Ignatius (and Augustine) in the City

As I indicated in my previous posting, I recently participated in a seven day silent retreat at the Jesuit Retreat Center in Wernersville, PA. After the first four days I was floundering, feeling bored and a bit stressed about the whole experience. However on the fifth day, things turned around.

The retreat center is located on a hill overlooking a  valley tucked between two ridges and encompasses over 250 acres of verdant fields, numerous trees, and a variety of walking paths with shrines and benches on which to sit, read, meditate, pray, sleep or however the Spirit leads. Each day of the retreat I met with a spiritual director who gave me a series of instructions based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, a regimen the founder of the Jesuits created to develop the spiritual life of the priests in the order. For many people this setting would have been idyllic, but for me it began to feel confining.

Several years ago I began practicing what I have come to call engaged spirituality . The focus of engaged spirituality is not to withdraw from normal life to meet God, but instead to immerse oneself in it. As I wrote in July 2010 I came to realize that “God was not far off only to be experienced in some mystical transcendence, God was among us to be touched and experienced in the busyness of life.” So I decided to take my retreat off campus and into the city of Reading (pronounced “Redding”) ten miles away.

On that morning, Bruce, my spiritual director, instructed me to use a particular approach to reading Scripture developed by Ignatius in the 16th century in which the reader, using imagination, places him/herself in the Biblical story and seeks to see the story from the inside. As James Martin says in The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything the purpose is to “[imagine] yourself in a scene in the Bible…and then take part in it” (p. 145). All four of the passages involved events in the early life of Jesus, and so were quite familiar to me. I drove to the Reading visitor’s center, got a map of the city and then parked my car on South 10th St.  near the South Reading Middle School, and began walking around the largely Mexican neighborhood. My adventure with Ignatius-style engaged spirituality began.

For the next four hours I followed a simple pattern. I would stop on the steps of a building and slowly read and think about the assigned passage. Then I would get up and walk for 20 minutes or so, taking in the sights, sounds, smells and feel of the neighborhood and then stop and write down my reflections and observations in a spiral notebook. Often I would sit and simply watch and listen to what was going on around me. In the spirit of the silent retreat, I did not speak to anyone unless they spoke to me. For instance I had a few panhandlers approach me and a couple times folks said something to me as they passed by. Other than that I simply observed and reflected what I saw.

I stopped on the steps of a church to read my first assigned Scripture of the day, which was the story of the birth Jesus in Luke 2. This is where the 4th century Christian philosopher Augustine showed up. Augustine, like Ignatius, developed a unique way of Bible reading. Augustine’s approach was to have the reader recast the story into his/her contemporary context. So as I read the first passage which was Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, I put myself in Mary and Joseph's shoes, but then I imagined what would this birth have looked like had it occurred  in this Reading neighborhood. In this neighborhood, where would one go if there "was no room" for a stranger to stay? Where would Mary and Joseph gone to give birth to their son? Would it be an alley somewhere or an abandoned house or the back of the car? I imagined that Mary and Joseph would have felt out of place in this strange town where the folks had a distinctly different accent from the folks in Nazareth.  As I reflected on these insights, this passage came alive to me in a new ways. I saw the vulnerability Mary and Joseph must have felt for their baby. I imagined myself holding this newborn child in this strange and vulnerable setting, and wondering, would he survive? What chance did he have? The idea that Jesus "shared our weakness" became very real as I imagined holding the Christ child on that Reading street.

As I walked the streets, I saw young mothers and fathers on the street with their little children. I thought of what it must have been like for Jesus. Perhaps some of these parents were undocumented in ways similar Mary, Joseph and Jesus, not fully accepted, yet struggling to survive. The young parents appeared to love their children, but  also knew their futures were difficult.  The kids were happy and playful, as were their parents, but if they were like Joseph, Mary and Jesus, underneath there probably was a great deal of confusion, fear and uncertainty.

I continued walking and paused on the steps of an old Methodist Church, a Spanish language Pentecostal church and a Habitat for Humanity project, I repeated the exercise with the other assigned Scriptures. I thought  of Jesus at age 12 years (Luke 2. 41-50) in a church somewhere talking to elders while his folks frantically searched all over Reading for three days looking for their missing child, who when he was found seemed non-plussed and unconcerned with his mother's question - "Why did you do this to us?" What confusion and terror the parents must have felt, wondering what was becoming of this boy, who seemed so sure of himself. As a parent I wondered about the elders who were talking to Jesus? Didn’t they wonder where the boy’s parents were? Where did Jesus eat and sleep the four days he was "missing?" Looking all over Reading only to find him a church? How frantic they must have been.

At another point I imagined John the Baptist baptizing Jesus (Matthew 3) by opening a fire hydrant on the street. As the water shot out in a long wide spray flooding the street, I could see in my mind’s eye children dancing and screeching with delight in the spray, while firefighters tried to close it off and shoo the people away. There in the midst of this chaos I saw Jesus come up to John and say “Let’s do this,” as John poured water on his head. And then “boom” everything stopped as a voice said “This is my Son, listen to him.”

The last Scripture of the day was the story of Jesus being tempted in the desert by Satan (Matthew 4). When Satan offered Jesus the power to turn stones into bread, I pondered what would the "stones" in Reading be like. It came to me that Jesus might recognize that some of the homeless folks, the addicts, the unemployed, and the lonely elderly I passed as I walked might feel as listless and useless as stones, and not like bread that could nourish others. Wouldn't Jesus instantly be tempted to give them meaning and a sense of their own value? But Jesus would know they were not stones,that in fact they were "bread" - they were people with purpose, inherent worth, meaning and power; they had simply forgotten, or perhaps never known, they had that kind of value. Jesus would not have to "change them " but rather would want to help them see their own beauty and inner strength, to see that they were not "stones" but nourishing "bread" for others. The second temptation - jumping off a high place - was easy to imagine and I could see Jesus scaling one of the many church spires while a crowd gathered on the street wondering if he would jump. In that neighborhood such a spectacle could have easily been something to talk about; but Jesus resisted the urge to be such a spectacle.

The third and final temptation (where Satan offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world) required that I get in my car and drive up a large hill above the city overlooking the entire region for 20-30 miles. I imagined Satan offering Jesus power over all that he could see in exchange for paying homage to him instead of God. From on top of that hill I felt the emptiness of power corrupted by greed and self-centeredness, things we see nearly every day in corporate and political realms. I realized if Jesus had gone with Satan's ploy, his "power" would have been instantly corrupted and therefore made destructive. Imagining myself in the place of Jesus, I could sense that domination power would not significantly tempt him, a power that was "high and lifted up" designed to control people. Instead, I imagined Jesus would want to be back on the street and in the neighborhood with folks, sharing their struggles, hearing their stories, and being with them in their lives; leading by serving rather than by dominating, exercising his ability to help people see their inherent beauty and God-given power. In the end the Jesus I saw in Reading was not a typical power broker, but one who came to "dwell among us" as the gospel writer John so clearly reminds us.

As I drove back to the retreat center late that afternoon, I was spiritually energized in a way I had not been in a long time. By taking the Bible reading approaches of Ignatius and Augustine with me into the city, I saw Jesus among the good folks of Reading in a fresh and renewing way. I left the city that day with a deep sense of connection to the people there and the presence of Jesus among them. On that day through silent observation and active imagination I saw,heard and felt the presence of Jesus in a Reading  neighborhood in and around South 10th St.

Seven Days of Silence

I am not what people would refer to the “strong, silent type.” Yet for seven days from June 25 – to July 1 I participated in a silent retreat conducted by the Jesuit Center in Wernersville, PA. Last fall I volunteered to be part of a study being conducted by Dr. Andrew Newberg of Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia who is doing research on the relationship between spiritual practices and brain function. Dr. Newberg paid for my retreat in exchange for having my brain scanned (some would say “having my head examined”) before and after the experience. While the brain scans were an experience in themselves that required a fair amount of spiritual fortitude (I am thankful for having learned “yoga breathing”), the experience of living in silence for a week together with 30 other people was also informative and at times stressful.I also committed myself to be “off the grid” in the sense that I did not read or send emails, so I was not communicating with folks off campus either.

The retreat was “directed” which meant that we were being led through a series of “spiritual exercises” developed by Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuit Order, designed to develop and deepen one’s spiritual life. The full slate of Ignatian Exercises takes 30+ days, so we were given sort of an “Ignatian sampler” of various ways of praying, reading the Bible, and thinking about ourselves in relationship to God. I had never done anything like this, and yet I found that many of the exercises I was asked to do were similar to ways I had learned to pray or read the Bible in other settings. So though the overall feel of the Center and the retreat was very Roman Catholic (which I am very not), there were several points of connection to my own attempts at practicing and living out spiritual disciplines. One thing about Ignatius I found particularly helpful is that he thought of himself as a “contemplative in action,” and so instead of inviting one to withdraw from the world, he invites people to engage the world in and through one’s spiritual practice; I resonated deeply with that approach.

Now some people might relish the idea of being in a situation where you don’t have to talk to anybody as nothing short of wonderful. While at first I was relieved to not have to make the kind of small talk that usually happens at the beginning of a workshop or a conference, after about a day the silence started to get to me. I wanted to ask people questions, see what they were reading, and generally make the small talk 24 hours earlier I was relieved not to have to do. I should note that each morning I met with a spiritual director named Bruce with whom I could talk, and I expressed this frustration with him. Bruce just listened to my concerns, smiled and then gave me the exercises I was to do that day and I was sent into another 23 hours of silence on my own.  By day three, I was feeling bored, and by day four I wondered if I should just call it quits. I did not sleep well, and I was in constant motion, trying to keep myself  busy, and frankly not feeling all that spiritual. 

Because I did not know anyone, I began giving them names in my mind. “Birdman” was a guy who before we went into silence shared that he experienced God in the singing of the birds; “Glider” was a woman who seemed just glide as she walked; “Coach” was a husky, short haired woman with a prosthetic leg, but who looked like she had been quite an athlete in her day; “Blindman” was in fact a blind guy; and “Distinguished” was a debonair gray-haired guy who always read a book at meals, and wore a shirt from a different university every day. Heaven knows, what names they gave me with Gandhi t- shirt, and my bright orange bike jersey.

Through it all, I realized that for me so much of my spirituality is tied to my relationships to and interaction with other people. While at different times in my life, I have tried meditation, centering prayer, lectio divina and other forms of inward-focus spiritual disciplines (I even was “a charismatic” for a while in the 1980’s), I have always come back to the fact that God seems most present to me in the midst of activities directed at working for social justice with other people engaged in those activities. For instance, when asked by Bruce to share some of my “peak” spiritual experiences, I told him about my arrest as part of civil disobedience action in 2009, and my participation in the 2010 U.S. Social Forum in Detroit; not exactly what I think he expected.

Ironically and coincidentally, while I was on retreat, the world and the nation experienced some ground-breaking and tragic events. The Supreme Court Decisions on gay marriage and supporting the Affordable Care Act, the bombings in Tunisia, France and Kuwait, Pres. Obama’s “Amazing Grace” eulogy at Rev. Clementa Pinckney’s funeral, and the burning of several African American churches, all occurred the week I was on retreat. I read of these events and found my heart both broken and inspired, sometimes simultaneously. However, even more than these concerns, my heart, mind and prayer was focused on the debate taking place in the Pennsylvania capitol over the state budget and funds to be allocated for public education funding, an issue and an effort I have been deeply involved with. I will say more about this particular aspect of my retreat in subsequent blog, but the deep need to pray for a broken and hurting world impressed itself upon me.

In the end I got used to the silence in that it allowed and forced me to pay attention to the world inside and around me. I don’t know if the silence itself was the means to this awareness, but simply being in a place where one’s every need is provided in a comfortable and safe manner, allowed me to focus in a way that is often not possible in my day-to-day life. So when I finally drove home last Wednesday night, I did not turn on the radio or listen to anything except the wheels of my car on the road. As I got closer to home, I was not sure what to say, but when I arrived, and as Cynthia and I talked, words slowly came. Yet even these few days later, there is within in me a place of calm silence that still seeks to pay attention, to listen, to empathize and to be present in a way I think would make Ignatius proud.

Seeking Deeper Power

Just over five years ago on a very cold January afternoon I was arrested along with six others for blocking the entrance to Colisimo's gun shop on Spring Garden Street in Philadelphia. We were there to call attention to the store’s complicity in the straw purchasing process that leads to illegal guns getting into communities that are overwhelmingly used in street crimes. In the trial that ensued one of the things that I was always uneasy about is that in our defense, our lawyer stressed that we were praying in front of the store as part of our protest. While I understand that public prayer has been an effective from of political protest going back at least to the Civil Rights Movement, that it makes for good political theater, and that was an effective legal defense strategy, in my case it just was not true. Frankly I was too #%&@ cold to pray!

There were some deeply spiritual people among the twelve people who were arrested over the two days of civil disobedience protest: a young woman who later that year walked the El Camino in northern Spain; a Jewish Rabbi who is  a spiritual guide to many young Jews; a Quaker activist who on the street and in the jail regularly called us to pray. But not me. Now I did have a sense going in that I was living out the apostle Paul’s call to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice”(Roman 12.1). However, while I probably should have been praying, I wasn’t. In that moment of protest I was not calling on a deeper source of power to transform Mr. Colisimo’s heart; I was just trying to stay warm while sitting in front of his store. Moreover,  when I was arrested and spent a day and night in jail I did not call on and sense God’s presence in the jail cell; I wish I had because when I was left alone by myself in the cell I felt  totally cut off from people and God , so much so that I  nearly went crazy. Instead of meeting God that day, I experienced trauma and a spiritual emptiness that took months for me to process. (To see my reflections on the experience go to this link). So when my lawyer said I was praying in front of the store, I wish it were true, but I was not.

Five years later in a different way I find myself facing a similar challenge and question. I find myself in a spiritual state of unease while being involved in the faith-based network POWER (Philadelphians Organized for Witness, Empowerment and Rebuilding). Through POWER I am engaged  with many others in a campaign to convince the governor and legislature of Pennsylvania to develop a full and fair funding formula for resourcing the state’s public schools, particularly the Philadelphia School system. In our meetings we talk about developing and exercising power, by which we mean getting people out to vote and to rallies in sufficient numbers to convince politicians that we are force to be reckoned with. Most, if not all, of the people involved would consider themselves “people of faith” by which they mean that their values and worldviews are shaped by their faith tradition be it Jewish, Christian or Muslim. Our gatherings often begin with prayer and a faith reflection, and yet somehow I feel like we are missing something extremely important, a deeper power, the power of the Spirit that shapes and informs our various faith traditions.

Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest and the co-founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation writes about the Perennial Tradition, a belief coming out of the Roman Catholic tradition that affirms that there is “a Divine Reality underneath and inherent in the world” that connects all the world’s faith traditions and from which each of  those traditions emerge. He compares this Divine Reality to an underground stream from which all faith traditions draw their strength and inspiration. Through the years there have been numerous efforts by Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist teachers to articulate and describe this deeper source of power that links all faith traditions, while at the same time honoring the uniqueness of each. Now for some this idea of a deeper power linking all spiritual traditions wades into troubling theological waters. For instance, in my Christian tradition we emphasize that Jesus is “the Way, the Truth and Life and no one comes to [God] except through [him]” (John 14.6).  I have come to see this statement as just another one of the paradoxes of my faith, such as the first shall be last, that in dying we find new life, that in suffering there is victory, and that blessing comes through suffering. In the same way Jesus is the Way while at the same time he points me to a deeper power linking to people of various faith traditions much different than my own.

How else do we account for some of the great leaders and spiritual teachers who come from different traditions. How do I as a Christian account for the power of Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hahn, Aung San Suu Kyi, Malcom X, Abraham Joshua Heschel and Elie Wiesel? Yes I am inspired by Christian leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., John Woolman and Thomas Merton, but I can not dismiss the power of these other voices from outside my tradition as well.

I am not what one would call a spiritual person. Yes, I worship and pray, but I don’t go through life with an ever-present awareness of God in my life. I have never heard God’s voice, or had a profound mystical experience. Even so I work at it, regularly reading the Bible and other spiritual readings. I even try to meditate. The great teachers say to do it right you should meditate at least for 20 minutes two times a day. I can barely manage 10 minutes once a day, if that; I feel better for it, but I am not expecting any great breakthroughs anytime soon.

On the other hand, some of my most profound spiritual experiences have occurred in very non-religious, non-spiritual settings, such as when I attended the 2010 U. S. Social Forum where 15,000 social activists (most of whom were decidedly secular) met to share ideas and strategize on ways to bring about social change or when I gathered with about 50 others for a vigil in Philadelphia’s Love Park to call attention to gun violence in our community, or when I am walking the streets of West Philadelphia watching and sensing the dynamic of the neighborhood. Somehow when I am out there in the community working for the change that is needed in concert with many others, that’s when I feel most aware of God’s presence.

I try to practice what I and others have called an engaged spirituality, an approach that seeks to meet Christ in the midst of the people in action. It is through engaged spirituality that I wish that groups like POWER and Heeding God’s Call (a faith based group working on gun violence prevention) would realize that our strength and power comes not just from being able to exercise our political muscle but also comes from that deeper source from which all our spiritual traditions issue. Gandhi and King talked about soul-force, which I take to mean a source of power that is more than simply the collective numbers of faith-oriented persons working on a particular issue. Heschel said that prayer by its very nature is subversive  and that it works to overthrow the powers of oppression and falsehood. How do we tap into the power that can topple the power structures of our day? That’s the question I grapple with.

As I sometimes have shared in this blog space, I have grown skeptical of the political process in our day largely because the politicians are beholden to the wealthy 1%, lobbyists and corporations who line their pockets in exchange for deference and favors. For example, when 80% of Americans polled after the Sandy Hook massacre think there ought to be stricter gun laws and the Congress can’t even pass a weak background check bill, it is pretty obvious the politicians are not listening to the people; they are following the money. So I am skeptical of using the tactics of people power, unless those people come with pockets full of cash. To defeat the powers that be we must draw not just on our political power, but also on that deeper power that unites us as people of faith. We need to find ways to pray corporately even as we act to bring down the rulers of our day, both political and financial, so that justice can roll down like waters, and righteousness like an overflowing stream of the Spirit (Amos 5.24.)

Spirituality of a Different Kind

Just before the July 4th holiday I attended the national gathering of the National Organizer’s Alliance (NOA) , a network of community organizers, labor organizers and social activists from across the country. I was there to learn about community organizing work that was being done at the grassroots level, and came away with that and so much more. The folks at the gathering represented a wide variety of groups and concerns: gay rights, environmentalists, immigration, drug policy reform, labor unions, women’s issues, anti-racism groups, church networks and much more. The group was racially, ethnically and generationally diverse, and leadership was shared equally and seamlessly across all the differences. While there were several “old-timers,” people who had been involved in social activism since the 1960’s, there also was a healthy contingent of late adolescents and twenty-somethings whose contributions and commitments were affirmed and celebrated. Despite all the apparent differences, there was a common commitment to radical social change and to “the movement” that will hopefully bring it about.

I met one African-American brother who had spent several years in prison for a crime he did not commit, and when he was released he returned to his home in rural South Carolina to work for economic and racial justice. He was elected as a county commissioner, but even that did not spare him from being harassed and threatened to the point of death by white supremacists in the area. However, he spoke gratefully of the support and assistance given to him from his colleagues from NOA during some of his most trying times. He saw the members of NOA as his extended family and community of support.

One night we were entertained by the D.C. Labor Choir, a group of union folks who got together weekly to sing and support each other. Like the NOA group, the choir was made up of Asian, Latino, African-American and White folks of all ages. Several of the songs they sang were gospel songs (with the words slightly altered) that originally came out of the African-American church, which of course had been the heart and soul of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950’s and 60’s.

As I was listening to the choir and reflecting on my experience with these ordinary folks committed to extraordinary change, I felt like I was in “church”; not church in the stuffy formal sense that many folks think of church, but “church” in its best and fullest sense. The feeling of mutual support was true community, the music spoke to the depths of my soul, the commitments expressed were infectious, and the vision of a new world brought about by the movement reminded me of Jesus speaking about the Reign of God that is here and is to come. Furthermore, as I spoke with folks individually, I learned that many of them were strengthened by a deep sense of purpose that came from their religious faith, be it Jewish, Christian, Muslim or undefined.

Krista Tippet, the author of Speaking of Faith, and host of the radio show by the same name, says that in our current age with its tendency toward extremisms of all kinds, our society and world is in need of religious “moderators,” people who do not deny the importance of faith but instead “bring the best of their traditions to bear on the world.” I felt that I was in the presence of such moderators, folks who were drawn to a vision of a world of equity, peace, fairness, health, safety and cooperation with nature. Cynics and “realists” on the Left and Right denounce such visionaries as impractical. That cynicism leads to the life-destroying policies of both the left and right, and only breeds greater enmity between the two. The Rush Limbaughs, Ann Coulters and Bill Mahers of the world scoff at such visions, and only leave us in despair. By contrast spiritual moderators imbue us with a sense of optimism because they see through the present struggle to a brighter horizon where hope lives. Such hope does not hide or deny present struggles and suffering, but helps sustain us to keep working toward a world free of unjust suffering.

My experience at the NOA gathering was so moving because 25-30 years ago when I was marching against Vietnam, nuclear power, U.S. support of the contras and other causes, there was a great deal of anger and enmity on the Left toward spiritually oriented people. While there were always religiously oriented leaders like Jesse Jackson and William Sloane Coffin involved, I felt that they were tolerated because of their political leanings and basically ignored (by most) for their spiritual convictions. What I sensed at NOA was something quite different; I felt an openness to the Transcendent that pointed to a deeper spirituality infusing those seeking social change.

One of the great things about this postmodern age we live in is that I can affirm my Christian roots and motivation, while someone else can affirm their roots from another tradition, and we don’t have to feel like one of has to “win” the other over. Instead we can stand in the space that our common commitments create for us despite our different sources of inspiration. In such encounters I am reminded that God or Allah or Yahweh or the Higher Power or whatever we call the Transcendent is far too vast for any one of us to fully grasp, and therefore large enough for all of us to be covered by the Divine grace and shelter of love.

Robert Mulholland writes that often God comes to us from the margins of life in what he calls a “decentering experience.” In other words very often the Transcendent is found in the places where one would least expect to experience a deep sense of a spiritual presence. I did not go to the NOA gathering expecting to experience “church;” nonetheless, God met me there in deep and profound ways, and I am deeply grateful for being decentered yet again.