Four: Handling the Eight Evil Thoughts and the Characteristics of Community

As the bell rang, I was already in go mode.  Game face on, I guided various and sundry goofballs into seats with the veiled threat of lost participation points.  

"I wanna start off today by running through the eight evil thoughts." I said "I want to gauge two reactions: raise one hand if you found yourself a little scared by the evil thought, and two if you said to yourself 'holy crap that’s me.'"

We ran through them.  We got generally honest responses, except, because of the societal taboos it violates, on lust.  Will Parks and I raised our hands high, as did a few other young men.  “Aha!” I said, “here’s the thing about this—we’ve talked about how the eight evil thoughts are in everyone, to some degree.  Most of us feel confident admitting everything except lust.  Don’t worry, that’s totally ok—it just means we know that about 98% of us tell lies in religion class.”  My students laughed an uncomfortable laugh. “See that?  There’s so much that brings us together.”

We ran through the last three.  A smattering of students had Holy Crap That’s Me reactions to vanity and pride, and many were scared by Wrath.

“Y’all, please believe that I didn’t do that little exercise to embarrass anyone.  Again, when we get that stuff out in the open it’s to normalize it—to make us realize that the struggle’s ok and we’re not alone in it.  That’s a huge chunk of what I want this class, as a whole, to do for folks.”

I stopped for a minute. “Take a minute to notice something.  My classroom isn’t decorated with apples and rulers, and there are only a few examples of Student Art on the walls—stuff people have done for extra credit over the years.  What does decorate the walls here?”

Ralph  Cain said “It looks like you took sayings from fortune cookies and decorated the class with them.” Everybody laughed.

“That’s true, Ralph” I said, “but no, my sad white keister does not sit in the dark compulsively eating fortune cookies just for the sayings. It’s common, in the monastic tradition, to collect what in Greek are called ‘apophthegmata’ or wise sayings.  I guess, when I left the monastery, I kept doing it.  It helps me recognize the truth when I see it.”  No one seemed completely disengaged, so I went on.  “What I want to talk about today is what we do about the eight evil thoughts if we find them to be true.  We’ll end up identifying the opposite of compulsive thought—I call them the “steps of deliberate thought”—but don’t write that down yet.  For now, Hillary Jones: would you please just pick a saying off the wall and read it aloud?”

Hillary looked around, picking a saying to her right.  “I’m not ok, you’re not ok, and it’s ok.”

“Thank you, Hillary.  There was a book that emerged from Hippie pop-psycholology era of the late sixties.  It was entitled I’m Okay, You’re Okay.  It was a hit with that generation.  Future generations kinda had a problem with it though.  Think of it this way: when I’m okay, You’re Okay was published, it was an era of massive experimentation with drugs.  The next generation experimented with harder and harder drugs, until a whole generation was in rehab.  Alcoholics Anonymous, who plagiarizes quotes like it’s their job circulated ‘I’m not ok, you’re not ok, and it’s ok’ as a way of saying ‘Something’s off, but somethings off with all of us, so we can accept that in one another.’  The saying is one of the goals of this classroom: to unite around shared failure to live up to the ideal.”  I looked around again.  “Fatima, read me another wall-saying.”

Fatima picked one and said “Identify, don’t compare?”

“What does it mean,” I asked, “If you ‘identify as an addict’ or ‘identify as gay or straight.’”

Cole Jensen raised his hand, and I called on him “It means, like, that your lives are the same.”  

“Good, Cole.  It does mean your lives are the same.  So what might ‘identify don’t compare’ mean?”

Will Parks raised his hand.  “It means focusing on how we’re the same, not how we’re different.”

“Yes sir it does.  So it's better for us to focus on the fact that we all deal with the same crappy compulsive thoughts, rather than comparing the ways we're unique.”  I said “Now, Will, read me another.

He looked around. “How about ‘You alone can do it, but you cannot do it alone.”

“Good!  Fatima, can I ask you a serious question?” She turned toward me.  I went on “When was the last time you got someone to wake up for you?”

Fatima was confused.  I went on. “Fatima, when was the last time you had to go to the bathroom and got a friend to go instead of you?”

Again, confusion. “Let’s get more simple.  How many people live in your body?”  

Fatima knew this one. “One.”

“So who” I replied “is the only person who can get work done when it has to do with your body?”

Fatima said “Me.”

“You alone can do it!  But what if you get cancer, or what if your Aunt dies, or what if your arms get cut off in a freak run-in with an extremely talented ninja warrior?

They understood “You cannot do it alone.  We all have stuff that we can change.  And very often, we’re the only ones that can change that stuff.  But also, all of us have things that we can’t change.  We don’t always have to worry about what we can’t change, like when it’s other people’s choices.  But when we do have to worry about what we can’t change, like the fact that we’re suddenly armless, we need help to do it.”

And here’s the thing!  All this stuff about the eight evil thoughts?  We didn’t ask for this, and we didn’t do anything to deserve it.  But if we don’t deal with the uncomfortable emotion in our lives, that emotion will mess us up.  Will,” I said, wheeling around and pointing “What’s the last ’wise saying’ on the classroom walls?”

Will read aloud “It is not your fault, but it is your problem.”

“It is your problem.  But as the the Alcoholics Anonymous saying says, there is a solution.  Next we’re gonna detail what it takes to address the Characteristics of Isolation.  Hillary” I wheeled around “what, on the first day of class, did we say the entire point of the course was?  It was one sentence, and we wrote it down in our notebooks.  We come out of what, into what, by way of what” 

Hillary sat up straight, turned to the first page of her notebook “Out of Isolation, into Community, by way of the Sacraments?”

That’s right.  Out of Isolation, into Community”  I said.  “Now that we’ve talked about the ‘Characteristics of Isolation,’ Please write ‘the Characteristics of Community’ at the top of a page in your notebook.  Then, down the side, just like we did with Isolation, please write this sentence.  ‘Here, Koalas Ate Uncooked Eucalyptus. 

“Now turn to the page where you have the ‘Characteristics of Isolation.’ The thing about the ‘Characteristics of Community’ is that they are the opposite of the ones for Isolation.  So, very quickly, let’s try to guess what they might be.  Will, what is the opposite of denial?

“Like, being real with people” Will replied.

“Right.  Now, for the sake of everyone being on the same page,” I said “ let’s call that ‘honesty’  Write that down next to ‘here’”

There was scribbling. I turned to Ralph “Hey Ralph. Super quickly: what’s the opposite of an opinion?”

Ralph: “A fact”.

Me: “So if ‘I think’ expresses an opinion, what might express a fact?”

Ralph: “Like, being certain.”

Me: “Let’s call that ‘Knowing.’ Will, what’s the opposite of Invulnerable?  Remember English class, sometimes dropping the prefix gives you a word’s opposite.”

Will said “vulnerable?”

“Good Will.” I said “Hillary, again, remember that adding a prefix also sometimes gives you an opposite.  What’s the opposite of “perfect?”

Hillary responded “Imperfect!”

“Right. Hillary.  So, Ladies and Gentlemen, The opposite of ‘thinking you’re invulnerable and perfect’ is ‘knowing you’re vulnerable and imperfect.’  Write that down next to ‘Koalas.’”

Scribbling.  I turned to Fatima “Fatima, what is the opposite of the ‘Inability to use the sacramental lens.’

“The ability to use the Sacramental Lens.”  She replied

“Good.  Not the inability to see God through what he has made, but the ability to see him.  The ability to use the sacramental lens.  Write that down next to ‘Ate.’”

“Cole, if ‘divisive’ is something that separates us,” I asked, ”what is the opposite of that?”

Cole responded “something that brings us together”

“The adjective form of the Word ‘unite’ is ‘unitive’”  I wrote the adjective in big letters on the Dry Erase board. “Next to ‘Uncooked’ write ‘unitive thinking.’  Focusing on what brings us together.  And here’s what we’ll go into next, it’s the opposite of the ‘eight evil thoughts.’  Next to ‘eucalyptus’ write ‘eight honest virtues.’ More on that tomorrow.  For now ‘Here, Koalas Ate Uncooked Eucalyptus’ stands for honesty, knowing we’re vulnerable and imperfect, ability to use sacramental lens, unitive thinking and the eight honest virtues.”

The bell rang.  

“More on this tomorrow” I yelled, over the sounds of packing up school supplies.  Already standing in the corner by the door, I saw them all out.  

Supplies were what the class truly came down to:  If we wanted to come out of Isolation, if we wanted to come into community, these are some of the things we would need.  I suppose a teacher always hopes his students will bring their materials to class.  As the days went on, the stakes on that that aspiration grew higher.

Feeling the press of possibility, I closed the classroom door.  Flopping into my desk chair, I surrendered the whole thing.  Today was either worthless, or a work of providence.  I threw my lot in with the latter.

Kairos, Koans and Conversion: 4, Divinization

St. John says “the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Because koans unite opposites in the here and now, I know how I would handle half of this. But the other half of this Koan is overt about what it involves: namely what the Christian West calls “Divinization.”  My initial impulse is to see this as a dissolving of egoic boundaries into God.  But this old foundation begins to crumble from the start.

Jerusalem’s temple is a good image for my sense of self.  Post exile, the Jews returned to find temple destroyed and society in ruins.  Similarly, given the baggage I bring to spiritual efforts, I feel destroyed from the start.  Just as the jews hoped return to the Promised Land would induce calm or offer real prospects for rest, I hoped the same thing about spiritual life.  Were my ego the temple, I’d still be jockeying between working too hard to rebuild the house, and avoiding it altogether.  I haven’t found a consistent space of presence, that listens to God’s Law with renewed placidity, even with hammer in hand.

Jesus got to a place where he became the temple.  He yielded so completely to God that he allowed the temple to be destroyed, with full faith that it would be rebuilt and resurrected.  I’m not there yet.  If I’ve had other incarnations, I don’t remember them, and I tend to feel so unequal to this life’s demands as to spend give zero thought to the hereafter.  I’m still seeing too many similes, not enough metaphors.  I’m becoming like Jesus, not being myself.  While I may be attempting to do what Jesus did, there remains too much mental noise between me and “doing what I’m doing.”

Granted, the level of the ego is dualistic from the get-go.  But my false self is damaged, unable to do even the things for which a healthy defense mechanism is designed.  Adult Children of Alcoholics would say I have an externally referenced sense of self.  I’m prone to addiction, and too hooked on drama.  In terms of Koanic work, when the ego is damaged to begin with, I don’t know how to handle the collapse into oneness that Divinization requires.

One of my two best friends is a jewish bloke with years of Buddhist practice.  We met in the monastery, at a time when we were both discovering deep spiritual wounds, as well as a shared ambivalence about redemption.  He was the one to name it: we both needed a redeemer. But at the time, I was facing the reality of my own codependence, imbibing a 12-step tradition that said things like “God won’t do for you what you are unwilling to do for yourself” and again “you alone can do it, but you cannot do it alone.”  I was as apt to isolate and overwork as I was to be needy and pass the buck.  Neither are a fabulous way to treat prospective messiahs.

My friend was ambivalent for his own reasons.  He felt the pressure all Jews feel, to explain why he didn’t—nay, couldn’t—believe in Jesus.  Religiously, he had only ever been superficially Jewish, but culturally, he knew that conversion to Christianity would be too deep a betrayal.  For a while he dabbled uncomfortably in Chabad Judaism—it emphasized the performance of mitzvahs—and empathized with the messianic longings of the Hasidim, but he’d formally committed to neither.

In short, we both felt the survivor’s guilt of our brokenness.  Pulled between responsibility and dependence, we needed what the messiah’s redemptive death offered, yet it conflicted with the call to become what we needed, a call that echoed in the teaching “if you find the Buddha, kill him.”  I can’t speak for my friend, but over the years I’ve discovered what for me, is the source of the tension.

Both Contemplative Christianity and Zen have a caricature of prayer practice: in both, the goal is to get “beyond” or “go deeper than” the pain of our lives so as to be blessed by an amorphous ultimate reality beneath or beyond everything.  That caricature comes from a spiritualized, egoic program for enlightenment in which God is wholly “other,” the events of our lives are the American Ninja Warrior course we navigate to get to him, and the redeemer is the drug we take to achieve the finish line despite our own deficiencies.

Such a vision is not what prayer or redemption are about.

Realizations are great.  But they are only half of a healthy contemplative practice.  To my “Aha Moments” it’s important to add “Here We Go Again” moments.  These are the moments of confronting my perennial obstacles. Whether those obstacles be generational pain (such as parental dysfunction) or a natural evil (such as growing up disabled, or a general resistance to mortality), that pain is actually more a cavern than it is an obstacle.  Just as the the Logos is a negative space I enter into, so the open wounds of my damaged ego are habitable spaces, with much to teach me.  The “solution” is not to stumble through its sharp, dark corners looking for an exit.  The solution to such pain, each time it arises, is to sit in its center, where it’s warm and safe and my voice echoes clearest.  Indeed, when my own anxious chest becomes the cavern in which I am sitting, God will be there.  Anyone or anything that makes that sitting in that tension possible qualifies as Christ.

“The Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  When this post began, I was focused on the union between God and man. I temporarily forgot that a Koan unites opposites.  My wounds are precisely the places I feel least like the God I need to become.  But I’ve cause to hope those are precisely the cramped and confused spaces where my redemption is actualized.  If, as saint Paul says, my true self is “hidden with Christ in God” then the mechanics of egoic collapse include admitting I’m not God and being utterly confused about who I am.  While The “Aha” moments might provide exile with a leaven I understandably crave, ultimately the “here we go again” moments are the places where God makes real return to myself possible. 

The book of Ezra says: 

When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, all the people responded with a great shout when they praised the Lord... But many of the priests and Levites and heads of families, old people who had seen the first house on its foundations, wept with a loud voice when they saw this house, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping.

In your hearing and mine, in the here and the now, this scripture is fulfilled.

Three: Egotism, and the Eight Evil Thoughts

The bell rang.  The podium was in the corner of the room, and the students ribbed me a bit about it.  “Mr. Warner, Isolation is bad, you shouldn’t be there.”

I laughed a secret laugh, the one teachers do when their kids remember anything they’ve been taught.  I finished attendance and stood quietly until their chattering stopped.

“Quickly, ladies and Gents, somebody raise your hand and tell me our acronym”  Hands shot up.  I called on Ralph “Don’t take iguanas down elevators!” he said.

“Escalators, but yeah” I said, we quickly reviewed what each stood for, concluding with the word ‘escalators.’”  I called on Cole for the term.

Cole said “The Eight Evil thoughts.”

“Aha, and here we arrive at our subject for today.  Please open your notebooks and, at the top of the page, write ‘the Eight Evil thoughts.’”  They did so.   

“These eight subjects are things that, over and over again, old monks would notice their minds wandering back to when they were left to themselves.  They are compulsive thoughts so the sad reality is, if we follow them to their logical end they become addictions.  Our thoughts about these things actually change our ability to interact with the world.  It’s important to remember something, and I want you to underline this multiple times. They’re not your fault, but they are your problem.  You don’t do anything to make compulsive thoughts arise, but they can mess up your life if you follow them blindly.”  The looks on every face at least told me no one was confused.

“Each of these eight subjects is a compulsive thought about something, and each leads to something.”

I continued, “Write the following sentence down the left margin of the page, like we did last time:  Go Get Some Sandwiches, Lily Wants Vicki’s Pastrami.” While they wrote, I prepared to project a powerpoint.

“Go: This stands for Gluttony.  It’s the compulsive thought about food, and it leads to emotional eating.  Get: This stands for Greed.  It’s the compulsive thought about new possessions or status, and it leads to discontent with normalcy.  While you write, answer me one question:  why is Christmas exciting?”

Will Parks “Presents!”

“Yes Will.  And on December 24th of this year, are you still as excited about using last year’s stuff as you are about receiving this year’s stuff.”  While they wrote, a few heads shook.  “That’s right, you are so hooked on newness that normal things don’t make you happy any more.  That's greed.

“‘Some’ stands for Sloth.  Everybody stop writing for a minute.”  Slowly, every hand let go its pencil. “Sometimes I have so much to do, and I’m so anxious about it, that I get absolutely nothing done.  It’s called ‘paralysis by analysis.’  Have y’all ever had that happen?”  There were nods and mutters of recognition.  Fatima said “That’s every night.”

“Sloth,” I said, “is the compulsive thought about life’s pressures, leading to anxious overworking or underworking.” I clicked the powerpoint buttons and the definitions appeared. “When sloth presents as anxious overwork, we think we have to do everything today.  And this is another important point.  Because sloth comes with a feeling of anxiety, it can lead us to other evil thoughts, in an attempt to get rid of that anxiety.  So I might overeat or compulsively shop because I’m feeling the anxiety from sloth.”

“Next to ‘Sandwiches’ write sorrow.  Sorrow is a tough one: here I wanna make sure we say something up front.  Sorrow is different from depression.  Depression is a medical condition.  It’s totally normal.  I’ve felt it most of my life.  Depression is so normal that when the Eight Evil Thoughts became the Seven Deadly Sins, it was left off.  Depression is totally normal.  Sorrow, on the other hand, is the compulsive thought about sadness leading to manipulation.”  I clicked the powerpoint. “To be sad about the death of my cat is totally normal, and depression is a normal stage in the process of grief.  On the other hand, to go to Mr. Warner and say ‘Mr. Warner, my cat died a year ago and I’m sad so I think I shouldn’t have to take this test today.’  Well that’s different.  Hillary, how is it different?”

“Um,” She thought for a moment “Because we’re trying to get something out of you.”

“Yup.  So Depression isn’t sorrow because Depression isn’t manipulative.”  I clicked the powerpoint, to project Lust.  “Now it’s time for everybody’s favorite: Next to ‘Lily,’ write ‘Lust.’  I need everyone in the classroom to find every ounce of maturity they have, and bring it to the surface.  Because—wait for it—I’m about to use the word ‘sex.’” There were some giggles.  “The truth is, Lust isn’t just about sex.  Lust is the compulsive thought about others’ bodies or attention.”  I clicked the powerpoint, gave that a moment to sink in while they wrote.

As soon as Will Parks’ pencil went down, his hand shot up.  I called on him and he spoke.  “I don’t know about this one, Mr. Warner.  Sometimes girls are the only reason I come to school.”

I smiled and nodded, “When I was in high school, my parents gave me the option of continuing to go to church or not.  It wasn’t Jesus that made me keep going.  It was the little red headed girl two pews up.”

“Yeah,” Will said, “so how is that wrong?”

“Oh it’s totally not.” I said, “Remember that food, new possessions, sadness, sex—all these things are good things.  The problem comes when they’re used to cover up something, to avoid uncomfortable emotion.  Will, blokes like you and I need to write this real big in the notebook of our hearts.  Our needs for sex and attention are, all of them, good things.  They only become sinful when we use them to cover uncomfortable emotion.  If you’re really dealing with the uncomfortable stuff of your life, if you’re making sure you can deal with your actions’ consequences and if you’re always being respectful of your lady’s feelings, then smooch away my friend.  Just don’t do it in front of your mother.  That’s creepy.”

Will smiled.  I continued “ Next to ‘wants,’ write ‘wrath.’ Here again, remember that anger is totally normal.” Then I clicked the powerpoint. “Wrath is the compulsive thought about anger, leading to overreaction. The overreaction is wrath’s identifying characteristic.  You step on my foot and I send my goons to break all your car windows and burn down your house.”  

There were giggles.  Ralph said “Mr. Warner, you ain’t got no goons.”

I replied, “Maybe I don’t.  But you don’t wanna be one of those students who doesn’t do his homework, incurs my wrath finds out he’s wrong.  My goons would be at your crib in two seconds flat, my friend.”  Our giggles started to run away with the class.  I went on. “Next to ‘Vicki’s,’ write ‘Vanity.’  We’ve seen this one before: remember ‘I’m too sexy for my shirt, and you guys are chumps.’  Vanity is the compulsive thought about my own excellence, leading to putting others down.  I’m awesome, y’all aren’t”  Powerpoint click and scribbling.

“Next to ‘Pastrami’ write ‘Pride.’ It’s important to note a difference, here, between vanity and pride.  Vanity is the compulsive thought of my own excellence.  Pride is the compulsive thought of my own self-sufficiency, leading to isolation. Write that down.” They did.  I continued, “Vanity says ‘I’m better than you.’  Pride says ‘I don’t need you.’”

“In the end, you’ll be so caught up with all of these different thoughts that you’ll be well fed, you’ll have a lot of stuff, you’ll be driven and awesome.  You’ll be a self-made man or an independent woman who pays her own bills—but the point is you’ll be all of that alone.  No one will be there to witness that awesome.”

When I came to a stop, I realized where I was standing.  “What’s the name of this corner, y’all?”

“Isolation” They said.

“Our thoughts have become so enticing to us that we give up relating to the world for their sake.  Give up feeling for food.  Give up contentment for newness.  Give up connection for attention and community for self-reliance.  We even give up ourselves for a ghostly substitute self that's really just an egotistical bundle of desire.  We knew this corner was called ‘isolation.’”  With particular finality, the bell rang. “Now we know why.”

Comedians and Conscience, Prayer and Protest

Louis CK has a bit he calls “Of Course, but Maybe.”  I’m about to borrow that bit.  I don't own any rights to Louis' jokes, or his image. I use his structure, of course, as an homage to the great comedian, but maybe to talk a little, too, about Protest, Trump and the State of the Nation.  So here’s history’s most unfunny description of a joke:  Louis CK starts out saying “Of course, I have this thing that I believe.”  He holds his non-mic hand high, to show this is the ideal.  Then he lowers that hand. “And then there’s a thing that challenges that ideal” and he gives a funny example.  That’s the whole, ingenious thing: he says “of course,” lifts his hand, and makes a point, then “but maybe” and he lowers it, makes a distasteful point challenging the ideal.

For me, it goes like this:  For one thing, of course it’s important that the government’s decisions represent God’s will.  Of course that’s the goal of our nation’s leaders. What’s legal represents what’s morally right.  In the issues of abortion, and drug use, we see this thinking clearly.  Of course, I agree, and believe that abortion is bad.  I agree with the police officer who came to my elementary school class to tell me drugs are bad.  

For another thing, of course the decisions of the government represent the will of the people. Of course I vote for people I agree with, so does everybody else, and those representatives enflesh those perspectives in law.  Of course.

But maybe, for one thing, deciding something bad is illegal isn’t reason enough to do the good.  Abortion was illegal when Dorothy Day procured one: that meant, for the most part, that the safety of her back-alley procedure could not be legally guaranteed.  The same “War on Drugs” that deemed the cash cows of alcohol and tobacco “legal” later brought charges against the officer who’d visited my elementary school classroom.  She, herself, had been caught dealing--harder drugs, but dealing nonetheless.  Maybe, when people in power calling non-conformity illegal, it  doesn't necessarily accomplish God's ends.

And maybe, for another thing, the majority doesn’t rule.  Maybe political machines use the electoral college to elect a candidate apart from the popular mandate.  Maybe that leader uses Executive Orders to circumvent the need for bipartisan cooperation.  And maybe he gets petty on twitter to blow smoke in the faces of the American people while his party pushes through policy that benefits the same oligarchy of cracker-ass rich folks.

Of course, violence is bad.  Between the first and second drafts of this post, a nutjob (who, like me, voted for Bernie Sanders) shot up a congressional baseball practice.  Bernie condemned it strongly, and I echo that condemnation: violence is never an acceptable way to voice dissent, and has no place in mature discourse.

But maybe—if, on the campaign trail, the candidate installed by the electoral college openly incites his supporters to violence—if, as president, he under-condemns violence—and if Mr. Trump neither has the mandate of, nor represents an American majority—maybe when the crazies among his opponents decide violence is their only recourse, it’s a little bit his fault.

Of course, when the government does something bad, protest is the answer.  Back in 2000, I learned that, at Fort Benning in Georgia, our nation trains the military officers of Latin American client Nations to use counter-insurgency warfare methods against their own countries’ poor people. Over the next three years, compelled by objections of conscience, I travelled down twice to carry signs and yell things.  The first time I was arrested for--but not charged with—trespassing, and simply told not to return.  The second time I couldn’t even do that much.  It was after 9/11 by then, and they’d put up a big barbed wire fence.  Everyone to cross it was immediately arrested and charged.  Of course, I was doing what I should do as an American who cares.

But maybe no one is listening.  In 2002, I stood at Fort Benning’s barbed-wire fence.  The protesters had bullhorns and were yelling about how president Bush was an idiot.  The military blared “Stars and Stripes Forever” from the other side.  The volley of noise simply passed back and forth over the barbed wire.  The protester’s rage, the military’s refusal to listen—both of these portrayed something I found in my own heart.  My own part in the corporate woundedness, I realized, was all I could hope to fix.  Two years later, I joined the monastery, to struggle against my own selfishness and seek a remedy.  Though I didn’t remain a monk, I discovered tools in the monastery that effectively began those processes: both the getting-honest and the healing.

In pacifist circles, I heard a story that’s important.  To paraphrase: A young person took a week-long, immersive service trip, into a situation of immense poverty.  After that week, he went to the program director and said “This is awful.  Of course, we’ve gotta do something about it.”

The program director cracked a tired, kind smile and said “Maybe what’s important is just to let it break your heart.”  As a protester, with my fist lifted in the air, I spent a lot of time agitating.  As a monk, I spent a lot of time noticing how I talked too much, and talked with my hands, when I’m agitated.  Psalm 51 says “a broken, contrite heart, O God, you will not spurn.”  It’s in brokenness that the protester and the enlisted man can listen to each other.  It’s in brokenness that the unresponsive president and his angry citizens are the same.  It’s in brokenness that I, a shitty contemplative, am finding a way to encounter all this.  I sit down more often these days, and listen.  More often, these days, my hands come to rest in my lap.