My Primal Catholic

Mark and I were sitting on the patio outside our room at our hotel in Palm Springs on Friday evening. We had come for the weekend for a wedding. Suddenly (or so I’m sure it seemed to him), I looked up from the book I was reading and turned to Mark and said, “There’s something about spring and the Easter season that awakens my primal Catholic.”

He looked up from writing in his journal and gave me a quizzical yet somehow knowing look, smiled endearingly, then unscrewed the top of his Mont Blanc pen and began writing again. He knew to leave it alone. 

The book I was reading is entitled The Fifth Gospel, by Ian Caldwell. Quickly climbing the New York Times (hardcover fiction) Bestseller list, the book is a mystery thriller that plays out amidst intrigues in the Vatican. A couple of weeks ago, I finished another Vatican-themed thriller, The Confessor by Dan Silva. I loved/am loving both.

At another time of the year, I might not be inclined to read such books, but this is spring and Easter is approaching, and my primal Catholic is stirring. I say “primal” because I left the Church when I was still in high school, and though I later (including within the past several years) flirted with it - and at one point even considered entering the priesthood – I did not and could not re-embrace it.

So what is it about this time of the year that stirs something deep within me? The simple answer is that I really don’t know. A more complicated answer would probably involve childhood memories of a time when Lent really meant something in our family. A time when the Latin mass was still said. A time when there were Palm Sunday processions around St. Theresa’s Church in Salem, Illinois where we lived. A time of Stations of the Cross. A time when the statues and altar crucifix were draped in black on Good Friday. A time of deep mystery and catharsis, much more mysterious and wondrous and primal than the Christmas season.

The answer would also surely include memories of a trip I took in the spring of 1982 to Europe. I joined a college friend in Paris. We attended Easter mass in Notre Dame Cathedral. The next day, we boarded an overnight train to Rome. When the sun came up, we were somewhere in northern Italy. Soon, we were snaking down the sun-basked peninsula with the Mediterranean on our right. Flowers were blooming. Trees were leafing out. When we pulled into Rome and in the days to come, I saw wisteria everywhere. That was the year I fell in love with spring. Up until that point, I had been strictly an autumn man, thinking that a love of one necessarily excluded love of the other.

I also fell in love with Rome. I wasn't a practicing Catholic, but I loved being in St. Peter's. It wasn't so much a spiritual thing as a historical/cultural thing. And it was spring, and the weather was nice, and life seemed lovely there in sun-kissed Rome.

It was also in spring – the following year – that I experienced a crisis in my life and found my primal Catholic again turning to “Mother Church.” In my confusion and need for some sense of direction and certainty, I turned to prayer and felt God was calling me into the priesthood. But after I shared my thoughts and feelings with my then-employer – a Mormon – she put on a full-court press to get me to join the Mormon Church, an effort in which she was spectacularly successful.

Interestingly, my father also came to a point in his life when he seriously considered entering the priesthood. (Actually, I have come to realize that my life is strikingly similar to my dad's in some important ways.) He was raised Methodist, and there wasn't a Catholic in his family tree for hundreds of years. He converted when he was in college at the University of Illinois. He talked to the monsignor about seminary, and he counseled Dad to go home to the farm for the summer and think it over. In July, Dad met my mother on a blind date and married three months later after a long distance courtship (again the similarity to my life).

My mother was religiously raised as a Catholic by her German grandmother, whose father had been baptized in a church in Sasbach at the edge of the Black Forest, and whose mother - the daughter of immigrants from Lower Franconia near Frankfurt - was christened in St. Peter's Cathedral in Belleville, Illinois. Mark and I were in Germany in 2012, and the lead photo is of the interior of the church in Sasbach.

Four years ago, another spring saw me leaving Mormonism. My primal Catholic again stirred, but I couldn't see myself at that time going from one anti-gay church to another.

In the years since then, I have learned to live with my primal Catholic. Instead of trying to extinguish it or pretend it’s not there, I accept - even welcome - its presence. But I also know that one of the definitions of “primal” is “relating to an early stage in evolutionary development.” I have evolved since my childhood and youth, since that trip to Rome, since that flirtation with the priesthood, since leaving the Mormon Church; and I continue to evolve. But what is primal will remain, and I suspect I will always associate spring and Easter with my Catholic origins.

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying The Fifth Gospel.

Yoga Moments: Namaste and Awareness

Namaste.

One often sees bumper stickers featuring this word. If one is familiar with the practice of yoga, one also knows that each session ends with the bringing of one's hands together as depicted in the above photograph and uttering this word: first the instructor expresses this to the students, then they in turn express it back to him or her. In a nutshell, it means, "The light within me recognizes and honors the light within you." (See the bottom of this post for an extended definition of namaste and the practices associated with it.)

I had a great yoga session on Thursday with a new instructor who I really liked. I learned a tremendous amount about the actual practice of yoga, but I also came away from the class with a couple of new realizations. 

First, sparked by a reading she did at the end of class as we sat with our eyes closed and our hands over our heart center, I came to see "Namaste" in a new light. Paula pointed out that, before extending namaste to someone else, one should extend it to oneself. In other words, we recognize and honor the light within *ourselves,* recognizing who we are and what lies within us. Thus enlightened, we then extend a recognition of the same to someone else.

Second realization: Paula talked a lot about "awareness." A term commonly used to express a similar concept is "mindfulness." But the way Paula used the term "awareness" gave me a new insight. "Yoga is awareness," she said.  As we practice, we become aware of what our body is going or not doing. We focus on the pose, what we should be doing with our inner thighs and way; what we should be doing with our feet and why; what we should be doing with our tailbone and why; etc.

This concept of awareness resonated with me because I have seen and felt the results of letting my mind wander during a yoga class. I get into a pose, and the next thing I know, I've relaxed a foot that should be engaged, or I've otherwise slipped out of the pose as a result of lack of concentration. Sometimes my mind has wandered so much that I miss the instructor's call for a new pose or a variation on the pose I'm already in. 

It has been a new adventure for me these past months as I have become aware of my body in a way never before experienced. I have a new respect for my body, a new "intune-ment." As a result, I have felt a growing desire to treat it with respect, particularly with regards to what I take into my body. I have also seen the need and felt the desire to be more aware in all areas of my life.

And this brings me back to "Namaste." One of areas of practice I am trying to bring my mind back to is to be aware of both my own inner light and that of others.

Namaste.

******************

I learned a lot from this explanation of Namaste, found here:

The gesture Namaste represents the belief that there is a Divine spark within each of us that is located in the heart chakra. The gesture is an acknowledgment of the soul in one by the soul in another. Nama means bow, as means I, and te means you. Therefore, namaste literally means "bow me you" or "I bow to you."

To perform Namaste, we place the hands together at the heart charka, close the eyes, and bow the head. It can also be done by placing the hands together in front of the third eye, bowing the head, and then bringing the hands down to the heart. This is an especially deep form of respect. Although in the West the word "namaste" is usually spoken in conjunction with the gesture, in India, it is understood that the gesture itself signifies Namaste, and therefore, it is unnecessary to say the word while bowing.

We bring the hands together at the heart chakra to increase the flow of Divine love. Bowing the head and closing the eyes helps the mind surrender to the Divine in the heart. One can do Namaste to oneself as a meditation technique to go deeper inside the heart chakra; when done with someone else, it is also a beautiful, albeit quick, meditation.

For a teacher and student, Namaste allows two individuals to come together energetically to a place of connection and timelessness, free from the bonds of ego-connection. If it is done with deep feeling in the heart and with the mind surrendered, a deep union of spirits can blossom.

Ideally, Namaste should be done both at the beginning and at the end of class. Usually, it is done at the end of class because the mind is less active and the energy in the room is more peaceful. The teacher initiates Namaste as a symbol of gratitude and respect toward her students and her own teachers and in return invites the students to connect with their lineage, thereby allowing the truth to flow—the truth that we are all one when we live from the heart.

"Faith Is a Disability"

"Faith is a disability insofar as it constrains you from self-interest."

I found this line from Andrew Solomon’s Far From the Tree to be sobering and tremendously thought-provoking.* It caused me to reflect upon the many times in my life – and in the lives of those close to me – when faith in religion, faith in what I had been taught by parents or others, or faith in my own abilities, had prevented me from seeing and/or accepting reality – which was definitely not in my self-interest.

One of the supreme ironies of religion is that it teaches people that they must have faith in their creeds and in their gods in order for their adherents to ultimately achieve what is in their best interest, i.e., salvation; but all too often that same faith causes adherents to do what is not in their self-interest.

I am a poster child for such a proposition.  I could write a book about why I joined the LDS Church, what it meant to me, how it affected my life, etc. My life after joining the Church became a synthesis of the Church’s doctrine and how it mixed with and impacted my own trauma, dysfunctions and identity issues that I had brought along out of childhood with me into adulthood. Then, when I got married, added to the mix was my former wife’s own brand of spirituality and faith.

So, I cannot blame the Mormon Church – entirely – for how I conducted the majority of my adult life, but it certainly was front and center stage in the drama that unfolded. I remember writing in my journal, shortly after I joined the Church, that I never had to worry about making another mistake in my life because the Spirit would guide me. Then there was that pithy statement by Joseph Smith that, “When the Lord commands, do it!”And that scripture in the Book of Mormon: “I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.”

I (and my former wife) made many decisions in the decades that followed in the face of illogicality or even irrationality simply based on the “feeling” that this is what the Lord wanted me/us to do and that, in so doing, I and my family would be blessed in some way. A lot of these decisions were just plain crazy, financially; and the belief – the faith – that I/we were recipients of “special” guidance and direction that called us out of the herd of “ordinary Mormons” resulted in a blindness to reality.

Then there is the faith that we put in the teachings of others, such as parents. Many is the child that has come to learn, usually when they enter adulthood or later, that what was taught to them as “gospel” by one or both of their parents ain’t necessarily so. When undue faith is placed in such teachings, it can and often does result in the child doing things that are not in his or her best interests, primarily because such faith prevents the child from seeing his own reality. 

Lastly, there is the faith we may have in ourselves or in our situation that causes us to refuse to see or accept reality. Whenever we are in such a state of denying reality or refusing to see reality, we cannot possibly act in our best interests. Decisions must be made on what IS, not on what we might HOPE it to be, no matter how desperately we might desire it.

*This post was originally published on my Joseph's Journeyings blog (now closed) in January 2013. I am in the process of importing into this blog many of my previous posts from other blogs I have had over the past 3-1/2 years.

Archives: Dying To Be Me

I don’t remember how exactly I came across Anita Moorjani’s book, Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing.* It was touted as the extraordinary story of Moorjani’s near-death experience and her remarkable recovery from terminal lymphoma. Among her many admirers are Dr. Wayne Dyer, the noted author and spiritual teacher, who wrote the Foreword to the book. 

I was intrigued, and I was surprised at how quickly Moorjani’s book captured my interest. Expecting a somewhat sensational story, I was rather surprised as the author, in prose that was fluid and captivating, proceeded to tell a story that could easily be dull and lifeless, but which she crafts as very readable, even compelling. Born in Singapore to Indian Hindu parents who shortly thereafter moved to Hong Kong where she grew up, Moorjani describes what it was like to be raised in an upper-middle-class Hindu household in a Chinese city heavily influenced by Christian westerners.  

Upon entering school, Anita was confronted with the confusing intersection of the various worlds in which she lived.  Her parents first sent her to a Catholic school that was attended primarily by children of foreign nationals. Here, she was told she wouldn’t “go to heaven” unless she converted to Catholicism.

This challenge to Moorjani’s identity caused her considerable angst, and her parents eventually transferred her to another school. While secular in nature, the atmosphere of this school, which also catered to foreign nationals, challenged Anita’s identity as an Indian Hindu girl. She wasn’t like her Caucasian Euro-North American schoolmates, nor was she a part of the Chinese majority, and as she matured, she came to feel increasingly uncomfortable and out of place in her own Indian Hindu community.  

As a result, Moorjani found that she was constantly criticizing herself for not fitting in, not being good enough.  “In fact,” she wrote, “I regretted everything about myself.” “Why am I always apologizing,” she asked herself.  “Why do I have to apologize just for being me? I just couldn’t understand what was wrong with me.” 

This deep-seated feeling of self-rejection, low self-worth and internal conflict was one of two major themes of Moorjani’s life that served as backdrops to the story of her near-death experience. The other was her fear of cancer. As several young friends of hers contracted various cancers, she embarked on a quest to learn about and, if possible, prevent cancer.  

Anita’s efforts, however, only heightened her fears. “The more I read about the disease,” she wrote, “the more I was afraid of everything that could potentially cause it. I started to believe that everything created cancer—pesticides, microwaves, preservatives, genetically modified foods, sunshine, air pollution, plastic food containers, mobile phones, and so on. This progressed until eventually, I started to fear life itself.”

Meanwhile, Moorjani met and eventually married an Indian man who had, like her, forged a path in the world that broke the bounds of the expectations set by their culture. Life was very good for them as they each pursued promising careers and looked forward to the time when they could start a family.  

Their world, however, changed irrevocably the day that Anita was diagnosed with Stage 2A lymphoma. What she had feared most in life had come to her, was within her. Moorjani thereafter describes her “fight” with cancer, her refusal to subject herself to chemotherapy, and her attempts at various types of “alternative” treatments, including traditional Indian and Chinese medicine – all to no avail.

Eventually, Anita ends up in a hospital in a coma, the end near. This is when she begins the account of her near-death experience. Her story is fascinating and compelling, but the key messages that she took away from that experience relate to the two primary backdrops to the experience:  her long-standing ambivalence towards her own self-worth and her fear of life cancer which had caused her to fear life itself. Of the former, she wrote:

“I [came to understand] that I owed it to myself, to everyone I met, and to life itself to always be an expression of my own unique essence. Trying to be anything or anyone else didn’t make me better—it just deprived me of my true self! It kept others from experiencing me for who I am, and it deprived me of interacting authentically with them. Being inauthentic also deprives the universe of who I came here to be and what I came here to express ...  

"Why, oh why, have I always been so harsh with myself? Why was I always beating myself up? Why was I always forsaking myself? Why did I never stand up for myself and show the world the beauty of my own soul? Why was I always suppressing my own intelligence and creativity to please others? … Why have I violated myself by always needing to seek approval from others just to be myself? Why haven’t I followed my own beautiful heart and spoken my own truth? … I deserved to be loved simply because I existed, nothing more and nothing less. This was a rather surprising realization for me, because I’d always thought I needed to work at being lovable. I believed that I somehow had to be deserving and worthy of being cared for, so it was incredible to realize this wasn’t the case. I’m loved unconditionally, for no other reason than simply because I exist.”

As to her cancer and the cause of it, Anita concluded:

“I also [came to understand] that the cancer was not some punishment for anything I’d done wrong, nor was I experiencing negative karma [as taught by her family’s religion] as a result of any of my actions, as I’d previously believed. It was as though every moment held infinite possibilities, and where I was at that point in time was a culmination of every decision, every choice, and every thought of my entire life. My many fears and my great power had manifested as this disease … [It] was then that I understood that my body is only a reflection of my internal state. If my inner self were aware of its greatness and connection with All-that-is, my body would soon reflect that and heal rapidly."

This is in fact what happened. Against all odds, Moorjani revived and began to dramatically heal, eventually being certified as cancer-free. She has since dedicated her life to sharing what she learned from her experience.

I found Anita Moojani’s story to be well-written, compelling, enlightening and challenging. And inspiring. Like Anita herself, her account of what she learned during her near-death experience moves beyond the confines of tradition, culture and religion and offers fascinating insights into the mysteries of health, sickness and human existence. 

* This post was originally published a little over a year ago on one of my blogs that is now closed.

Tillich: Of Grace, Providence and Cheeseburgers

I grew up in a small town in Southern Illinois called Carmi. Fourteen miles away, just across a rickety toll bridge over the Wabash River, was New Harmony, Indiana - a site of several communal living experiments in the first half of the 19th century. 

Mainly New Harmony was a place one drove through on the way to Evansville - the largest city within easy driving distance of Carmi. My parents would occasionally go there to shop for groceries, and it was here that I went to see a podiatrist who told me that I had the flattest feet in seven counties. When I was in high school, friends and I would occasionally go there to see a new release movie. This is where, for example, I saw the "Exorcist."

The bridge across the Wabash

The toll booth on the Illinois side of the river

I heard recently that this old bridge is going to be torn down. Back in the 70's, I think the toll was 25 cents. There are probably all kinds of stories that could be told about this bridge and toll booth. One that I recall was when Ruth Ann Smith, my employer when I worked as a bus boy at Two Tonys Smorgasbord in Carmi, told us how, instead of paying a quarter (or whatever it was) she handed the toll booth operator a cheeseburger and drove on.

But I digress. When I was a kid, my family occasionally went to New Harmony, and I recall the "Roofless Church" that is pictured in the lead photo. I also vaguely recall a park adjacent to the church dedicated to the memory of the German Lutheran theologian, Paul Tillich. In those days, I had no idea who Paul Tillich was, nor did I know that his ashes are interred in the garden. (Why I don't know - yet.)

I was introduced to Paul Tillich in my freshman year in college at Illinois Wesleyan University. (It's interesting ... I have written before about memory. As I have been thinking about that year at Wesleyan, memories have come back of hallways, of classrooms, of professors - places and people that I haven't thought about in years and thus thought that I had lost my memory of that time of my life. It is so exhilarating to experience the thrill of memory!)

That year really opened my mind to a lot of new ideas and concepts as I took Humanities classes and a religion class called "Man and His Quest for Meaning." It was in the latter that I first heard the terms "Christian existentialist" and "Christian Humanism" and read some writings of Tillich, who was a German Lutheran theologian and one of the most profound religious thinkers of the 20th century.

I was so taken with Tillich's writings that I read more than was assigned in class and even purchased the first volume of Tillich's Systematic Theology to read over the summer. But the following fall, I transferred to the University of Illinois, joined a fraternity and largely abandoned what I had found so exhilarating the previous year. What residual interest I had was extinguished when I joined the Mormon Church at age 24.

It wasn't until I came out three years ago and started on my (rather rapid) journey out of the Mormon Church that I once again encountered these words of Tillich, which resonated deeply:

This is only the last couple of sentences of a passage that speaks of grace and acceptance, both divine and by oneself - a passage that I plan to revisit and perhaps blog about.

In my reading over the past couple of months, I have run into numerous references to Tillich, most recently a couple of days ago in my reading in Catholic Means Universal, by David Richo. In writing about faith, Richo quoted the following passage from Tillich's book, The Shaking of Foundations:

"Faith in divine providence is the faith that nothing can prevent us from fulfilling the ultimate meaning of our existence. Providence does not mean a divine planning by which everything is predetermined ... Providence means that there is a creative and saving possibility implied in every situation, which cannot be destroyed by any event. Providence means that the demonic and destructive forces within ourselves and our world [such as those unleashed during the Second World War] can never have an unbreakable grasp upon us, and that the bond which connects us with the fulfilling love can never be disrupted."

Bust of Tillich in New Harmony, Indiana

Richo added his own thoughts about "providence." "Actually," he writes, "providence means that in the face of suffering, cruelty, death and injustice, we have it in us to go on loving ... It is not that external situations rectify themselves but that interior powers of love remain intact no matter what. Our capacity to love surveys the pain and abuse we have experienced."

This, I think, is a large part of where faith comes in. We, I, need to have the faith that, no matter what,  we have it in us to love, to go on loving, to grow in our capacity to love.

I'm grateful that I have discovered Tillich once again after all these years. This post turned out entirely different than what I had originally contemplated, and it is a grace that, through this post, I have continued to re-establish contact with and embrace who I was before I joined the Mormon Church.

The Sacredness of One's Own Presence

"Spirituality is the art of transfiguration. We should not force ourselves to change by hammering our lives into any predetermined shape. We do not need to operate according to the idea of a predetermined program or plan for our lives. Rather, we need to practice a new art of attention to the inner rhythm of our days and lives. This attention brings a new awareness of our own human and divine presence."

So writes John O'Donohue in Anam Cara. I have written previously about this book. I'm sure I will write much more. Practically every sentence of this book causes me to pause and appreciate the beauty not only of O'Donohue's prose but also the beauty of the concepts he is describing and articulating.

I read a passage the other day that caused me to stop and contemplate, yet once again, the spiritual framework in which I existed for most of my adult life, i.e., Mormonism. My purpose, when I write about Mormonism, is usually not to criticize but to analyze. In particular, I wish to bring the light of consciousness to how I was impacted and how my thoughts may continue to be influenced by the doctrine and practices of the Mormon Church.

With that note of explanation, I was prompted by the following passage to contemplate the concept of "will":

"It is far more creative to work with the idea of mindfulness rather than with the idea of will. Too often people try to change their lives by using the will as a kind of hammer to beat their life into proper shape. The intellect identifies the goal of the program and the will accordingly forces the life into that shape."

To me, this passage has macro and micro applications. My first thought when I read this was how Mormonism (and, to be fair, other strains of Christianity) stresses that one must diligently and constantly work to beat our lives into a shape that they are "supposed" to be. Of course, no matter how disguised, this view takes as its premise that human nature is inherently bad, or at the very least predisposed to bad. This premise affects one's entire outlook, not only upon oneself but upon all other humans. This is the macro application.

The micro application, i.e., as applied to my own life - a realization I had only as I sat down to write this post - concerns my sexual orientation (which of course is much more than a "sexual" orientation; being gay is about a whole lot more than whom one falls in love with and has sex with). I used my will as a hammer to beat my life into what was stated (by Mormonism) to be its proper shape: a heterosexual male. But of course, the "proper shape" of my life was homosexuality. That's who I am.

O'Donohue goes on to comment on the results of this "proper shape-beating": "This way of approaching the sacredness of one's own presence is externalist and violent. It brings you falsely outside yourself, and you can spend years lost in the wildernesses of your own mechanical, spiritual programs. You can perish in a famine of your own making." 

I knew exactly whereof O'Donohue wrote, both in a macro and micro sense. On a macro level, it seems to be an implicit (and never-stated) goal of Mormonism (as well as other strains of Christianity) to keep oneself outside oneself, i.e., spirituality comes from without, rather than from within. Truth is "out there"; one's sense of self comes from "out there." 

On a micro level, living in the closet is "externalist and violent" in ways of which most straight people are innocently (or not so innocently) ignorant. Living in the closet brings one "falsely outside" oneself because one cannot validate or accept oneself; one spends "years lost in the wilderness of [one's] own mechanical, spiritual programs," perishing in a famine of self-love and acceptance. I wonder how many heterosexual Mormons and other Christians understand or appreciate this fundamental existential dilemma that gay people face at some point on (or throughout) their journey through life ...

O'Donohue proposes an alternative:

"If you work with a different rhythm, you will come easily and naturally home to yourself. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more important it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey. There are no general principles for this art of being. Yet the signature of this unique journey is inscribed deeply in each soul. If you attend to yourself and seek to come into your presence, you will find exactly the right rhythm for your own life."

The first step: trust one's own soul. Trust that it knows - more than anything or anyone else - the geography of one's destiny. I am working - and have been for three years - on building this trust, of finding this rhythm. 

Sanctity, a Baby and a Bus Driver

Esperanza behind my daughter and granddaughter at our Commitment Ceremony in August

We were sitting in my car, waiting for her bus on an extremely windy and cold evening. I didn’t know a whole lot about Esperanza. I knew she is from Peru, that she is not married and apparently (as far as I knew) had no children. I would guess her age to be in the late 40’s.

Esperanza came to our house every other week or so to take care of the plants and assist in light cleaning and organizing. She had also been a huge help when we had our commitment ceremony in late August and was now helping us with our move. She worked diligently and quietly and has always carried an air of humble dignity as well as a beautiful smile. 

I knew that Esperanza is from Peru, that she was not married and apparently (as far as I knew) had no children. But that’s about it. So, as we sat there in the car waiting for the bus, it occurred to me that this was an opportunity to get to know her better. 

I asked how long she has lived in the United States. Turns out she has been here for about 20 years, that she was married but is divorced.

I next asked if she had any children. I wasn’t prepared for her answer.

Esperanza proceeded to tell me a story. A little over 20 years ago, she was living in the northern Mexican city of San Luis Potosi. She and a friend were walking on the street one day when a woman, in obvious distress, approached them holding a baby. 

“Will you please take my baby?” the woman cried. 

Shocked, Esperanza asked why she would say such a thing. “He is sick and I cannot take care of him. Please take my baby!” 

Esperanza replied that they could not take her baby. The woman plead all the harder. Finally, Esperanza told the woman that she would take her and her baby to a hospital and that she – Esperanza – would pay for treatment for the baby.

After the baby had been examined, the doctors said that he was very, very sick and it was unlikely that he would live more than three months. After some discussions, Esperanza said she would pay for the baby to be hospitalized for a month. When a doctor asked her if she was a relative, she replied that, no, she had just met the mother and baby.

I sat spellbound as Esperanza continued her story.

A month later, the baby was not much better. Esperanza described holding the child as he wrapped his hand around one of her fingers. “You must live!” she said quietly to the child. “You must live!”

Esperanza smiled at me. Her face had a glow, even in the darkened car. “That baby boy just turned 21.” There was pride evident in her face. Not pride at what she had done, but pride in her adopted son who is now finishing his education at a trade school.

She went on to say that she has supported the boy, David, for the past 20 years. She has visited him and he has visited her. Wanting to do more for his family and their neighbors, Esperanza was distressed that the villagers had to walk quite a ways for water. The solution? She and some other people organized raffles and bake sales to raise money to have a well drilled so that they could have a local source of water.

I sat there amazed. Amazed. Feeling blessed to have heard such a story. But David wasn’t the end of the story. Esperanza also told me about her nephew in Peru, studying to be a doctor. His mother, Esperanza’s sister, has Lupus. His father, an engineer, has difficulty finding work. So Esperanza, who works as a nanny and light housekeeper and domestic assistant, sends money to her nephew to help support him through school. “Only five more years,” Esperanza smiled.

“That’s amazing!” I said. Over and over again. I had been so moved by her story about David and his village, then by her story of her nephew. This woman, who has comparatively little, had done – and is doing - so much. I felt tremendously blessed to have sat with her in that car that blustery evening.

Suddenly, Esperanza’s bus became visible in the rear view mirror. She hurriedly said goodbye and walked quickly back to the bus stop. Looking in my mirror, however, the bus appeared not to be slowing down. I hopped out and waved my arms at the bus, pointing to Esperanza. The bus came to a stop in the street and she got on. 

I got back in the car and waited for the bus to pass before pulling away from the curb. But the bus pulled up next to me and the driver motioned for me to roll down my window, which I did. Silly me, I thought maybe he was going to thank me. I was mistaken. “Hey,” he said, accusatorily, “your brake lights blinded me and that’s why I couldn’t see her.” I felt assaulted, especially after the beautiful story I had just heard. I simply shrugged deflatedly, rolled my window up and waited for the bus to pass.

That very day, I had read some passages from David Richo’s book, Catholic Means Universal, that had a direct bearing on what had transpired that evening: 

“Ego and its capacity for limitation and mean-spiritedness reveal us to ourselves … Spiritual practice has as its goal not enlightenment but the state of being in which our first reaction to others is not from our ego mind but from the heart of Christ, the Buddha mind, our higher Self. Thus, the ego’s automatic reaction of conditional love can become unconditional love; ego biases can become expansive and generous wisdom; retaliation can vanish into reconciliation. Our first impulse is not to get back at but to get back with. Through practice that new set of responses becomes habitual. That habit is called sanctity.”

I take it as an indication of my own progress that I didn’t lash back in my mind at that bus driver for being so incredibly petty and ego-driven. I also thought about Esperanza and the day she was approached in San Luis Potosi by that distraught woman. Many, many would have turned away. But Esperanza’s first reaction was from the heart of Christ, the Buddha mind, the Higher Self – and that made all the difference. Therein lies sanctity.

The Real Sin: Withholding Consent to Life

"Adult faith is fidelity to our own intuitive experience ..."

~ David Richo, Catholic Means Universal

One of the books I've been reading the past while is entitled Universal Means Catholic, by David Richo, who in the prologue describes himself as "a formerly active Catholic priest, now a Jungian psychotherapist and teacher on a Buddhist path." I have read a couple of his other books, and I am finding Universal to be even more thought-provoking, especially as I have recently embarked on a new path in my spiritual journey.

The basic thrust of Richo's book is that disaffected Catholics can look at Catholicism in new ways, ways which are reflective of an "adult faith." In his first chapter, Richo addresses those who may have felt abused, in various ways, by the Catholic Church in their youth. I have found that discussion to be extremely interesting, not because I was abused by the Church, but in connection with the abuse I encountered at home.

But Richo's discussion also resonates with respect to my experience of being in the Mormon Church for almost 30 years. The following passage, in which Richo writes of Catholics who may have defied the church's strictures to forge a new path, also spoke to my own departure from Mormonism:

“We have stepped out of line, taken power into our own hands. To do this is scary because it entails risking the loss of approval or endangering the means of survival. Actually, we have explored or exposed a part of ourselves that reveals us to ourselves. We have come to the frontier of a new identity: one that allows us to say no to an external voice in favor of an inner intuitive voice. Identity for adults begins precisely at the point where blind obedience to external imperatives comes to an end and new steps beyond the safe horizons begin. A common theme in myths is that of the hero or heroine who enters the secret room, opens the locked box, or eats the forbidden fruit of knowledge. This knowledge is power, and reclaiming it may be what scares us most of all. The hero is the personification of our urgent desire to individuate no matter what it may take.”

Of course, when I read this, I immediately thought of my coming out. When I had that visceral reaction to LDS Apostle Boyd Packer’s talk a little over three years ago, a very big part of my identity was revealed to me. I came to the frontier of my new gay identity, allowing me to say no to external voices and embrace my inner intuitive voice. I left behind blind obedience to external imperatives and stepped beyond the horizon into a whole new world. 

The inner intuitive voice is the articulator of "inner liveliness." Writes Richo:

“Healthy community enterprises [such as churches] are aimed at serving individual wholeness. This means encouraging our lively energy to be released. Lively energy is our exuberance, our brightest enthusiasms, our imperishable passions, our irrepressibilities – what becomes our bliss. This energy is meant to open more and more in the course of life in the service of our deepest needs, values and wishes. It makes us capable of giving joy to others. This is the very same elemental energy in the universe itself. It is what raises a storm at sea or erupts as a volcano … 

“A personal relationship to God means honoring the organic unity of ourselves, nature and God. This happens when we are in touch with our liveliness. Nothing can annihilate it, but can only divert it. We can get it back at any time by our program of recovery: grieving the past, feeling our feelings about it, and letting go of it while preserving its riches. 

“Our lively energy makes us able to dare and to defy. Recovery from our religious past may mean defiance of its power over us in the present. Morality is not moral if it contradicts good psychological sense or the healthy inclinations of nature. Morality was never meant to interfere with the full activation of our human powers and possibilities. When we remain afraid to say no to violations of our liveliness, we are at the mercy of them and eventually even inflict them on ourselves. If we are afraid to laugh or weep or sing because of prohibitions, our lively energy is blunted and even dispelled. Once religion is recognized as a tool for liberation, withheld consent to life is the real sin.”

To quote Mormon founder Joseph Smith, "This is sound doctrine. It tastes good." It resonates. It feeds. It inspires.

Kindness and the Ego

"In every religion there is love, yet love has no religion."

~ Rumi

I wrote on this subject the other day. The Dalai Lama has said that his religion is kindness. Buddhists speak of “loving kindness.” I have come to see the invitation to kindness as being – among other things - a peaceful yet very effective way of disarming my Ego, and thus progressing to a more enlightened person.

Case in point. Again the other day at the grocery store, I was confronted with situations at which my Ego was practically salivating, e.g., the woman who left her cart right in the middle of the aisle. “What was she thinking?!” my ego says. “How inconsiderate.” “Really?” I asked, do they really have to move that slowly? Do they not realize that there are other people in this store besides them?”

And then, and then, the gentler angel of my nature says something like, “Really? Really, Joseph? Do you really enjoy letting yourself get irritated by thoughtless acts of others? You do realize, don’t you, that they have not come to the store at precisely the same time you decided to grace the place with your presence, just to irritate you?”

Well, that maybe is not the voice of “the gentler angel of my nature,” but it’s pretty spot on.

The gentler voice comes next, full of compassion. “Joseph, you are called to something better than this. Try to work on it, ok? I promise that, if you do, you’ll have marvelous experiences.

I sense very strongly that this voice speaks truth. As I reflected upon that experience at the store while writing in my journal, I wrote, “In kindness is love found and conveyed. It’s a win-win situation. I suspect that one of the reasons I have been and am unkind is because I don’t like – or rather haven’t liked – myself, and my attitude and behavior toward others is a reflection of how I feel about myself. As I practice loving kindness, I can learn to better love myself.”

In this regard, I have started reading a wonderful book by John O’Donohue entitled Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom (Anam Cara is Gaelic for "soul friend"). I’m sure I will have much to say about the treasures of this book as I slowly work my way through it. As it happened, I read the following passages the day after my experience at the grocery store:

“Each person also has an inner face, which is always sensed but never seen. The heart is the inner face of your life. The human journey strives to make this inner face beautiful. It is here that love gathers within you. Love is absolutely vital for a human life. For love alone can awake what is divine within you. In love, you grow and come home to yourself. When you learn to love and let your self be loved, you come home to the hearth of your own spirit. You are warm and sheltered. You are completely at one in the house of your own longing and belonging … You lose the balance of your soul if you do not learn to take care of yourself. You need to be generous to yourself in order to receive the love that surrounds you.”

Moral of the story: practice loving kindness to yourself and to others. It becomes a cycle, a circle that grows in richness and blessings.

One more quote by O’Donohue about love that perfectly describes some of what I have felt since meeting Mark:

“When love awakens in your life, in the night of your heart, it is like the dawn breaking within you. Where before there was anonymity, now there is intimacy; where before there was fear, not there is courage; where before in your life there was awkwardness, now there is a rhythm of grace and gracefulness; where before you used to be jagged, now you are elegant and in rhythm with your self. When love awakens in your life, it is like a rebirth, a new beginning.”

Sigh. Such beautiful prose.

Encounter in Aisle Three

I experienced a beautiful teaching moment yesterday afternoon. I had taken the kids to Smiths Marketplace (think Target) to look at toys while I picked up a couple of things. (They love going to look at toys, just to see what's available.) 

I was walking down an aisle in the hardware section of the store with the Quads in tow when I saw a young couple walking toward me. Her arm was laced through his, they together occupying at least two-thirds of the space in the aisle. As they approached, my Ego kicked in. "She's taking up some of my space!" it said. "She's going to have to move. I have a right to my space in this aisle!" The Ego then carefully noted the woman's actions as we drew nearer to each other. Did it look like she was going to scrunch over to let me pass? Should I move to my left just a little to better stake out my territory (which my Ego assured me was my right to claim)?

It was then that the moment of "grace" came. A quiet voice inside my head, neither engaging my Ego nor condemning or criticizing me, gently said, "Can you not make way? Can you not stop and appreciate what you are seeing - this young couple walking arm in arm down the aisle, obviously in love? Is not this beautiful? Instead of giving way to your Ego and engaging in tawdry pettiness, can you not appreciate this moment of quiet human beauty? And, in so doing, can you not honor your own Buddha nature and experience the grace that this moment presents?"

My answer to all these questions was ... "Yes. Thank you."

* The photo was taken in Wayne, Pennsylvania by my daughter Rachel, who sent it to me yesterday.

Changes and October Surprises

In a way, it's hard to believe that we arrived home a little over four weeks ago from our trip to Hawaii and Japan.* So much has happened.

That's one reason I haven't written a post in almost five weeks. Another reason is that I simply haven't felt like it. I've gone through yet another one of those periods where I am ambivalent to writing - at least publicly. I've written lots in my journal, but I hesitate how much of that I want to share on my blog. But, on the other hand, there is a lot that has been going on - both internally (i.e., in my head) and in our (Mark and I's) life together, and I think it is time to try to catch up.

Moving On - Literally

First off, we're moving. During our week in Maui after returning from Japan, Mark came to the decision - for several reasons - to sell our current home, a decision which I fully supported. Some of those reasons: The yard is very demanding and requires a lot of work. Mark, who has loved playing in the dirt his whole life, decided, due to his cancer, to leave that behind. As he put it, he'd rather spend his time walking in the woods than weeding, trying to get the waterfall going, constantly worrying about whether everything is getting enough water, etc.

Another reason: we need a place that has more room for the kids when they come over. There were other reasons. The time had come.

It's hard to believe, but in the past four weeks, we found another place, plan to close on it in two weeks, listed our house and have started packing. Just when we expected life to return to some semblance of normalcy after the previous six months ... well, let's just say that life continues to surprise us.

We love our new place (pictured above). It will provide everything we were looking for. I'll be blogging more about it, I suppose, after we close and move in. For now, I'll just say that we love it and are excited about making it ours.

New Parent-Time Schedule

Another big change this past month has been the implementation of my new parent time arrangement with my former wife, whereby I'll have the little kids for the entire weekend every other week. Previously, I had them every Saturday and every other Friday night, which didn't allow us enough time to relax and just hang without keeping an eye on the clock. We are going to enjoy this time even more once we move and the kids have their own bedrooms and lots of space to play in our basement room.

A couple of weeks ago, I took the "Triads," (Aaron, Esther and Levi) to Lagoon (a local amusement park) - their first time - and we had a lot of fun. (Annie had a playdate/sleepover with the daughter of some friends.)

We've had a *gorgeous* fall here along the Wasatch

This weekend, we're celebrating all four of the kids' birthdays. (Therein lies a tale. Aaron and Esther were born 12 days apart in the same hospital in Nakhodka, Russia (near Vladivostok) and both went to the same orphanage. Aaron was born on October 19th and Esther October 31st, but when we legally adopted them, we move their birth dates to October 25th (an even split) so that they could effectively be raised as twins. (It seemed like a good idea at the time.) Two years later, our biological surprise, Levi, was born on November 1st. Then, when we went back to Russia to adopt another little girl, it turned out that the one we got - Annie - was born on October 23rd. So, four birthdays within 10 days of each other.)

Levi working on his birthday present - Halo Lego

Levi and I could both use some orthodontic work

Aaron and Esther on their rip sticks. Annie, who is also really good, had just toppled off hers and was in her "I hate the world" pose.

Mark's Health

Mark's health continues to be very good. His PSA continues to remain very low, for which we're grateful. He had another hormone shot in early October and will be due for another in April. He is strong and active, working out at the gym most days and going to yoga classes almost every day. Meanwhile, he continues his part-time work as a hospice doctor, which he enjoys, and - as ever - his spiritual path. He is a great and wonderful teacher to me, and this is one of the many reasons that I love him.

Challenges 

I dealt with some health issues in the week or so after we returned home - both physical and emotional. I had been having increasingly bad stomach aches and abdominal pain while we were in Japan, and I was frankly becoming a bit concerned, as was Mark. But after running some tests and doing a scan, everything came back "normal." That left "irritable bowel syndrome." I think this had been coming on for some time, and the pain and discomfort forced me to make some changes in my diet: eliminating gluten as much as possible; cutting back on my already-low consumption of dairy products; cutting out junk food altogether; cleansing; avoiding anything made with flour; etc. And I'm feeling better, I'm happy to say.

Emotionally, a series of events collided around the time we got home that led me to some additional realizations about my former marriage, my ex-wife, my mother and about me. Good realizations. Insightful, teaching moments, but not without some pain. But, as my counselor said, I have to feel to heal. And I continue to do that - heal.

All of these developments - the house, the emotional and physical challenges, as well as dealing with some legal matters - led to an increasing sense that I was closing one chapter of my life and was preparing to start a new one. 

New Directions

But another "October surprise" for me came as I pondered my spiritual path. Our trip to Japan had been jarring for me in this regard. Without going into all the details, suffice it to say that I became somewhat disenchanted with Buddhism; not the principles of mindfulness, accepting suffering as a fact of life, releasing attachments, etc., but rather the "religion" of Buddhism.

Interior of the Cathedral of the Madeleine here in Salt Lake City

Mormonism and my involvement in it for nearly three decades of my adult life was deeply harmful and hurtful to me and left me scarred in many ways. I have been trying for three years to move on and to heal, and I believe I have been successful at that in some very important ways. 

One of the things that has helped me tremendously through this process was the fact that I had a life before I embraced Mormonism at age 24. I was raised in the Catholic church, and this was my formative experience for the first 17 years of my life. Thereafter, I was exposed to Methodism and to the Episcopal Church, but I had come back to Catholicism immediately prior to my introduction to the Mormon missionaries.

One constant throughout my life is that I have always been a "spiritual" person (or perhaps "religious" would be a better term). I have learned much during the past two years about western Buddhist teachings which I have found helpful in my life. But my experience in Japan demonstrated to me that I needed something more, or something different (a realization I had been slowly coming to for several months). I missed being part of a spiritual community. I missed the opportunity to (as Mormons would say) render service. Though I could not and cannot approach Christianity the way I used to, I came to feel that I wanted to "approach" Christianity again, in an exploratory manner.

I knew, however, that I could not be comfortable in a Protestant church. Though there are a number of gay-friendly churches here in Salt Lake - including Episcopal ones - I know that I would not feel comfortable there - for reasons which I don't feel it necessary for me to expound. 

So, my thoughts have turned to Catholicism. Not to the Catholicism of my youth. Not to the Catholicism of anti-gay members of the church's hierarchy. No, I knew if I were to approach Catholicism at this point in my life, it would be on my own terms, with an "adult faith" which would not be circumscribed by official dogma, doctrine or by bigoted, close-minded members of the hierarchy (and which would also not be bound by a number of traditional Catholic beliefs which I do not share). One of the things that appeals to me about this exploration, and which has enticed me into it, is the breadth and depth of Catholic thought that is not constrained by hierarchy, and I have already sought out and will continue to seek out those strands of thought that will complement what I have been learning in the past two years. And I'm sure I will be doing some writing about that in the coming weeks.

Some concluding words: As I embark on this new trail in my spiritual journey, I am grateful for all that I have learned about Buddhism during the past two years, and I am reminded of some thoughts shared by the Dalai Lama upon meeting Thomas Merton in 1968 in Dharmsala, India. Of this experience, one in Merton's party wrote, “the Dalai Lama (encouraged) each of us to remain faithful to our own tradition. He says, ‘We need to experience more deeply the meanings and spiritual values of our own religious tradition--we need to know these teachings not only on an intellectual level but also through our own deeper experience. We must practice our own religion sincerely; it must become part of our lives.’"

This is what I hope to achieve as I start down this trail. We'll see what happens ...

*The lead picture is of the "guest board" outside the 350-year-old inn where we stayed near the end of our Japan trip.

Wisdom Is Knowing I Am Nothing

"Wisdom is knowing I am nothing,

love is knowing I am everything,

and between the two my life moves."

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

I think one of the most difficult Buddhist principles to wrap one's head around is the idea that one is nothing. Non-personhood. The ego fights against this principle. It fights against the sense that it is nothing. For it must be something. Distinct. Individualized. To let go of this ego-hood is to face ... an abyss. Or a bridge.

I had a profound spiritual experience when we were in Maui this past spring. We were on Little Beach and sunset was approaching. Mark went up to the clearing above the end of the beach to meditate, and I joined him, a few feet away.

As I sat, eyes closed, listening to the waves of the ocean, I felt a call to open my eyes and look at what lay before me. The thoughts came into my mind: What would your worldview be if you didn't focus it around the concept of a creator? What if things just ... were? Are? What if there wasn't an intelligent design as the Western intellect conceives of this notion? 

As I allowed my mind to go to places it had never before been, I suddenly felt a kinship with the ocean and the waves and, for the first time in my life, I felt one with the earth and the ocean - in both a physical as well as a metaphysical sense. I looked at the water and realized, profoundly, that it was this same ocean that touched the shores of British Columbia, of Japan, of Australia, of India, of Africa, of Europe, of South America, of the entire world. And here I was, a spec of humanity sitting on a beach on an island in the midst of one part of this vast ocean. 

I felt the insignificance of my place on this vast planet, which in turn is a spec in vast cosmic ocean. I knew I was nothing. Yet I also saw how I am part of the whole - both of the human family and as part of the organic whole. The paradox is that I felt more alive, more enlivened, more in touch with who I really am, by considering myself as nothing ... than I ever had by celebrating my separateness. For the whole fed me, whereas the parts diminished me.

I thought of the many references I had heard and read to an ocean wave. One in particular by Alan Watts came to mind:

“You are a function of what the whole universe is doing 

in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.”

That experience was truly one of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life. As I later explained to Mark, I felt I had learned more in those few minutes of staring into the ocean than I could have learned by reading a half-dozen Buddhist texts.

I couldn't wait to go back to Maui to learn what else the ocean has to teach me.

A Tribute to My Partner

My partner Mark is an amazing man.

He has opened his heart to my (many) children and loves them. On our very first date, I told him that I have ten children. He could have politely finished the meal and left. He didn't.

Though he never had children of his own, Mark has welcomed the children into his heart, and they in turn have responded with love and affection for him. Even to those of my children who have distanced themselves from me, he has offered love, concern and compassion.

During the difficult months leading up to and following my divorce, he was a constant source of support and strength for me.

But these are only some of the reasons why he is amazing.

Aside from being a wonderful partner and father, he is an athlete, a gardener, a painter, a writer, a dog-lover, a good friend, and a man who seeks to be compassionate toward all with whom he comes in contact.

But beyond all of this, Mark is an emergency room physician and a hospice care doctor. For 30 years, he has cared for trauma patients. I assumed that this is what ER physicians do, that and take care of critically ill people.

Since being with Mark, however, I have learned that many of the patients that ER physicians see are not really sick at all. They are there when they should be seeing their regular physician. They are there when they don't need to be. They are there seeking narcotics. I was stunned to learn of the number of people who go from one emergency room to the next, several times a month, seeking narcotics for "chronic pain." Mark is someone who cares deeply about healing and about suffering. His ER work is therefore sometimes very disappointing and disheartening.

That is one reason that Mark has also taken on a "second career" as a hospice doctor. In this capacity, he visits terminally ill people all over the Salt Lake Valley. He sees to their medical needs, of course, but he also brings peace and compassion to these people. Sometimes, the cases he handles are heart-breaking, particularly when they involve children. But he makes a difference in the lives of these people as they prepare to leave their bodies behind and continue on.

For all of these reasons, I love Mark, as do others.

But Mark is more than all of this. He is a man who probes the meaning of life, who is a spiritual seeker, who is a pilgrim on the road to enlightenment. In this, he is an inspiration to me and to others.

And so I want to pay tribute to this wonderful man with whom I have the privilege of sharing my life and my heart. Thank you, Mark, for all you do, all you share, all you give, for who you are. I love you.

Since I originally wrote this post, Mark has been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer and has retired from emergency medicine. Despite all the tears and anxiety which that diagnosis brought into our lives, it has also served to deepen and sweeten the love that we share. It has taken me to places of the heart and soul that I never knew existed. I cherish every day that I spend with Mark and love him more than ever.