stillness is what I need...

Some of us are in the vanguard, others are late to the party - and a few others, for a variety of reasons, don't seem to know that there's a party going on. As a rule, I tend to fall into the second group: slow to act on important matters. It is not that I don't know something's going on all around me. No, I just seem to need a long time for discernment. When I have acted against type, jumping into decisions without lots of conversation, prayer, study, and waiting, more often than not it has been a disaster. I used to fight my inclination to pause. I wanted to be spontaneous as a full fledged member of the age of Aquarius. But over the years I have come to trust that joining the party late is, for me, the path of wisdom. For as the poet said, "Yo no soy yo - I am not me - I am that long shadow I drag behind me that I cannot see." So I have learned to trust my inner voice and find a few trusted souls to both help me see what is true that I cannot see, and, encourage me to move to honor taking small, deliberate steps.

Those who work with the enneagram - especially Heurtz, Rohr and Bourgeault - suggest that our deepest nature holds simultaneous blessings and curses. Our deepest virtue is infused with comparably deep fixations and passions. When we are living lives of balance and self-awareness, we can self-correct if we find we are moving towards disintegration. As Huertz writes in The Sacred Enneagrm:
""If we can't self-observe, we can't self-correct."

The path of disintegration is surely an indication that we are unwell, but recognizing when we are moving in this direction helps us wake up to the destructive tendencies that keep us at our lower levels of mental, emotional (and spiritual) health. Think of this as a warning sign or flare signal, designed not to condemn a person, but to guide them back home. (p. 70)

The purpose of recognizing both our deepest virtues and fixations is to learn from the darkness as well as the light. Indeed, our shadow is not ever to be construed as condemnation nor punishment. As the Eastern Orthodox teach: missing the mark, sin, disintegration is how we learn to rest and trust God's grace. If we are paying attention, these wounds can lead us into wisdom. And even a measure of healing. Elbert Hubbard was on to something the Orthodox call divinization when he wrote, "We are punished by our sins not for them." Or as Fr. Ed Hays taught: there is wisdom in our wounds that can lead us into grace if we realize that the wisdom is usually the polar opposite of our feelings.

When I was in Tucson working with a spiritual director, he used to remind me that growing up as the oldest son of an alcoholic family gave me some unique tools. That startled me and struck me as absurd. But he went on to note that out of necessity I had learned to read a room for safety within a minute. I had also cultivated an acutely developed BS detector. Further, I was often able to bond with other wounded souls giving them both space and safety. At the same time, however, my need to be accepted and valued - yea, to be treated with love and respect - often made me emotionally vulnerable. And fragile. And easily hurt. There was real wisdom to my wounds as well as a whole lot of hurt. When I started to see this truth, he added: "And its not going to change. What is, is. All you can do is deal with what is real. And honor the wisdom of both the light and the shadow as well as you can." It is a life time commitment.

This commitment requires a serious dose of regular stillness. Some need 
solitude. Others need silence. I need stillness. Because I am "obsessed with quieting my inner distress in an effort to create external peace and security," (Huertz, p. 94) my spiritual core must be bathed in stillness. And if I don't make that happen on a regular basis, I am at war with myself and everyone else. It can be said that feeling frenetic for me is one of the ways God speaks to me: be still and know...

When we learn to tune into the ways God is speaking in and to us, we are guided into wise living. Can we learn to listen to God in our minds, trusting the silence underneath the clutter of noise? Can we learn to trust the voice of God that speaks in our hearts, through feelings of pain and peace? Can we learn to sense God at work in our bodies, speaking to us through our resistances and our openness? Listening to thoughts, feelings, or instincts... is the beginning of learning to hear how God has always been speaking to you. (And is speaking to you still!) (Huertz, p. 89)

Yesterday, I let myself get distracted. Frazzled. Pressed for time. One result was rushing to get to an important meeting on time. I hate that I did this to myself but I did. Another consequence was not paying enough attention to the GPS and finding myself across town at the wrong address. How many times have I done this to myself and others? When I realized I was in a downward spiral - and was not going to get to my meeting on time - I had to take five minutes of quiet breathing and Centering Prayer. "Nothing is going to be made better by letting myself slip into anxiety and self-blame. You blew it. So own it and move on, man!"  Making sure I have ample time - and real inner stillness - to live into the most important daily commitments brings a measure of healing to my being. I suspect it makes me easier to live with, too. 

The poet Maxine Kumin speaks to this obliquely in her poem: Mulching. Like the late Jean Vanier, who advised living into the 10 foot rule (only watching the news once a week and only giving your energy to what you can physically touch in a 10 foot circle around yourself), Ms. Kumin realizes the chaos that surrounds us yet trusts that the simple act of composting will evoke a new blessing from the mess. Such is the Paschal Mystery in the practice of Christian contemplation.

Me in my bugproof netted headpiece kneeling
to spread sodden newspapers between broccolis,
corn sprouts, cabbages and four kinds of beans,

prostrate before old suicide bombings, starvation,
AIDS, earthquakes, the unforeseen tsunami,
front-page photographs of lines of people

with everything they own heaped on their heads,
the rich assortment of birds trilling on all
sides of my forest garden, the exhortations

of commencement speakers at local colleges,
the first torture revelations under my palms
and I a helpess citizen of a country

I used to love, who as a child wept when
the brisk police band bugled Hats off! The flag
is passing by, now that every wanton deed

in this stack of newsprint is heartbreak,
my blackened fingers can only root in dirt,
turning up industrious earthworms, bits

of unreclaimed eggshell, wanting to ask
the earth to take my unquiet spirit,
bury it deep, make compost of it.