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Back to Basics

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Recently a regular member of our weekly mindfulness group had made mention of the commonly observed phenomenon of ‘getting dumber’ as we get older. A now retired teacher, this was not her comment at all on the typical aged-related diminishment of cognitive skills. Rather she was referring to the certainty with which her former adolescent charges would pronounce on near any topic of interest; and how the ‘older folk’ were really just not up to it anymore. It brought to mind the old chestnut: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing!  And it’s corollary: too soon we get old, too late smart.

Her comment dovetailed nicely with an article my wife was reading, in preparation for an upcoming piano examination. Her teacher had commented on the precision with which she played; but had suggested adding ‘some colour’. Understanding the ‘concept’, but not really being too clear on what this might look like in application, she went a-Googling; happening on a blog by Jeffrey Chappell who likened colour, and a number of other ‘intangibles’ in playing to freedom:

‘Freedom means that as you play music, you do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it. It means that you drive the music,  not the other way around. . . At an early phase of study, the musician’s job (however) is to be right: to identify what is on the page and to render it accurately. Feeling right is inner and subjective; it is about you. Being right is outer and objective; it is about what is on the page. Having one without the other—it feels right but it isn’t right, it is right but it doesn’t feel right—creates an unsatisfying experience.’
Both of the above seemed to be getting at a few similar, underlying issues. Essentially don’t run until you’re pretty good at putting one foot in front of the other — often called ‘walking’. And to ‘walk’ means spending a goodly amount of time and effort exploring the basics of whatever the focus might be. Drill, repetition, study, questioning . . . and perhaps above all else, listening — which, as most of us realize, requires keeping one’s mouth shut; ears open and brain available for new information.
A portion of this past Sunday’s Tapestry episode (http://www.cbc.ca/tapestry/episode/2013/01/09/worshipping-at-the-altar-of-vodka-and-cocaine/), an interview with Carlos Fraenkel, philosophy professor at McGill, applied an interesting spin to this same challenge. Fraenkel considers engaging in philosophical discussion as essential to the development of the critical thinking process; as well as maintaining an open, self-questioning opportunity to deepen, understand, and revise one’s own belief and value structure. His personal and professional experience in a wide variety of teaching environments and in conversation with people from an equally diverse set of religious and spiritual backgrounds, has only strengthened his view that to simply ‘swallow whole’ a liturgy, value system, political posture, etc. is to truncate one’s personal growth and to abdicate one’s responsibility to question and to foster accountability.
In Dr. Fraenkel’s view, this ‘conversation’ is, in fact, ongoing, open-ended. In the context adopted above by Mr. Chappell, the only way to ‘get it right’ is to maintain contact with the ‘basics’ — be they in music, spiritual investigation, practice of any sort.
He (Fraenkel) adds one additional caveat. A condition to which we all fall potential ‘victim’ is that of being born into a particular culture with attendant tenets and belief systems. In short, we ‘automatically’ absorb those parameters that direct the family, social and work networks, spiritual systems, etc. that predominate in our environment. To ‘operate’, unquestioningly from those pervasive, even ubiquitous values is to lose touch with ‘the notes on the page’. We assume truths — because they surround us — which can only be fully understood and empowered when challenged by another (possibly competing, at least different) set of beliefs. Through a willingness to engage this conversation do we ‘earn the freedom to improvise’ (in Chappell’s lexicon); do we fully develop a basis to make healthy and informed choices.

Sandy Hook

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How will they heal? Come to terms with a tragedy of which most of us can barely conceive? Of a magnitude we can only associate with wartime. Or mass genocide. The seemingly relentless and too oft repeated struggle has begun again; to make sense of a senseless act, this time perpetrated against twenty-six victims, twenty of whom were under the age of seven, by an individual driven by motives which will be broadly speculated upon — but never known. Sandy Hook School, December 14, 2012. A scant 10 days before the annual festival of renewal, celebration of birth, and traditionally the time of the child and a child’s joys.
It is impossible not to be touched by this catastrophe, to take on as one’s own tragedy this dreadful and mindless event. As adults we identify hugely with the parents, the emergency workers, the counselors, the professionals, the community. We empathize with their grief, their sadness, their anger, their confusion. We place this event in a context, as best we can, along side a growing list of similar slaughters of innocents — and attempt to decide ‘where to now?’ What points of adult reference does Sandy Hook touch in us? What needs: blame, forgiveness, analysis, judgment, reform? What identities: victim, vigilante, parent?
Shortly before this tragedy, before our attention was so abruptly drawn to a small town in Connecticut, I had occasion to be speaking with a man about coming to terms with his own constellation of childhood hardships, ‘smaller’ on scale to be sure, but tragic nonetheless: a young brother’s suicide, an uncle’s shunning and resulting premature death, a mother’s perhaps well-intentioned but projected and scarring mis-parenting and control. We had visited this ground many times before — but this time there was a difference. As is so often explored in personal work, the concept of writing a letter to an individual, figural to one’s emotional development, had occurred to this man; in this case, a communication with his now deceased mother. Freed from the need to actually sending anything, his writing was honest, candid, and direct, citing the struggles and hurts he’d experienced; the presumed psychological impact his childhood was to have on his adult life. What made this exercise unique, in my experience, however, was that he had, in fact, composed two letters: one from his current perspective as an older man looking back; a second, through the eyes of the child, living each day as if it unfolded, different (perhaps) from the one before, without agenda, expectation, judgment, or even context.
The letters were strikingly different. The adult had analyzed the mother figure, compared her (generally unfavorably) to other, more benign influences, struggled with the guilt and conflict associated with both blaming one of the more significant formative influences in his life and needing to make peace with and forgive her. The adult’s ‘version’ of his childhood had, in effect become an oft thought of, well-worn tale, an identity that was one part ‘truth’ and three parts myth. Familiar in the re-telling, giving the impression of fact; but more interpretation, conclusion, a collection of deductions of how the child must have felt — than how the child did feel.  The child’s letter, on the other hand, was an account of his experiences; to be sure, containing moments of fear, confusion, discomfort, anxiety, shame — but somehow fresh, renewed each day, freed in large part to be seen and experienced with a beginner’s mind, to borrow a phrase from mindfulness literature. 
I was reminded of a film I’d seen a few months ago, Monsieur Lazhar.  It is the story of a supply teacher, employed to take over a classroom of grade four or five children in Quebec, following the in-school suiciding of their former teacher. The teachers in the school and the parents of the young students all have their own ‘version’ of and solution for the children’s recovery from their trauma, ranging from a conspiracy of silence and denial, even removing children to other schools; through the school psychologist’s well-intentioned interventions. M. Lazhar himself is not without baggage, having arrived in Canada shortly before, a political refugee seeking asylum from persecution in his home country. While less ‘sophisticated’ in his approach — his teaching methods are decidedly ‘old school’ — against considerable adult resistance and criticism, he eventually succeeds in giving each child a ‘voice’ to express his or her unique experience of the tragedy that, courtesy of all manner of adult intention, had become the ‘elephant in the room’ — pervading everything, never directly addressed. The healing had begun to happen. Allowing himself the same latitude that he facilitated in his young charges, M. Lazhar too begins to heal — as he also speaks with a child’s candor and clarity.
In the past three weeks — is that all it’s been? — as I read the never ending litany of responses to, accounts of, speculations around, and analyses of Sandy Hook, I feel the increasing presence of the ‘adult’. The projections that spring from the psyches of fully formed, long-entrenched identities, ‘mythologies’, onto the child. I feel the compulsion to fix, prevent, protect, punish, understand, analyze — even politicize a tragedy that, in the end, needs be given a voice, a child’s voice — if healing is to happen.

I’ll Have Nun Of It!

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PB-16 (aka, Pope Benedict XVI) has leapt into the Christmas entertainment sweeps, trumping the Spielberg’s  and the Lucas’s with his own ‘Star Wars Trilogy’ — well, Star of Bethlehem, actually. Jesus of Nazareth, the Infancy Narratives has hit Chapters — just in time to stuff stockings with the real Christmas Story — completing the cycle, with the Pope’s own ‘prequel’, as it were. Where would we all be without someone channeling God to help us understand the literal truths of metaphors many of us have been struggling to employ — just to allow us to continue crossing our chosen thresholds on Sunday mornings? Organized religion — the great proscriber.
Warning: Tasteless joke
Sister Mary Margaret was completing a census form and had ticked the box marked ‘NONE’ when queried about her religious affiliation. Looking over her shoulder, Father Tim noticed and was shocked. “Sister, what are you saying?”, he asked in alarm. “Not to worry, Father. I’ve just been doing some thinking lately and realized I’m more a nun — out of habit!”
Just to complicate by introducing a third thread, and on a (marginally) more serious note, I’d had opportunity to hear interviewed the philosopher/mystic associated with the Findhorn Community in Scotland, David Spangler. He was discussing his views on planetary citizenship and contrasting it with the chronic (and intensifying) issue of ‘silo building’ — the ‘us and them’ distinction so fondly supported politically and religiously. He was appearing on a program loosely built around (yet another) prediction of ‘The End Days’ — amongst the legion of doom and gloomers, known as the end of the world. Seems the Mayan calendar is ending its (for some) last cycle on December 22, 2012. Personally, I’ve always dreaded the year when the Milk Calendar would no longer arrive as a free insert in one of the holiday editions of the local rag; but frankly, its absence never really triggered End Days angst in me. But maybe I just don’t know how to read the ‘signs’ properly; too smug by half I suppose.  With the end of the world, of course, comes another phenomenon — for some longed-for, for others ridiculed: the Rapture!
Now to attempt to pull all these loose threads into something other than a misshapen sweater.  Let’s try working backwards — somehow seems fitting, given themes herein addressed! The Rapture, for those who aren’t card-carrying Republicans and/or Christian fundamentalists (although the overlap is astounding; Note to self: do a Chi-square analysis on this relationship sometime, post-retirement), is that hour when all ‘true Christian believers’ will be swept up to heaven.  And the dregs (that would be everyone else) better start investing in ice cubes and air conditioners — it’s gonna get hot!  (Second Note to self: Read Tom Perrotta’s The Leftovers). This is the final sorting out of the good guys from the bad — talk about the ultimate in silos — and will coincide with the end of the world (whether predicted by the Mayans or the guy on the street corner with his hand-lettered sign: REPENT, NOW! )
Spangler occupies quite the opposite posture from the ‘rapturists’. The latter group appear almost to be salivating, waiting for this great validation of their (unique and quite exclusive) beliefs — a sort of ‘bring it on, we’re ready!’ stance. Spangler, on the other hand, suggests that hitting the ‘reset button’ — (didn’t work real well with Noah and not sure things are all that different now; the boats are just bigger) is neither responsible nor, in fact, even sane. He advocates adopting a (and here’s a novel idea) unified, global approach, driven by consolidation, not isolation. Admittedly this is a tall order, given the degree of entrenchment at almost every level of individual, community, state, and national beliefs; paralleled equally in our parish, denomination, and ultimately, faith systems. Far more palatable, apparently, to hunker down in our own little value system — and wait for the End Days.
So what to make of our good Sister Mary Margaret. Is it possible that the ‘incredible shrinking church’ (and the proliferation of the Nones) is in any way associated with a growing number of folks’ distaste for ‘belief branding’. ‘Better dead than red‘ thinking may just be being displaced by ‘better none than . . . ‘ — you fill in the blank). Signing on to a belief system that requires rigid adherence to a proscribed perspective is just not that appealing anymore. And in fact stifles the very spiritual introspection and exploration that (given current research findings) characterizes the Nones. This growing group is, contrary to stereotypic view, a very spiritual bunch vs. a bunch of lazy agnostics too self-absorbed to commit to a faith system.
And finally, PB-16. Not to beat up on Catholicism, but come on, Joe! A literalist, selective, exclusive view may make for a good stocking stuffer in some (few) households, but more than anything else it perpetuates an ‘editorial policy’ commenced in the 3rd Century, when organized religious systems commenced in earnest the vetting of ‘what to leave in; what to leave out’ — and have been hard at it ever since. Picking and choosing those ‘stories’ that support not just religious, but political and power-hungry agendas; and burying (in some cases, quite literally) the rest.
One final thought. The current version of ‘Revelation’, the apocalyptic final (for now) book of the Bible, is evidently not the only revelation written in and around the 1st Century — it just happens to be the one that contains detailed instructions on how to build a better silo. John of Patmos’ visions made the cut evidently as much for that reason — and has provided fuel for versions of the End Days ever since (freely interpreted to fit the going politico-religious needs of the day). The others — largely concerned with personal, spiritual healing and enlightenment — were rejected. Apparently not sufficiently dire, proscriptive, or narrow. Oh well, it won’t matter in another two weeks or so. Counting down now, all together. . .