Mystic of the Month Club

Simone Weil on The Need for Roots and The Abolition of All Political Parties

Today we make space for better understanding Weil's social and political convictions through two works written just before her death. These pieces remain incredibly relevant more than 80 years later, as you will soon discover! “On the Abolition of All Political Parties” was never published in Weil's lifetime. Nearly a century later, it speaks with astonishing and terrifying precision to the underlying forces ripping our world asunder. Weil begins by posing the foundational question of whether the apparent evils of political divisiveness can be compensated for by the alleged good of adopting the views of any given party. She writes: First, we must ascertain what is the criterion of goodness. It can only be truth and justice; and then, the public interest. Democracy, majority rule, are not good in themselves. They are merely means towards goodness, and their effectiveness is uncertain. For instance, if, instead of Hitler, it had been the Weimar Republic that decided, through a most rigorous democratic and legal process, to put the Jews in concentration camps, and cruelly torture them to death, such measures would not have been one atom more legitimate than the present Nazi policies (and such a possibility is by no means far-fetched). Only what is just can be legitimate. In no circumstances can crime and mendacity ever be legitimate. With these three elemental criteria of truth, justice, and public interest in mind, Weil frames the core characteristics of all political parties: A political party is a machine to generate collective passions, A political party is an organization designed to exert collective pressure upon the minds of all its individual members, The first objective and also the ultimate goal of any political party is its own growth, without limit.” -MARIA POPOVA " [The Need for Roots was written just months before Weil's death] upon request by the Free French resistance movement in London to write a report on the possibilities of bringing about the regeneration of France after the end of the second world war. The result was nothing less than a tour de force of ethics and political philosophy, set in a lucid historical context, with an unrelenting eye on practical imperatives for rebuilding the French nation" -RICHARD COLLEDGE Linked here are: the complete audiobook (40 min) of "On the Abolition of All Political Parties" and an intro video to "The Need for Roots" The full written texts are here as well. --------------------------------------------------------------------- On the Abolition of All Political Parties By Simone Weil The word ‘party’ is taken here in the meaning it has in Continental Europe. In Anglo-Saxon countries, this same word designates an altogether different reality, which has its roots in English tradition and is therefore not easily transposable elsewhere. The experience of a century and a half shows this clearly enough. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/simone-weil-on-the-abolition-of-all-political-parties#fn2 In the Anglo-Saxon world, political parties have an element of game, of sport, which is only conceivable in an institution of aristocratic origin, whereas in institutions that were plebeian from the start, everything must always be serious. At the time of the 1789 Revolution, the very notion of ‘party’ did not enter into French political thinking – except as an evil that ought to be prevented. There was, however, a Club des Jacobins; at first it merely provided an arena for free debate. Its subsequent transformation was by no means inevitable; it was only under the double pressure of war and the guillotine that it eventually turned into a totalitarian party. Factional infighting during the Terror is best summed up by Tomsky’s memorable saying: ‘One party in power and all the others in jail.’ Thus, in Continental Europe, totalitarianism was the original sin of all political parties. Political parties were established in European public life partly as an inheritance from the Terror, and partly under the influence of British practice. The mere fact that they exist today is not in itself a sufficient reason for us to preserve them. The only legitimate reason for preserving anything is its goodness. The evils of political parties are all too evident; therefore, the problem that should be examined is this: do they contain enough good to compensate for their evils and make their preservation desirable? It would be far more relevant, however, to ask: do they do the slightest bit of good? Are they not pure, or nearly pure, evil? If they are evil, it is clear that, in fact and in practice, they can only generate further evil. This is an article of faith: ‘A good tree can never bear bad fruit, nor a rotten tree beautiful fruit.’ First, we must ascertain what is the criterion of goodness. It can only be truth and justice; and, then, the public interest. Democracy, majority rule, are not good in themselves. They are merely means towards goodness, and their effectiveness is uncertain. For instance, if, instead of Hitler, it had been the Weimar Republic that decided, through a most rigorous democratic and legal process, to put the Jews in concentration camps, and cruelly torture them to death, such measures would not have been one atom more legitimate than the present Nazi policies (and such a possibility is by no means far-fetched). Only what is just can be legitimate. In no circumstances can crime and mendacity ever be legitimate. Our republican ideal was entirely developed from a notion originally expressed by Rousseau: the notion of the ‘general will.’ However, the true meaning of this notion was lost almost from the start, because it is complex and demands a high level of attention. Few books are as beautiful, strong, clear-sighted and articulate as Le Contrat social (with the exception of some of its chapters). It is also said that few books have exerted such an influence – and yet everything has happened, and still happens today, as if no-one ever read it. Rousseau took as his starting point two premises. First, reason perceives and chooses what is just and innocently useful, whereas every crime is motivated by passion. Second, reason is identical in all men, whereas their passions most often differ. From this it follows that if, on a common issue, everyone thinks alone and then expresses his opinion, and if, afterwards, all these opinions are collected and compared, most probably they will coincide inasmuch as they are just and reasonable, whereas they will differ inasmuch as they are unjust or mistaken. It is only this type of reasoning that allows one to conclude that a universal consensus may point at the truth. Truth is one. Justice is one. There is an infinite variety of errors and injustices. Thus all men converge on what is just and true, whereas mendacity and crime make them diverge without end. Since union generates strength, one may hope to find in it a material support whereby truth and justice will prevail over crime and error. This, in turn, will require an appropriate mechanism. If democracy can provide such a mechanism, it is good. Otherwise, it is not. In the eyes of Rousseau (and he was right), the unjust will of an entire nation is by no means superior to the unjust will of a single individual. However, Rousseau also thought that, most of the time, the general will of a whole nation might in fact conform to justice, for the simple reason that individual passions will neutralise one another and act as mutual counterweights. For him, this was the only reason why the popular will should be preferred to the individual will. Similarly, a certain mass of water, even though it is made of particles in constant movement and endlessly colliding, achieves perfect balance and stillness. It reflects the images of objects with unfailing accuracy; it appears perfectly flat; it reveals the exact density of any immersed object. If individuals who are pushed to crime and mendacity by their passions can still form, in similar fashion, a people that is truthful and just, then it is appropriate for such a people to be sovereign. A democratic constitution is good if, first of all, it enables the people to achieve this state of equilibrium; only then can the people’s will be executed. The true spirit of 1789 consists in thinking, not that a thing is just because such is the people’s will, but that, in certain conditions, the will of the people is more likely than any other will to conform to justice. In order to apply the notion of the general will, several conditions must first be met. Two of these are particularly important. First, at the time when the people become aware of their own intention and express it, there must not exist any form of collective passion. It is completely obvious that Rousseau’s reasoning ceases to apply once collective passion comes into play. Rousseau himself knew this well. Collective passion is an infinitely more powerful compulsion to crime and mendacity than any individual passion. In this case, evil impulses, far from cancelling one another out, multiply their force a thousandfold. Their pressure becomes overwhelming – no-one could withstand it, except perhaps a true saint. When water is set in motion by a violent, impetuous current, it ceases to reflect images. Its surface is no longer level; it can no more measure densities. Whether it is moved by a single current or by several conflicting ones, the disturbance is the same. When a country is in the grip of a collective passion, it becomes unanimous in crime. If it becomes prey to two, or four, or five, or ten collective passions, it is divided among several criminal gangs. Divergent passions do not neutralise one another, as would be the case with a cluster of individual passions. There are too few of them, and each is too strong for any neutralisation to take place. Competition exasperates them; they clash with infernal noise, and amid such din the fragile voices of justice and truth are drowned. When a country is moved by a collective passion, the likelihood is that any individual will be closer to justice and reason than is the general will – or rather, the caricature of the general will. The second condition is that the people should express their will regarding the problems of public life – and not merely choose among various individuals; or, worse, among various irresponsible organisations (for the general will does not have the slightest connection with such choices). If, in 1789, there was to a certain degree a genuine expression of the general will – even though a system of people’s representation had been adopted, for want of ability to invent any alternative – it was only because they had something far more important than elections. All the living energies of the country – and the country was then overflowing with life – sought expression through means of the cahiers de revendications (statements of grievances). Most of those who were to become the people’s representatives first became known through their participation in this process, and they retained the warmth of the experience. They could feel that the people were listening to their words, watching to see if their aspirations would be correctly interpreted. For a while – all too briefly – these representatives truly were simple channels for the expression of public opinion. Such a thing was never to happen again. Merely to state the two conditions required for the expression of the general will shows that we have never known anything that resembles, however faintly, a democracy. We pretend that our present system is democratic, yet the people never have the chance nor the means to express their views on any problem of public life. Any issue that does not pertain to particular interests is abandoned to collective passions, which are systematically and officially inflamed. The very way in which words such as ‘democracy’ and ‘republic’ are being used obliges us to examine with extreme attention two problems: 1. How to give the men who form the French nation the opportunity to express from time to time their judgment on the main problems of public life? 2. How, when questions are being put to the people, can one prevent their being infected by collective passions? If one neglects to consider these two points, it is useless to speak of republican legitimacy. Solutions will not easily be found. Yet, after careful examination, it appears obvious that any solution will necessarily involve, as the very first step, the abolition of all political parties. To assess political parties according to the criteria of truth, justice and the public interest, let us first identify their essential characteristics. There are three of these: A political party is a machine to generate collective passions. A political party is an organisation designed to exert collective pressure upon the minds of all its individual members. The first objective and also the ultimate goal of any political party is its own growth, without limit. Because of these three characteristics, every party is totalitarian – potentially, and by aspiration. If one party is not actually totalitarian, it is simply because those parties that surround it are no less so. These three characteristics are factual truths – evident to anyone who has ever had anything to do with the every-day activities of political parties. As to the third: it is a particular instance of the phenomenon which always occurs whenever thinking individuals are dominated by a collective structure – a reversal of the relation between ends and means. Everywhere, without exception, all the things that are generally considered ends are in fact, by nature, by essence, and in a most obvious way, mere means. One could cite countless examples of this from every area of life: money, power, the state, national pride, economic production, universities, etc., etc. Goodness alone is an end. Whatever belongs to the domain of facts pertains to the category of means. Collective thinking, however, cannot rise above the factual realm. It is an animal form of thinking. Its dim perception of goodness merely enables it to mistake this or that means for an absolute good. The same applies to political parties. In principle, a party is an instrument to serve a certain conception of the public interest. This is true even for parties which represent the interests of one particular social group, for there is always a certain conception of the public interest according to which the public interest and these particular interests should coincide. Yet this conception is extremely vague. This is true without exception and quite uniformly. Parties that are loosely structured and parties that are strictly organised are equally vague as regards doctrine. No man, even if he had conducted advanced research in political studies, would ever be able to provide a clear and precise description of the doctrine of any party, including (should he himself belong to one) of his own. People are generally reluctant to acknowledge such a thing. If they were to confess it, they would naively be inclined to attribute their incapacity to their own intellectual limitations, whereas, in fact, the very phrase ‘a political party’s doctrine’ cannot have any meaning. An individual, even if he spends his entire life writing and pondering problems of ideas, only rarely elaborates a doctrine. A group of people can never do so. A doctrine cannot be a collective product. One can speak, it is true, of Christian doctrine, Hindu doctrine, Pythagorean doctrine, etc. – but then what is meant by this word is neither individual nor collective; it refers to something that is infinitely higher than these two realms. It is purely and simply the truth. The goal of a political party is something vague and unreal. If it were real, it would demand a great effort of attention, for the mind does not easily encompass the concept of the public interest. Conversely, the existence of the party is something concrete and obvious; it is perceived without any effort. Therefore, unavoidably, the party becomes in fact its own end. This then amounts to idolatry, for God alone is legitimately his own end. The transition is easily achieved. First, an axiom is set: for the party to serve effectively the concept of the public interest that justifies its existence, there is one necessary and sufficient condition: it should secure a vast amount of power. Yet, once obtained, no finite amount of power will ever be deemed sufficient. The absence of thought creates for the party a permanent state of impotence, which, in turn, is attributed to the insufficient amount of power already obtained. Should the party ever become the absolute ruler of its own country, inter-national contingencies will soon impose new limitations. Therefore the essential tendency of all political parties is towards totalitarianism, first on the national scale and then on the global scale. And it is precisely because the notion of the public interest which each party invokes is itself a fiction, an empty shell devoid of all reality, that the quest for total power becomes an absolute need. Every reality necessarily implies a limit – but what is utterly devoid of existence cannot possibly encounter any form of limitation. It is for this reason that there is a natural affinity between totalitarianism and mendacity. Many people, it is true, never contemplate the possibility of total power; the very thought of it scares them. The notion is vertiginous and it takes a sort of greatness to face it. When these people become involved with a political party, they merely wish it to grow – but to grow as a thing that knows no limit. If this year there are three more members than last year, or if the party has collected one hundred francs more, they are pleased. They wish things might endlessly continue in the same direction. In no circumstance could they ever believe that their party might have too many members, too many votes, too much money. The revolutionary temperament tends to envision a totality. The petit-bourgeois temperament prefers the cosy picture of a slow, uninterrupted and endless progress. In both cases, the material growth of the party becomes the sole criterion by which to measure the good and the bad of all things. It is exactly as if the party were a head of cattle to be fattened, and as if the universe was created for its fattening. One cannot serve both God and Mammon. If one’s criterion of goodness is not goodness itself, one loses the very notion of what is good. Once the growth of the party becomes a criterion of goodness, it follows inevitably that the party will exert a collective pressure upon people’s minds. This pressure is very real; it is openly displayed; it is professed and proclaimed. It should horrify us, but we are already too much accustomed to it. Political parties are organisations that are publicly and officially designed for the purpose of killing in all souls the sense of truth and of justice. Collective pressure is exerted upon a wide public by the means of propaganda. The avowed purpose of propaganda is not to impart light, but to persuade. Hitler saw very clearly that the aim of propaganda must always be to enslave minds. All political parties make propaganda. A party that would not do so would disappear, since all its competitors practise it. All parties confess that they make propaganda. However mendacious they may be, none is bold enough to pretend that in doing so, it is merely educating the public and informing people’s judgment. Political parties do profess, it is true, to educate those who come to them: supporters, young people, new members. But this is a lie: it is not an education, it is a conditioning, a preparation for the far more rigorous ideological control imposed by the party upon its members. Just imagine: if a member of the party (elected member of parliament, candidate or simple activist) were to make a public commitment, ‘Whenever I shall have to examine any political or social issue, I swear I will absolutely forget that I am the member of a certain political group; my sole concern will be to ascertain what should be done in order to best serve the public interest and justice.’ Such words would not be welcome. His comrades and even many other people would accuse him of betrayal. Even the least hostile would say, ‘Why then did he join a political party?’ – thus naively confessing that, when joining a political party, one gives up the idea of serving nothing but the public interest and justice. This man would be expelled from his party, or at least denied pre-selection; he would certainly never be elected. Furthermore, it seems inconceivable that anyone would dare to utter such words. In fact, if I am not mistaken, such a thing has never happened. If such language has ever been used, it was only by politicians who needed to govern with the support of other parties. And even then, the words had a somewhat dishonourable ring to them. Conversely, everybody feels that it is completely natural, sensible and honourable for someone to say, ‘As a conservative ...’ or ‘As a Socialist, I do think that ...’ Actually, this sort of speech is not limited to partisan politics; people are not ashamed to say, ‘As a Frenchman, I think that ...’ or ‘As a Catholic, I think that ...’ Some little girls, who declared they were committed to Gaullism as the French equivalent of Hitlerism, added: ‘Truth is relative, even in geometry.’ Indeed, this is the heart of the matter. If there were no truth, it would be right to think in such or such a way, when one happens to be in such or such a position. Just as one’s hair is black, brown, red or blond because one happened to be born that way, one may also express such or such a thought. Thought, like hair, is then the product of a physical process of elimination. If, however, one acknowledges that there is one truth, one cannot think anything but the truth. One thinks what one thinks, not because one happens to be French or Catholic or Socialist, but simply because the irresistible light of evidence forces one to think this and not that. If there is no evidence, if there is doubt, then it is evident that, given the available knowledge, the matter is uncertain. If there is a small probability on one side, it is evident that there is a small probability – and so on. In any case, inner light always affords whoever seeks it an evident answer. The content of the answer may be more or less affirmative – never mind. It is always susceptible to revision, yet no correction can be effected unless it is through an increase of inner light. If a man, member of a party, is absolutely determined to follow, in all his thinking, nothing but the inner light, to the exclusion of everything else, he cannot make known to the party such a resolution. To that extent, he is deceiving the party. He thus finds himself in a state of mendacity; the only reason why he tolerates such a situation is that he needs to join a party in order to play an effective part in public affairs. But then this need is evil, and one must put an end to it by abolishing political parties. A man who has not taken the decision to remain exclusively faithful to the inner light establishes mendacity at the very centre of his soul. For this, his punishment is inner darkness. It would be useless to attempt an escape by establishing a distinction between inner freedom and external discipline, for this would entail lying to the public, towards whom every candidate, every elected representative, has a special duty of truthfulness. If I am going to say, in the name of my party, things which I know are the opposite of truth and justice, should I first issue a warning to that effect? If I don’t, I lie. Of these three sorts of lies – lying to the party, lying to the public, lying to oneself – the first is by far the least evil. Yet if belonging to a party compels one to lie all the time, in every instance, then the very existence of political parties is absolutely and unconditionally an evil. In advertisements for public meetings, one frequently reads things like this: ‘Mr X will present the Communist point of view (on the issue which the meeting shall address). Mr Y will present the Socialist point of view. Mr Z will present the Liberal point of view.’ How do these wretches manage to know the various points of view they are supposed to present? Who can have instructed them? Which oracle? A collectivity has no tongue and no pen. All the organs of expression are individual. The Socialist collectivity is not embodied in any person, and neither is the Liberal one. Stalin embodies the Communist collectivity, but he lives far away and it is not possible to reach him by telephone before the meeting. No, Mr X, Mr Y, Mr Z each consulted themselves. Yet, if they were honest, they would first have put themselves in a special psychological state – a state similar to the one which is usually attained in the atmosphere of Communist, Socialist or Liberal gatherings. If, having put oneself in such a state, one were to abandon oneself to automatic reactions, one would quite naturally speak a language in full conformity with the Communist, Socialist or Liberal ‘point of view.’ To achieve this result, there is but one condition: one must absolutely resist the contemplation of truth and justice. If such contemplation were to take place, one would run a horrible risk: one might express a ‘personal point of view.’ When Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, ‘What is the truth?,’ Jesus did not reply. He had already answered when he said, ‘I came to bear witness to the truth.’ There is only one answer. Truth is all the thoughts that surge in the mind of a thinking creature whose unique, total, exclusive desire is for the truth. Mendacity, error (the two words are synonymous), are the thoughts of those who do not desire truth, or those who desire truth plus something else. For instance, they desire truth, but they also desire conformity with such or such received ideas. Yet how can we desire truth if we have no prior knowledge of it? This is the mystery of all mysteries. Words that express a perfection which no mind can conceive of – God, truth, justice – silently evoked with desire, but without any preconception, have the power to lift up the soul and flood it with light. It is when we desire truth with an empty soul and without attempting to guess its content that we receive the light. Therein resides the entire mechanism of attention. It is impossible to examine the frightfully complex problems of public life while attending to, on the one hand, truth, justice and the public interest, and, on the other, maintaining the attitude that is expected of members of a political movement. The human attention span is limited – it does not allow for simultaneous consideration of these two concerns. In fact, whoever would care for the one is bound to neglect the other. Yet no suffering befalls whoever relinquishes justice and truth, whereas the party system has painful penalties to chastise insubordination. These penalties extend into all areas of life: career, affections, friendship, reputation, the external aspect of honour, sometimes even family life. The Communist Party developed this system to perfection. Even for those who do not compromise their inner integrity, the existence of such penalties unavoidably distorts their judgment. If they try to react against party control, this very impulse to react is itself unrelated to the truth, and as such should be suspect; and so, in turn, should be this suspicion ... True attention is a state so difficult for any human creature, so violent, that any emotional disturbance can derail it. Therefore, one must always endeavour strenuously to protect one’s inner faculty of judgment against the turmoil of personal hopes and fears. If a man undertakes extremely complex numerical calculations knowing that he will be flogged every time he obtains an even number as the final result, he finds himself in an acute predicament. Something in the sensual part of his soul will induce him each time to give a slight twist to the calculations, in order to obtain an odd number at the end. His wish to react may indeed lead him to find even numbers where there are none. Caught in this oscillation, his attention is no longer pure. If the complexity of the calculations demands his total attention, inevitably he will make many mistakes – even if he happens to be very intelligent, very brave and deeply attached to the truth. What should he do? It is simple. If he can escape from the grip of the people who wield the whip, he must run away. If he could have evaded his tormentors in the first place, he should have. It is exactly the same when it comes to political parties. When a country has political parties, sooner or later it becomes impossible to intervene effectively in public affairs without joining a party and playing the game. Whoever is concerned for public affairs will wish his concern to bear fruit. Those who care about the public interest must either forget their concern and turn to other things, or submit to the grind of the parties. In the latter case, they shall experience worries that will soon supersede their original concern for the public interest. Political parties are a marvellous mechanism which, on the national scale, ensures that not a single mind can attend to the effort of perceiving, in public affairs, what is good, what is just, what is true. As a result – except for a very small number of fortuitous coincidences – nothing is decided, nothing is executed, but measures that run contrary to the public interest, to justice and to truth. If one were to entrust the organisation of public life to the devil, he could not invent a more clever device. If the present reality appears slightly less dark, it is only because political parties have not yet swallowed everything. But, in fact, is it truly less dark? Have recent events not shown that the situation is every bit as awful as I have just painted it? We must acknowledge that the mechanism of spiritual and intellectual oppression which characterises political parties was historically introduced by the Catholic Church in its fight against heresy. A convert who joins the Church, or a faithful believer who, after inner deliberation, decides to remain in the Church, perceives what is true and good in Catholic dogma. However, as he crosses the threshold, he automatically registers his implicit acceptance of countless specific articles of faith which he cannot possibly have considered – to examine them all a lifetime of study would not be sufficient, even for a person of superior intelligence and culture. How can anyone subscribe to statements the existence of which he is not even aware? By simply and unconditionally submitting to the authority which issued them! This is why Saint Thomas Aquinas wished to have his affirmations supported only by the authority of the Church, to the exclusion of any other argumentation. Nothing more is needed for those who accept this authority, he said, and no other argument will persuade those who reject it. Thus the inner light of evidence, this capacity of perception given from above to the human soul in answer to its desire for truth, is discarded or reduced to discharging menial chores, instead of guiding the spiritual destiny of human creatures. The force that impels thought is no longer the open, unconditional desire for truth, but merely a desire to conform with pre-established teachings. That the Church established by Christ could thus, to such a large extent, stifle the spirit of truth (in spite of the Inquisition, it failed to stifle it entirely – because mysticism always afforded a safe shelter) is a tragic irony. Many people remarked on it, though another tragic irony was less noticed: the stifling of the spirit by the Inquisitorial regime provoked a revolt – and this very revolt took an orientation that, in turn, fostered further stifling of the spirit. The Reformation and Renaissance humanism – twin products of this revolt – after three centuries of maturation, inspired in large part the spirit of 1789. This, after some delay, resulted in our democracy, based on the interplay of political parties, each of which is a small secular church that wields its own menace of excommunication. The influence of these parties has contaminated the entire mentality of our age. When someone joins a party, it is usually because he has perceived, in the activities and propaganda of this party, a number of things that appeared to him just and good. Still, he has probably never studied the position of the party on all the problems of public life. When joining the party, he therefore also endorses a number of positions which he does not know. In fact, he submits his thinking to the authority of the party. As, later on, little by little, he begins to learn these positions, he will accept them without further examination. This replicates exactly the situation of whoever joins the Catholic orthodoxy along the lines of Saint Thomas. If a man were to say, as he applied for his party membership card, ‘I agree with the party on this and that question; I have not yet studied its other positions and thus I entirely reserve my opinion, pending further information,’ he would probably be advised to come back at a later date. In fact – and with very few exceptions – when a man joins a party, he submissively adopts a mental attitude which he will express later on with words such as, ‘As a monarchist, as a Socialist, I think that ...’ It is so comfortable! It amounts to having no thoughts at all. Nothing is more comfortable than not having to think. As regards the third characteristic of political parties – that they are machines to generate collective passions – this is so spectacularly evident that it scarcely needs further demonstration. Collective passion is the only source of energy at the disposal of parties with which to make propaganda and to exert pressure upon the soul of every member. One recognises that the partisan spirit makes people blind, makes them deaf to justice, pushes even decent men cruelly to persecute innocent targets. One recognises it, and yet nobody suggests getting rid of the organisations that generate such evils. Intoxicating drugs are prohibited. Some people are nevertheless addicted to them. But there would be many more addicts if the state were to organise the sale of opium and cocaine in all tobacconists, accompanied by advertising posters to encourage consumption. * In conclusion: the institution of political parties appears to be an almost unmixed evil. They are bad in principle, and in practice their impact is noxious. The abolition of parties would prove almost wholly beneficial. It would be a highly legitimate initiative in principle, and in practice could only have a good effect. At elections, candidates would tell voters not, ‘I wear such and such a label’ – which tells the public nearly nothing as regards their actual position on actual issues – but rather, ‘My views are such and such on such and such important problems.’ Elected politicians would associate and disassociate following the natural and changing flow of affinities. I may very well agree with Mr A on the question of colonial-ism, yet disagree with him on the issue of agrarian ownership, and my relations with Mr B may be the exact reverse. The artificial crystallisation into political parties coincides so little with genuine affinities that a member of parliament will often find himself disagreeing with a colleague from within his own party, and in complete agreement with a politician from another party. How many times, in Germany in 1932, might a Communist and a Nazi conversing in the street have been struck by a sort of mental vertigo on discovering that they were in complete agreement on all issues! Outside parliament, intellectual circles would naturally form around journals of political ideas. These circles should remain fluid. This fluidity is the hallmark of a circle based on natural affinities; it distinguishes a circle from a party and prevents it from exerting a noxious influence. When one cultivates friendly relations with the director of a certain journal and with its regular contributors, when one occasionally writes for it, one can say that one is in touch with this journal and its circle, but one is not aware of being part of it; there is no clear boundary between inside and outside. Further away, there are those who read the journal and happen to know one or two of its contributors. Further again, there are regular readers who derive inspiration from the journal. Further still, there are occasional readers. Yet none would ever think or say, ‘As a person related to such journal, I do think that ...’ At election time, if contributors to a journal are political candidates, it should be forbidden for them to invoke their connection with the journal, and it should be forbidden for the journal to endorse their candidacy, to support it directly or indirectly, or even to mention it. Any ‘Association of the friends’ of this sort of journal should be forbidden. If any journal were ever to prevent its contributors from writing for other publications, it should be forced to close. All this would require a complete set of press regulations, making it impossible for dishonourable publications to carry on with their activity, since none would wish to be associated with them. Whenever a circle of ideas and debate would be tempted to crystallise and create a formal membership, the attempt should be repressed by law and punished. Naturally, clandestine parties might appear. It would not be honourable to join them. The members of these underground parties would no longer be able to turn the enslavement of their minds into a public show. They would not be allowed to make any propaganda for their party. The party would have no chance of keeping them prisoner of a tight web of interests, passions and obligations. Whenever a law is impartial and fair, and is based upon a clear view of the public interest, easily grasped by everyone, it always succeeds in weakening what it forbids. The penalties that are attached to infringements scarcely need be applied: the mere existence of the law is itself enough to neutralise its target. This intrinsic prestige of the law is a reality of public life which has been too long forgotten and ought to be revived and made good use of. The existence of clandestine parties should not cause significant harm – especially compared with the disastrous effects of the activities of legal parties. Generally speaking, a careful examination reveals no inconveniences that would result from the abolition of political parties. Strange paradox: measures like this, which present no inconvenience, are also the least likely to be adopted. People think, if it is so simple, why was it not done long ago? And yet, most often, great things are easy and simple. This particular measure would exert a healthy, cleansing influence well beyond the domain of public affairs, for the party spirit has infected everything. The institutions that regulate the public life of a country always influence the general mentality – such is the prestige of power. People have progressively developed the habit of thinking, in all domains, only in terms of being ‘in favour of’ or ‘against’ any opinion, and afterwards they seek arguments to support one of these two options. This is an exact transposition of the party spirit. Just as within political parties, there are some democratically minded people who accept a plurality of parties, similarly, in the realm of opinion, there are broad-minded people willing to acknowledge the value of opinions with which they disagree. They have completely lost the concept of true and false. Others, having taken a position in favour of a certain opinion, refuse to examine any dissenting view. This is a transposition of the totalitarian spirit. When Einstein visited France, all the people who more or less belonged to the intellectual circles, including other scientists, divided themselves into two camps: for Einstein or against him. Any new scientific idea finds in the scientific world supporters and enemies – both sides inflamed to a deplorable degree with the partisan spirit. The intellectual world is permanently full of trends and factions, in various stages of crystallisation. In art and literature, this phenomenon is even more prevalent. Cubism and Surrealism were each a sort of party. Some people were Gidian and some Maurrassian. To achieve celebrity, it is useful to be surrounded by a gang of admirers, all possessed by the partisan spirit. In the same fashion, there was no great difference between being devoted to a party or being devoted to a church – or being devoted to anti-religion. One was in favour of, or against, belief in God, for or against Christianity, and so on. When talking about religion, the point was even reached where one spoke of ‘militants.’ Even in school, one can think of no better way to stimulate the minds of children than to invite them to take sides – for or against. They are presented with a sentence from a great author and asked, ‘Do you agree, yes or no? Develop your arguments.’ At examination time, the poor wretches, having only three hours to write their dissertations, cannot, at the start, spare more than five minutes to decide whether they agree or not. And yet it would have been so easy to tell them, ‘Meditate on this text, and then express the ideas that come to your mind.’ Nearly everywhere – often even when dealing with purely technical problems – instead of thinking, one merely takes sides: for or against. Such a choice replaces the activity of the mind. This is an intellectual leprosy; it originated in the political world and then spread through the land, contaminating all forms of thinking. This leprosy is killing us; it is doubtful whether it can be cured without first starting with the abolition of all political parties.

Attention and the Affliction of Others with Simone Weil

Today we focus on Weil's thoughts on attention and affliction. Linked here are Weil's "Reflections on The Right Use of School Studies With A View To The Love of God" and two contemporary articles on attention and affliction, as conceived by Weil. Robert Zaretsky: Weil argues that this activity [of attention] has little to do with the sort of effort most of us make when we think we are paying attention. Rather than the contracting of our muscles, attention involves the canceling of our desires; by turning toward another, we turn away from our blinding and bulimic self. The suspension of our thought, Weil declares, leaves us “detached, empty, and ready to be penetrated by the object.” To attend means not to seek, but to wait; not to concentrate, but instead to dilate our minds. We do not gain insights, Weil claims, by going in search of them, but instead by waiting for them: “In every school exercise there is a special way of waiting upon truth, setting our hearts upon it, yet not allowing ourselves to go out in search of it… There is a way of waiting, when we are writing, for the right word to come of itself at the end of our pen, while we merely reject all inadequate words.” To attend means not to seek, but to wait; not to concentrate, but instead to dilate our minds. We do not gain insights, Weil claims, by going in search of them, but instead by waiting for them. This is a supremely difficult stance to grasp. As Weil notes, “the capacity to give one’s attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. Nearly all those who think they have this capacity do not possess it.” I, for one, know I do not possess it, not only because it collides with the way I think about thought, but also because it collides with the fact that I can rarely, if ever, think about anything or anyone else without also thinking about myself. To attend to a fellow human being entails far more than thinking about or even feeling for that person. Pity, like cognition, involves reaching toward another by acknowledging her suffering. In this respect, my faculty of sympathy fixes on someone else just as my faculty of thought does. And once it does, it most often compartmentalizes and forgets that person. As Weil notes, pity is unlike compassion in that “it consists in helping someone in misfortune so as not to be obliged to think about him anymore, or for the pleasure of feeling the distance between him and oneself.” Compassion, in contrast, means that I identify with the afflicted individual so fully that I feed him for the same reason I feed myself: because we are both hungry. In other words, I have paid him attention. It is a faculty that does not latch onto the other, but instead remains still and open. We do not fully understand a hammer, Martin Heidegger observed, simply by staring at it. Instead, understanding comes when we pick it up and use it. Weil gives this observation an unusual wrinkle: we do not fully understand a fellow human being by staring, thinking, or even commiserating with her. Instead, understanding comes only when we let go of our self and allow the other to grab our full attention. In order for the reality of the other’s self to fully invest us, we must first divest ourselves of our own selves.

Franciscan Spirituality With Sr. Ilia Delio And a Poem by Galway Kinnell

In the following video links, Sr. Delio offers a beautiful biographical sketch of the life and legacy of St Francis, as well as some thoughts on how to remain hopeful in the "Franciscan moment" we are living in. Lectio Divina Saint Francis and the Sow by https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/galway-kinnell The bud stands for all things, even for those things that don’t flower, for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;    though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness, to put a hand on its brow of the flower and retell it in words and in touch it is lovely until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;    as Saint Francis put his hand on the creased forehead of the sow, and told her in words and in touch    blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow    began remembering all down her thick length,    from the earthen snout all the way through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,    from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine    down through the great broken heart to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering    from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them: the long, perfect loveliness of sow. The 5 Steps of Lectio Divina  Center: find a comfortable seat, breathe, clear your thoughts Read: preferably out loud — two or three times. The first time, get a feel for the passage. When you read the passage a second time, note the word or phrase to which your attention is being drawn. Read with the intention that a prayer for your life will present itself. If nothing stands out to you, read the passage a third time.  Reflect: what word or phrase stands out to you? How is God speaking to you through this word or phrase? Is there an invitation? What image comes to mind? What feelings are evoked? Take your time and allow God to speak to you from the depths of your soul.  Respond: to what is speaking to you through the text. What is your response? What is your prayer? Allow your words or images to come from a place deep within, resist analyzing what bubbles up.  Be still and rest: Simply be present to what is being revealed to you in this moment.

Prayers for the Season of Creation with Saint Francis and Pope Francis

September is the Season of Creation, an ecumenical movement in response Pope Francis' encyclical letter, "Laudato Si" (Praised be You) urging action on behalf of the church in regards the global climate crisis and its effects on the Poor and the Earth. The title of this letter makes reference to St. Francis' Canticle of The Creatures , which names elements of creation in familial terms one by one, as it offers praise to God, and the created world.  This week choose one of the following prayers as a morning meditation, a walking meditation or as a prayer before spending time outside, simply be present to the Land around you. Choose either “The Canticle of Creatures” by St Francis or one of the closing prayers of Laudato Si, by Pope Francis. Canticle of the Creatures by St. Francis of Assisi  Most High, all-powerful, good Lord,  Yours are the praises, the glory, and the honor, and all blessing,  To You alone, Most High, do they belong,  and no human is worthy to mention Your name.  Praised be You, my Lord, with all Your creatures,  especially Sir Brother Sun, Who is the day and through whom You give us light.  And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor;  and bears a likeness of You, Most High One.  Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,  in heaven You formed them clear and precious and beautiful.  Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind, and through the air,  cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather,  through whom You give sustenance to Your creatures.  Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,  who is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.  Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire,  through whom You light the night,  and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong.  Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth,  who sustains and governs us,  and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs.  Praised be You, my Lord, through those who give pardon for Your love,  and bear infirmity and tribulation.  Blessed are those who endure in peace for by You,  Most High, shall they be crowned.  Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death,  from whom no one living can escape.  Woe to those who die in mortal sin.  Blessed are those whom death will find in Your most holy will,  for the second death shall do them no harm.  Praise and bless my Lord and give  Him thanks and serve Him with great humility —------------------------------------------------------------- Pope Francis' Laudato Si’ urges us toward just and restorative action in regards to climate change, water and land health, loss of biodiversity, and care of human life specifically those most impacted by climate change. (this document in its entirety is linked below) He closes his letter with the following prayers: A prayer for our earth All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe and in the smallest of your creatures. You embrace with your tenderness all that exists. Pour out upon us the power of your love, that we may protect life and beauty. Fill us with peace, that we may live as brothers and sisters, harming no one. O God of the poor, help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth, so precious in your eyes. Bring healing to our lives, that we may protect the world and not prey on it, that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction. Touch the hearts of those who look only for gain at the expense of the poor and the earth. Teach us to discover the worth of each thing, to be filled with awe and contemplation, to recognize that we are profoundly united with every creature as we journey towards your infinite light. We thank you for being with us each day. Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle for justice, love and peace. A Christian prayer in union with creation Father, we praise you with all your creatures. They came forth from your all-powerful hand; they are yours, filled with your presence and your tender love. Praise be to you! Son of God, Jesus, through you all things were made. You were formed in the womb of Mary our Mother, you became part of this earth, and you gazed upon this world with human eyes. Today you are alive in every creature in your risen glory. Praise be to you! Holy Spirit, by your light you guide this world towards the Father’s love and accompany creation as it groans in travail. You also dwell in our hearts and you inspire us to do what is good. Praise be to you! Triune Lord, wondrous community of infinite love, teach us to contemplate you in the beauty of the universe, for all things speak of you. Awaken our praise and thankfulness for every being that you have made. Give us the grace to feel profoundly joined to everything that is. God of love, show us our place in this world as channels of your love for all the creatures of this earth, for not one of them is forgotten in your sight. Enlighten those who possess power and money that they may avoid the sin of indifference, that they may love the common good, advance the weak, and care for this world in which we live. The poor and the earth are crying out. O Lord, seize us with your power and light, help us to protect all life, to prepare for a better future, for the coming of your Kingdom of justice, peace, love and beauty. Praise be to you! Amen. Reflection Questions: What line or phase is speaking to you? What is the prayer? What action, understanding, or shift in perception is being asked of you? A full reading of Laudato Si is linked below. Also linked is a Season of Creation celebration guide (mostly for use by church leadership but a helpful resource nonetheless!)

Via Negativa; A Point of Nothingness with Merton, Eckhart and Rohr

Today we [sit] with Thomas Merton’s description of the True Self as written following his “conversion” at Fourth and Walnut. It is so inspired, I want to quote it at length: At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak [God’s] name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship [and daughtership]. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely . . . . I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere. [1] Most people spend their entire lives living up to their false self, the mental self-images of who they think they are, instead of living in the primal “I” that is already good in God’s eyes. But all I can “pay back” to God or others or myself is who I really am. This is what Merton is describing above. It’s a place of utter simplicity. Perhaps we don’t want to go back there because it is too simple and almost too natural. It feels utterly unadorned. There’s nothing to congratulate myself for. I can’t prove any worth, much less superiority. There I am naked and poor. After years of posturing and projecting, it will at first feel like nothing. But when we are nothing, we are in a fine position to receive everything from God. As Merton says above, our point of nothingness is “the pure glory of God in us.” If we look at the great religious traditions, we see they all use similar words to point in the same direction. The Franciscan word is “poverty.” The Carmelite word is nada or “nothingness.” The Buddhists speak of “emptiness.” Jesus speaks of being “poor in spirit” in his very first beatitude. The Bible as a whole prefers to talk in images, and the desert is a foundational one. The desert is where we are voluntarily under-stimulated—no feedback, no new data. Jesus says to go into the closet or the “inner room.” That’s where we stop living out of other people’s response to us. We can then say, I am not who you think I am. Nor am I who you need me to be. I’m not even who I need myself to be. I must be “nothing” in order to be open to all of reality and new reality. Merton’s reservoir of solitude and contemplation allowed him to see the gate of heaven everywhere, even on a common street corner. A Zen master would call the True Self “the face we had before we were born.” Paul would call it who you are “in Christ, hidden in God” (Colossians 3:3). It is who you are before having done anything right or anything wrong, who you are before having thought about who you are. Thinking creates the false self, the ego self, the insecure self. The God-given contemplative mind, on the other hand, recognizes the God Self, the Christ Self, the True Self of abundance and deep inner security. We start with mere seeing; we end up with recognizing. Gateway to silent meditation (20 minutes of silence): You live in me; I live in you. References: [1] Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (Image Books: 1968), 158. Adapted from Richard Rohr, http://store.cac.org/everything-belongs-the-gift-of-contemplative-prayer_p_17.html(Crossroad Publishing: 1999, 2003), 76-78. ------------------------------------------------------------------- The Via Negativa The darkness of the Via Negativa includes the darkness of grief and suffering, the darkness of the cross, the darkness of the dark night. Thomas Merton recognized this truth when he wrote from a hospital bed of “a flat impersonal song” and of “bleeding in a numbered bed/…all my veins run/with Christ and with the stars’ plasm.” : from With The World In My Blood Stream, by Thomas Merton I lie on my hospital bed Water runs inside the walls And the musical machinery All around overhead Plays upon my metal system My invented back bone Lends to the universal tone A flat impersonal song All the planes in my mind Sing to my worried blood To my jet streams I swim in the world’s genius The spring’s plasm I wonder who the hell I am. The world’s machinery Expands in the walls Of the hot musical building Made in maybe twenty-four And my lost childhood remains One of the city’s living cells Thanks to this city I am still living But whose life lies here And whose invented music sings? All the freights in the night Swing my dark technical bed All around overhead And wake the questions in my blood My jet streams fly far above But my low gash is no good Here below earth and bone Bleeding in a numbered bed Though all my veins run With Christ and with the stars’ plasm. Ancestors and Indians Zen Masters and Saints Parade in the incredible hotel... I have no more sweet home I doubt the bed here and the road there And WKLO I most abhor My head is rotten with the town’s song. Here below stars and light And the Chicago plane Slides up the rainy straits of night While in my maze I walk and sweat Wandering in the low bone system Or searching the impossible ceiling For the question and the meaning Till the machine rolls in again I grow hungry for invented air And for the technical community of men For my lost Zen breathing For the unmarried fancy And the wild gift I made in those days For all the compromising answers All the gambles and blue rhythms Of individual despair. So the world’s logic runs Up and down the doubting walls While the frights and the planes Swing my sleep out the window All around, overhead In doubt and technical heat In oxygen and jet streams In the world’s enormous space And in man’s enormous want Until the want itself is gone Nameless bloodless and alone The Cross comes and Eckhart’s scandal The Holy Supper and the precise wrong And the accurate little spark In emptiness in the jet stream Only the spark can understand All that burns flies upward Where the rainy jets have gone A sign of needs and possible homes An invented back bone A dull song of oxygen A lost spark in Eckhart’s Castle. World’s plasm and world’s cell I bleed myself awake and well Only the spark is now true Dancing in the empty room All around overhead While the frail body of Christ Sweats in a technical bed I am Christ’s lost cell His childhood and desert age His descent into hell. Love without need and without name Bleeds in the empty problem And the spark without identity Circles the empty ceiling. Merton invokes Eckhart’s image of the “spark of the soul” where the Christ is born in all of us and where the Holy Spirit’s fire never goes out, to name what was left of him when he was stripped of so much in his hospital sojourn.  His good friend, Sister Lentfoehr, calls this poem Merton’s “most poignant and anguished poem.”  A return to nothingness where only the spark remains.  Merton addresses “Eckhart’s castle” in this poem.  Eckhart talks about the soul as a “castle” as in the Biblical phrase, “the kingdom of God.”  Kingdoms in Eckhart’s day boasted castles and Eckhart invokes the castle as an archetype for the soul and as the deepest part of the soul where our divinization occurs. “God glows and burns with all his wealth and all his bliss” in this castle.    Jesus enters into this castle “in his being rather than in his acting, giving graciously to the mind the divine and deiform being.  This regards the essence of being according to the words: ‘By the grace of God I am what I am.’” This castle, “free of all names and bare of all forms,” is the “place” that “the Father begets his only begotten Son as truly as in himself.”  Here “with this part of itself the soul is equal to God and nothing else.” The castle for Eckhart is the place/space where the Divine marries the human. Adapted from Matthew Fox, A Way To God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey, pp. 74f.   And Matthew Fox, Passion for Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart, pp. 279f., 289

Emanation and Return, The Triple Way of Pseudo-Dionysius and Christian Neoplatonism

This week we sit with the thoughts of Fr. Angelo Geiger on the triple way of Dionysius and his predecessors Clement of Alexandria (150-214), Origen (185-254) and Gregory of Nyssa (c.335-395) Begin by watching the video linked above for an introduction on Neoplatonic influence on Christian thought and practice. Then follow the second link the Fr. Geiger's presentation. Join the Contemplative Prayer group in this app to continue the conversation!

Intro to Apophatic Prayer with friends of Pseudo Dionysius!

This week we will focus on Apophatic Prayer, spending time with the Cloud of Unknowing and Thomas Keating, in the tradition of Centering Prayer. As we discussed on Wednesday, centering prayer is born from Pseudo-Dionysius' apophatic theology. Begin by watching the linked video of Thomas Keating leading a centering prayer session.  The second link is a video presentation on the Cloud of Unknowing. The Cloud of Unknowing is an anonymous work written in the 14th century, as a guide to contemplative prayer from one monastic to another. The Cloud instructs that to know God one must surrender mind and ego to a cloud of unknowing and a cloud of forgetting, at which point one may begin to glimpse the nature of God through love rather than intellectual understanding. “For silence is not God, nor speaking; fasting is not God, nor eating; solitude is not God, nor company; nor any other pair of opposites. God is hidden between them and cannot be found by anything your soul does, but only by the love of your heart. God cannot be known by reason, nor by thought, caught, or sought by understanding. But God can be love and chosen by the true, loving will of your heart.” ~ from The Cloud of Unknowing The following thoughts on The Cloud of Unknowing are taken from an article titled, “Knowing God by Transcending the Mind: The Apophatic Tradition” by David Robertson: Heavily influenced by Dionysius, the author of The Cloud nonetheless takes a step further. Whereas Mystical Theology is primarily concerned with eliminating intellectual conceptualisations of God, The Cloud requires the practitioner to withdraw from the senses as well. All cognitive and sensory faculties must be pushed “beneath” the practitioner in a “cloud of forgetting”. This is so that the contemplative initiate can focus and cultivate a “blind stirring of love” toward God. This is because “[God] can well be loved, but he cannot be thought. By love he can be grasped and held, but by thought neither grasped nor held”. This emphasis on love draws from the mystical tradition of commentary on the Song of Songs, which The Cloud fuses with Dionysius’s negative approach and instructs to “forget all of God’s creation … so that your thoughts and desires are not directed and do not reach out towards any of them”. In this process of forgetting, the soul goes through a darkness where a desiring love reaches out to God in a “cloud of unknowing”. This “unknowing” is a state where the intellect and senses have been abandoned and having being stripped bare except for a love for God, the individual has opened themself up to be brought to God in grace. This aspect of clearing the way for God’s grace is a common feature among apophatic mystics and theologians and is ultimately all a person can do on their own behalf in the process of union with God. This week take some time to become acquainted with this Cloud, as you establish a practice of centering prayer.

A Prayer of Peace with Howard Thurman

The following words of Howard Thurman are taken from a collection of 15 sermons on the parables of Jesus, titled simply, "Sermons on the Parables". This week allow yourself 20 minutes to an hour to sit with this prayer. Maybe making some time to reflect through art making or reciting a line meditatively while taking a long walk! Center: start by finding a comfortable seat, in or out of doors, where you will remain for 20 minutes or so. Have journaling and art materials on hand. breathe, clear your thoughts. Deepen and expand your breath for a few rounds and then read through the following passage.  Read, preferably out loud — two or three times through. The first time, get a feel for the passage. When you read the passage a second time, note the word or phrase to which your attention is being drawn. Read with the intention that a prayer for your life will present itself. If nothing stands out to you, read the passage a third time: "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard my heart and thoughts. There is the peace that comes when lowering clouds burst and the whole landscape is drenched in rain, refreshing and cool. There is the peace that comes when hours of sleeplessness are swallowed up in sleep, deeply relaxing and calm. There is a peace that comes when what has lurked so long in the shadow of my mind stands out in the light. I face it, call it by its name, for better or for worse. There is a peace that comes when sorrow is not relieved, when pain is not required, when tragedy remains tragedy, stark and literal, when failure continues through all the days to be failure. Is all this the peace of God? Or is it the intimation of the peace of God? The Peace of God shall guard my heart and thoughts. There are feelings, untamed and unmanageable in my heart: The bitterness of a great hatred, not yet absorbed; The moving light of love, unrequited or unfulfilled, casting its shafts down all corridors of my days, the unnamed anxiety brought on by nothing in particular, some strange foreboding of coming disaster that does not yet appear; The overwhelming hunger of God that underscores all the ambitions, dreams and restlessness of my churning spirit. Hold them, O peace of God, until Thy perfect work is in them fulfilled. The Peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall guard my heart and my thoughts. Into God's keeping do I yield my heart and thoughts, yea, my life – with its strength and weakness its failure and success, its shame and its purity. O Peace of God, settle over me and within me so that I cannot tell mine from thine and thine from mine." Reflect: what line or phrase stands out to you? How is God speaking to you through this line or phrase? Is there an invitation? What image comes to mind? What feelings are evoked? Take your time and allow God to speak to you from the depths of your soul.  What is your response? What is your prayer? Allow your words or images to come from a place deep within, resist analyzing what bubbles up. Take some time to write or draw about this, or take a long slow walk. Be still and rest. Simply be present to what is being revealed to you in this moment, to the silence, to God’s incarnation, and God’s peace within you.

Howard Thurman's Prophetic Mysticism

Today we turn to Lerita Coleman Brown, Author of, "What Makes You Come Alive, A spiritual Walk with Howard Thurman". Lerita, a spiritual director and author, is Professor Emerita of Psychology at Agnes Scott College and past director of the Science Center for Women at Agnes Scott. She is a graduate of Shalem Institute's Spiritual Guidance Program and speaks and writes about contemplative spirituality in everyday life, frequently speaking on contemplative spirituality and Howard Thurman.

Howard Turman Meditation: How Good it is to Center Down!

Follow the link to a recorded meditation on Thurman's work, "How Good it is to Center Down" this video features Pastoral Fellow Lisha Epperson of St Peter's Chelsea in NYC. Lisha walks us through a brief biographical sketch, and some thoughts on the prophetic mystic in our midst, before holding a beautiful space for us to work more deeply into Thurman's words. How good it is to center down! To sit quietly and see one’s self pass by! The streets of our minds seethe with endless traffic; Our spirits resound with clashings, with noisy silences, While something deep within hungers and thirsts for the still moment and the resting lull. With full intensity we seek, ere the quiet passes, a fresh sense of order in our living; A direction, a strong sure purpose that will structure our confusion and bring meaning in our chaos. We look at ourselves in this waiting moment – the kinds of people we are. The questions persist: what are we doing with our lives? – what are the motives that order our days? What is the end of our doings? Where are we trying to go? Where do we put the emphasis and where are our values focused? For what end do we make sacrifices? Where is my treasure and what do I love most in life? What do I hate most in life and to what am I true? Over and over the questions beat in upon the waiting moment. As we listen, floating up through all the jangling echoes of our turbulence, there is a sound of another kind – A deeper note which only the stillness of the heart makes clear. It moves directly to the core of our being. Our questions are answered, Our spirits refreshed, and we move back into the traffic of our daily round With the peace of the Eternal in our step. How good it is to center down!

Hildegard Lectio Divina

This week we will find center with the words of Hildegard. For this practice gather your journal and something to write or draw with. Set aside at least 20 minutes for this practice. The 5 Steps of Lectio Divina  Center: find a comfortable seat, breathe, clear your thoughts Read: preferably out loud, read though the text slowly. — two or three times. The first time, get a feel for the passage. When you read the passage a second time, note a word or phrase to which your attention is being drawn. Read with the intention that a prayer for your life will present itself. If nothing stands out to you, read the passage a third time.  Reflect: what word or phrase stands out to you? How is God speaking to you through this word or phrase? Is there an invitation? What image comes to mind? What feelings are evoked? Take your time and allow God to speak to you from the depths of your soul. Respond: what is speaking to you through the text. What is your response? What is your prayer? Allow your words or images to come from a place deep within, resist analyzing what bubbles up.  Be still and rest. Simply be present to what is being revealed to you in this moment, to the silence, to God’s incarnation within you. Lectio Divina: Words by Hildegard Von Bingen How wonderful  is the wisdom  in the Godhead's heart. It is the heart that sees  the primordial eternity  of every creature.  When God gazes upon the countenance of humankind, the face that he formed,  he contemplates this work  in its totality, its totality in this human form. How wonderful is this breath than,  this breath that awakened humankind. The marvels of God  are not brought forth  from oneself.  Rather,  it is more like a chord,  a sound that is played.  The tone does not come  out of the cord itself,  but rather,  through the touch  of the musician.  I am, of course,  the lyre and harp  of God’s kindness . 

The Practice of Sacred Listening

June 19, 2023

In Audio Divina we use music or sound as a doorway into prayer, letting the ear of the heart guide us into a practice of sacred listening. For this practice we will use a piece of Hildegard's work (choose from one of the two links at the bottom of the page, each are about five minutes)   Steps of Audio Divina Center  Begin by finding a quiet place and take some time to settle yourself into stillness. Become aware of the sacredness of this time you have set aside. Breathe in an awareness of God's presence, breathe out distractions and worries. Slowly allow your focus to move from your head down into your heart. See if you can visualize this movement of your attention and awareness shifting. First Hearing: Listen Linked below are two pieces of Hildegard's Music, O Pastor Animarum and O Ignis Spiritus. Begin to listen to one of the pieces of music. For this first listen simply enter into its landscape. Notice the sounds of the notes and silences between them, notice the movement of the music. Be present to how it rises and falls in your body and imagination. Allow the music to fill you, breathing it in. Slowly become aware if there is a dominant sound or image or feeling that is calling to you in this initial experience. Allow a few moments of silence to follow and savor that image or feeling rising up in you. Second Hearing: Reflect Play the music a second time. This time while listening allow the sound or image or feeling that first called to you to draw you more deeply into the experience of it. Allow it to unfold in your imagination. Notice how the experience of listening to the music touches your heart. What memories does it stir in you? What are the feelings rising up in your body? What images are you aware of? Continue to listen with your heart and become more deeply aware of how the music is flowing through you and what is being evoked. Rest for a few minutes in silence following the end of the piece, resting in what has moved in you. Third Hearing: Respond Play the music a third time. This time focus on how your heart wants to respond to being touched. What is the invitation present in the unfolding of sounds, images, memories, and feelings for you today? How is God speaking to your life in this moment through this music? What is the "yes" within you that is longing to be expressed? If you feel comfortable, take a moment to express with your voice what you are experiencing in your body. It might be a simple sound or a line from a song or something you have created in the moment.  Be Still Spend some time resting in silence and releasing the sounds, feelings, and images that are stirring in you. Close your eyes for a few minutes and rest in the stillness in simple awareness of God's presence. Allow yourself some time to simply be. Open yourself to a sense of gratitude for whatever has been revealed and offered in this time of prayer. Closing When you have come to the end of your prayer time you may want to play the music again and just experience it anew from the other side of this time. If you keep a journal, write down some reflections on your experience, making note of the music and what stirred in you. Music has an incredible power in our lives that perhaps originates from our very heartbeat, that primordial life-sustaining rhythm. Over time as you cultivate your ability to hear in a deeper way, consider using other music you love and with which you are drawn to pray. Begin to notice how you listen to your life in a deeper way. (Sources: Patheos, Youtube)

Observing VIRIDITAS

June 12, 2023

Hildegard gifts us with some really beautiful language for perceiving God in all things. The concept of Viriditas directs our senses and hearts in perceiving this Greening Spirit that is aliveness/ lushness/ moistness; the evidence of God's Spirit among us. We see this in loamy fertile soil filled with insects as well as the robust laugh and soft constitution of a wiggling baby. We can taste it in the food we eat, and sense it as it radiates from our own souls in moments of joy and peace. She reminds us that belonging, and consolation are available to us in each moment as we give witness to this permeating Greening Spirit who makes Kin of all living things! Today's meditation can be done as either a sitting or walking meditation. It is meant to be done outside, preferably in a place that brings joy or peace, but even a parking lot will do! Viriditas can be observed truly anywhere. To begin, read through the following Lectio Divina; words of Hildegard a couple of times slowly, and find a line that stands out to use as a prayer or mantra for your walk or sit. If nothing stands out to you, choose something like “I am/ you are alive with the Spirit of God”, or simply “thank you”.   For walking or sitting meditation begin by grounding your awareness in the present moment, scan your body for discomfort, check in with your breathing and sense perceptions, leaving to-do lists, worries, memories etc temporarily.  Slow the breath and mind. Allow thoughts to come and go without attachment. The mantra or prayer you chose will be helpful in detaching from outside thoughts as well, simply repeating the phrase in mind each time you feel a distraction pulling at you is a way of recentering in your meditation.  Set an intention of time to spend in this meditation, it can be a few minutes or a few hours. I'd suggest 30 minutes if you have this available in your day.  Choose a way to open and close this sacred time of listening. This can be lighting a candle, saying a familiar prayer or bowing in gratitude.  For sitting meditation, find a comfortable spot where you can take in all that is around you. For walking Meditation plan on moving more slowly than you might normally, walking with intention and purpose. For sitting and walking meditation try to take in the Viriditas around you without judgment, follow your curiosity and remain open to what spirit might show you about the aliveness of all things and yourself.  Lectio Divina: Hildegard Von Bingen Most honored Greening Force,  You who roots in the Sun; You who lights up,  in shining serenity, within a wheel that earthly excellence fails to comprehend. You are enfolded in the weaving of divine mysteries. You redden like the dawn and you burn as a flame  of the Sun. The mystery of God hugs you  in its all-encompassing arms.  Everything that is in the heavens, on earth,  and under the earth  is penetrated with connectedness,  penetrated with relatedness.  Every creature is a glittering,  glistening mirror of Divinity. Humanity, take a good look at yourself.  For heaven and earth,  and all of creation  are seeded within you.  You’re a whole world— everything is hidden in you. The soul is the greening life force of the flesh,  for the body grows and prospers through her,  just as the earth becomes fruitful when it is moistened.  The soul humidifies the body so it does not dry out,  just like the rain which soaks into the earth. Additional readings on Viriditas as linked below Journal Throughout The Week This week be looking and listening for Viriditas. Write about the unlikely places you are observing the Spirit of God quietly or overtly, alive in all things. Pay attention to the quality of these things, what are the signifiers of this Greening Spirit? As you move through the week is your sense of this Spirit more finely tuned? How does acknowledgement of Viriditas draw connections between you and other beings? How does it connect to you to the Creator?  Blessings of Verdant and Holy belonging this week! -Megan

About Mystic of the Month Club

During the 6 months of Ordinary Time we will be celebrating 6 different mystics. Through conversation, Lectio Practice, writing and art-making, we will contemplate the works and revelations of these mothers and fathers of the faith who received spiritual insight through direct experience of the Divine, in addition to intellectual or religious understandings of God. As Fr. Richard Rohr says, “A mystic sees things in their wholeness, connection, and union, not only their particularity. Mystics get a whole gestalt in one picture [beyond the sequential and linear]”. Though communion with these 6 mystics we will experience the incarnational and immediate nature of God in our very midst; from the core of our very mystical selves! On the first Wednesday of each month we will gather from 6-8 pm for a meal and study of our mystic of the month, diving into their biography and studying some of their writings together. During a time of reflection, those who would like to may begin working on our community Icon of the mystic! This is a large-scale collaborative painting, honoring our Mystic and incorporating some of our personal reflections. No artistic confidence required!! The Community Icon projects will be available to work on during our Wednesday gatherings as well as during the Noon Service each week.  Weekly meditations and readings, as well as writing and artistic prompts will be uploaded to this series here on the app! We will conclude our time with an All Saints celebration, costume party and gallery opening featuring the icons we painted throughout Ordinary Time. This will be on November 4th, more as the date approaches! Wednesday gatherings: June 7th, July 5th, August 2nd, September 6th, October 4th, November 1st (Be sure to register for each monthly meeting!) June 7th we begin with Hildegard of Bingen! (12th Century)

July 5 Gathering Registration: Howard Thurman!

July 5, 2023

Our next featured Mystic of the Month is theologian and Civil Rights leader, Howard Thurman (1899 – 1981) Join us as we discuss his life, influence, and the mystical spirituality that permeated his work in the world. We will share a meal, contemplate some of his written works and compose a large-scale Howard Thurman Icon! 6-8 pm in Centennial Chapel please note any dietary restrictions in your registration What is MOTMC? During the 6 months of Ordinary Time we will be celebrating 6 different mystics. Through conversation, Lectio Practice, writing and art-making, we will contemplate the works and revelations of these mothers and fathers of the faith who received spiritual insight through direct experience of the Divine, in addition to intellectual or religious understandings of God. As Fr. Richard Rohr says, “A mystic sees things in their wholeness, connection, and union, not only their particularity. Mystics get a whole gestalt in one picture [beyond the sequential and linear]”. Though communion with these 6 mystics we will experience the incarnational and immediate nature of God in our very midst; from the core of our very mystical selves! On the first Wednesday of each month we will gather from 6-8 pm for a meal and study of our mystic of the month, diving into their biography and studying some of their writings together. During a time of reflection, those who would like to may begin working on our community Icon of the mystic! This is a large-scale collaborative painting, honoring our Mystic and incorporating some of our personal reflections. No artistic confidence required!! The Community Icon projects will be available to work on during our Wednesday gatherings as well as during the Noon Service each week.  Weekly meditations and readings, as well as writing and artistic prompts will be uploaded to this series here on the app! We will conclude our time with an All Saints celebration, costume party and gallery opening featuring the icons we painted throughout Ordinary Time. This will be on November 4th, more as the date approaches! Wednesday gatherings: June 7th, July 5th, August 2nd, September 6th, October 4th, November 1st (Be sure to register for each monthly meeting!)