Dispatches from the Underground: When Screwing Up IS the Spiritual Practice
The Fifth Week of Dispatches brings you Lenten failures, nuclear townsfolk, the Boston Celtics, a car update, and a brief memorial
I have a very strange relationship with Christianity because I both revere it and ridicule it. I admit that it’s strange, but I also maintain that it’s healthy. This personal tension applies to Lent, of course; in fact, the tension is always most obvious during holy periods, because I feel I must interact with them in some way.
Most years, I mark the start of Lent with a sarcastic Facebook post asking my friends list what I should add for Lent. I believe the first time I did it I was reacting to all the people I could see in my feed proclaiming their upcoming sacrifices when I knew damn well they weren’t actually religiously observant. This seemed odd to me, and annoying enough to respond to.
If I’m being honest, all ritual self-sacrifice seems odd to me. I have a wide array of spiritual practices and rituals and semi-habits but self-sacrifice just isn’t among them. I can’t ever really imagine fasting for even a single day. To be clear, this is more likely a character defect and/or lack of discipline than an actual position that I am taking. It’s also not something I’m looking to fix just now. Maybe in my 40s.
So this year, when I decided to actually observe Lent in my own eccentric manner, I was true to form. I did not give anything up. (I briefly entertained cutting back on cigarettes but gave up on the second day.) Indeed, I added for Lent, not just a single thing, but many things. The only difference between what I actually set out to do and the question I would caustically raise each year is that I did not undertake any of this flippantly. I’ve been as serious about this as possible — which I’ll admit has never hit a level worth bragging about.
Lent is a long time. Having never given anything up, I never realized just how long it is. 40 days sounds daunting enough, but what I only just now learned is that Sundays don’t count as part of the 40, and the 40 end on Holy Thursday or something like that. There’s really like 46 or 47 days (I don’t feel like counting it out again right now) between Ash Wednesday and Easter.
I truly did not realize how long 46 or 47 days can seem.
My plan for Lent included like eight different components, a couple of them Christian or Christian-adjacent and the rest borrowed from all manner of various traditions. To one degree or another, I have failed at all of these components but two. There’s no sense lying about it — I am positively limping into the finish line, here. A few days ago, I learned that the final two weeks are called “Passiontide,” and thought maybe I could psyche myself up for a strong finish, but that only lasted until Monday night, when I grew angry about a situation and basically got thrown off balance ever since. So it goes.
All that being said, this Lent exercise is going to change my life in ways I don’t even understand yet, and I could tell before we were even halfway through.
My spectacular failures are instructive. First off, I’ve learned that one or two practices don’t resonate with me (or that I haven’t been able to execute them properly so as to produce that resonance). Then there’s the ancestral work I started dabbling in, which I found PROFOUNDLY resonant, so much so that it wasn’t possible to focus on that and any of the rest of Lent. It needs to be revisited later.
When it comes to the Aramaic Jesus meditations and prayers I mentioned last week, from Neil Douglas-Klotz, however, I have found more than I can yet process. (After completing Original Prayer, I have moved on to a second collection titled I Am, which I do plan to binge-complete prior to Easter.) The same is true of the overarching ritual which I am conducting, which will not be complete until Easter Sunday, which is both the easiest to perform and — I am dead certain — the most powerful for the days and weeks and months to come.
I’ve also learned, broadly, specifically by screwing up, that when I am devoted to meditation and prayer, I am a better person to be around (even to myself), and the further I get from these things, the more easily I really become bothered by people and by circumstances. This seems pretty obvious, of course — I would have guessed it even without tracking it — but seeing it live before my eyes, in stark contrast, really hits me. And lemme tell ya, I have had some trials with people during this Lenten period that have provided some very fertile examples of how significantly mindful contemplation and a religious orientation affect me, as well as the lack thereof.
But holy periods are not intended to be merely instructive. The point is that through ritual observance — sacrifice for some — we are transformed, elevated. An extended period, like 46 or 47 days, is often required for such a transformation to occur (although certainly, as many of us well know, there are shortcuts). I may have learned a great deal — and my spiritual practice going forward for the remainder of this year will be informed by this learning — but what I’m really going to carry with me is not so easily categorized or analyzed. It’s as though I’ve taken, on the scale of a solar year, a giant, imperfect, struggle-filled, ecstatic shower in pure light, and just as the daily shower is good until the next morning, this ritual cleansing seems poised to carry me through 2019.
And if everything I know to expect from this year is true (or even half of it), I know I’m gonna need it. So here’s to screwing up our way all the way to the top!
Maybe I’ll get that last devout push starting in a few days for Holy Week. I mean, maybe.
Taking Action on Urgent Matters
I couldn’t make it to the Town Deliberative Session last week because Kellie has choir practice on Tuesday nights. Some people might consider this a blessing not-really-in-disguise, but I actually like these things. Robert’s Rules is an absolute blast sometimes.
Reading the recap in the Ledger-Transcript, I was tickled to learn that a petition article was put forward asking Peterborough to pass a resolution calling on the US government to “renounce the option to strike first with nuclear weapons”. I have no idea where this came from (and the paper doesn’t say whether or not it passed), but I’m glad there’s still some folks out there thinking about nuclear war.
A couple days later, I got excited to see that video of the riveting public session had been posted online. I have indeed gotten two-thirds of the way through, although not far enough to see the outcome of the nuclear war issue. More to follow, unless a strike occurs first.
For the Elegance of it All
This Sunday, the royal Boston Celtics will play their first 2019 playoff game against the Indiana Pacers. I am filled with glorious anticipation even as I steel myself for the kind of disappointment I’ve been served up all season. And that’s the magic of it all, isn’t it?
I intentionally became an NBA fan when the seasons started in the fall of 2016 — something I had been planning for six months. I was very depressed and heavy-feeling from the kind of over-intense immersion in political work I’ve since learned can be deadly, and I felt I would need an outlet of some kind. Something to do several nights a week every week for a good hunk of the year, something wholesome, something unrelated to doom and injustice, to keep me sane.
This turned out to be one of my better ideas.
Go C’s.
Some Stories Do Have a Happy Ending!
In last week’s dispatches, I marked the loss of my loyal ’07 Corolla, unceremoniously carted off by a nondescript tow truck on a sunny Thursday morning, destined for an early and likely unmarked grave. No disrespect to that lovely car, but the period of mourning was cut short when the very next day I purchased a delightful red 2015 Corolla — damn near the same color as my beloved, long-lost Sunfire from ages past.
It’s wonderful.
Also, I want to kind of amend something — I may have been a little overly charitable when describing the track record of that Corolla, including just now when I called it loyal. You know, I did really like that car, but she did betray me on several crucial occasions:at least two or three times, in wintertime, the car decided randomly to lock all the doors while I was warming it up. You know, with the keys inside. While I was nowhere near the car. It would just lock its own doors and I would have to call AAA and plead for my life before texting my boss with this idiotic tale.
Worst of all, it once stranded me at the foot of Monadnock for like two hours, along with two old friends. As in, AFTER a hike, when we’re tired and satisfied and ready to feast. We’d been caught in a 30-minute deluge atop the mountain, during which my key fob had been soaked, apparently beyond repair. The wholly irrational kicker is that, without using the fob to unlock the car, the car insisted that I was a thief and would not start when I turned the key. Just nothing. Well, no, not nothing. The alarm would go off, not a super complementary noise in such a pastoral setting, to be sure. And since I had no way to shut it off, it would just sound until it was done.
Ultimately, I had to remove not one but two (??) after-market alarm systems from the car. As a result, I lost all use of the key fob to unlock the doors or remote-start the car.
So seriously, I did love the thing, but we had our challenges.
In Memoriam
While I hate to end on a somber note, I want to take a moment to recognize that, on the same day this week, one close friend lost his father and another close friend lost a lifelong friend. No amount of wonder, magic, or ecstasy can remove the sting of death and loss — and none of us are ever immune to such things.
Much love and many blessings to you guys, Pat and Bill, my heart goes out to you and I am here for you.
Let’s all take a moment in remembrance of those lost — and remembrance that nobody ever really goes anywhere.