Peace is a Natural State

As I have traveled I am often struck by two things: how different people do things differently (the difference of culture), but also how similar we are as people (each of us have dreams and desires, hopes and expectations).
As I've been listening to the news of the protests (mainly peaceful protesters, not necessarily peacefully received) sweeping through North Africa and the Arab world, a number of interviewed protesters have shared "I am no longer afraid." The power of protesting has freed them from their fear, and freed them toward living out their dreams and desires.
It is into this mix that I share a quote from Carrie Newcomer that Laura or I ran across a while back:

His Holiness the Karmapa visited the school today. He told a room full of children and young adults, " Peace is a natural state. We do not need to create it. We need to be it." Elementary students sang "breath in breath out" and "peace like a river" as he and ten monks smiled. To often we've seen how our spiritual traditions can divide us. It was lovely to see so clearly what surely connects us.

I wish you this sense of peace, - as Jesus said, "Peace be with you."

Camara's Boat Quote

I came across this quote regarding pilgrimages:

When your ship, long moored in harbour, gives you the illusion of being a house ... put out to sea! Save your boat's journeying soul, and your own pilgrim soul, cost what it may.
~ Brazilian archbiship Helder Camara.

For all of you who are out actively on pilgrimage, and for those of you who are still longing to go while currently outfitting, may you continually be shaped by the One who calls us forth.

Celebrating Love on Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day.

Today I thought I'd share an interesting quote from The Mountain of Silence (Kyriacos C. Markides. The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality. Doubleday: New York, 2001).

What better way of approaching "love" in an unsentimental and deep manner; the ways in which we willing lose ourselves in the other that this day celebrates!

Humility, or the overcoming of egotistical passions, can be attained either within the context of monasticism or within life in the wider world with its myriad positive and negative “temptations.” Marriage, or example, is considered by the Ecclesia [the church] as a form of askesis [spiritual exercises], an arena for transcending one’s ego absorption for the sake of the other. It is a mistake, Father Maximos argued, to consider marriage, as many traditional Christians do, as first and foremost a means for procreation. The primary aim of marriage is askesis engaged in by two people who are asked to overcome their separateness in their common ascent towards God (214-5).

Boating like Monasticism?

It strikes me that from an outsiders perspective the life we live on our boats must seem a bit odd. Sometimes I think this comes from people assuming we live in an open row boat - as one of Elijah's friends commented upon. But there is also something about the choice to live simply that flies in the face of the United States consumerist society, too. After all, most of us quickly learn that we don't have room for all the nick-knacks of consumer living.

At any rate, I ran across the following quote while reading Kyriacos C. Markides' The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality (Doubleday 2001.).

Just as the world needs monks and nuns to sing praise, so too does the world need sailors to celebrate life!

Enjoy your new year.

Joel

'Let me ask you another question. Who is more useful to society, a doctor or a monk?’ Thomas asked pensively.

Father Maximos grinned and sighed. ‘I have been asked this question before. What does monasticism offer to society? Well, this question is characteristic of a modern way of thinking. It is an activist orientation toward the world. Every act, every person, is judged on the basis of their utility and contribution to the whole. Parents urge their children to excel so that they may be useful to society. Based on our spiritual tradition I prefer to see humans beings first and foremost in terms of who they are and only after that in terms of their contributions to society. Otherwise we run to risk of turning people into machines that produce useful things. So what if you do not produce useful things? Does that mean that you should be discarded as a useless object? I am afraid that with this orientation contemporary humanity has undermined the inherent value of the human person. Today we valued ourselves in terms of how much we contribute rather than in terms of who we are. And that attitude toward ourselves often leads to all sorts of psychological problems. I see this all the time during confessions.

'People using such utilitarian criteria,’ Father Maximos continued, ‘look at monasticism and conclude that it is useless and therefore most be discarded. But when we are willing to employ different criteria, monasticism offers the supreme gift to humanity that modern individual may not recognize.” … [Father Maximos continues to discuss how each person is assigned a life task, and that they are to work together, like the body.]

'I will tell you. Monasticism keeps alive in an unadulterated way the experience of the Christ. It is the space within which a human being is liberated from all biological and worldly concerns to redirect their focus and energy toward an exclusive preoccupation with the reality of God.”

… 'Isn’t it amazing,' he [Father Maximos] said shaking his head, ‘that people become so upset because a few men and women decided to become monks and nuns? Yet they are hardly concerned about the thousands who get hooked on drugs.’ (36-38, 39)