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Being the only child of two extremely loving and adoring parents, pride and self-inflation are perhaps some of my greatest struggles on the spiritual path. I’m not alone though, this is the last and deepest obstacle for all who walk on two feet in this world.

Seeing who we really are, and living in light of that reality, could be said to be the whole point of this human being thing that we are all doing.

I’m both comforted and challenged by these tremendously accurate and insightful words from Thomas Merton:

“€œIt is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of humility is the beginning of blessedness and the consummation of humility is the perfection of all joy. Humility contains in itself the answer to all the great problems of the life of the soul. It is the only key to faith, with which the spiritual life begins: for faith and humility are inseparable. In perfect humility all selfishness disappears and your soul no longer lives for itself or in itself for God: and it is lost and submerged in Him and transformed into Him.”€

- from €New Seeds of Contemplation

-Adam

Here’s another fantastic quote from Father Thomas Keating that I thought was worth sharing with all of you:

“If we refuse to think of anything except what we are doing or the person that we are with, we develop the habit of being present to the present moment. In a way, the present moment becomes as sacred as being in church. Far better to be present to your duty if you are a bartender, than to be present in church and to be thinking about being in a bar. At least you are present to yourself when you are paying attention to what you are doing.

“Attention, then, is a way of doing what we are doing. It cracks the crust of the false self (our psychological awareness of daily life) in which we are the center of the universe while everything else is circling around our particular needs or desires. This is an illusion, but unfortunately it is the heritage we all bring with us from early life.”

Jessi hasn’t been inspired to write in the last week or so, and the blog was starting to look a little sad with only the daily del.icio.us links piling up, so I thought I should do my part and post something.

I’ve been reading some good books lately, so I guess I could share a bit about them. First, I read Father Thomas Keating’s book on contemplative prayer practice called, Open Mind, Open Heart. I finished that one last week and started in on another great book, Lost Christianity, by Jacob Needleman. Both books share a common thread of digging into the Christian tradition to reveal holistic, transformational disciplines and practices that have too often been overlooked in favor of intellectual and emotional development.

I’ve felt for a long time that part of the equation was lacking, and both of these authors do a good job of shedding light on what that other part might entail. Both argue that there is an inner dimension in man beyond thought and emotion — a dimension that is actually of primary importance in spiritual development — that can only be developed through silence and contemplative practice.

There is a time for cultivating the mind and the heart, absolutely. And, there is a time to set these highly limited faculties aside and open our whole, unmediated selves to resting in the presence and reality of God through the practices of centering and contemplative prayer. This, I believe was the psalmist’s experience captured in the words, “Be still and know that I am God.”

Keating highlights the deep value of developing the inner life beautifully on page 44 of Open Mind, Open Heart:

“We fail to believe that we are always with God and that He is part of every reality. The present moment, every object we see, our inmost nature are all rooted in Him. But we hesitate to believe this until personal experience gives us the confidence to believe in it. This involves the gradual development of intimacy with God. God constantly speaks to us through each other as well as from within. The interior experience of God’s presence activates our capacity to perceive Him in everything else — in people, in events, in nature. We may enjoy union with God in any experience of the external senses as well as in prayer.

“Contemplative prayer is a way of awakening to the reality in which we are immersed. We rarely think of the air we breathe, yet it is in us around us all the time. In similar fashion, the presence of God penetrates us, is all around us , us always embracing us. Our awareness, unfortunately, is not awake to that dimension of reality. The purpose of prayer, the sacraments, and spiritual disciplines is to awaken us.”

Isn’t that great stuff? I find the prospect of living in that sort of awareness very exciting, and I have found this approach has reinvigorated my spiritual life in a new way. I don’t really have a point to make here, per se, other than to share with you where my mind has been this week. Maybe I will share more with all of you sometime soon.

-Adam

“We’re like people living in the penthouse of a tall brick building. Every day we need 200 bricks to maintain our walls, so we go downstairs, knock 200 bricks out of the walls below and bring them back upstairs for our own use. Every day. . . . Every day we go downstairs and knock 200 bricks out of the walls that are holding up the building we live in. Seventy thousand bricks a year, year after year after year.”

What on earth is this guy talking about? That’s absurd. Who would do such a thing?

Me. I’m doing that.

The writer’s referring to the fact that, due to an essential flaw in our cultural program, humans (me, and I presume you) destroy two hundred species of life a day. Every day. These sickening but true words were written by Daniel Quinn, in a speech of his called ‘The New Renaissance,” which you can read here.

Right now, I’m taking a class in Personal Ecology at Depaul. It’s a prerequisite, and I figured I might pick up a few new ideas on how to be a little more environmentally-friendly, but I wasn’t expecting any major eurekas or anything.

My professor assigned us Quinn’s book Ishmael to read over the course of two weeks. I sucked it down in two days. It was that good. I mean really good.

Eureka!-good.

It’s the story of a man who meets a highly intelligent gorilla named Ishmael. The man wants to know how to save the world and the gorilla promises to teach him. Ishmael proceeds to systematically school the man in the true nature of the destructive cultural subcurrent running through all civilization.

The sum of Ishmael’s message is fairly simple (though I highly, highly encourage you to follow his thread for your self ). Somewhere around the time of the agricultural revolution, we got this strange idea that this world was made for us instead of us being made for the world. As Quinn puts it in “The New Renaissance,” “Humans belong to an order of being that is separate from the rest of the living community.” This notion, he argues, is at the bottom of a great deal of our strife and struggle.

I tend to think he’s exactly right.

The fact is, there is a massive ecological problem facing us right now. Either the problem is with the Earth itself, or the problem is with us. As far as I can tell, the Earth works pretty great, so my guess it that the problem must be with us, and more specifically, with our perspective.

My perspective.

Laws aren’t going to do it. The Kyoto Protocol’s not going to do it. Recycling’s not going to do it. Hybrid cars are definitely not going to do it.

But if we could get it into our heads that this is our home and our neighborhood and not our kingdom, that might actually do it.

And, of course, there is the living it out too. That’s the domain of the laws and recycling and hybrid cars. But those are effects, not causes. The perspective shift has to come first, or else the effects will be empty and feeble.

I don’t know how to go about doing something about this other than to communicate this perspective to you. I think it’s the only way it’ll happen really. Bono could talk about it on TV and people would get excited for a while, but the only way I think its going to stick is for me to begin seeing life in this way and to talk about it with you. And for you to see life in this way and to talk about it with some other people too.

And so on.

Until we all decide it’s time to stop playing Jenga.

-Adam

“During your lifetime, the people of our culture are going to figure out how to live sustainably on this planet–or they’re not. Either way, it’s certainly going to be extraordinary. If they figure out how to live sustainably here, then humanity will be able to see something it can’t see right now: a future that extends into the indefinite future. If they don’t figure this out, then I’m afraid the human race is going to take its place among the species that we’re driving into extinction here every day–as many as 200–every day.”

I just got an email from Annie, and she included this beautiful quote from “The Little Prince”:

“You must be very patient,” replied the fox. “First you will sit down at a little distance from me-like that-in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me every day…..”

My mom says it’s like us….. Going closer to each other by meeting. And maybe she is right…..

Annie is an amazing kid. So thoughtful and wise. She also wanted me to write more about her on our website, so I thought I’d share her sweet message.

Good night.

-Jessica

I just finished reading Dune Messiah, the second book in the Dune series written by Frank Herbert. Good read. Here’s some interesting quotes (a little puzzling out of context, sure, but maybe it’ll pique your curiosity to read it yourself):

“The flesh surrenders itself, he thought. Eternity takes back its own. Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self, dealt with a few strange ideas, then submitted to the instruments of Time. What can we say of this? I occurred. I am not…yet, I occurred.”
….
“Can you collect chaos?” the ghola asked. “We Zensunni say: ‘Not collecting, that is the ultimate gathering.’ What can you gather without gathering yourself?”
…..
“Hungering, one lost the present.
“Alia swayed with the rapture of the rapture of spice change.
“Paul felt that some transcendental presence spoke to him saying: “Look! See there! See what you’ve ignored?” In that instant, he thought he looked through other eyes, that he saw an imagery and rhythm in this place which no artist or poet could reproduce. It was vital and beautiful, a glaring light that exposed all power-gluttony…even his own.
“Alia spoke. Her amplified voice boomed across the nave.
“Luminous night,” she cried.
“A moan swept like a wave through the crush of pilgrims.
“Nothing hides in such a night!” Alia said. “What rare light is this darkness? You cannot fix your gaze upon it! Senses cannot record it. No words describe it.” Her voice lowered. “The abyss remains. It is pregnant with all things yet to be. Ahhhhh, what gentle violence!”

-Adam

Adam and I have had the creative bug lately. Adam has picked up his paints and pencils again. He has done a bunch of sketches, and today he did some watercolors. He’s also doing a little acting. It’s fun for him. Adam’s is also continuing to do a lot of artistic photography, and he’s thinking about ways to integrate his photos and painting. Our artist friends Cynthia Toffey and Kwon Daeha are encouraging Adam with use of their studio spaces, and Cynthia wants to help him put together an art show. I recorded the Christmas song with some friends, I’ve been playing with film making, and I’ve picked up my knitting again. We’ve also done a few little craft things around the apartment to make it look more festive for Christmas. My parents sent us 2 boxes of Christmas presents and birthday presents. :). I made a fake Christmas tree out of Adam’s Kumdo sword, green wrapping paper and scotch tape, and now the presents are around the tree.

I’ve been fantasizing about making great travel documentaries and going all over the world. Adam reminded me that we’re already kind of doing that. Now I’m working on editing our video from Mexico that we took on our honeymoon. We wandered all around Cabos, and we have some cool footage we’ve been meaning to edit for years. Now that I’ve got the bug, I’m working on it.

Since it’s cold outside, I’ve begun knitting again. I realized that most of my hobbies involve my eyes: reading, emailing, writing, watching movies, now video editing as well. I came home from work the other day, and I had such a headache because I used my eyes so much. I started listening to Harry Potter on iTunes and decided to take out my knitting. It’s nice to busy my hands. In the box my mom sent us, she included a knitting project that my Grandma Rau had begun before she passed away in September. It’s a sweater. I’ve never knit a sweater, and I’ve never knit from a pattern, but I love the sweater in her pattern, so I’m trying it. It’s nice to think that I’m sharing a project with her. I ran into a confusing spot already, and I was sad that I couldn’t call to ask her how to do it. She was a great woman.

I’ve also been reading Bob Dylan’s autobiography, “Chronicles, Volume One”. It’s excellent. I identify with him in his early years. One of the greatest songwriters ever didn’t really begin songwriting until he was in his twenties and had a record deal with Capitol. I wrote some songs in college, and since then, I haven’t been able to finish a song. I beat myself up about it for a while, and then I just let it go. Bob Dylan makes me feel good about that choice. I’ve read more than one-third of the book, and so far he still hasn’t written his first song. Where I’m at in his life, he’s realizing that he wants to write, but he doesn’t want to write crap, and he’s just listening to as much music as possible, reading a ton of poetry and prose, reading century-old newspapers for transcendent topics and ideas. He writes:

“I began cramming my brain with all kinds of deep poems. It seemed like I’d been pulling an empty wagon for a long time and now I was beginning to fill it up and would have to pull harder. I felt like I was coming out of the back pasture. I was changing in other ways, too. Things that used to affect me, didn’t affect me anymore. I wasn’t too concerned about people, their motives. I didn’t feel the need to examine every stranger that approached.”

I’m there. Adam has been doing a lot of reading about Integral Spirituality. It’s like spiritual cross-training. If you want to know God more, you need to pray and worship, but you also need to have a healthy body and creative mind, or you can only reach a certain plateau. People grow holistically. Great athletes don’t just focus on their one sport. Great football players have been known to study ballet for more agility and flexibility. Skiers will run and weight train. If I sit and stare at a piece of paper, trying to write a song, there is no spark in my mind. Knitting, reading good books, writing this thing, making travel films all spark my brain. They’re filling up my wagon. I’m building an arsenal, and when my mind says it’s ready to make a song, I’ll be ready. As Bob Dylan wrote about waiting to begin songwriting, “Not today, not tonight, sometime soon, though.”

I’m also getting into teaching. I came here as an edutainer. I came to both perform and teach. But, the performing opportunities here don’t really thrill me. I enjoyed doing my Jazz street performance in the Fall, but that even proved to be a little flat by the end of the season. What I’m really enjoying here is my teaching. Never thought that would be, but it is. I’m helping develop a program for the kindergarten Hogwan kids that come here on the weekdays. That’s pretty cool, but I’m really stoked that in a couple of weeks, I get to begin training in the “Mommy & Me” program. It’s for 2-3 year olds and their mothers. There are 3 or 4 neat girls that already teach that program, including my friend Melanie. I’ll get to teach the same kids and moms week to week and develop a relationship with them, I get to help develop new projects and lessons, it’s very hands-0n and creative since the kids are so small, there is a good potential that I could finally work Monday-Friday and be more in sync with Adam’s schedule, it’s still in the One Day Program with which I’m comfortable and familiar, and it’s a small, consistent group of teachers who are low-drama. I’m really glad about that. I think it will be a further opportunity for my cross-training.

whew. So there’s been a lot on my mind and on my plate as of late. I’m so glad we’re here. We have so much room to breathe and try so many new things. And Christmas is coming. It’s beautiful here at Christmastime. English Village is full of lights. Since I currently have Mondays and Tuesdays off, Adam and I are making plans for Christmas day. We’re going to see the Nutcracker ballet with Larry and Melanie, we’re going to have a fancy dinner, then Adam and I are going to stay in Seoul at a luxurious hotel. It will be a nice way to spend our first Christmas away from home.

And, happy birthday, Dad. We tried to call, but we could never get you. We love you.

Love to you all. Have a good weekend.

-Jessica

“The voice of him who cries in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the ADONAI, make straight a highway in the desert for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mounatin and hill shall be made low; and the crooked places shall be made level, and the rough places smooth; and the glory of the ADONAI shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the ADONAI has spoken.” Isaiah 40:3-5

Before heading to church with Jessi this morning, I read this chapter from Isaiah. It is a really remarkable testament to the ‘bigness’ of God- His absolutely incomprehensible otherness and sovereignty. These are some of my favorite verses from it. So often, we humans, and Christians in particular, want the comfortable, kind face of God without having to look into His fearsome, terribly majestic eyes. I am trying lately not to trivialize the God of the universe within the recesses of my prideful heart. It is true when they say of the Christian condition, “God dwells within us,” what is false is when we forget that it is within Him that “we live and move, and have our being.” The God That Is… is frighteningly, colossally loving.

On a seemingly different note, Jess and I headed to Sam’s Sushi after the worship service and proceeded to gorge ourselves on delicious eel and salmon rolls and a huge vat of Sam’s fish and dumpling soup. Massive ammounts of goodness for a mere 10 bucks- highly reccomended.

Currently Playing Kiln [EP] By Kiln see related

“Chesterton Quotations”

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” - Chapter 5, What’s Wrong With The World, 1910