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Listening to the musical legacy of Abbess St. Hildegard von Bigen, 12th Century mystic, writer, diplomat and counselor to Bishops, Kings and Popes. Beautiful.
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Spiritual development is the birthright of every man and woman … the world as a whole tends to neglect and forget the knowledge of how to pursue and live a spiritual life. (Emphasis added.)
Thomas Keating, in The Heart of the World
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Can there be wisdom and leadership without a spiritual component to one’s life? No.
We are more than intellect. We are spiritual beings. Denying this, we are left less intelligent, less human and less healthy – flat and without insight necessary to make wise decisions on complex matters – or any matter.
Contemplation is the way to spiritual development for a contemplative life and life itself is a spiritual experience.
Contemplation leads to the full experience of the human experience. In mass culture or any culture, contemplation requires that one lift himself or herself above the fray of mundane existence which so often captures us moment to moment, hour to hour, day after day – year after year.
Yes, attending to the demands of the world keeps the Christian from the mystery of Christ and the timeless message of the Gospel, and from knowing our self.
There is no full development of the human person without contemplation, no self-examination either – and hence no fullness of being, of human being.
In contemplation, the self is examined and understanding follows, and one is no longer trapped by the errors, follies, divisions, temptations and corruptions of the mundane world and the voices of its most vocal members.
Indeed, does contemplation not require the voiceless silence of solitude! Yes, in contemplation there is a silent respite from all that interrupts our healthy, full development and greatest state of being.
In contemplation, God is real and immanent and those who are disoriented are no longer free to be housed within us. Free – free at last. Thank God Almighty “free at last.”
Shalom.
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Aristotle didn’t equate happiness with wealth, pleasure or fame. For him, happiness was an internal state of contentment that we acquire only by living life in the best possible way.
Edith Hall in “Aristotle’s Pursuit of Happiness” in The Wall Street Journal (Feb 2/3 2019)
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Happiness is an inside job. It is evidenced by our good feeling, our aim at what is “well” and “good.” Hence contentment, tranquility, peace of mind and heart.
In his early life (as Dr. Hall notes) Aristotle saw the unhappiness of the elites, their malevolence and turmoil. He saw (much as one might see now) how the “high and mighty” are miserable, living in and creating chaos for themselves and others.
For Aristotle the road to happiness was an honest understanding of who you were – that is, self-knowledge/knowledge of self. He sought to know the ethos of the human person – the way to virtue and virtuous living – not wealth or possessions, or fame or title or power – but rather heart and soul and good health.
Aristotle would have each of us know our best and worse behavior and strive to maximize the best – to improve where we need to grow for the better.
In such a life is, as he determined, “moral self-sufficiency” … a good life, a stable existence – contentment, maturity, wisdom and compassion. Men and women such as this are and always will be critical to the leadership of others – for they model the best within each of us that is frequently honored in its absence.
As for me, we tolerate too easily those who are not near well-developed and in that condition sow division and unhappiness and act in error and ignorance.
Seek happiness.
Shalom.
Our culture has lost any clearly defined spiritual standards and aims, and our cultural values have become impoverished.
Christopher Dawson, in The Judgment of the Nations
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Dawson wrote this in a book published in 1942, when World War II was in full bloom. Three years earlier T. S. Eliot took the view that we faced the choice between a Christian culture or a pagan culture.
The question of culture and our well-being has been with us for eight or nine decades. Yet, isn’t it odd that those occupying space in the public square speak with no particular appreciation for what Dawson and Eliot and many others (to wit: Reinhold Niebuhr, Jean Danielou, Romano Guardini, Nicholas Berdyaev, Paul Tillich, et al) saw as the problem we faced in the West – namely, the disintegration of our culture.
I write about faith and culture and by necessity must address the words, thoughts, actions and inertia of those who command places in the public square. Yes, I see a mix of theology, culture, history, religion, public policy, law, psychology, philosophy and literature as required to understand who we are today, what risk we run, what wrong turns we have made, and are making, what is lost, derided, discarded and abused by those who have our attention.
The ignorance of those in the public square is monstrous and embarrassing. Political people alleging that a border wall is immoral while abortion is not as but one example. Astonishing. Simply, astonishing. So many who speak with “certainty” minus doubt or evidence of serious inquiry.
What is my bottom line?
Throughout the centuries we have understood that faith grounds observation.
No less a man than Albert Einstein offered this to validate the place of faith in intellectual inquiry and life – “God does not play dice” – i.e., mathematicians might say “Both God and the Pythagorean theorem … are believed to exist independent of the physical world; and both give it meaning.”
Faith is a necessary ingredient in human life, community, culture, peaceful existence, civility, full human development, human progress, knowledge, contentment, health, prosperity, intellectual growth and wisdom … and it is the absence of faith that generates the bulk of discord, abhorrent behavior, destruction, division, disorder, violence and hostility in our culture and that of the West today.
If a scholar have not faith, how shall he take a firm hold of things.
Mencius, 371-288 B.C.
The same can be said of citizens and those who claim to lead.
Shalom.
When Europe was going through the Dark Ages, it was the monks from Ireland who preserved the memory of learning. They set up centers of learning all over Europe. The Irish monks re-civilized Europe. That learning became the basis of the wonderful medieval scholasticism and its rich culture. (Emphasis added.)
John O’Donohue, in Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
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It seems that we have lost our way. Despite education, and perhaps because of it, we are not particularly wise or mature, indeed we seem overwrought with disorder and disordered individuals. Indeed, institutions we depend upon barely seem to function.
I think of the recalcitrance of members of the “opposition” political party in the Congress who view their job as one of disruption – not governing. Likewise, as a Catholic, I think of the woeful behavior of my Church on the matter of sexual abuse. And, I think too of the vulgar and sick over-sexualization of our culture and the murders, suicides, addictions and deaths from drug use – each evidence, in my view, of a culture without depth of person or wisdom.
On a broader scale I witness very few in public life who convey a wisdom in their conversations. By wisdom, I do not mean, education per se but a deeper knowing – knowledge that has harmonized one’s heart, soul and head as only a fully lived life and faith can.
The wisdom of which I speak breeds courage, insight, grace, optimism, the plain truth of things, a cooperative disposition – leadership that gains admiration and respect – and maybe even a following among former one’s adversaries.
Indeed, this is what the Irish monks did for people in the Dark Ages – they restored the path to wisdom. They kept the route to wisdom alive by attending to head, heart and soul.
We face, it seems to me, a need for a monk-like effort that will restore our health and full development … without which we can be neither safe nor successful.
Shalom.
… there’s nothing more intimate in life than simply being understood. And understanding someone else.
Brad Meltzer, The Inner Circle
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When you hear the word “intimacy” in our present culture you almost always think of it in a physical context – and hardly ever as Brad Meltzer refers to it.
This tells you something significant about our culture.
It tells you that in a material culture we are far more physical than interpersonal, cordial, communal, familial, or spiritual.
Just look at the drivel that emanates from the “entertainment” industry. One denizen of that environ recently offered naked pictures of herself (ugh!) to “get out the vote” for Democrats. Go figure?
Yes, we have destroyed, or badly injured, the idea of “intimacy” (and of sexuality) by our ignorance as to what intimacy is and what an absolutely critical, indispensable role it plays in human well-being, friendship, and cordial and communal relationships with others.
Frankly, there is no friendship without the intimacy Mr. Meltzer identifies it. The health of a human being is dependent on intimacy.
We are social beings – meant to be known and to know others. We are recipients of life and hence recipients by nature for life – bound to be received and to receive others.
Likewise we are a story people. We live by narrative, learn by narrative, record narrative, gain wisdom and insight by narrative, worship through narrative.
Telling and receiving another’s story is sacred, and the bedrock of our psychological welfare and the psychological well-being of another. That is the field of real intimacy.
Yes, we are contented and feel whole when another person hears our story and accepts it, receives it, carries it in their own unfolding life.
Today we are far from the intimacy Brad Meltzer identifies.
Our well-being and survival depends on moving toward the intimacy Mr. Meltzer identifies. Short of that objective and disorder and discontent grows and grows, and brings with it homicides, suicides, adulteries, loneliness, corruptions, betrayals, hostilities, divisions, broken families and failed marriages, sexual predators, psychological illnesses, angers, addictions and depressions.
Get “intimacy” right or suffer the grave consequences. We are made for one another – far more than merely what is material and physical.
Shalom.
