Personal Rituals

Last weekend, Kevin and I made our traditional trip to the Utah Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City. This is the largest, longest-standing tradition in our marriage, and when I was back to work, I felt a sense of loss that the trip had been completed. With a baby due before then, I'm not sure if seeing plays next year will be feasible (and there's a great line up of plays too).

This trip is more meaningful than just seeing plays. It's about visiting a city that's familiar to Kevin, and has become familiar to me too. It's honoring the grave of someone close to both of us. And it's about completing our yearly ritual of visiting a group of bristlecone pine trees to privately inventory our hopes and wishes, and draw on the strength of these old-soul trees to carry our wishes through tough times. This got me thinking about rituals we do as individuals, couples, friends, and families.

A ritual differs from a tradition in that it contains some level of ceremony, even if it's a small amount. A ritual is an action that is somewhat meaningless in itself, but given the ceremony, this common action takes on special meaning that, when coupled with our own willingness, has the ability to change us and our perception of reality. The magic in ritual comes only from our willingness to let it work changes in us. Otherwise, it's merely an empty act.

I know many of you have religious rituals. Temple attendance, baptisms, weddings, the sacrament/Eucharist, fasting/Lent. These are often initiated by institutions, depending on what religion you subscribe to. What I'm curious about are other rituals you perform outside of those prescribed by your religion. Ones that were invented by you, your family, your friends. The little intimate rituals that come from our humanity, our practice as believing beings, as social beings, as people who like to attach meaning to our actions and visibly show what we feel inside.

For instance, have you ever let a balloon go up into the sky, watching it lift away a burden or care that had been weighing you down? Have you ever lit a candle when a loved one was struggling? Worn a ring or bracelet as a reminder of a promise you made, or your dedication to a cause? Grown a rose bush in someone's memory? Made a yearly pilgrimage to a cemetery? Said a poem that connects you to an experience or individual? Retreated privately into a special spot in the wilderness to pray? Are there ritual words you exchange with the one you love that signify a renewal of your love, be it once a day, a year, or every 10 years?

Idaho Summer

Everything flows, nothing stands still.

You could not step twice into the same river, for other waters are ever flowing on to you. (Herakleitos)

Power of Imagination

"Worrying is using your imagination to create something you don't want." - Abraham-Hicks

I feel like I should give this post a warning that it's a little hippie. Hey, I'm in a condition here. A beautiful, natural, healthy condition. I get to be as hippie as I want to be.

Imagination in itself is like a form of creation. I find some major flaws in the philosophy of attraction—despite our best intentions, there are many things we don't control in the universe. So, some ideas I take, and some I leave. Overall, realizing I'm at least in control of my own thoughts has led me to think about the power of imagination and where I invest my energy.

As I think about my pregnancy, about Kevin's new graduate program (accepted, but no public details here) and his new job (still looking), and about all of the transitions we're facing, I'm so grateful for the power of imagination—for being able to think about what I desire and then thanking God for that blessing, even if I haven't received it at this point in time. Because I believe all time is before God, I don't think it's ever too early to feel grateful for something like having a beautiful healthy baby. A strong, sound pregnancy. Career success for Kevin and me.

The Navajos said that nothing was ever created that wasn't first dreamed. What good things are you imagining and creating in your life?

Transience and Evanescence

Can I tell you how beautiful my yard smells? The air carries lilac on it from our five bushes. This is my dwarf lilac bush, about 12 inches high and wide by our back door.

Last night I had a great conversation with friends on philosophy and social power. One of the main themes was how transient beauty is - that it is often noticed as the moment passes. That by the time beauty is noticed, the moment is on the way out. There's something tragic about that impermanence, but that is what makes the moment striking.

While the Tao talks more of defining something in how it's not, this for some reason speaks to my understanding of beauty, which resonates at a more core level with me:

What cannot be seen is called evanescent
What cannot be heard is called rarefied
What cannot be touched is called minute
These three cannot be fathomed
And so they are confused and looked upon as one.

Its upper part is not dazzling
Its lower part is not obscure.

Dimly visible, it cannot be named
And returns to that which is without substance.

This is called the shape that has no shape
The image that is without substance.

This is called indistinct and shadowy.

The ability to know the beginning of antiquity
Is called the thread running through the way.

Transience

Does a fleeting, dying moment make beauty? Is it something that only happens if you happen to catch it on the way out, and therefore it becomes precious? If it could last forever, would it truly be beautiful? Or is it that it is something that points our attention to the present moment and its transience that makes us sense the fragile, careful qualities of the passing nanoseconds?

Here are raindrops on my favorite tulips, new this spring, taken today in such a moment.

Prayer of St. Francis

As a sort of follow-up to my last post, I've been meaning to post the Prayer of St. Francis. I loved this since I sung it in church choir as a teenager.

I think his prayer resembles the Serenity Prayer - in fact, I believe AA uses both of these prayers to teach health, surrender, and responsibility. It hits on the point where what I love about Christianity combines with what I love in Buddhism, Taoism, and other healing schools of thought.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

My passion is to part a curtain

"My continuing passion is to part a curtain, that invisible veil of indifference that falls between us and that blinds us to each other's presence, each other's wonder, each other's human plight."
-- Eudora Welty

Homer : Well I won the belching contest at work. (belches in Jay's face, everyone laughs)
Jay : Nice, Homer. (belches longer and louder, car alarms go off outside)
Lisa : Wow! How many Pulitzer prize winners can do that?
Jay : Just me and Eudora Welty.
--The Simpsons, "A Star is Burns"

I love the quote from Eudora Welty (actually, I love both of the above quotes). This hits on my favorite philosophy from grad school, Emmanuel Levinas' post-modern ethics.

Lately I've had words on the tip of my tongue for others--why didn't they say this thing I wanted them to say? Why can't I get this friend of mine to be the kind of friend I want them to be? Why do they have to keep doing these things they do? (No friends, I'm not talking about you. These are examples.)

It's very easy for my to become absorbed by my own thought and perceptions. This self-absorption makes me want to create other people in my own image--hey, how can that be bad? It means that I can set up expectations, with or without informing the other party, and then wonder why they didn't say the thing I expected them to say or do what I expected them to do. They don't because they're not me. They're other.

I would say that the "veil of indifference" Welty refers to is only exists because to us it appears to be a reflection, that veil that tricks us into thinking that the other is actually the same with us, that we have some control over the other, that we are free and they are confined to our minimal understanding of them. That we know all their deepest thoughts.

Stepping beyond that, I begin to see those around me for who they are, for their otherness wrapped up in their infinite number of experiences and thoughts that are different than mine. At first I'm learning to be OK with this, that I can't make someone be who they're not. But I hope for more than that. I hope that eventually I will learn to love them precisely because I cannot make them be who they are not. Because in that otherness, I learn to see the immense enormity that is another human soul. Also, the idea that I don't know everything actually brings me hope (I'll explain this sometime if that seems odd).

I love how Welty describes this thought process as a passion. I don't know that discovering others' otherness is yet a passion for me, but I want to move that way.

We are the ones for whom we have been waiting

"We are the ones for whom we have been waiting."

-Hopi Elders

What do you think of this idea? Are we the ones who have come to rescue ourselves? Are we enough? Is the idea that we may have to rescue ourselves from ourselves a frightful or comforting idea?

Life is Dancing the Twilight Blues

Consider this thesis, that we are drawn to nature because nature has a way of being. Nature doesn't do so much as it is, and this is this peace that results from being congruent with one's divine nature. While we run around half asleep and in conflict, it's this peace that appeals to us on a higher plane.

I recently read a book that reminded of some of the spiritual awakening I had when I was a college student reading the Tao Te Ching. All the doing we have in our lives actually distracts us from being who we are meant to be. Eckhart Tolle says, "Life is the dancer, and we are the dance." Life plays us; life interprets us. The best I can be is mindful of the present moment. I certainly can use the practice of being more in tune with the present moment, and I think nature is one path that can teach me how to be.

Simple Gifts

When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

I have had this Shaker tune in my head all evening. This is a beautiful day of simple, delightsome gifts. I got off work at 5:00 (on time!), came home to a lovely bowl of local peaches and some fresh, hot nutella crepes, spent time in the garden with my fall planting, and even went running a couple of miles during the sunset. Now I'm off to stretch and take a bubble bath, followed by some reading of my new novel (Foucault's Pendulum) and a decent bedtime.

I have been working on simplifying my life through detachment from identifying too much with outside things such as career, peers, pressures, and material possessions. It is painful work, brought on by suffering because in the past I have let myself become attached to things that are not who I really am. Today I feel the difference.

How about you? What have you given up lately that has made things simpler or better in your life?

Methodical Miscellany: Two Ideas

I discovered Jana's blog through Exponent, where I guest posted several months ago. I enjoy her nature photography--she has enviable close-up skills. There are two of her older posts that I think are really worth revisiting.

Maya Angelou on Forgiveness

Living Small

First Communion

For a Mormon girl who has never been out of Utah more than two weeks at a time, I can say that I've probably had a somewhat diverse sprinkling of religious experiences outside of my faith. Most of these stem from my early career as a choir member, singing in Presbyterian and Catholic churches, and even Grace Cathedral, the famous Episcopal locale in San Fransisco. Needless to say, I've spent a lot of this time in the choir loft.

In addition to these experiences, I've attended an Evensong at St. Paul's in London on the Epiphany (January 6th--the 12th day of Christmas) and mass at Notre Dame in Paris. I've been to the United Church of Christ to perform pieces of Handel's Messiah, and I've been to an Evangelical Baptist church to hear one of my friends sing. All of these have been beautiful experiences, but I'm only now beginning to get the hang of things a little. This Sunday, Kevin and I attended services at St. Mark's Cathedral downtown with our friends and fellow bloggers Christina and Dave. They will later come to LDS services with me and Kevin, just to see what the experience is like. The first thing I noticed is that this Episcopal cathedral is beautiful! All the pictures here are from the inside.

The service was a little bit of a whirlwind for me. I'm used to parking in my pew for my worship, but this service required a lot of participation by the congregation. It was the second Sunday celebration of Easter, and the hymns were glorious Alleluia pieces. I was excited to hear some familiar pieces we use in Mormon services too, including Randall Thompson's "Alleluia" and the Doxology:

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

One thing that always brings a smile to my face is the sharing of peace. I've seen this at other Protestant churches, and it's where the congregation mingles, shakes hands, and offers peace to the neighbors around you. I don't know why I smile--maybe it's partly because I feel somewhat conspicuous as a visitor, but also I think that it's just a happy thing to do.

I was excited to get a closer look at these services from a historical perspective as well. As a graduate student, I studied in depth the religious goings-on of 16th- and 17th-century England. I spent over a year studying the symbols of the Eucharist and how they relate to a marriage between Christ and the Church, and the only paper I've published in an actual literary journal was on John Bunyan's A Pilgrim's Progress and the textual conflicts of predestination and works. I also studied Thomas Cranmer's original Book of Common Prayer, which is used in American Episcopal services today with some modification (as the Dean of the cathedral explained to me after the service). I probably drove everyone crazy with discussing the origins of the book, but hey, that's what gets me going from a literary sense.

The coolest experience was the Holy Communion. I wanted to see the Eucharist up close for the first time, and was humbled that it was all right for me to go up and receive the Body and Blood from the priest even though I'm not a confirmed member of their faith. What I wasn't expecting was the personal way the sacrament was offered, with a blessing said on each individual each time they received these tokens.

The sermon was on Thomas after the resurrection. The pastor had an interesting take, and jokingly suggested that maybe Thomas was one of those people who scored high on the sensory scale of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. One thing that he mentions is that many witnesses said, "I saw the Lord," but when Thomas sees Jesus, he sees the Lord and God. It was a nice turn that reminds me of the sermons I love that re-define Martha's role, and that's why I posted the Martha and Mary window from the Cathedral here.

The Nicene Creed

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Exponent II: My Guest Post on Authenticity

I have a guest post up at the group blog Exponent II on "The Work of Authenticity." This is a blog meant to honor the Exponent II publication started by great female LDS minds such as Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and Claudia Bushman (wife of Joseph Smith biographer Richard L. Bushman). I consider this post a follow-up to my earlier post on Existentialism and Absurdism. Check it out, if you like.

Camus can do, but Sartre is smartre

After posting on what I want in life with more clarity than I expected, I'd like to do a post on obfuscation, taking a chance that a few of you will bear with me.

I didn't enjoy literature until my senior year of high school, when I was introduced to existential theory with Crime and Punishment and The Stranger. This is very late for a person like me who is willing to devote her life to literature if she can. Never before had fiction been taught to me through a philosophical lens that I could pick up or put down to apply another philosophy. At the time, my English teacher kept asking the class if any of us were converts to existentialism, but I think she was disappointed that not one of us raised his/her hand. Probably because we didn't really get it. It took me a few years to feel existentialism deeply. Maybe it takes moving into adulthood to really experience true ennui and dread (*smiling slyly*).

Critical theory was my favorite part of graduate school. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it's essentially where philosophy goes to die. We English majors pick up a struggling theory and coddle it, keep breathing into it to keep it alive in its semi-vegetative state. In grad school, I added to my favorite philosophies phenomenology and its relativism. I then dove deeper into the most wonderful postmodern ethics of Emmanuel Levinas (my favorite philosopher), who would reject the existential idea that we're all alone, saying we're completely tied to the other, and places the needs of other human beings above that of the individual. However, my love for his ideas didn't shake off my pull towards existentialism; It just layered it.

Lately I've realized that I've been wrong about calling myself an existentialist. I'm an absurdist. Camus states in "The Myth of Sisyphus":

"Thus I draw from the absurd three consequences, which are my revolt, my freedom, and my passion. By the mere activity of consciousness I transform into a rule of life what was an invitation to death..."

While this has a grim tone to it, Camus is describing why the only way to cope with the world is through the acceptance of our absurd existence, with acceptance that there may be meaning, and we might find it, but it's not essential, and basically most of us drift along (the unacceptable alternatives are the leap or faith or death). Kinda sad, right? But to me, the ever-questioning individual, possessing relativism and somewhat devoid of absolutes, this makes sense. This is an aspect of Western philosophy that grabs me and says, "Yes! this is what I think sometimes." But then we have Eastern philosophy to explore. Did I mention that I keep the Tao Te Ching with me at work? *Sigh* But that will take even more posts to explain or obfuscate, depending on how you see things.

What do you want out of life?

Have you ever been asked this question, point blank? Have you ever answered it with equal frankness? I think that in any culture—not just in Utah—people easily fall into the expectations and demands of others. And that’s not always a bad thing. Selfless acts are important. Conforming to society to some extent is a necessary part of the human condition.

But ultimately, shouldn’t we at least ask this question of ourselves? In my opinion, the question is more important than the answer, which may shift depending on our circumstances.

In the last couple of months, a coworker and I compiled a list of things we’d each like to do before we die. My list, in part, contained the following: Climb King’s Peak and Lone Peak, run a half marathon, rent a beach house for one month, and write a collection of short stories.

But what do I want to do before I die is a bit different than what I want most out of life. Setting aside what everyone else might want from me, what do I want for myself? Here is the answer:

• To continue academic involvement, whether teaching classes, taking classes, attending conferences, or writing on my own time
  
• To enable Kevin to be very happy in life, including career, home life, and personal development
  
• To decide on my own terms when or whether I become a mother
  
• To maintain long-term, fulfilling, peaceful, and mutually-beneficial friendships
  
• To increase my connection to Nature and develop my own personal spirituality
  

What about you? I’d love to know if you’re willing to share it.

Epiphany in Devil's Garden

I've been wanting to post on hiking epiphanies for quite some time. You know, the experiences we have where we all of the sudden realize, "This is just so cool" and our lives are changed forever. My brother Matt describes his experience in Devil's Garden (incidentally one of my most favorite hikes), and I hope that he won't mind the shout out to him and his experience as described on his site.

The trail was long for short legs, and the few hundred feet of elevation gain had defeated my will. Another death march, up over the worn sandy path, over sandy rock. I hardly noticed the beauty of the towering sandstone fins on either side of me. The majesty of seeing Landscape Arch, the world's biggest, along with Dad's stunning revelation that a whole football field would fit inside that hole in the rock, faded quickly as the hike turned into a mental battle that I was losing.

I don't want to spoil his essay by including the epiphany, but I had to post this paragraph because it's something I could totally relate to. I remember hiking to Delicate Arch in the middle of the afternoon as a small girl, and hiking straight up that hill in the searing hot sun. I complained to my dad that the hike wasn't very cool, as it didn't allow me to crawl around and climb. Somewhere after that must have been my epiphany. I've been working on describing this experience for some time. I even wrote a personal essay several years ago about how I came to love this form of exercise, this quiet time, this family time, and communing with nature--although it's more than a sum of all these parts, isnt' it?-- and this essay was based around hiking experiences with my Dad. Maybe I'll dig that up and give it a tune up for some later time.

Connectedness

"To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from." --Terry Tempest Williams