immigrants and refugees, our racism, our classism, our culture of bullying and violence, our complicity? And when we do so, are we really willing to let that baby change us, from the inside out? I hope so.
