Tag: social justice

• How Do Contemplatives Make a Difference?

  Consider these teachings from Jesus, all taken from just one Gospel (Matthew)¹See verses 5:44, 7:12, 19:21, 22:39 and 25:40.:

  • “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.”
  • “Sell your possessions, and give (the money) to the poor, and follow me.”
  • “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.”
  • “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
  • “Love your enemies.”

  Couple this with a strong theme running throughout the Jewish and Christian scriptures that God is a God of justice and righteousness, and it is apparent that part of any meaningful spiritual life — at least for Christians — is a commitment to making the world a better place by caring for those in need and by working for peace and justice.

  Indeed, while I am not crazy about labels like “conservative” and “progressive,” one of the easiest markers that distinguishes so-called “conservative” Christians from “progressive” Christians is typically whether they emphasize salvation or justice as the heart of their faith. Speaking very broadly and generally of course, conservative Christians seem to place greater emphasis on answering the question “What must I do to be saved?” while progressive questions tend to focus on the idea that serving others is the best way to serve God.

  But my blog is not a blog about conservative Christians or progressive Christians — my focus is on contemplative spirituality (Christian and otherwise). Over the years I have tended to shy away from politics and controversial issues, because of my conviction that contemplation is for everyone, not just people who identify as conservative or liberal, traditional or progressive. We are all called into prayer, into silence and stillness into the kind of interior transformation that comes about from a contemplative spiritual practice.

  But a question that has begun to take more and more of my attention: when we embrace the contemplative path, what difference does it make? How do our lives change, how do we respond to the kinds of ethical and moral challenges that Jesus presents to us, in the verses quoted above as well as elsewhere in his teaching?

  Mandate and Methods

  One of the challenges for anyone who takes the teachings of Jesus (and the overall western spiritual tradition) seriously is this: while Jesus seems to be very clear on his mandate: care for the poor and those in need, love others even including your adversaries, etc. — he does not give us much in way of details about how, exactly, we are meant to do this. Take for example the challenge to “sell your possessions and give to the poor” — are we expected to sell all our possessions, and give away all the money, in effect rendering ourselves (and our families) economically vulnerable? Does “giving to the poor” mean simply distributing the money, or would it be better to invest in programs that care for the poor on an ongoing basis? What about the old saying “give someone a fish and you feed them for a day; teach them to fish and you feed them for a lifetime”? Is it better to be giving out fish, or fishing rods?

  A Brazilian archbishop, Hélder Câmara, is famous for saying “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.” If Jesus were here today, would he say that Christians are only obligated to feed and care for the poor in a direct way (like operating a soup kitchen), or would he see this obligation as also a commitment to fight the forces in society that tend to keep some people privileged while others remain impoverished generation after generation?

  Important questions with no easy answers — and back to the “conservative versus liberal” dichotomy: different Christians (individuals and groups) answer these questions in sometimes radically different ways.

  Contemplative spirituality calls us to discernment. What is God’s will for me (and for everyone)? How do I respond to God’s call? What choices and commitments am I being called to make? These questions extend beyond the scope of personal spirituality, and invite us into these larger, moral, ethical, and even political issues that shape how we live our lives and how we interact with others — in our neighborhoods, our communities, and the world at large.

  

  More than Just Money

  Jesus speaks directly about caring for those who are poor, hungry, homeless, or imprisoned, so naturally questions about economic justice and injustice will be part of every Christian’s discernment. But it seems to me that this larger question of “How am I called to make a difference?” extends beyond just strictly economic issues. As I’ve prayed and pondered this question, I’ve come to see that there are seven categories of controversial or contested issues, that we as Christians need to be praying about — and responding to.

  Here are those seven key issues. I’m going to talk about them from a contemplative perspective rather than simply a Christian perspective, since this blog is read by contemplatives of all spiritual and religious traditions. Obviously, for Christians, these issues matter to us because we seek to respond to them as we believe Christ would have us respond. If you are not a Christian, I invite you to ponder these same issues in the light of your own religious or spiritual commitments.

  • Violence. How do we as contemplatives respond to the violence in our world at large — and in our neighborhoods? What is the best way to end gun violence? How do we support families to eliminate domestic violence? How do we create positive alternatives to gangs? How do we punish criminals, and should we eliminate the death penalty?
  • Ecology. How do we respond to climate change? What can we do to reverse the trends of global warming, species extinction, and overpopulation? What policies are necessary to fight famine and the spread of pandemics like covid-19? How do we plan for a future that relies on renewable energy sources rather than fossil fuels or nuclear power? How do we protect natural resources for our grandchildren and their grandchildren?
  • Gender. Many faith communities (like the Catholic Church) continue to deny leadership roles to women; can that change? What is a contemplative response to transgender persons, or those who in a variety of ways reject social norms regarding gender identity and expression? How do we ensure that women and transgender persons are safe and have the ability to live their lives to their fullest potential?
  • Sexuality. Does contemplative spirituality equip us to accept and even celebrate sexual diversity? Can contemplative communities affirm same-sex marriages and support their families? And affirm those with same-sex partners in positions of leadership and ordained ministry? How can contemplatives lead the way in fighting a religious culture that often responds to queer persons with hostility rather than acceptance or compassion?
  • Reproduction. Few issues divide society more strongly than the question of abortion. What is a truly contemplative understanding of abortion, contraception, and reproductive rights? How do reproductive issues relate to other social and economic issues (supporting single parent households, reducing poverty, etc.)? How can we reduce the incredible suspicion and hostility that the two “sides” have for each other, in the interest of coming together to work for the common good?
  • Privilege. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, public health, rich/poor — many issues seem to point to a common problem: that society gives some people privilege at the expense of others. How do we dismantle systems of privilege? What is the best path forward to end racism in America and around the world? How can contemplative practice equip us to work together to end unjust systems of privilege and oppression?
  • Globalism. What is the responsibility of our country in relation to other nations? How can we foster a world where terrorism and war eventually cease to exist? What is the best approach to responding to refugees and immigrants? How do we fight human trafficking? How should Christians interact with those whose faith is different from ours?

  I’m sure there are many issues that may not fit neatly into this schema (for example, addiction and the problems associated with organized crime and drug cartels). And I’m sorry I’m asking more questions than providing answers — but I believe asking important questions is the necessary first step in making a difference. Perhaps in the future, I need to begin exploring these issues more deeply, even at the risk of alienating some readers who disagree with me. But my hope is not just to take sides on the hot issues, but rather to prayerfully explore how contemplative practice can shape a truly spiritual (for Christians, a truly Christ-like) response to the issues that keep us divided and trapped in a culture of suspicion and aggression/hostility.

  Our Voice Matters

  “Blessed are the peacemakers” — another statement of Christ’s. I believe that’s a mandate for contemplatives. By ourselves, we contemplatives may not be able to figure out the key to dismantling racism, or eliminating poverty, or creating a world where it’s safe to be divergent in terms of sexuality or gender. But society as a whole needs a contemplative perspective, a contemplative voice, if we have any hope of tackling these huge issues. So it’s important that those of us who have been called to a contemplative practice take the next step: and bring our contemplative perspective to the contentious and divisive issues of our time. All in the interest of following the teachings of Christ — or the other great spiritual teachers of our common human family.

  

  July 28, 2021

  Contemplation, controversial issues, Politics, social justice, spirituality

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• The Privilege of Silence

  Back in 2003, I spent a day at a relatively new monastery near Sligo, Ireland. Like many small religious foundations just getting off the ground, it was struggling, although the members of the community were filled with optimism and a sense of purpose about their shared mission.

  I plied one of the sisters with questions about the community, their rule of life, and their daily life. My curiosity extended to their diet. “Are you vegetarian?” I wondered, largely because of my own long-standing commitment to a meatless diet.

  She laughed gently and said that they called themselves “fiscal vegetarians,” noting that because they depended so much on the generosity of their neighbors, they could not afford to be self-righteous about their diet. Beggars can’t be choosers, after all. “We are simply too poor to be strict vegetarians, so if a local farmer gives us a ham, we accept it gratefully and that’s what we eat.”

  This was an explosive insight for me, who had always thought of vegetarianism as a smart economic choice on top of its other benefits. But as I thought about it, I realized that my vegetarianism really was a “lifestyle choice,” grounded in my own privilege as an educated, middle class American, with the resources and knowledge that empowered me to choose to forego meat—without harming my health or even my taste buds!

  My “sacrificial” diet was not, at the end of the day, really so self-denying after all, for it depended on economic freedom that I, frankly, took for granted. It took meeting someone who really was “too poor to be vegetarian” to make me see this.

  Then one day I shared a cup of tea with a dear friend who is a pastoral assistant at my old parish. She spent most of her time attending to refugees, men on death row, and the occasional homeless person who wanders in to the church—a living example of being a “doer” of the word and not just a “hearer” (James 1:22).

  As we sipped our cups of tea, we chatted about my family, my work, her ministry, and books we each thought the other would enjoy. And then she said something that electrified me almost as much as learning about “fiscal vegetarianism” did several years before.

  “Silence is such a beautiful thing,” she mused, “but you know, people who live on the street don’t have access to it. The street is noisy. And prisons, too. There’s no silence in the penitentiary; there’s always someone yelling, or something else going on.”

  

  Again, I found myself staring at my own privilege. I run around telling people they need silence in their lives (and we do, we all do). Most of the folks I talk to are educated, reasonably affluent, engaged in church or religious life on some level, and overwhelmed by the noise in their life—but it’s largely noise they choose, in terms of entertainment, or technology, or the continual onslaught of the media.

  Is contemplation like vegetarianism: just another lifestyle choice for those who are lucky enough to be able to select it?

  It’s a challenging question. I am convinced that silence can bring blessing to everyone, regardless of ethnicity, educational level, or religious affiliation. But for many of us, contemplative practice presupposes that we have resources at our disposal—for example, the leisure time to devote a half hour or more each day to silence, and the psycho-emotional maturity to engage in such a discipline in a healthy way.

  I am increasingly convinced that contemplative spirituality must be embedded in some form of social ministry—of building relationships with persons who may not have the privileges we enjoy. It’s not my place, of course, to say what such a ministry should look like: for some it may involve political activism, for others a form of charitable service, and still others might just be taking care of a seriously ill relative.

  But we need to be engaged, somehow, with at least one other person whose life choices are markedly different from our own. Otherwise, our silence can become a theater for spiritual narcissism, which sounds like hell to me.

  Silence is like money. Having access to it is not evil, but we do run the risk of turning it into an idol. Those of us who enjoy access to silence have been given a gift, and so we do well carefully to consider how to use it.

  Shall we squander it, filling our lives with the useless noise of trivial amusements to shout down our hidden anxieties?

  Is meditation just a sophisticated tool for self-therapy, intended for nothing other than to bolster our sense of spiritual happiness?

  Or will it be for us a form of praise for God, praise that will inform—and transform—not only our minds and hearts, but our relationships as well?

  December 28, 2018

  Contemplation, privilege, silence, social action, social justice

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• Why We Need Contemplation

  

  I am troubled by the idea that it’s harder to be a child today than it was when I was young. Is that just my personal angst, the anxiety of someone moving rapidly through midlife? Or is there some truth to my worrisome intuition?

  Well, consider the following sobering statements, all culled from recent articles on respectable news websites.

  It is reported that one in three children is the victim of bullying at school, and with a growing number of young people online today, cyber bullying is enabling the terror to continue outside of school and into the night. (Source: Yahoo News)

  One in four girls is sexually abused before the age of 18. The global market for child trafficking is more than $12 billion a year, with more than 1.2 million child victims. More than 100,000 children are currently involved in prostitution in the U.S. (Source: Wellspring Living)

  The higher the level of income inequality in a county, the higher the reported rate of maltreatment of children tends to be. That is true no matter what the average family income happens to be. (Source: Journalist’s Resource)

  In the United States alone, childhood lead poisoning costs an estimated $50-billion (U.S.) a year, while methylmercury toxicity alone costs $5-billion… The vast majority of the more than 80,000 industrial chemicals in widespread use in the U.S. have never been tested for their toxic effects on the developing fetus or child. The real impact on children’s health is just beginning to be uncovered. (Source: The Globe and Mail)

  A total of 13{b583bb596bb2c84984aee1f32e70a80b80285001a0226212b58cbda01f2115e7}–20{b583bb596bb2c84984aee1f32e70a80b80285001a0226212b58cbda01f2115e7} of children living in the United States experience a mental disorder in a given year, and surveillance during 1994–2011 has shown the prevalence of these conditions to be increasing. (Source: Alternet)

  Some might argue that these statements are overblown. I’m not knowledgeable enough to be able to make a definitive statement for or against any of these statistics. But it seems to me that even if these statistics are exaggerated — which I have no reason to believe they are, but just for the sake of argument — even so, I think most reasonable people will agree that ours is a seriously toxic culture. And it seems to be getting worse, not better.

  While we worry about the size of our television screen and how many gigabytes of space our electronic devices contain, our children and youth are suffering. We debate endlessly about how we perceive colors in a photograph of a dress on the Internet, while our kids are killing themselves or interacting with their peers through bullying and hostility.

  What are we doing about this?

  There’s a great slogan: “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” It’s a call to action, of course. But it’s also about being a contemplative as much as about being an activist. The truth is simple: we live in outrageous times. We have so much work to do. Everyone of us has a part to play in healing our broken society, our broken culture, our broken way of life. Even if we aren’t political activists, we still need to be taking care of our family and our homes, to safeguard against the troubles we face.

  But being outraged is only half the job. It’s just as important to be paying attention. And that’s where contemplation comes in.

  Yes, we all need to work for a better world. This post is not about specific solutions to any of the above problems, but thankfully people of good will are already hard at work — and they need our support and engagement. But is that all we need to do? Or do we need to begin to create a better soul for our world? In other words, does the healing need to come from the inside out?

  I think the answer is obvious. “I can’t change the world, but I can change the world in me,” sang Bono on the U2 song “Rejoice.” I think that song suffers from a wee bit of Irish pessimism, because if we change our inner worlds, then we are empowered to actually make a difference in the outer world as well.

  This is why I believe that contemplation is essential for the future of humanity. Not by itself: contemplation without action can be a type of escape, so it’s important that our contemplative practice be embedded in healthy values and positive action — both at the personal and the societal level. We need contemplation to support the action we take to care for our immediate family and loved ones, and we also need contemplation to support the political, economic, and lifestyle choices that nurture our children, that help preserve our ecosystem, and that help to foster a just world. We need both contemplation and action. If contemplation without action is a form of escape, then likewise, action without contemplation can lead to burnout and hostility, even in the hearts of those who are working for positive change. When we lack contemplation, we more likely see those who disagree with us as our enemies rather than our loyal opposition. Action without contemplation runs the risk of being activity founded in anger or hate rather than love.

  Everyone knows that when communism triumphed in Russia and China, it just created a new hell to replace the old. Our political and social activism must arise out of a deep inner conversion, and contemplation is a key to that interior transfiguration: one person, one spirit at a time. Likewise, our efforts to love our family and friends must arise out of that same inner transfiguration, or else we run the risk of polluting our most important relationships with the toxicity of our culture at large.

  So why do we need contemplation, in a society where so many of us are suffering? Here are just a few answers to this question.

  1. We need contemplation to remember who we really are. Our consumer/entertainment society dazzles us with things to buy and amusements to distract us, and we become so overwhelmed by stuff and fun that we forget our deepest identity. We forget our innate dignity as children of God, and our compassionate nature that refuses to accept the suffering of others. Contemplation is a way to short-circuit our cultural amnesia and re-calibrate our hearts to the love of God.

  2. We need contemplation to safeguard against despair. The line between outrage and overwhelm is thin indeed, and it’s easy to find the challenges in our world today simply too much to bear. Taking time for silence, reflection, and cultivating inner peace is an important way to prevent burning out or freaking out over the enormity of our problems. Contemplation refreshes us and empowers us to face our tasks with hope and God-given strength.

  3. We need contemplation to slow down and think clearly. Daily time given to silence is like a “reset” button for the mind. It cleanses the frenzy of over-stimulated thoughts and feelings, and opens up a spaciousness where we can consider how to most wisely and effectively respond to the work we need to do. This is true whether our task is changing the world or changing the diapers of our newborn. Both tasks are essential, of course, and both must be done with love if they are to be done well.

  4. We need contemplation to keep from demonizing our opponents. Jesus was blunt: “Love your enemies.” This doesn’t mean we ignore threats like ISIS, but it does mean our response to any adversaries needs to be grounded in respect for their God-given worth as human beings. So we seek to neutralize military threats, to rehabilitate criminals, and to work with political opponents in whatever way we can. This is profoundly counter-cultural. Read any political blog, left or right, and it’s obvious that our cultural tendency is to hate our opponents, not engage with them or seek reconciliation. But if we cannot figure out a way beyond political gridlock, the problems that really matter (see the quotes at the head of this post) will remain un-addressed. A contemplative stance recognizes that the common good matters more than abstract ideological purity, and so it can help us to find creative ways to work together for the benefit of all.

  5. We need contemplation to help us find different solutions to the same old problems. Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” If mental illness, income inequality, environmental toxins, human trafficking, and child-t0-child violence are all on the rise, then we need to be doing some things differently — radically differently. Different doesn’t always mean new — perhaps what we need is a return to some old values (like civic duty, or valuing family before wealth). But maybe we do need some new ideas, new ways to teach values to our children or to instill such values in our economy and technology. I certainly don’t have all the answers. But one thing’s for sure: we need creative thought to deal with our challenges, both on a personal and a societal level. And such creativity can be fostered — and needs to be fostered — by restful silence.

  6. We need contemplation for our own sake. Contemplative practice has been linked to health benefits, such as easing depression, helping to manage stress, and alleviation of pain. Contemplation doesn’t just feel good, it’s good for us. Taking good care of ourselves is essential if we want to make the world a better place.

  7. We need contemplation for our children’s sake. Contemplation is not about making more money or improving our standard of living (at whatever cost). Rather, it is about fostering love and compassion and connectedness. Once basic human needs are met, there is no correlation between income level and level of happiness. If we want to do the best we can for our children, we need to balance our running the rat race with a heartful/mindful approach to life and love.

  So why do we need contemplation? We need it because we live in a toxic, chaotic society, and many, perhaps most, of us lead toxic, chaotic lives — so whether we are trying just to manage our own little corner of the world, or trying to make a difference in society at large, we need contemplation to nurture us on the way. We need contemplation to reconnect with the place in our hearts that belongs to God. We need contemplation to keep us from despair in the face of all of life’s challenges, whether personal or political. We need contemplation to find joy and purpose amidst life’s many challenges. And we need contemplation to nurture faith in God, even with all the anger and hatred that seems so prevalent in today’s world.

  Can you think of other reasons why we need contemplation? Please leave a comment if you have any thoughts.

   

  March 6, 2015

  Activism, Contemplation, Prayer, silence, social justice

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