So I will continue to chant and study Buddhism and work (yes, I am still online there!).  And in the course of time, perhaps, come back here and continue to explore this form of sharing.  Just not now, not yet.

But there may be more to it than that.  In the wonderful scene between Ivanhoe and Rebecca that I just read, the debate is about the merit of glorious chivalric endeavor.  Translate that set of issues to contemporary struggles we all face about ambition versus heart, and it’s really quite relevant.  She says,

“Glory?” continued Rebecca; “alas, is the rusted mail which hangs as a hatchment over the champion’s dim and mouldering tomb — is the defaced sculpture of the inscription which the ignorant monk can hardly read to the enquiring pilgrim — are these sufficient rewards for the sacrifice of every kindly affection, for a life spent miserably that ye may make others miserable? Or is there such virtue in the rude rhymes of a wandering bard, that domestic love, kindly affection, peace and happiness, are so wildly bartered, to become the hero of those ballads which vagabond minstrels sing to drunken churls over their evening ale?”

I ponder this as I witness the explosion of increasingly amped up plugged-in-ness that surrounds me every day.  Technology is the new glory.  “Kindly affection, peace and happiness” seem entirely quaint, entirely old-fashioned, and yet I think we are starving to death together without them.

That the holy angels do condescend to mingle with us when we praise God in psalmody is very clearly stated by the Psalmist: “The princes went before, joined with the singers, in the midst of young damsels playing on timbrels. (Psalm 68:26)  He also said, “I will sing praise to you in the sight of the angels. (Psalm 138:1) … Joined therefore as you are in songs of praise with heaven’s own singers, since you too are citizens like all the saints, and part of God’s household, sing wisely.”

I had a remarkable and wholly unexpected experience of singing with the angels last weekend.  I had made my way to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Seattle, looking for a meeting of the Contemplative Wisdom Community.  I inadvertently stumbled into the church’s Sunday evening service instead.  It is a contemplative Eucharist service, so it had the right feel to it, but after sitting a few minutes with the 30 or so people gathered there I began to notice that something was quite different.  Many of the participants–certainly more than half of them–were challenged with some sort of developmental disability or other (I regret that I don’t know the correct terms to describe these things–one man shook very badly, others seemed to have mental disabilities or other forms of non-standard behavior or demeanor).  Here I was, expecting to connect with the super-cool, super-high-functioning mystics, and I found myself instead in the presence of a very different kind of energy: very beautiful, as it happened, and devoted, simple and clear.  The service included a segment for hands-on healing–very beautiful.  The music was simple and sung with gusto–very beautiful.  The responsory portions, the Eucharist passed from person to person (sometimes with shaking hands or the assistance of others)–very beautiful indeed.  My heart cracked open with wonder and joy, my habits of resistance and resentment, my deconstruction of the theology of the texts were washed away, almost miraculously.

There were angels there that day, and I felt privileged to be among them.  Doubtless I am romanticizing what was after all a brief encounter, but in the presence of this heartful childlike clarity I felt convicted (old-fashioned religious term, entirely appropriate) of all the addictions to sophistication and cerebral complications I indulge in.  There’s an Orthodox saying, “the road from the head to the heart is the longest journey.”  That evening I made a couple of steps down that path.  May I have the grace to continue walking!

One other personal note: a huge relief today, as a workplace complication I had been dreading was suddenly smoothed out very nicely.  I am hoping, hoping, this will free up some emotional energy and enable me to focus more of my time and attention on this blog and the creative projects of various kinds that inspire me to write it.  What shapes those will take–not known yet.  Electronic fantasies on chant, or barbarian kings and their Psalms, or the mystical garden of the Song of Songs, or more adorations of the divine mother, or some combination thereof.  Although you wouldn’t think so from the title, Sufjan Stephens’ “The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us” fuels all these musings and helps generate a beautiful sphere of hope.

There is one lone Wikipedia entry, a brief stub, on Cultural Christianity, which succinctly states, “The term usually is used pejoratively by other Christians to describe these individuals, whose spiritual understanding or practice they see as underdeveloped or superficial.”  Pooh.  Just when I thought I had a good thing going .  Yet another reputation to salvage?  (Peter Brown’s The Rise of Western Christendom makes clear that name-calling has been an excellent Christian strategy for millenia: from “pagan” (the equivalent of “hick” or “rube”) to “Arian” to “Nestorian”, it’s a classic technique.  OK, not just Christians enage in this, but we’ve been pretty good at it.
Still, the concept fits me pretty well: it describes my reliable passion for certain “classical Christian “artefacts and my very tenuous and unstable relationship its core concepts (Buddhism just says it better for me, almost all the time).  Something to keep playing with in the endless identity game.
As always when we have a really good Peregrine rehearsal: I’m in love with Gregorian chant all over again.  This evening it came at a particularly rich time, after several nights hearing the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche expound on Buddhist wisdom (and somehow I snuck in there a viewing of Jesus Camp, which stirs up a whole host of its own personal issues about which more later, if all the conceptual planes circling my airport ever manage to land).

But into this maelstrom comes that inimitable, unforgettable, aesthetic spiritual transformative musical experience of singing chant really well with people I’ve been singing with for years.  It just all opened up and was sublimely perfect.  At moments like this, I really don’t care what identity I have.  It just feels great to be alive.

I have to give myself a modest pat on the back for showing up for these teachings, and not running screaming from the room.  To sit still and listen with an open heart and genuine pleasure to any spiritual teacher takes some doing (this has been a good year–Cynthia Bourgeault is another success story for the mystical Christian side of my brain).

The occasion for Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche’s talks is Nitartha Institute, a lovely and in-depth exploration of Buddhist philosophy that is now most conveniently being offered a few blocks from my house.  This is not the year for me to attend but I hope to do so another time.  I’m really amazed by the Nitartha Institute’s vision: to provide a context for traditional Tibetan Buddhist scholastic philosophy to be taught in a Western context, in a way that makes sense to Westerners.  This vision will take time to unfold (it’s been going for eleven years already), but as the DPR said the other night, “I’m a conversative”.

Sometimes my quixotic pursuit of the spirituality of Gregorian chant seems foolish and pointless.  But maybe there is a way in which this work can sprout its own roots and grow, just like these beautiful Buddhist projects springing up all over.

Anyway, I just keep studying and growing and listening (most recently also to Peter Brown’s fantastic Rise of Western Christendom, which is opening up huge new vistas of understanding about the context of Gregorian chant–more on this later, I hope).

As always, I feel very happy when I am able to connect with a little bit of medieval history in this way: Francis the person, and the Franciscans as an order, have always felt special to me somehow, so to be able read and sing these beautiful chants (and, this summer, to share them with others) is a rare treat!  The breadth and scale of medieval music is always breathtaking to me, and here is yet another treasure trove to explore.  Wowie!

Anyway, these two events have put a damper on my blogging activity for the last week or so.  Hope to get back to it soon.

I am musing on the role of evangelism in religions; both Christianity and Buddhism has healthy components of this activity.  Where does one draw the line between a healthy commpassionate desire that all beings obtain liberation, and an arrogant presumption as to what that liberation ought to consist of?

Of course, these thoughts are completely random and have absolutely nothing to do with certain recent experiences in certain Sunday morning evangelical church services attended in fulfillment of certain filial obligations…

I know this is a bit like that old saw: “There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don’t.”

Nevertheless I think this is an important, maybe a fundamental, distinction between the spiritual journeys of west and east.  And yet: in conversation with my Nalanda West mentor today, we talked about these as two poles of a wonderfully unstable dynamic compound: “not one, not two”.   It’s all one…and yet we continue to exist and be in relationship.
The Meditations author speaks most compellingly of the power of preserving personality on the Christian path.  I think he sells Buddhism short, surely, and misses some of the nuances of Buddha-nature.  But when he says things like “those on the path of unity no longer have the ability to shed tears” there’s something valid there.

After working through a number of books that play softball with the distinctions between West and East, it’s utterly refreshing to hear this potent articulation of what’s *unique* about the Christian journey, not in a triumphalist sense, but in a deeply reflective, careful, and respectful way.  What a treasure!