why the inward journey is essential for social justice...

Last night I began reading James Finley's insights in

Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God. He makes three wise, counter-intuitive, and helpful observations.

+ First, to practice meditation is to recognize both our ego consciousness and our mystical consciousness. "By ego consciousness, I am referring to the consciousness that manifests itself in saying: I want, I think, I need, I feel, I remember, I like, I don't like, etc... it is a precious gift from God" but it is incomplete because it separates us from the totality of creation. "Ego consciousness, in and of itself, is not expansive enough to fulfill our hearts... it is not generous enough to bring us all the way home (and) too one-dimensional to be the subjective ground of infinite union with eternity." To recognize and honor our ego consciousness is vital as a first step in awakening "to the eternal unity with God that IS the deeper reality of ourselves and everyone and everything around us." 

+ Second, meditation can only play a part in healing some of the suffering humans experience. "Even if we could manage to become a perfectly healthy ego, there would still remain the suffering that arises from experiencing ourselves as nothing more than our ego." This distinguishes authentic meditation from self-help practices that focus on an individual's personal inner transformation. The inward journey is vital, but too often remains segregated from the rest of reality. Ego consciousness is too small: "it perceives being as a separate self that must search for God (who is also perceived as a being other than one's self.) As ego consciousness yields and gives way to meditative awareness, we beging to recognize the surprising nearness of God, already perfectly present in the intimate recesses of our very being."

+ And third, the point and practice of authentic meditation is to "awaken us to the already present oneness with God we seek." Finley is so on target here writing "to practice meditation as an act of faith is to open oneself to the endlessly reassuring realization that our very being and the very being of everyone and everything else around us IS the generosity of God... we meditate that we might awaken to this unitive mystery, not just in meditation, but in every moment of our lives."

This is how Jesus lived. Whether he was seeing a child crawling up into his lap or a leper wanting to be healed; whether he was seeing a prostitute or his own mother; whether he was seeing the joy of a wedding feast or the sorrow of loved ones weeping at the burial of a loved one; whether he was seeing his own disciples or his executioners: he saw God. We meditate that we might learn to see through Christ's eyes the divine mystery of all that surrounds us.

Small wonder Fr. Richard Rohr recruited Finley to be a part of his core master teachers: learning to see and live beyond the limitations of our binary ego is essential in releasing a liberating compassion. I read somewhere that the reason fascists strive to replace love with fear is that love cannot be controlled. And living in a loving unity with reality is journeying with the holy. That's where so many activists get into a mess: they rely on their feelings, intellect, and analysis - their egos - without realizing that what separates us eventually gives up the ghost. It is not big enough to embrace the suffering. How did Joni Mitchell put it back on "The Last Time I Saw Richard" on her masterwork Blue? "All romantics (and I would add activists) meet the same fate some day: drunk and cynical and boring someone in some dark cafe." Left to ourselves, we all run out of gas. Joined mystically with love from the inside out, however, we are a part of creation itself.

Now let me add that I am a wayward monk when it comes to disciplined meditation. For the past 30 years I have dabbled  in, vigorously practiced, and then incrementally abandoned centering prayer. I keep returning, like Siddhartha to the Ganges River, and find it refreshing and restorative. And still I wander. When I was wacked with RSV earlier this month, however, two realities hit home. One had to do with my mortality: this was the first time I truly felt old. Recognizing at a heart level that there is much less precious time in front of me than behind is a hard master - and it broke through some of my ego illusions that have encouraged procrastination. The other came from something Cynthia Bourgeault wrote: those truly empty and silent moments of absolute serenity that happen during Centering Prayer are a taste of eternity. The dark, tender abyss we experience in silence is prelude to what we shall know forever on the other side of this life. Being sick, at least for me this time, was a threshold - and I've learned a lot about thresholds from the late John O'Donohue:

At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it? A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms, and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold a great complexity of emotion comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossings were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds: to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross.

I am taking my time with this one but it is clear it's time to cross back towards a deeper practice of silence.