Majoring In The Minors

 I'm preparing to give a talk this evening at our monthly men's prayer fraternity on the virtue of chastity, and in doing so was making various back-of-napkin notes. Every virtue has an opposing vice, and related to the virtue of chastity I wanted to discuss the vice opposed to the virtue of perseverance, which is mollities, or "softness." St. Paul uses this verb in 1 Corinthians 6:9 as it relates to the sin of sodomy. I think it really needs to be discussed in the context of the virtue of chastity because while sexual immorality is the one temptation we are instructed to "flee" from, there is still a good bit of fighting against the flesh that goes on. We run, yes, but we also must fight the temptation to indulge the flesh. For the man used to a pattern of self-abuse, putting a stop to it involves ardor, and to the degree that he shirks from that mortification and suffering betrays a kind of mollities spirit, whether he is heterosexual or homosexual. 

But there is something else I want to cover in this discussion on chastity, and I use it as a segway into what I want to discuss here, and that is that the external trappings of chastity (modesty of dress, fasting of the eyes, temperance, continence) are all servants of love/charity, the good and end of this virtue. 

I think St. Paul sums this up for me famously in 1 Cor 13:1-3: 

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing." 

We've heard this passage so many times it tends to become white noise. But isn't it really the essence of Christianity, of our faith? Isn't it primary, served by all the secondary ends? Doesn't it deserve primacy of place in our spiritual lives, our praxis, and yes, our Lenten observance?

We can call into the same problem with fasting during this season--doing the exact thing our Lord warns us not to do: adopting a gloomy continence, or becoming preoccupied with the nuances of our fast or either self-congratulatory or self-condemning while neglecting the weightier things of the law--that is, the law of love. Our Lord admonishes the Pharisees for this "majoring in the minors" in Matthew's gospel, "For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others" (Mt 23:23).

I see this all the time in the online Catholic world. Whether it's a particular outrage du jour, or a pet project of picking apart some TV show as if our eternal salvation depended on such critiques, or even the insider baseball in-fighting over liturgical nuances, these things wouldn't be as much of a hollow gong if they did, in fact, communicate the love with which they supposed to be concerned with. Often what I see as an observer is the antithesis of charity--I see the Saul, the righteous Pharisee defender of religious orthodoxy, and not the Paul who becomes weak, "all things to all men," and boasts only in his weakness. Again, we hear it like white noise, but how much meditation have we lent to the continuation of Paul's letter to the Corinthians.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (1 Cor 13:4-8)

Lent often degenerates for many people like myself because we neglect an elusive charity in our hearts in exchange for the tangible ticks and notches our forty days affords us--signs that we are progressing in the spirit, mortifying our flesh more, becoming more disciplined and hard-packed. But to what end? If we are not growing in charity, we are gongs. We forget our purpose, our Lenten raison d'etre. Like the chaste man who is cold in his heart, who has choked out love and openness and self-deference because he sees it as a threat to his tenuous virtue. Who is so consumed with tamping down the weeds of lust and avoiding occasions of sin that he forgets how to love. Because his heart has not been born again, but only patched on the outside. Chastity is really a matter of the heart, not the groin.

I had a therapy appointment yesterday, because I have really not been feeling myself since undertaking some of these disciplines--having gone cold-turkey off of nicotine a month ago, and coffee (switching to tea) a week ago, in addition to fasting every day and more severely on Wednesdays and Fridays...all potentially "good" things. But I'm sleeping 12 hours a day now, and feel a little...hollow. Not myself. It may just take some time to adjust, but my faithful Catholic therapist suggested it was too much taken on all at once, and encouraged me to "just have a freaking cup of coffee" if I need it. I was actually relieved to hear that, and I didn't take it as a free-pass but simply perhaps a bleed valve in case my charity grows too cold. If you're fasting and a jerk to your wife and family, you're not doing it right. I haven't taken that liberty of the cup of joe yet, but it's good to know that it's a minor thing in the shadow of the majors, which is namely, charity.

Increasing in charity is really a slow grow--you can't force it anymore you can get that orchid to bloom in time for your birthday. But you can practice in order to make it more....common for you. The way a bad habit needs to be replaced by a good habit, and aided by grace. Pray for an increase in charity, and then endure the hard work of self-deference of blessing someone when you'd rather curse them, praying for your enemies, giving alms when it hurts to do so and even when people are undeserving, making time for someone in need of a pep talk or tea at the kitchen table. Charity is the master, and these things its servant.

If you are deep in prayer and your neighbor in need knocks on your door in need, you are majoring in the minors if you piously refuse to rise and answer--not only the external door, but the door of your heart. For even the Lord healed on the Sabbath. He knew how to tell the meat from the bone, the major things from the minor ones, the purpose of the Law in addition to it's letter. He was so critical of the Pharisees because they were experts at "majoring in the minors." They converted no one, but set themselves up as judges and executioners of righteousness. Don't be like them, our Lord says. 

The Tertullians of our day are out there, observing and noting how we as Christians conduct ourselves. To the degree we give them pause and they note, "see how they love one another!" we are doing things right. To the degree we are focused on the minor barnacles of our faith when they do not serve the larger purpose of that love, we are missing the mark, gongs resounding from a shallow and hollow core.  

Acedia and Ennui: The Cousins of Mid-Life Manhood

 A few years ago I ran across a light-hearted little meme with a solidly truthful and existential nougat core. It’s a smiling little cartoon guy in a series of pictographic scenarios: Shop for a new tie. Make macaroni. Do Cardio.

[Don’t Let The Existential Dread Set In]

DON’T LET IT SET IN.

Vacuum the rug.

I still chuckle at it (uncomfortably) today. We live out our lives as Christians trying to synthesize the meaning of our life in Christ with the reality of suffering, the seeming futility of making meaningful change in the world, and the fact that we are going to die at some point. I’m not a fatalist nor a pessimist, but those moments of questioning what it is all for and what one’s life has amounted to will hit from time to time. I’d like to think I’m not the only one.

Perhaps this is coincidental with the post-Christmas season and turning forty-four in a few months. In reflecting on the life of our Savior, I think it gets overlooked for a lot of people that Christ began his public ministry at the age of thirty, and died at the age of thirty-three. He was, for all intents and purposes, in the prime of his life—peak manhood. And since there are no accidents in the spiritual economy, perhaps this is why the Father chose that period for his son, who was to be a choice offering, an unblemished lamb—a worthy sacrifice. It meant something because it cost everything.

The solution in the modern economy is to sidestep malaise, or hop over it. If one is anxious and looking for a way to address the root causes of their anxiety, they are often advised instead to pop a Xanax twice a day as if that was a solution. If we are uneasy with periods of boredom, there’s no shortage of food, phones, or content to distract us and get us out of that moment temporarily. 

Mid-life for men is a kind of predictable malaise that can’t be sidestepped or hopped over, however; you have to go through it on your way to old age, disease and death. It could have something to do with lowering testosterone levels. It could start in your late thirties or not hit until your early fifties. It’s not quite depression, though there can be some symptomatic overlap. It’s not quite doubt at the things we’ve committed ourselves to: marriage, family, faith, work. Mid-life seems to be its own unique thing, even when we’re not conscious we are experiencing it. 

That recalibration “halfway through the tunnel” can often play out in stereotypical ways: the Corvette, the affair, the career switch or the moving to a homestead in the country. But like the Xanax, these are the pills we pop to try to make the problem “go away.” Many men do not seem to even have the capacity for introspection, but instead (again, stereotypically) relegate this nebulous malaise to externals; to mansplain it, it is a matter of externals, a “problem to be solved.”

The Devil, to his credit, will not let any good crisis go to waste. And so he flanks our defenses from all exposed angles. He may plant the tares of doubt about our marriage vows, for one: Is your marriage really valid? Were you really in the right state of mind to make such a commitment? Does God really expect you to live the next forty years with the same woman? What if you just…left? Or he could capitalize on our boredom and general comfortability. You get the idea. 

In secular nomenclature, ennui is a kind of feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement. It seems to go hand in hand with mid-life for men and can be hard to put a finger on. In the spiritual life, acedia is a close spiritual relative—a kind of mental sloth or apathy which, ironically, strikes the solider of God often at the mid-life of the day (which is why it is sometimes referred to as the “Noonday Demon”). St. John Cassian, in his treatise from the Philokalia (“On The Eight Vices”) lays out both the diagnosis and the remedy for this form of spiritual attack,

"Our sixth struggle is against the demon of listlessness, who works hand in hand with the demon of dejection. This is a harsh, terrible demon, always attacking the monk, falling upon him at the sixth hour (mid-day), making him slack and fall of fear, inspiring him with hatred for his monastery, his fellow monks, for work of any kind, and even for the reading of Holy Scripture. He suggests to the monk that he should go elsewhere and that, if he does not, all his effort and time will be wasted. In addition to all this, tie produces in him at around the sixth hour a hunger such as he would not normally have after fasting for three days, or after a long journey or the heaviest labor. Then he makes him think that he will not be able to rid himself of this grievous sickness, except by sallying forth frequently to visit his brethren, ostensibly to help them and to tend them if they are unwell. When he cannot lead him astray in this manner, he puts him into the deepest sleep. In short, his attacks become stronger and more violent, and he cannot be beaten off except through prayer, through avoiding useless speech, through the study.”

For a monastic under a superior and a rule, the solution is simple: stay in your cell and fight your wayward nature by staying put and not abandoning your post. Not easy, but simple at least. Stay and fight.

Perhaps my mid-life malaise at the age of forty-four does have a spiritual taproot: Ennui driving the ‘Vette, with its spiritual cousin Acedia in the passenger seat coming along for the ride. St. John Cassian gives sound counsel for dealing with the latter, but the former in my opinion can be a tougher nut to crack; a kind of tension that needs to be uncomfortably sat with and stared down, or wrestled with the way Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord. To pay attention to that heart and meaning-shaped hole rather than going out to shop for a new tie or pumping some reps, while not staring so deep into the abyss that we are overtaken by it and fall in. Navel-gazing is a weak currency, but prayer for the Christian exacts change—even when it feels futile and even when it feels like those prayers eviscerate into the ether. 

Because we were hit with a storm recently, I had a small downed tree to deal with. I had no desire in this state of ennui-inspired apathy to do so, but forced myself to grab and axe and saw and get to work; it wasn’t going to move itself, and laying there in the yard seemed like a taunt. It seemed pointless and tiring to even think about, like everything else in my mind. Chopping a tree seemed as futile a distraction as cooking macaroni, or vacuuming the rug. 

After an hour or so of sweating and straining, though, I came in the house to find that Abba Moses, quoted in Cassian’s treatise, had it right: patience, prayer, and manual labor worked to dispel the noonday demon, at least for today. That doesn’t mean he won’t return, either tomorrow or next year when I’m forty-five. But at least for today, this patristic trifecta of armory was enough to help me find meaning enough to get up, get serious, and get to work.

I Got Mine

 

"But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." 

(Mt 3:7-10)

Ash Wednesday--the most attended non-holy day of obligation, and the most well attended Mass by non-practicing Catholics and non-Catholics alike--is just around the corner. Isn't that a curious socio-spiritual phenomenon? I suppose it's a little surprising that Catholics who would not attend Mass on a Sunday or think to go to on HDO are eager--excited even--to get their foreheads smudged and willingly give up their favorite treats and even maybe meat once a week as well. Perhaps its akin to the Jordan Peterson phenomenon: why would a guy telling us to "make your damn bed" and give us rules to live by be treated like the father we never had and elevated to international guru status? Haven't our moms been telling us to do the same thing since we were teenagers? 

I think all of us--even the most effeminate hedonists--feel the hangover of self-indulgence from time to time. A sated man loathes honey, as it says in Proverbs. We're kind of like King Herod in that way, lounging around after being tickled with feathers all day and popping grapes and figs when we hear about Jesus. Self-denial is the new kid on the block--let's go meet him! "When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform a sign of some sort. He plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer" (Lk 23:8-9). 

Seasoned Catholics who have worn butt-marks in their self-assigned pews can get a little uppity when the C&E crowd swell the church, and we have to remember that Christ came to save sinners, "of whom I am the first" (1 Tim 1:15). Well, here are the sinners, come to repent and be saved. Why are we so upset? What more do we want of people? They're here, aren't they?

If I can speculate, it's because Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the penitential season hold so much potential for change and metanoia, which is the true essence of the Gospel, and also has the potential to get so botched in the process, that veteran Catholics really need to put their blinders on and focus first and foremost on their own sins and need for repentance before they start looking around the pews casting judgment. That's really hard, because let's be honest--by logging so many hours in Church, even on non HDO's--we can feel like we have earned the right to such judgment, to play gatekeeper and arbiter of all that is truly Catholic. We may have mastered our stomach and our loins and our wandering eyes, but the heart in its pride is truly wily and will lead us to Hell faster than the other two combined.

But this still hasn't answered the question of why Ash Wednesday is so. dang. popular. John the Baptist drew the crowds with his message of repentance--and while many came with tears of contrition wishing to be washed clean, that wasn't the case with everyone. Some were there because it was the place to be.  The prophet Joel exhorts, "rend your hearts and not your garments" (Joel 2:13) and John the Baptist too said that axe was coming to cut people at the knees. He didn't give them a trinket and a pat on the back to go home with. Only that they must be born again. If you really wanted to change, you could, marked by the waters of baptism at the hands of John. If you were simply along for the ride to see a local celebrity, you had some choice words awaiting you from the grizzly prophet. 

While the major news outlets love pictures of Catholics with ashes on their foreheads to mark the beginning of the penitential season, including "devout Catholics" like President Biden and Nancy Pelosi, I hold photographs like this one, of my friend Moira outside the President's parish, as more in keeping with the season and true to the message of the Baptist.

I am reminded of the story of St. Mary of Egypt who was born to Christian parents in Alexandria but lived a life of sin for almost 17 years from the age of 12. One day, she decided to board a ship to Jerusalem. When she arrived, she wished to go into the church of the Resurrection but a divine power prevented her from entering. She quickly realized that it was because of her sinful life that she couldn’t enter. She wept bitterly and asked the Virgin Mary to intercede on her behalf in front of God. Then, she was able to enter the church freely and she prayed to God for Him to guide her. She looked towards an icon of the Virgin Mary, praying for guidance and salvation when suddenly a voice came out saying, “If you cross the Jordan river you will find rest and salvation.” She quickly crossed the river to the wilderness where she lived for 47 years doing penance.

Smearing ashes on the forehead of an unrepentant sinner is kind of like recladding a termite-infested cottage with cheap vinyl. The priest of the parish has a great opportunity here to be the Baptist for the day and chemical-bomb the termites rather than be preoccupied with the vinyl siding covering. Come out with fire from the pulpit--what other opportunity will you have to have these cultural Catholics or even non-Catholics in your pews, ripe for conversion and open to change--apart from this most popular day of ashes? Pray for the Holy Spirit to cut all to the heart, as it says in Acts--the grace of shame which converted those Jews (Acts 2:36-37). If you're going to be a little "mean" once a year, this is the day to do it. 

The time is short for repentance, and we don't want to feed the Instagram hopper with more #ashwednesday selfies as a cover for "evangelization." In giving up the meat of sin for a month and a half, deliver a juicy T-bone of fire in your sermon. This is your moment to bring people home. Cut us all to the knees. Wet our cheeks. Focus everything you have on indicting us to turn from our wicked ways. This is your 8mile moment--do not miss your chance to blow. Channel your inner Jeremiah:

“If you, Israel, will return,

    then return to me,”

declares the Lord.

“If you put your detestable idols out of my sight

    and no longer go astray,

 and if in a truthful, just and righteous way

    you swear, ‘As surely as the Lord lives,’

then the nations will invoke blessings by him

    and in him they will boast.”

 This is what the Lord says to the people of Judah and to Jerusalem:

“Break up your unplowed ground

    and do not sow among thorns.

 Circumcise yourselves to the Lord,

    circumcise your hearts,

    you people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,

or my wrath will flare up and burn like fire

    because of the evil you have done—

    burn with no one to quench it.

(Jer 4:1-4)

I have to believe that many CINOs and C&E Catholics are showing up on Ash Wednesday to their local parish because there is a small still voice in them that is whispering that they need to change, that they need to turn back and circumcise their hearts. Yes, they may be babies in faith and in need of milk. But there are also those who may be there wanting the fire, and wondering who will blast them with it--not in condemnation to drive them out, but with meat and substance to pull them in. What is the point of repentance when there is nothing to be saved from? This is the scandal of the modern Church--that we have nullified Christ's sacrifice by our apathy, lukewarmness, desire for cheap grace while taking for granted the cost of that holy death. 

"I want to change but I don't know how." Tell them how.  Tell them when Confession is. Give them a catechism and walk them through it. Tell them it's  a mortal sin to skip Mass if they have been doing so--if not you, who else is going to tell them? Say it with a smile and in love, of course, because you love them and you love their soul. It's ok to cry, the salty streams of shame across the contours of the cheeks. You love them more than ashes. You love them more than sweets. You love them more than all the tokens. You love them in their sin because you love the truth. 

So yes, give and get your ashes. But don't be afraid to be a Baptist if you are the pastor, even if just for a day. Let the purging cleanse of fire fly from the pulpit. Take the blowback beating if you need to. Today is the day of salvation. Do not let it pass you by. 

Hunger Is The Sweetest Sauce

 Last weekend my son and I went backpacking for a weekend on the Appalachian Trail. The AT will always hold a unique place in my personal salvation history; seventeen, alone and homesick in a forlorn shelter on a two week section hike across Pennsylvania, I encountered the living Word while reading the Psalms for the first time. When I would set off each day for yet another 18-20 mile day, I would leave my right hand free at my side, and the Lord would take it in His own. And not realizing at the time, the scripture was fulfilled in doing so, "Yet I still belong to you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny" (Ps 73:23).

So, I keep going back, now taking my son, hoping to make some memories, just as I still remember the first backpacking trip to Mt. Minsi that I took with my dad. The funny thing is, as much hiking and camping I have done, I don't actually enjoy it all that much. It's not novel; and I find walking/hiking actually quite boring. The older I get, the less I enjoy sleeping on the ground. 

When my son and I set off, parking our car in a little trail lot off in the rusty town of Marysville, near Duncannon, I didn't expect the section we had chosen to be as rough as it was; it had been over twenty five years since I had been on that part of the trail. It was hot, and the air was thick with humidity. We crossed through some open pasture, giant swiss-rolls of hay squatting standoffish throughout the fields. When we entered the woods, it was rocks, rocks everywhere (the PA section of the Trail is where thru-hikers famously state, "boots go to die."). We gained a surprising amount of elevation, but without the views--just trees, rocks, and my chaffing pack straps. 

I hadn't brought a map with me, as it was only a few miles to the shelter and spring where we had planned to spend the night. When you're tired, hungry and cranky, the mind seems to play curious psychological tricks on you with regards to the concept of time' when you think your destination is just around the bend...it's not. You start to second guess yourself and your bearings. 

We eventually hit a yellow-blazed spur trail, and weren't sure if that was the path to the shelter since there were no signs. We hiked down a ways, then back up when no shelter seemed to be in sight. My son was starting to fade a little, and I could feel a blister starting to develop on my big toe. We prayed the Sorrowful Mysteries together, hoping that we weren't wasting our energy and asking for the hand of God who led me when I was lost in the wilderness as a teenager to once again lead us on the right path.

Finally, after winding up a few modest switchbacks, we heard some voices at the crest--the first humans we had seen all day--and a blue-blaze. My son was relieved, and I was too. A few hundred yards later, we had dropped our packs on the mossy picnic table outside the three-sided Adirondack shelter, relished in the accomplishment, and got to cooking dinner and settling in.

Many of the early conservationists in our country felt that time in nature was an indispensable part of the human experience. I would agree, both for transcendental reasons, but also because it is a lesson in contrasts: The natural world is vast, and you are small. Nature is unforgiving, unbending, governed by unchanging laws; we are weak, fickle, in need of mercy. Nature speaks in silence; silence is foreign to us. Nature cares nothing for comfort, and we are addicted to it. 

After our one-pot meal of box mac n cheese (sans milk and butter) cooked over a small alcohol stove, we cleaned up and then were utterly...bored. We still had a couple hours of daylight, and set up the tent in a small clearing. When we settled in, it was around 6:30 pm and we dozed off to sleep. We both would subsequently wake up every few hours in the middle of the pitch-black night, waiting for sunrise so we could make our way back down and back to civilization. When we finally did the next day, we felt good, proud, elated, accomplished. We had only hiked around six miles total with less than a thousand feet elevation gain, but in coming back to the land of the living, everything had a sheen, a sweet glaze. We hopped in the car and set up for an Amish smorgasbord in Lancaster an hour away. 

My wife thinks I'm crazy for rarely using the central A/C in summer and setting the thermostat at 85, and for taking cold showers year round, even when it's fifty-five degrees in the house in winter. It sucks hard, but strangely it also makes me feel...alive. In my post,  Do the Hard Thing, I quote Wim Hof, aka "The Iceman" who found healing from the searing emotional pain of losing his wife in the numbing physical discomfort of outdoor plunges in freezing temperatures. His point is true,

"As humanity has evolved and developed ways to make our lives more and more comfortable, we have lost our ability not only to survive but to thrive in extreme environments," the Iceman notes. "The things we have built to make our lives easier have actually made us weaker."

Even Jordan Peterson, who has made a living telling young men to "make their damn bed," gets it: periodic deprivation keeps us from getting too soft and going insane.  I quote him in my post, We're Not Adapted for Security and Utopia, who for his part simply quotes Dostoevsky, that astute observer of human nature,

"Dostoevsky said that in Notes from the Underground...and I love this..he was an early critic of the notion of a political utopia. He said, if you gave people everything they wanted..they had nothing to eat but cake, and nothing to do but sit in warm pools and busy themselves with the continuation of the species...the first thing they would do after a week or so would go half insane and smash everything up just so that something they didn't expect would happen so they would have something interesting to do. We're not adapted for security and utopia!" 

The fathers in the faith knew the power of fasting, the power of mortification, the power of The Discipline, because it puts us face to face with our need--our mal-adapted need for food, comfort and security, but also (and even greater), our need for God and His grace. Because we are prone to forget, and because sin is wily, we start to edge dangerously close to following in the footsteps of King David, who lapsed into adultery with Bathsheba as he lounged in the robe of comfort and idleness when he should have been at war and sleeping on the ground with his men.

We are a climate-controlled society. We take solace in our portfolios rather than relying on Providence for our daily bread. We rely on artificial contraception rather than periodic abstinence because we falsely believe man cannot live in the bosom of continence. We kill babies rather than welcome them when it threatens to derail our carefully curated plans. The thought of skipping a meal comes as a monumental penance, and we have a 60% obesity rate to show for it. 

There's a reason the Lord warns against riches--not because wealth is evil in and of itself, but because it gives us everything we may want. And the Divine Physician knows that material tumor has the potential to metastasize if we're not mindful. The pre-req for the course on freedom that our Lord schools is Renunciation, and those unwilling to turn their back on their homeland are unworthy to have a seat in its lecture hall. You cannot find your life until you are willing to lose it. 

I'll probably periodically keep going back to the Trail, both alone and with my son from time to time--not because I love spending time this way, but because I don't. It has a way of making me appreciate my family, my kitchen sink and table, my pantry more when I return, something I grow forgetful of when I'm too attached to it. For hunger, indeed, is the sweetest sauce. 

A Tale Of Two Retreats

 

I'm getting ready to go on a five day silent Ignatian retreat in a couple weeks. Some traditional Benedictine monks are flying to Ohio from Tasmania (Australia) to offer it; in addition to daily Latin Mass, there is guided spiritual direction and Confession, as well as meditations on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Because it can be hard to find a solid retreat, I have to travel a bit for this one (20 hours total of driving). I feel fortunate I am able to attend, and I'd solicit your prayers for a fruitful experience.

Part of my desire to go on periodic retreats is to receive training, be pushed by those more advanced in the interior life, experience silence apart from my every day life, and grow closer to Christ in my spiritual practice. 

There was a time, years ago, when I was willing to travel anywhere in order to sit at the feet of a teacher under tutelage. At that time, my mind was my enemy--a rabid raccoon I couldn't trust. Who can teach me to train it? I wasn't plugged in to any kind of orthodox Catholicism at the time, and so I went East. In scripture, the Lord God says "As far as the East is from the West..." (Ps 103:12). Eastern thought is not that of the West, and religious syncretism is something I discovered later is not a boon, but a liability in the spiritual life of a Catholic (which I wrote about here). I don't recommend this for any sincere, practicing Catholic, but it was part of my journey at the time, and led me to reflect on it this morning.

In 2007 I traveled to Southern Thailand to make an eleven day vipassana ("to see things as they are") retreat at a monastery founded by the late Nguam Panitch (b 1906, d 1993). In 1926, Panitch left the wats (temples) of Bangkok and founded Suan Mokkhabalarama in the forest to practice what he believed to be a purer and less encumbered form of Buddhism. He adopted the name Buddhadassa Bhikkhu, which translates 'Slave of the Buddha' and lived out his life as a monk seeking liberation, and teaching others who sought the same.

There was no "signing up" or registering for this retreat; I just had to show up at the monastery gates and hope the monks let you in. It was over 700km from Bangkok to the province of Surat Thani in the far southern part of the country, where the monastery was located in the jungle. 

By combination of bus and tuk-tuk (a three-wheeled auto rickshaw) over the course of a day, I eventually arrived. The monks let me in.

The days began at 4am with meditation. We ate simple vegetarian meals, washed our clothes in a cistern and used a lantern to illuminate the path through the forest for talks. We did about six hours of meditation a day. I had a small cell with a concrete bed and bamboo mat, and a wooden block for a pillow. 

Two monks game the talks on the dharma each day, Tan Dhammaviddu and Tan Medhi. Tan Dhammaviddu was an English monk who had lived in a cave until recently; he was pale and never smiled, but was frank and serious and strived after enlightenment "the way a drowning man seeks air," as Bhuddhadassa Bhikku used to say; Tan Medhi was a pleasant native Thai monk who would smile and laugh. Sometimes the monks would go into the jungle to meditate for days where they knew the lions and other wild animals were present; being so close to potential death-by-mauling heightened their awareness, I was told. 

I didn't talk for eleven days, nor did any of the other participants, and I couldn't write. We were also forbidden to kill, as a precept, which meant enduring the mosquitos which in a state of meditation you would feel land on your skin and insert their stinger, drawing your blood.

About fifty men and fifty women from all over the world started the retreat, and a good number could not stand the intensity and left. One night I heard crying in the cell next to mine; it was a pimply kid from England who I imagined was homesick. We each had our own assigned meditation cushion; one morning the young man from Ireland who usually sat next to me didn't show up. I learned later, after the retreat, that he ran away in the middle of the night, climbing over the monastery gates, never to be heard of again. 

Thai Buddhism is largely based in the Theravada ("School of the Elders") tradition, which is old-school, strict Buddhism. In the Christian tradition, it would be akin to the "traditionalist" camps. There are different schools of Buddhism: Mayahana is a kind of reform school which places the enlightenment of all sentient beings as their primary end. Mayahana Buddhists refer to the Theravada school pejoratively as the "lesser vehicle," since Theravada Buddhists focus on liberation of the self. There is also Tibetan Buddhism, and Zen (Rinzai and Soto) Buddhism. The goal in Buddhism is to realize the non-duality of all things: there is no self, which is only a construct. Suffering arises from attachment to desire, which the Buddhist seeks to annihilate. Most Buddhists believe in karma and reincarnation--subsequent lives in which one continues to try to escape from the cycle of rebirth if you don't achieve it in your lifetime.

When I flew back to America, I did not come home enlightened, but I did undergo some serious discipline during that week and a half. Again, this is not something I would recommend to any Christian seeking Christ, as it is not necessary or good practice. I only share it because in my journey, God wrote with crooked lines. 

If you desire God, seek Christ and learn from a teacher in the school of charity. Pray to the God who loves you, don't meditate and seek answers from the Void. Rather than seek the annihilation of the self, subjugate it in order to become a slave of Christ, as the Apostle and all the disciples did.  The Gospel and the Dharma are not one and the same. Be willing to sell all you have for the Pearl of Great Price. Seek out discipline in the school of Tradition and orthodoxy, and learn from the Saints who have gone before you. Otherwise you will have a lot of 'un-learning' to do. If you are tempted towards religious syncretism, I would like to spare you from all that.