Finding Your Voice

Today's daily Tao verse reads "Express yourself. That is meaning". These are simple words with deep meaning. They ask the question, "What remains unexpressed within me"? Much of my life, especially when I was younger, I struggled to find my voice. In some previous thoughts I wrote about the need for creativity in our lives. Your creativity is your voice. Until you find your gift for creativity, you will not find your voice. I cannot paint and I am not a musician. I've never thought of myself as an artist. However, in the beginning of my mid life years I discovered that I had a gift for writing. I started expressing myself in words and people liked what I said. With their encouragement I continued to write and to express myself more openly and honestly. I shared my life, my joys, and some of my frustrations. Some thoughts, however, are private and not for public consumption. Nevertheless, I have shared much of my life and many people have found comfort and encouragement from my thoughts, experiences, and my attempts to understand myself. A small email distribution grew into a list that contained hundreds of names. Eventually I created this blog. For a long time I wondered if anyone read it. I felt like I was just writing for myself but that was fine with me because I write for myself as much as I do for others. Since the creation of this blog I have become aware that hundreds of people have read my thoughts all over the world. Maybe I am not changing the world but I am making a difference in some people's lives. Through words, I have found my voice. I have found meaning by expressing my feelings and sharing my experiences with others. Everyone has a gift but they are not always easily identified. Keep searching though and you will find your voice.

My Favorite Merton Photo

The 40th Anniversary Of Thomas Merton's Death

On this day, 40 years ago in Bangkok, Thailand, Thomas Merton was accidentally electrocuted and died. He was 53 years old. The year was 1968. I was a seventeen year old hippie at the time and didn't even know who Thomas Merton was. Four years later I was a novice at the Abbey of Gethsemani, the very monastery where Merton lived. I would have to say that Merton has been one of the most influential people in my life. Through Merton I learned about contemplation, Zen, and Buddhism. I was introduced to Merton's writings in 1970 when I lived in a Franciscan community at a place called Duns Scotus College outside Detroit, Michigan. One of the Friars, Brother Brian, gave me several Merton books as a gift. The first one I read is still one of my favorites. It was "The Sign of Jonas". It was a journal written in the late 40's and early 50's and detailed life at Gethsemani. It was the book that made me think I might want to be a monk myself. Since that time I did live at Gethsemani for a while, I have always had a relationship with Gethsemani and many of the monks, I have made two solitary retreats in Thomas Merton's Hermitage, and for the last twenty years I have been part of the Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani, a group of lay people committed to living contemplative lives in the world. All of this began with the reading of "The Sign of Jonas". Merton's influence is a big part of why I am who I am. The pictures above are a photo of me taken several years ago just outside Merton's Hermitage. Those familiar with the hermitage will recognize the wooden cross and wagon wheel. The other picture is of the Dalai Lama and Dom Timothy Kelly visiting the grave of Thomas Merton. The picture was taken at the time of the Dalai Lama's first visit to Gethsemani for a Christian/Buddhist dialog. Dom Timothy was my primary teacher when I was a novice at Gethsemani.

The Geography Of The Heart

I woke up from a deep sleep this morning with the unpleasant realization that I had to leave my bed and go to work. Once out of the bed I was fine and I proceeded to the office. All day long I was tired and sore. It took me a while to realize why I was sore. Over the weekend I gave a co-worker a bed I no longer needed. They came to my house on Saturday to pick it up and I helped her husband carry the mattress and box springs out to his truck. I'm still not totally recovered from my surgery so I probably shouldn't have done it and I also do so little manual labor that I am terribly out of shape.

I had my final visit with my surgeon today. Being tired and sore and a little bored at work I was happy to leave the office early even if it was for a doctor's appointment. I got to the doctor's office a little early and was happy to sit quietly in the warm waiting room. I was in a slight daze when the receptionist called me to the window. "Mr. Brown, I need you to sign this form concerning your colonoscopy". Colonoscopy??? Excuse me??? I'm here for a surgical follow up. I'm not here for any colonoscopy! Wow, that was a close call. I've had enough of those in my life. Heck, sometimes life itself feels like a colonoscopy!

Today's Tao reading is as follows......

Why yearn for a promised land? The true land is in the heart.

The commentary for this reading mainly discusses those people in the world who have been separated from their places of birth by war, economics, abduction, lack of work, and many other reasons. The land we call home has a strong pull on us. I always remember Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz story saying, "There's no place like home"! I am not a great world traveler but anytime I have left my home, it was always good to return to it. In the monastic life there is a term that refers to a monk's love for his monastery, a physical place where he has promised to remain for his entire life. The term is "Lover's of the Place". A friend of mine who passed away several years ago, Abbot Francis Kline of Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina, wrote a small book using this phrase as his title. Although we may have a strong pull or longing for a particular piece of physical geography, I believe there is a deeper pull and longing for something beyond geography. Most of my life I have felt a sense of longing for something I can not even identify. At times I have felt like an exile. In spite of much introspection I can never seem to identify why I have these feelings of longing and desire or the emptiness they expose. I am in the land of my birth so I am not yearning for any physical homeland. I am already there. What am I longing for? What am I looking for to fill the emptiness and satisfy the longing? Is the longing a human need for love and affection or a call into a deeper experience on a more spiritual level? I don't know. I do not think my experience is unique. I believe it is a common experience and perhaps part of most people's human journey through life. One thought I did have over the weekend is that when I feel these feelings I am sometimes spending too much time thinking of myself and my needs. The less I think about me, the less I feel unhappy. If the true "promised land" is the heart, I should open my heart more to others and spend less time thinking about myself.

Today's newspaper reminded me that John Lennon was murdered in New York City 28 years ago today. It still makes me sad to think that John and George Harrison are both dead. Their music, with the Beatles and as individuals, will always keep their memory alive with me.

A Visit To The Monastery

I woke up very early this morning. My bed was warm and soft. Outside my window it was dark and very cold. For a few moments I was tempted to simply roll over, go back to sleep, and re-enter my dream world. My better self prevailed and I got up and headed for the shower. Today was the first Sunday of the month and I was expected at the monastery. After I got dressed and ready I checked to see if I had everything I needed, i.e., notes for the group discussion, my chicken pasta casserole for the pot luck lunch, a Thomas Merton book for an opening reflection, and some music for the drive. Having everything I needed I headed out of the house. It was very cold with temperatures hovering around 20 degrees. I drove to the gasoline station and froze my butt off while filling the car up with fuel. Then, after a quick stop at McDonald's for coffee, I hit the road. Early on a Sunday morning, on a very cold December day, there is little traffic even on the Interstate. Soon I reached my first exit and I headed down the two lane Highway 245. I love this part of the drive. The sun began to rise and eventually showed its bright and orange face through the trees. At this time of year the bare trees stand at attention like sentinels at their posts guarding the surrounding countryside. Further down the road the morning sun stared me in the face and I was nearly blinded as I drove the winding road.

I arrived earlier than expected at the monastery. The monastery in winter is an exceptionally quiet place. I headed for the dining room for a refill of my coffee. I sat at a table and quietly looked out the window into the guesthouse garden. The room was warm and I was as happy as I could be. Soon the people....friends....I gather with every month began to arrive. They are a great bunch of people and I have known some of them for many years. We had some great discussion, we sang and prayed with the monks, and we ended our time together breaking bread and sharing a meal. I love the monastery, the monks, and these people. The monastery and the monks have been a huge influence on the kind of person that I am. It's a part of my life that is impossible for me to imagine not being part of my life. Whatever is good about me, the monastery deserves some of the credit.

On the way home from the monastery I stopped at the home of my friend, Fr. Dennis. I had not seen him in a couple of months. Last month my monastery visit and my visit with Dennis didn't happen because of the health issue that landed me in the hospital in early November. As I have said before, Dennis and I are like brothers. I always enjoy being with him and whenever we are together the discussions are often deep and the laughter is plentiful.

Tomorrow it's back to work as the December daze continues.

Learning Is The Fountain Of Youth

Learning is the fountain of youth. No matter how old you are, You mustn't stop growing.

Today we have another intriguing thought from the Tao. The commentary says, "The creativity that everyone can engage in is learning. The continuing act of creativity keeps us young".

In my own life I have always believed that education gives us knowledge but life gives us wisdom. I regret the lack of formal education in my life. To compensate for it, I have focused much of my energy on the acquisition of wisdom. I have not, however, given up on education. Most of my life I have been a voracious reader and life itself has been my teacher. I study life and I observe it. I like to imagine that as I walk through life I am constantly collecting data. Coupled with this is my natural tendency to be introspective and reflective. My spirituality is contemplative. In my mind to be a contemplative means constantly striving to be an "awakened one". It doesn't matter what faith system you subscribe to or what your beliefs are. The deeper you get into a contemplative mindset, the more awakened you are. When I am asleep to life and what goes on around me I am not being contemplative. In a manner of speaking, the deeper I go into contemplation and the more awakened I am, the younger I become. The contemplative, awakened state is the fountain of youth. The more awake you are, the more childlike you become, and life becomes filled with wonder and awe. It is the wonder and awe of a spiritual being living in the grace of the moment and the light of God. When you are in such a state of being, your body may age but you are eternally young in spirit.

Brokenness And Creativity

In recent weeks and months I feel like I have been on some kind of intellectual holiday. Looking back over recent posts there is very little reflective thought. Since I quit sending our daily emails to hundreds of people, I have felt no pressure to provide people with something to think about. This lack of pressure and the events in my life during the month of November put me in a trance where I have read very little and I have only thought about the needs of the moment. The transition back to work has been smooth and after only a couple of days I feel like I was never away. The downside to returning to work is that I have fallen back into a pattern of going home and falling asleep in the early evening. I wake up in a daze and spend the rest of the night in a fog. I need to break this pattern quickly before it becomes too entrenched.

Today during lunch I read the following thought from a book entitled 365 Tao. The book has daily meditations from a Chinese philosopher named Deng Ming-Dao.

There's nothing to paint anymore.
We've seen everything from the classical to the absurd.
There's nothing to write anymore.
As many books are shredded as read.
There's nothing to sing anymore.
The once avant-garde is now background music.

Basically, this reading is about the difficulty of maintaining creativity. Though it is difficult to maintain creativity, we are compelled to keep trying. The commentary on these verses says, "The only way to have fresh expression is to go deep within". Although I have certainly had a few deep moments in the last couple of months, a great deal of my time has been spent living on the surface of my life with needs and concerns that were staring me in the face. I have experienced a variety of moods, some good, some bad, others positive and some that were negative. Looking out the window in the room where I write most of my thoughts I noticed that all the leaves on the tree in my front yard were now on the ground and the limbs of the tree were bare and exposed. Looking closer I realized the tree had several broken branches from the windstorm that blew through my area several months ago. It made me wonder, "How much brokenness do we hide from others with various disguises and coverings"? If we were all emotionally exposed to one another, how much hidden brokenness would we see? What is my brokenness? Where do I hurt and why? How do we heal ourselves? I think part of my ongoing healing will occur by going "deep within" and writing about it as honestly and openly as I can. Metaphorically, as well as literally, I want to continue painting and writing and singing. The creative process is a healing process and by exposing my pain and brokenness, I allow myself to be healed.

Whatever my mood, it always improves when I see my granddaughter. After work today my wife and I picked her up at the day care center. She is always excited to see me. We had dinner at McDonald's where we ate hamburgers and french fries and chocolate chip cookies. On the way to my house we drove through the surrounding neighborhoods and looked at all the Christmas lights. My heart was lifted when I heard her squeals of delight whenever we saw a house that was decorated. We both agreed that we prefer the colored lights over white lights. We ended the night by watching "A Shrek Christmas" on television and drinking pumpkin egg nog.