Abiding in the Still Point

And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and singing: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests!” (Luke 2:13).

What was it like for those shepherds to hear the song of the heavenly angels in Bethlehem at midnight on that first Christmas?

There are joyful moments or peaceful moments in which time almost loses its relevance. There are moments of stillness, moments of rest, moments in which we feel held by the embrace of eternity.

And then time presses on. The moment passes. The great poet T.S. Eliot reflects on those moments in which “we had the experience but missed the meaning.” It was almost within our reach! We can try to go back to it, try to recreate the moment, but it will never be the same.

I love reading the poetry of T.S. Eliot. Every Good Friday I recite aloud his Four Quartets. Almost every December, I re-read his play Murder in the Cathedral, which tells the tale of Thomas Becket’s martyrdom. At many moments in both works, Eliot ponders these mysteries of time, eternity, human freedom, and redemption.

In both works, Eliot ponders “the still point.”

In Burnt Nornton (the first of his Four Quartets) he speaks of a moment in which all is “reconciled among the stars.” I have little doubt that he is speaking of the Incarnation, and of that Christmas mystery in which the stars themselves paid homage to the newborn King of the Universe.

Eliot puts it this way:

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point; there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.

Likewise in Murder in the Cathedral, Eliot offers the image of time as a turning wheel. The wheel ever turns. Some of us want to take control of it, but we cannot. In the play, Becket faces four tempters. To the first he flatly says, “Only the fool, fixed in his folly, may think he can turn the wheel on which he turns.”

Are we then helpless victims, whipped around by the wheel of time? Do we just passively accept things as they come? No, freedom is neither seizing control nor passively abdicating. It is something else:

You know and do not know, what it is to act or suffer.
You know and do not know, that acting is suffering
And suffering action. Neither does the actor suffer
Nor the patient act. But both are fixed
In an eternal action, an eternal patience
To which all must consent that it may be willed
And which all must suffer that they may will it,
That the pattern may subsist, that the wheel may turn and still
Be forever still.

These are actually the words of the fourth tempter to Thomas Becket – quoting Becket’s own words and mocking him. He has easily dismissed the other temptations, but this one sickens him – to do the right deed (martyrdom) but for the wrong reason. Finally, he finds freedom in total surrender, abiding in the still point:

I shall no longer act or suffer, to the sword’s end.
Now my good Angel, whom God appoints
To be my guardian, hover over the swords’ points.

Becket discovers the very freedom of Mary’s fiat – “Let it be done to me according to your Word.” In one sense, Mary is incredibly active, asking the angel how this can be and pondering these Christmas mysteries in her heart. In another sense, she is totally passive – totally receptive of God’s Word, so much so that he becomes flesh in her. She adds nothing, subtracts nothing, and alters nothing. Eliot appeals to Mary’s fiat in Dry Salvages, the third of the Four Quartets. It is “the hardly, barely prayable prayer of the one Annunciation.”

I loved merry-go-rounds as a child. I loved having a strong uncle whip us around as fast as he could – even though I knew I would start feeling sick. I curiously moved to the middle of the merry-go round – a much different experience. At the outside, I had to clutch at the rails with all my six-year-old strength. At the center, I could stand unaided – though I still might grow dizzy. Were I somehow smaller, I could truly stand at the still point, noticing the movement without being swept away by it.

It is humility that makes us small enough to stand at the still point. Humility is neither an achievement nor a product of old age. There can be young saints and old fools. T.S. Eliot reminds us:

Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

The Father knowns our fear, and he knows our frenzy. We get all spun up, and resist receptivity and rest. We get stuck in the past, trying to recapture a moment that is gone, and missing the moment of the present. Yet always the invitation is there – the invitation of the angel Gabriel at Nazareth, the invitation of the angel to the Shepherds at Bethlehem, and the invitation of our own guardian angel right here and now.

May we echo Mary’s fiat, again and again. We will likely drift from the still point. Then we will feel whipped around by truly challenging times. We may try to take control, pushing Jesus from the center.

The stillness of Christmas night is an invitation into the stillness of God’s eternity. Granted, we are not fully ready for it. The very time that imprisons us is the time in which we will be redeemed. But when we notice we are drifting, we can surrender again and again, until at last we find our true home in the still point of God’s eternal rest.

Merry Christmas!

Savoring and Our Resistance

What is it like for you to savor? I’m not just talking about delicious food, but any profound experience of beauty or goodness or truth. When I look into myself and others, I find that it’s surprisingly hard to stay in the present moment and savor.

We can consume and devour, insatiably wanting more, ruining ourselves or others in our gluttony or greed or lust. When we do so, there might be a flitting moment of pleasure, but no joy. More often, we do not allow ourselves even to be in the present moment. Rather, we numb ourselves and live a disembodied existence – buried in work, binging on pleasures, or staring at a screen. We find it easier to be passive spectators than actively engaged children of God. After all, we have no skin in the game when we watch the news, distract ourselves with sports, play video games, or scroll through social media.

Meanwhile, God is always seeking to allure us and amaze us with experiences of truth and goodness and beauty. What is it like to slow down and take in the honor and delight of these moments? Not to take a picture and post it on social media – but just to savor?

I struggle to savor, even though I recognize that God has gifted me with a heart that intensely delights in truth and goodness and beauty. I perceive his handiwork in places that others often don’t. Yet it’s a gift that I resist. I’m starting to understand why: I’m afraid to suffer.

When I discover a surprising new truth, I feel an intense arousal and delight, followed by even more longing. It’s as though I am four years old again. I have such an eagerness to discover the truth and surrender myself to it. If I allow myself to stay in the experience, I’ll desire to keep learning more. I’ll ask “why?” a thousand different ways. I will eventually reach moments of disappointment or sadness. I may feel alone or rejected in a mocking world that doesn’t allow time or space for such questioning. For sure, I’ll discover the limits of human knowledge. No matter how much I learn, there will always be more that I don’t know. Savoring means tolerating both the intense joy of learning and the ache of not-yet knowing.

When I stumble on human goodness, I easily cry. It can be an inspiring scene in a movie or a book. It can be a heroic moment in the everyday life of a person that I’ve known for years. Suddenly I catch of glimpse of God’s goodness blazing brightly, and the tears flow. I feel intense joy and gratitude. I feel regret for not having noticed and delighted in this goodness before. I feel that painful ache – an ache for this person’s goodness to be celebrated, an ache for more goodness in myself and others. In the depths of my heart, I long to give myself freely and wholeheartedly in sacrifice. Yet so many other parts of me are terrified of feeling vulnerable and unprotected. I resist a tenderhearted trust in God for fear of what might happen. I readily relate to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane in the first half of the story, but not yet in the second. I can be with him lying prostrate on the earth, begging the Father to let the cup pass. I desire also to be like Jesus standing with strength and willingly giving himself over to Judas and the mob. But I resist the vulnerability involved, and often find myself like the turtle yanking his head back into the shell – even when the shell is starting to rot on the inside.

I see beauty every day, when I take the time to notice it. Too often I feel an urge to rush past it, telling myself that I don’t have time to savor it today. When I do pause to take it in, there is so much praise and delight in my soul – and again that longing, that ache, that sense of the eternal Beauty that cannot be contained in this passing world. My intuition knows that this moment of beauty is only a glimpse, and that it is going to fade. There is such a mixture of sweetness and sadness there. It feels easier just to avoid the ache by avoiding the intensity of the beauty.

Yes, even though God created my heart for truth and goodness and beauty, I sometimes resist those experiences. I consume and devour, rather than slow down and savor. I rush on to the next thing, rather than pause and delight. I gravitate towards “rest” that is actually disengagement and numbing out – disconnecting from my five senses and my body rather than being more intensely present in the moment. It takes emotional and spiritual effort to rest in an embodied way, even when I have the time.

I experienced this resistance the other day in the face of a spectacular winter sunset. It was a Sunday evening after a very full week of work, including several overwhelming moments of frustration, powerlessness, anger, anxiety, fear, and shame. I just wanted to “chill” or “veg out,” as we often say. I turned to look around just as I was about to enter my house, and saw the entire western horizon painted with a dozen contrasting shades, all reflecting upon the ice and snow. And I just wanted to go inside and veg out. I fought an intense spiritual battle just to stand there for fifteen minutes. I kept feeling an urge to exit the scene, to pull out my phone, or to go in the house and move on to the next thing. But a wiser and deeper voice within me told me to stay and to savor.

I wept.

I wept at the stunning beauty. I wept over the resistance within my heart. I felt shame and frustration. My heavenly Father doesn’t mind my sins and struggles, but sometimes I cannot stand them.

We resist savoring because we don’t want to suffer; we don’t want to die; and we most definitely do not want to wait in hope – all the while feeling the painful longing of the “not yet.”

Isn’t it interesting that we sabotage our deepest longings? Part of us would rather be disembodied and joyless than fully alive with our five senses in the present moment. It is often the artist, the poet, the prophet, or the saint who calls us to our senses. I think of the intense delight and praise of Francis of Assisi as he savored God’s creation – all the while suffering in his longing to rebuild Christ’s Church. I think of the words of the poet T.S. Eliot in the early 20th Century: “Human kind cannot bear very much reality.” We prefer to be “distracted from distraction by distraction.” Rather than desire and dream and risk, we will settle for “living and partly living.”

God has created us for so much more, and he sent his own Son to awaken these desires in our heart. The child Jesus will awaken these longings that his Father has placed in our heart. It’s a dangerous undertaking that will lead both him and us through suffering and death – and to eternal life. Will we follow?

Living and Partly Living

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket was martyred in Canterbury by knights acting on behalf of King Henry, his former friend. The great poet T.S. Eliot memorialized this event in Murder in the Cathedral. In a previous post, we journeyed with T.S. Eliot into the human heart of Thomas Becket as he came to grips with his imminent death. But Becket’s heart was not the only one impacted by the event. Even more fascinating is the transformation that takes place in the peasant women of Canterbury. Throughout the play, they sing as the Chorus. As the plot unfolds, we witness the conversion of their hearts. Initially, they angrily oppose Becket’s return to England and the inevitable conflict that he brings. Eventually, they surrender themselves to the event, asking Thomas to pray for them and promising to pray for him.

There is a recurring refrain in their singing: “Living and partly living.” It describes their pitiful existence as they scrape by in poverty. They go on surviving, resentful of their misery. But at least the misery is manageable and predictable. It is what they know. By contrast, they are overwhelmed and terrified by the winds of change that propel the sails of Becket’s boat as he lands in Dover. Like most of us, they would so much rather stay mired in the hellhole that they know than venture out into new and scary horizons.

They beg and plead with Becket:

O Thomas, return, Archbishop; return, return to France.
Return. Quickly. Quietly. Leave us to perish in quiet…
We do not wish anything to happen.
Seven years we have lived quietly,
Succeeded in avoiding notice,
Living and partly living.

They describe years of plenty and years of famine; birth and death; joy and fears. Like typical humans, they tend to deny and minimize just how awful things are. They hint at dreadful realities that they regularly endure – their daughters taken by the wealthy and powerful, untimely deaths, oppression, and violence. Somehow these painful parts of life seem “okay” or manageable in comparison with a new beginning of an unknown future.

As the old saying goes, “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.” Rather than face our pain, rather than resolving conflict, rather than humbling ourselves and asking for assistance, we are much more likely to tell lies to ourselves and deny that change is needed. We choose surviving over thriving. Living and partly living.

Or we minimize. Personally, I’ve always had a passionate commitment to Truth and Goodness and Beauty. When those realities hit me between the eyes,  I realize that I can no longer live in denial. But oh, have I been a master of minimizing! For years, I carried painful and unhealed wounds that needed attention from God and others. I acknowledged them as best I knew how. But I shaded the truth. I told myself that it wasn’t all that bad, that other people had it so much worse, that I should be grateful for what I have, and so forth. I was surviving, not thriving. Living and partly living.

Back to T.S. Eliot. As Thomas faces his spiritual battle with the final tempter, the women of Canterbury chime in. They begin shedding their denial, admitting a bit more of the truth:

We have not been happy, my Lord, we have not been too happy.
We are not ignorant women, we know what we must expect and not expect.
We know of oppression and torture,
We know of extortion and violence,
Destitution, disease…
Our sins made heavier upon us.
We have seen the young man mutilated,
The torn girl trembling by the mill-stream.
And meanwhile we have gone on living,
Living and partly living…

As they begin facing the pain, they feel a clutching panic gripping their hearts:

God gave us always some reason, some hope; but now a new terror has soiled us, which none can avert, none can avoid, flowing under our feet and over the sky;
Under doors and down chimneys, flowing in at the ear and the mouth and the eye.
God is leaving us, God is leaving us, more pang, more pain than birth or death…
O Thomas Archbishop, save us, save us, save yourself that we may be saved;
Destroy yourself and we are destroyed.

It is one of the oldest human stories. We recognize the need for change. We begin to accept it. Perhaps we even make a firm resolve and take some serious first steps. Then, as the familiar fades from view, we panic. We become dizzy and disoriented. We feel a fear as of death. All too often, we scurry back to our hellhole. The battered woman returns to her abuser. The addict resumes his familiar rituals, and finds himself “surprised” to be acting out, yet again.

In this case, the women of Canterbury persevere. When December 29 arrives, they choose to be courageous. Even though they feel enormous fear and dread; even though they are yet quite feeble and imperfect, they give their consent:

I have smelt them, the death-bringers, senses are quickened…
I have smelt them, the death-bringers; now is too late
For action, too soon for contrition.
Nothing is possible but the shamed swoon
Of those consenting to the last humiliation.
I have consented, Lord Archbishop, have consented…
O Lord Archbishop, O Thomas Archbishop, forgive us, forgive us, pray for us that we may pray for you, out of our shame.

Thomas enters the scene and affirms them:

Peace, and be at peace with your thoughts and visions.
These things had to come to you and you to accept them.
This is your share of the eternal burden…
Human kind cannot bear very much reality.

Indeed. Truth and Goodness and Beauty transcend us. We receive them and are received into them as we are capable. It is a slow and sometimes painful journey of conversion and growth. It is okay that we stumble and struggle so much along the way. God understands, and so do our true friends.

The play concludes. Thomas is savagely murdered, just as he and the women foresaw. They have already asked pardon of Thomas. Now they ask pardon of God. They are finally ready to confess truthfully their greatest sin – fearing the fullness of God’s love, and protecting themselves against receiving God’s blessing.

Forgive us, O Lord…
Who fear the blessing of God, the loneliness of the night of God, the surrender required, the deprivation inflicted;
Who fear the injustice of men less than the justice of God;
Who fear the hand at the window, the fire in the thatch, the fist in the tavern, the push into the canal,
Less than we fear the love of God.

God only wants to bless us. We are his dear and precious children. Any changes he asks of us, any sacrifices, any sufferings are only for the sake of stretching us, enlarging our capacity, and then filling us superabundantly with his love. We, like the women of Canterbury, cannot bear very much reality. Hopefully we will consent to put to death our old ways, to leave them behind, and to fare forward (to borrow words from another T.S. Eliot poem). Yes, we will feel fear, and probably all sorts of other emotions: shame, guilt, anger, sadness, or loneliness. Still, we can fare forward. With the support and encouragement of God and others, little by little, we can learn to leave behind our self-protective hellhole and step out into the light of God’s love, receiving grace upon grace.

Watching and Waiting with T.S. Eliot

I love the poetry of T.S. Eliot. To kick off Advent, I recently got together with a friend and pulled out his play entitled Murder in the Cathedral. It recounts the martyrdom of Archbishop Thomas Becket in the Canterbury cathedral on December 29, 1170. In typical T.S. Eliot fashion, he also offers much for our modern culture to think about.

The play begins during Advent, on December 2. Becket is returning from France, where he has been living in exile for seven years, protected by King Louis (for whom the city of “Saint Louis” is named). Becket had been an old drinking buddy of King Henry II. They caroused and womanized together, as well as engaging in political affairs together. Becket was the brains behind Henry’s operation. As chancellor, he helped the king forge a greater unity in the island and rule more forcefully – sometimes even at the expense of the Church. Henry thought it would be a brilliant idea to promote his friend and chancellor as the new archbishop of Canterbury. Then everything changed. Becket took his identity as priest and archbishop even more seriously than his role as chancellor. He embraced a life of penance and prayer. He resigned the chancellorship and led the flock courageously. He defended the religious freedom of the Church – even when it enraged his friend the king.

The audience is presumed to know the basic story (back in 1935 in England they would have). By December 29, Henry grows tired of Becket’s unwillingness to compromise, he eventually cries out in anger, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest???” Four of his knights pick up on his cue. They arm themselves with alcohol and swords and assassinate Becket at the altar during Vespers. After the fact, Henry II repented, doing penance at Becket’s tomb. Sad to say, it was not the last time in England that a King named Henry would murder an ex-chancellor or a bishop over the issue of religious freedom. 460 years later, Henry VIII came along and killed both John Fisher and Thomas More.

T.S. Eliot loves to explore the human heart. He offers the reader a window into Becket’s soul during his moment of martyrdom. In the estimation of some historians, Becket obstinately and recklessly rushed into his death. They believe it was preventable. There is no question that he saw it coming. T.S. Eliot depicts Becket’s attitude in a way that shows true human freedom and fulfillment.

The beginning of the play is set in Advent and offers some very Advent-y words. Becket foresees the end that is coming, but abides in a time of watching and waiting:

End will be simple, sudden, God-given.
Meanwhile the substance of our first act
Will be shadows, and the strife with shadows.
Heavier the interval than the consummation.
All things prepare for the event. Watch.

It is not the actual moment of trial or martyrdom that is difficult. It is all the successive moments leading up to it. “Heavier the interval than the consummation.” Abiding in love, watching and waiting, is so much harder than a brief moment of pain. I think college students preparing for their final exam can relate!

I have already written about the “already but not yet” of Advent, and of our Christian existence in general. Christ comes to us at each and every moment, standing at the door of our heart, knocking and waiting patiently for us to admit him. We only live in the present moment and can only say “yes” in the present moment. Jesus teaches us that it is by being faithful in small things that we learn how to be faithful in large once. Our “yes” or “no” to God’s will in the present moment sets the stage for the Day of Judgment. That Day of Judgment is already present in each of those moments.

Becket faces four tempters (played by the same actors who later enter as the four knights). One by one, he resists their efforts – tempting him to go back to his old pleasures of the flesh, to go back to the power of the chancellorship, or to ally himself with the barons and stick it to the king. Then comes the final and most enticing temptation: for Becket to position himself as a martyr, admired and honored, with his enemies reviled and repentant. Becket resists. The tempter even tempts him to think of centuries beyond, when his shrine is long since rotted and corrupted, but he will experience endless heavenly glory. Even there, Becket resists. Pursuing martyrdom, even for heavenly glory, would ultimately be feeding his own ego and dishonoring God.

Becket renounces his pride. He surrenders his will to God’s. He neither seeks nor avoids. He neither lets himself  be a victim of fate, nor pretends to be master of his own destiny. He does not disagree with the words of one of the tempters: “Only the fool, fixed in his folly, may think he can turn the wheel on which he turns.” However, Becket sees in faith that God is the one turning the wheel. He positions himself in peace at the “still point” in the very center of the turning wheel – neither active nor passive, neither controlling nor controlled. He is truly free as God’s instrument:

Now is my way clear, now is the meaning plain:
Temptation shall not come in this kind again.
The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason…
I shall no longer act or suffer, to the sword’s end.
Now my good Angel, whom God appoints
To be my guardian, hover over the swords’ points.

In holy and free receptivity, his prayer is like that of the Virgin Mary in the Annunciation: that it be done unto him according to God’s Word. As each of us watches and waits for the final consummation of our own lives, may we also abide at that “still point” of God’s love.

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