An Experiment in Contemplative Community

“The secret of my identity is hidden in the love and mercy of God.” – Thomas Merton

Coming Soon to a Location Near You

Hey friends, as you likely know, Dr. Mindy Hills and I are offering (free!) monthly gatherings starting in September at the Dominican Center at Marywood on the campus of Aquinas College. The title of our series is “Contemplative Living in Today’s World” and you can register here. On this site, you can also learn more about Mindy and myself.

Consider the following blog a “preview of coming attractions” and an invitation to join us in creating a new kind of contemplative community where all are welcome.

(About a 10-minute read.) 😅

Don’t Believe Me

Class was over. Every student shuffled out of the room, except one. He sat alone at a table in the back corner, head hunched, lost in thought, looking at the handouts. He was a big dude, actually massive. Most knew him as a lineman for our national championship football team. He was sporting a triple-XL sweatshirt canvassed over a bulldozer-sized chest and shoulders. He wore camouflage pants and hiking boots that could stable a goat. His large hands cuffed the edges of the handouts like an accordion, creating curious crumples as his head swayed back-and-forth in disbelief. I didn’t know what to think.

“Hey Gabe,” I said, moving towards him, half-sitting on a nearby table. “You okay?”

He didn’t look up. He was staring at the handouts; a diagram and descriptive paragraphs of ego consciousness. “Damn,” he shrugged, indicating one of the handouts while nodding. “This is spot on. I didn’t know other people studied this stuff.”

A bit surprised, I replied, “Thanks, I’ve been working on it for quite a few years.”

Looking up, he caught me dead in the eyes and asked, “Are you a Christian?”

“Umm, well…” I stammer, caught off-guard because this is not a common question in a public university setting. Plus, this is a lesson in leadership psychology, not theology. Gabe’s intuition isn’t misplaced. In fact, the content is surprisingly parallel to spiritual development. I’ve always said that the healthiest levels of leadership, psychology, sociology, and spirituality are of the same terrain.

I smile and say, “Well, yes, but probably not the kind of Christian you’re thinking of,” I hesitate and continue, “…the answer is more complicated than that.”

“What do you mean?” he said a bit defensively. “There’s only one kind of Christian.”

Now, I have a choice. I know this perspective and I understand his point. What Gabe doesn’t know is the framework that helps “everything belong,” as Richard Rohr likes to say.

I take a deep breath and respond, “I hear you, but you’re gonna find out, there’s more going on here.” Awkward silence. He doesn’t appear satisfied. I gently add, “Dude, don’t believe me. You don’t have to believe something just because I say it. You’re not required to take my word for it.”

His eyes widen as his face displays doubt like a stink-eye in poker.

“Really,” I confirm, “and when the semester ends, decide for yourself.”

He stands up, nods, and reaches for my hand, engulfing it in his massive paw. We shake and he says, “Fair enough,” like we’d just made some kind of gentleman’s agreement. And I guess we did. And it’s the same one I offer you.

The sentiment “Don’t believe me” is actually a paraphrase of the Buddha, 2,500 years ago.  I share these words at the start of my teachings and workshops to level-set expectations. It goes something like this. Don’t believe me. Try it for yourself. See if it works for you. I’m not selling anything and I’m not asking you to take my word for it. What I’ve learned, I freely give away in hopes that others find it helpful in this crazy world.

Egomaniac or Drooling Mystic?!

If I could boil down my studies-teachings to a core message, it would be this. We are created to be the best of spirit and humanity; a beautiful, mysterious union of healthy ego and grounded essence. Echoing the French Jesuit theologian, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Ego and essence. When these two systems are in sync, life flows. We literally become healthy, dynamic channels of something akin to Great Love and Deep Peace. When we’re out of whack in ego or essence, we suffer and cause suffering to the degree and extent we are out of whack.

Ego without essence is hollow, lost, desperate to assert control, and clinging to identity. Essence without healthy ego is flaky, spacey, and out of touch with reality. We need both. Through intentional experiential practice and insightful learning, the two systems become integrated. Unhealthy ego is slowly dissolved in a process of emptying, which feels like freedom. Essence becomes grounded through the taproot of the heart, which feels like bliss-peace. We slowly progress to ever-deepening levels of health that can actually be seen and felt. If you do the work, you will grow in wholeness.

Don’t believe me. Try it for yourself. See if it works for you.

A Sampling of Food for Thought

Here’s an enduring contemplative experiment that’ll give you a more accurate taste of what’s to come. Take your notebook and sit in a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Answer the question: who are you? List everything you can. Physical traits. Roles. Achievements. Write down everything you can think of that makes you, you.

When you‘ve run out of attributes, review your answers and pick one. Any one you want. Ask yourself this follow-up question. If you lost this part of you, would you still be you? Be honest. You may not like losing the trait, but would you still be you? Pick another one and do the same thing. Go through the entire list until you find the one, primary, ultimate characteristic that defines you. The one where you wouldn’t be you without it.

My friend, you won’t find one. I call this the Identity Paradox. Even though you’ve listed everything that seemingly defines you, you won’t land on a chief, definitive trait that captures who you are at your deepest core. Yes, these traits define you as a particular person in space and time, here and now. That’s important, but it’s not ultimately who you are.

When this really hits home, it’s a major paradigm shift. You start to see the world through two perspectives. I’m calling these ego and essence. In integral psychology, they’re named waking up (essence) and growing up (ego). Waking up has been called the most profound human experience a person can have. Wisdom mystics from antiquity knew all about waking up, describing it quite accurately. They left us maps and practices on how to advance.

On the other hand, we’ve only known about the egoic stages of growing up for about 100 years. Growing up refers to our cognitive and emotional levels of maturity. It turns out, we develop in stages and we can move up the levels of health through awareness, intention, and again, practice. Over time, with work, these two modes of ego and essence intertwine, bringing well-being in body, mind, heart, and spirit.

If this were one of our monthly sessions, we might examine the levels of consciousness or stages of development. Mindy or I might go into the profound descriptions of awakening from St. John of the Cross or St. Teresa of Avila. Or maybe we’d do a quick breakout session and explore what awakening feels like. But alas, this is just a sampling. You’ll have to come to our monthly session to experience what comes next.

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Note: the following section dives deep into logistics; skip to the last section if you don’t need-want this detail 

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The Dirt on the Nitty Gritty

Alrighty! Beyond content, here’s some more practical insight on the details of our monthly gatherings.

As previously mentioned, sessions are free. We’ll start promptly at 3:00 p.m. and conclude at 4:30 p.m. Registration is helpful for our preparation. The first gathering will be September 20 and continue on the third Sunday of the month. There are approximately 12 parking spots near the entrance of the Dominican Center and an entire parking lot within short walking distance. (If you’re young and mobile, let’s leave nearby spots for others.) Please bring a notebook and something to write with. It’s likely we’ll do some journaling. Coffee and water will be provided. Feel free to bring a beverage and other personal comforts. My dog, Cooper, will be joining us. He is small, hypoallergenic, and very friendly, although I’ll mostly keep him nearby. We intend to sit in some kind of circle or semi-circle formation, depending on number of attendees.

Following is the loosely held agenda of activities for our time together. We’ll start with warm greetings and light community building (if you’re a former student of mine, you know). Following this, I will lead us in a guided meditation. Don’t let this scare or weary you. It’ll be private and engaging. The guided mediation will be an opportunity to sense what’s really going on within your body, mind, and heartspace. Research bears-out that this is vital work for both essence and ego development.

Following the guided meditation, Mindy and I will share lessons from a variety of sources (similar to the previous section). We teach through interactive lecture and participative discussion. My general mode of operation is no more than 10-minutes of lecture. Btw, if you need to stand, stretch, use the restroom, or step outside, no worries. As long as you’re discreet, this is not a problem.

Once we’ve covered material, we’ll introduce an experiential endeavor designed to invite you into deeper contemplative work. For example, this may be journaling, mapping, a brief walk outside, a reading, repetitive questioning, completing a diagram, or something in that vein. Afterwards, we’ll briefly reflect as a community, which will lead to the conclusion of our time together. We’re still working on the close, but it will likely include music while departing in quiet to maintain the thread of contemplation. (This flow may change over time to meet the dynamic needs of participants and space.)

Our time together is geared to grow in both healthy ego and grounded essence.

God-Flavored (insert your name)

In his celebrated Ted-talk, Sir Ken Robinson tells the story of a grade school classroom, in which, a typically distracted six-year-old girl becomes captivated in a drawing lesson. The teacher, curious what sparked this sudden interest, inquires, “What are you drawing?” Without looking up, the little girl states, “I’m drawing a picture of God.”  The teacher hesitates, “But no one knows what God looks like.” Unfazed, the girl exclaims, “They will in a minute!”

Wouldn’t you love to see what she drew? I like to think it was a self-portrait because we are all illustrations of the divine, being drawn into existence as love gives itself endlessly away as the generosity of this moment. The deeper the truth, the more we have to pay attention. But don’t believe me, check it out for yourself!

Thanks for taking the time to read about our fall offering. I hope you’ll consider joining us. Leaving you with this benediction from Celtic priest and poet, John O’Donahue, “May you awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.”

Peace out,