Judith Valente's Blog: Mindfulness in the Age of Twitter - Posts Tagged "contemplation"

A popular book in the eighties suggested that everything we need to know about life we learn in kindergarten. That’s sadly true in some ways. Too often, one of the things we discover in those early years of school is how to be cruel.

My elementary school was in a working class neighborhood of Bayonne, New Jersey. Kids would make up nicknames for other students. Usually they weren’t kind. A small, thin-boned boy was dubbed “Mousie.” A girl with protruding teeth was called “Buckwheat.” I am still moved to tears when I think of a sweet boy in our seventh grade class named Gary who was slightly developmentally challenged. His nickname was “Java Man.”

I wasn’t one of the kids who called others names. Even then I had a gut sense that kind of behavior was wrong. Still, I didn’t speak up to try to stop it either -- something that haunts me to this day.

These days, name-calling has become routine, even fashionable, within our public discourse. Terms like “losers,” “animals,” and “enemies of the people” get tossed around. This needs to stop. I guided a retreat recently where several of those who attended acknowledged they struggle with rage over what they see happening in our country. The temptation is there for even gentle, well-mannered people to want to fight back with their own words of derision. That just leads to a further lowering of the bar for communication.

I learned a handy rule of thumb from the Benedictine sisters of Mount St. Scholastica Monastery. Before you open your mouth to speak, ask yourself three questions. Is what I am about to say true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? That last one might be the most difficult of all. If we hear something that makes us angry or upset, we don’t have to respond in kind, or in an argumentative way. Sometimes the best argument – the best way to express our disagreement – is silence. In his Rule for monastics, St. Benedict says sometimes even good words can be left unsaid “out of esteem for silence.”

Keeping silent is often a difficult practice for me. I feel as though I need to speak out, to spring into action whenever I encounter injustice. Perhaps it comes from years as a journalist trying to stand up for the marginalized, to give voice to the voiceless. It’s particularly hard too for women or minorities whose voices society has long stifled. There are, however, other ways to register our disagreement without being disagreeable.

A sign in front of one of the local elementary schools in my community says: “Summer Assignment: Do A Good Deed Every Day.” It sounds hokey, but it’s a better use of our time than arguing with family members, friends or co-workers when what we see makes us angry. A friend of mine suggests that we respond to feelings of rage, not with harsh words, but by doing a random act of kindness. It’s a discipline I am slowing trying to learn.

What methods work for you? How can we dispense with the useless name-calling and the unnecessary discord sweeping our country?

I'm thankful to have been interviewed about How to Live by Niala Boodhoo today on Illinois Public Media's "The 21st" radio show.

Here's a link to the entire hour. My interview starts at 17:00 minutes. https://will.illinois.edu/player/audi...

Here are some things I mention:
We’re talking too much at and over each other, but we’re not listening enough to each other. St. Benedict asks us to listen with the ear of the heart. That’s something that I’m pretty concerned about in our culture.

On listening with the ear of the art: "I think that means each person who comes into our life brings something to us, whether we recognize it or not. The idea of hospitality goes hand in hand with listening in the Benedictine world. Everyone we encounter has some gift, which may at first appear hidden. I think this is relevant about our discussion about immigration and refugees in our country.
It’s a misconception that monasteries were a place that walled themselves off from the rest of the world. That’s not completely true. The doors of the monasteries then, and now, remain open to guests."

"There was always a position in the monastery called the Porter. His job was to greet guests. He was to say one of two things: “Thanks be to God” or “Your blessing please” whenever anyone knocked on the door. I think those are such interesting greetings.
They both say they’re expecting good in the encounter with the guest. We’ve almost turned that around today. We see the other as a threat. That’s completely in contrast to the monastic value of listening and caring for the other."

One line that’s really interesting is where he says.” Be the first to show respect to the other one another’s weakness and behavior.” That is the most counter-cultural line in The Rule and the one that’s most necessary for what we are encountering in our public discourse. If you take anything away from monastic life, you still have to keep community. It’s really interesting about how they make decisions by consensus.

"Here’s what’s so interesting about consensus and what I think we need so much in our society — Once the decision is made, everybody pulls in the same direction, everybody tries to make it work."

"I’m a journalist and we’re covered so much on the affordable care act, health care reform. Think about what would have happened in this country if we had tried to improve the act, instead of trying to tear it apart. It’s that kind of thing. People in a Community understand that it’s the community that’s what’s important and you have to move forward together. "

"Silence really makes you accompany yourself in your journey in life. When you don’t have the distractions of your cell phone, email, and social media, who’s there? You, and for those of us who believe, we would say it’s the divine. It’s often in those moments of silence I come face to face we things I need to confront. I get inspiration. All of a sudden in the silence, the answer comes."

Silence is a fast disappearing commodity in our world. If it were traded on a stock exchange, its share price might land somewhere between that of Apple and Bitcoin.

Silence forces us to be alone with our true self and with the one whom the poet Edward Hirsch calls, “the Great Alone,” the God who speaks with no known voice, but as Elijah found, whose voice is heard in the silence.

A few years ago, a young man named Greg Hindy decided to walk from New Hampshire to California – in silence. If he needed to communicate, he would write what he wanted to say in a pocket-sized notepad. His story was chronicled in a powerful documentary called In Pursuit of Silence by filmmakers Patrick Shen and Cassidy Hall, whom I met this past July on a visit to the Abbey of Gethsemani.

Hindy writes, “To gain perspective on your life, you have to step back, and then step back again.” A Zen teacher points out in the film that from the millions of years humans lived close to nature, we still retain the capacity to “feel silence in the body.” And as a U.S. park ranger says, “If we lose our capacity for deep listening, we lose an essential piece of who we are.”

To be sure, there are times when silence is not the appropriate response. There are times for speaking up and speaking out. It remains a great stain of sin that the Catholic hierarchy kept silent for so long about the abuse of children and teens by its priests (as we have seen this week in the report on several Pennslyvania dioceses). We sin when we do not condemn the demonizing by our fellow countrymen of an entire immigrant group, or of people who follow a particular religion. Sometimes it’s not so much my sins of commission I worry about, but my sins of omission, not being there for others when they need me, not speaking out enough when evil needs to stop.

I like to think of silence as orienting us toward right action. It is the pause between thought and action, the element that gives greater gravitas and meaning to the words we do speak. In silence, we rediscover our inner world. We encounter a truth heard only in the heart. Once there, we open a space where God can discover us.

This week, how can we practice greater esteem for silence? After silent contemplation, what do we feel called to speak up about?

Spring took its time arriving this year in central Illinois. Finally, the trees are bursting with green leaves and flowering with magenta, pink or white blossoms. The red buds, with their purple-red sprouts, are particularly stunning this year, as if the long winter’s wait made them all the more determined to showcase their spring beauty.

I have been trying to observe the daily progress of the leaves, but they emerge so quickly. One day there is just a thumbnail-sized bud. The next, the tree is in full bloom. It is as though nothing can stop this breathless march toward new life once it begins.

I took a long hike last Sunday with my friend Mary Jo Adams, an Illinois Master Naturalist who is trained to care for our natural areas. Our walk reinforced what I strongly believe: we, as a society, could dispense with all manner of anti-depressants by just taking regular walks in nature.

My friend Brother Paul Quenon calls nature his “guru.” I call nature my healer. There is something magical and medicinal about spending time among oaks, maples, hickories, and flowering plums, not to mention the bluebells, purple trillium, spring beauties and other wild flowers that spring up this time of year.

“Imagine a miracle drug that could take away many of the stresses or modern life… Just take a hike in the woods or a walk in the park. No prescription necessary,” writes Florence Williams in her book, “The Nature Fix.” With so much violence and insecurity —shootings at a major university and at yet another synagogue, and fires being set at African American churches — we seek comfort where we can find it. The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative

For me, increasingly, I need the solace of nature.
My friend and I walked to a spot where three massive oaks had sadly fallen —downed by lightening or a tree disease. These oaks had witnessed more than a hundred years of history on the prairie. Mary Jo likes to stop in this place and sit for a while on one of the fallen trunks. I asked her what she thinks about. Nothing in particular, she responded. “I ask myself, what am I seeing, what am I hearing, what am I smelling.” That’s as apt a description of being contemplative as I can think of.

Mary Jo is also an avid birdwatcher and could identify for me the calls of the warblers making their spring passage through our area, as well as the red-headed woodpeckers, plentiful in our area. It felt as if they were singing for only us.

Aldo Leopold, one of the nation’s first environmentalists, was so right when he talked about all of creation being a “community.” It is hard to feel alone or pessimistic when I am among the trees, flowers and birds. Aldo Leopold

The poet Mary Oliver once wrote about “the many trees I have kissed.” Mary Oliver

The late peace activist and environmentalist Wangari Maathai would always tell her audiences, “When you see a tree, you thank that tree for helping keep you alive!”

When Mary Jo and I left the woods, she turned to say to the trees, “You might be invisible to others, but you are not invisible to me.” I returned home that day with a sense of having visited a sacred place. This week, can we remember to pay attention to our cousins, the trees, birds, flowers, insects and animals of the forest. Let us thank them all for keeping us company and helping us, each in their own way, to stay alive.

I want to thank Katie Gordon, co-founder of the Nuns & Nones organization for Millennials and staff member of www.MonasteriesoftheHeart.com, for her kind words about my new book, "How to Be" with Brother Paul Quenon of the Abbey of Gethsemani. Katie writes, "This book is 'a small taste of eternity' as Judith and Brother Paul invite us into stories of ancient wisdom lived in contemporary contexts ... They tackle some of the biggest questions: change and stability, humility and purpose, time and eternity, life and the afterlife ... People of all spiritual backgrounds and across generations will find insight on how to live through challenging times, personally and societally, in these pages." Thank you Katie Gordon! "How to Be" is now available for pre-order.