One of the best features of the Christmas season for me is contacting my many out-of-town or seldom-heard from friends and relatives, conveying best wishes. This annual ritual is a reminder that we are all connected.
It is very easy for me, as a writer and reader who loves solitude, who disconnects the telephone at certain times so my wife and I can write, to feel restless and lonely, isolated in my comfortable bubble. As I think of the many single people I know living alone, I often think of the Lennon-McCartney song, "Eleanor Rigby," with its refrain: "Ah, look at all the lonely people."
Why are there so many people who feel alone, unwanted, or useless every day? I think of my elderly neighbor, whose frustration with the limitations of her life at 89 causes her to lash out in anger at the caregiver who's there to help her. If only she could feel a part of the greater whole that surrounds her--in nature, the world of ideas and music, the friends and family who think of her every day, the prayers said for her. She is surrounded by love.
Achieving such a feeling of being loved and connected is not easy. Sometimes it comes naturally, the way prayer does after a dry spell that we must endure before finding a sense of relatedness to God, or, if you prefer, to Life.
I combat feelings of isolation by an awareness of the many people who admire me, think of me, write to me, maybe pray for me--sight unseen. I think of the strangers who read this blog in various countries--or something else I have published: something I have written has interested them, or moved or helped them in some way.
Or I can think of the many thousands of students who have benefited from my classes (and still do) as well as family members, now gone, whose faces and voices I can still hear in my mind. Or I think of the saints since I believe that somehow, in the great mystery of things, I am surrounded by many who wish me well, from this side of the grave or the other. Their memories of me might be more positive than I will ever know. And our connection is real.
So, I tell myself, I am surrounded by good will. I know dozens of people I can call on for help, other than my wife. Moreover, from what I know about biology, I am aware that I live in a interconnected world of supportive relationships. I am a living part of nature, related to the plants and animals, to the stars at night that remind me that millions of others in many other places are seeing the same stars, maybe feeling that they, too, are part of the cosmos.
I am reminded that the Greek word "cosmos" means order, also ornamentation (as in cosmetics), and so the universe or cosmos means the ordered beauty of the reality in which I live and breathe and have my being.
Of course, the media, too, are daily reminders that we are part of a global community. I like to think that love, in the form of caring or compassion, is at work in these contexts: altruism, which is said to exist in our very genes, is real, as in the effort of most of us to make our planet healthier.
If we live in isolation, believing we are inferior to everyone else or superior to them, we are living in the kind of hell depicted by T. S. Eliot ("The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"). The answer: reach out and contact the sick or lonely or depressed neighbor. Write an email to someone who'd appreciate a reminder that they are not forgotten. Or ask for help: it will come.
Those contemplatives in my Catholic tradition (monks, nuns) who are physically apart from public life are linked, as Thomas Merton once wrote, in a "friendly communion of silence." I think of them every day. Richard Rohr, writing in this religious context, writes: "we are already in union with God. . .inside a life larger than us that can't be taken from us." The union of the divine with the human is precisely what is celebrated at Christmas.
As Merton wrote, because we are a part of God, who is in us, "we are already one. But we imagine we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we already are."
My first wish for those of you who read this rambling post or other musings of mine is that you will contact me with a comment: use the Comments section or my email: schiffhorst@yahoo.com. Thank you.
Even if I don't hear from you, I know you are there and that you, like me, are part of this living cosmos united in love and with every reason to celebrate Christmas. My second (and primary) wish is that you enjoy a season of true peace that extends into the coming year.
Saturday, December 17, 2016
Saturday, December 10, 2016
How Bad is Boredom?
Many of the heavyweights who have written knowledgably about boredom have seen it as negative, perhaps akin to depression, certainly related to the inevitable restlessness we all experience. I have written about it as a fear of running out of things to do.
Andreas Elpidorou, writing in Aeon, suggests the positive benefits of boredom: it alerts us to the need to be creative, to break out of the unfulfilling activity we are engaged in.
First, he says, not everyone who experiences boredom, which is to say nearly everyone at some time, is prone to ongoing boredom, a more serious issue (depression, I assume, though he doesn't use that word). If a sensation of pain alerts us to a problem in our bodies, then the feeling of boredom is a signal that we are pursuing the wrong thing for us spiritually; we are being prompted to find something else to do.
In a popular culture where distractions abound, that should not be hard. In fact, the culture of 24/7 entertainment functions as a kind of narcotic, writes Ron Rolheiser. Of course, as he points out, we often need a palliative from pain, so we turn to music or movies or games to protect us from feeling hurt. But, Rolheiser says, too often this narcotic becomes a way of escaping the reality of our inner lives.
In a world of instant communication, in cities where restaurants and clubs are open around the clock to please us, we can be amused, distracted, and catered to any time of the day or night. Our TVs contain hundreds of channels, and iPods give us access to vast libraries of music. But are we happy? Do we not still remain bored, restless?
Some say our popular culture is giving us a permanent attention deficit disorder: we pay attention to so many things that we aren't giving real attention to anything that matters. We are so busy being distracted that we seldom find opportunities to feel deeply our connection with others.
It takes a serious illness or death in the family sometimes for some people to start paying attention to what's going on inside them, to reflect on the meaning of life. All the stimulation and entertainment in the world can't help us live in peace with ourselves and those who love us.
In other words, the soul needs attention. As Rumi wrote, we rush from room to room desperately searching for the necklace that's around our neck.
So when I feel restless or bored with the same routine of humdrum activities, I must remind myself that, instead of turning to the media, I can turn inward. I can find within myself, through solitude and silence, an essential link to what some call God, others call the essential reality of the now.
Andreas Elpidorou, writing in Aeon, suggests the positive benefits of boredom: it alerts us to the need to be creative, to break out of the unfulfilling activity we are engaged in.
First, he says, not everyone who experiences boredom, which is to say nearly everyone at some time, is prone to ongoing boredom, a more serious issue (depression, I assume, though he doesn't use that word). If a sensation of pain alerts us to a problem in our bodies, then the feeling of boredom is a signal that we are pursuing the wrong thing for us spiritually; we are being prompted to find something else to do.
In a popular culture where distractions abound, that should not be hard. In fact, the culture of 24/7 entertainment functions as a kind of narcotic, writes Ron Rolheiser. Of course, as he points out, we often need a palliative from pain, so we turn to music or movies or games to protect us from feeling hurt. But, Rolheiser says, too often this narcotic becomes a way of escaping the reality of our inner lives.
In a world of instant communication, in cities where restaurants and clubs are open around the clock to please us, we can be amused, distracted, and catered to any time of the day or night. Our TVs contain hundreds of channels, and iPods give us access to vast libraries of music. But are we happy? Do we not still remain bored, restless?
Some say our popular culture is giving us a permanent attention deficit disorder: we pay attention to so many things that we aren't giving real attention to anything that matters. We are so busy being distracted that we seldom find opportunities to feel deeply our connection with others.
It takes a serious illness or death in the family sometimes for some people to start paying attention to what's going on inside them, to reflect on the meaning of life. All the stimulation and entertainment in the world can't help us live in peace with ourselves and those who love us.
In other words, the soul needs attention. As Rumi wrote, we rush from room to room desperately searching for the necklace that's around our neck.
So when I feel restless or bored with the same routine of humdrum activities, I must remind myself that, instead of turning to the media, I can turn inward. I can find within myself, through solitude and silence, an essential link to what some call God, others call the essential reality of the now.
Friday, December 2, 2016
Seeing the Trees
Whenever I can, I drive a mile or so from my home to a lakeside park to enjoy the beauty not only of the large lake but of the giant cypress trees, hung with Spanish moss. Looking at the water through the cluster of these trees is always memorable because I am taken out of myself.
The trees are home in the spring to nesting egrets, large white birds who are wise to choose such a lofty perch. In April, they can be noisy. On my recent visits to the lake, all is quiet except for occasional boats.
This spot has become for me a prayerful place, a place to see the reality of the present. "Most people don't see things as they are," Richard Rohr writes, "because they see things as they are." And this is not seeing at all.
It is looking with the small self, the ego. To see and observe trees, in this case, and the serenity of the lakeside park is to move beyond myself, to follow Rohr's line of contemplative reflection, and to grasp a larger reality since my life is not just about me in isolation. It's about me in relationship with nature and others. It has to do with love.
Can I say I love trees? Perhaps. I care about them and appreciate their beauty, especially the strong oaks that spread out their branches or the camphor tree in my back yard that has grown in twenty years from a sapling to a huge, powerful presence. I am in awe of many old trees and love to look at them in their varying shapes and sizes, with or without leaves. Many are ancient (who knows how old?) and have withstood blights and human civilization. They endure, silently feeding a hidden world of creatures.
I have just read an interesting piece in the New York Review of Books about two new studies of trees, one by a German, one by a British academic. The review prompts me to want to know more about the inner life of trees. Especially the oaks described by Fiona Stafford (The Long, Long Life of Trees):
"No other tree is so self-possessed, so evidently at one with the world," she writes in the review I quote by Thomas Pakenham. "The solid, craggy trunk of a mature oak spreads out, as if with open arms, to create a vast hemisphere of thick, clotted leaves."
Do trees have a way of communicating to one another? Peter Wohlleben indicates they do: in fact, he finds a subtle underground network among the trees he has studied; they send vital information to one another. If a certain tree is threatened by a certain insect, it will send a message prompting other trees to release a chemical that repels the harmful insect. Amazing.
I am glad to know that these authors care about how trees live and die and relate to the rest of the ecosystem--and who, at the same time, look at them with the wonder and awe that I do when I look at the giant cypresses towering over the lake.
Maybe part of my appreciation comes from seeing how often I have taken these trees for granted. I look at them now with deep gratitude and really see them.
The trees are home in the spring to nesting egrets, large white birds who are wise to choose such a lofty perch. In April, they can be noisy. On my recent visits to the lake, all is quiet except for occasional boats.
This spot has become for me a prayerful place, a place to see the reality of the present. "Most people don't see things as they are," Richard Rohr writes, "because they see things as they are." And this is not seeing at all.
It is looking with the small self, the ego. To see and observe trees, in this case, and the serenity of the lakeside park is to move beyond myself, to follow Rohr's line of contemplative reflection, and to grasp a larger reality since my life is not just about me in isolation. It's about me in relationship with nature and others. It has to do with love.
Can I say I love trees? Perhaps. I care about them and appreciate their beauty, especially the strong oaks that spread out their branches or the camphor tree in my back yard that has grown in twenty years from a sapling to a huge, powerful presence. I am in awe of many old trees and love to look at them in their varying shapes and sizes, with or without leaves. Many are ancient (who knows how old?) and have withstood blights and human civilization. They endure, silently feeding a hidden world of creatures.
I have just read an interesting piece in the New York Review of Books about two new studies of trees, one by a German, one by a British academic. The review prompts me to want to know more about the inner life of trees. Especially the oaks described by Fiona Stafford (The Long, Long Life of Trees):
"No other tree is so self-possessed, so evidently at one with the world," she writes in the review I quote by Thomas Pakenham. "The solid, craggy trunk of a mature oak spreads out, as if with open arms, to create a vast hemisphere of thick, clotted leaves."
Do trees have a way of communicating to one another? Peter Wohlleben indicates they do: in fact, he finds a subtle underground network among the trees he has studied; they send vital information to one another. If a certain tree is threatened by a certain insect, it will send a message prompting other trees to release a chemical that repels the harmful insect. Amazing.
I am glad to know that these authors care about how trees live and die and relate to the rest of the ecosystem--and who, at the same time, look at them with the wonder and awe that I do when I look at the giant cypresses towering over the lake.
Maybe part of my appreciation comes from seeing how often I have taken these trees for granted. I look at them now with deep gratitude and really see them.
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Two "True Stories" on Film
I watch a lot of movies via Netflix. This week two recent ones, one from 2015, "The Man Who Knew Infinity," is billed as based on a true story; so is the more recent British production of New York publishing, "Genius."
Many viewers might have scant interest in the relation of the legendary editor Maxwell Perkins and the overblown writer Thomas Wolfe. But being a writer curious about both, and about their relationship, I was intrigued to see British actors capture some of the spirit of New York in the Thirties, even if many of the scenes are needlessly dark and rainy.
Colin Firth as the quiet, hardworking Perkins asks the key literary question: When does the work of an editor become a collaboration? He is concerned about his role in altering and taking responsibility for the fiction of Wolfe.
Apart from the father-son (or bromantic) relationship of the older editor with the younger, hard-drinking and notoriously wordy Wolfe (Jude Law), both Perkins' wife and Wolfe's mistress resent the time and creative energy that Perkins devotes to shaping and changing the huge piles of words Wolfe produces into the huge novel, "Look Homeward, Angel." So for me the question is, who is the genius is this movie?
I get no clue to Perkins' inner life from the always reticent Firth, whereas Wolfe is larger than life and easy to understand (in Law's great performance). How did Perkins manage to deal with Hemingway and Fitzgerald, both difficult, while being obsessed with the obsessive and compulsive Wolfe? And what did he see in Wolfe's undisciplined, unreadable work (so different in style from the other two masters)? I also wonder what point the producers of the movie had in mind--especially for non-writers.
I have no such doubts about the other film, with Dev Patel as a young Indian man, a mathematical genius, who leaves his young wife behind in 1913 to work with England's leading mathematician, played memorably by Jeremy Irons. I like the contrast between the older scholar's skeptical atheism and Patel's mystical belief in intuition: he believes that every equation reflects the mind of God. And Irons's character seems almost persuaded that this might be true.
The story is moving, as "Genius" is not, and sad in ways I won't mention. Having spent a summer at Trinity College, Cambridge, where most of the action occurs, and having been an academic who clings to religious belief, I naturally gravitate to this story.
How true (historically accurate) these stories are I have no idea; suffice it to say they are based on biographical reality; one of them ("The Man Who") is true to the human heart, which is what counts in the end.
Many viewers might have scant interest in the relation of the legendary editor Maxwell Perkins and the overblown writer Thomas Wolfe. But being a writer curious about both, and about their relationship, I was intrigued to see British actors capture some of the spirit of New York in the Thirties, even if many of the scenes are needlessly dark and rainy.
Colin Firth as the quiet, hardworking Perkins asks the key literary question: When does the work of an editor become a collaboration? He is concerned about his role in altering and taking responsibility for the fiction of Wolfe.
Apart from the father-son (or bromantic) relationship of the older editor with the younger, hard-drinking and notoriously wordy Wolfe (Jude Law), both Perkins' wife and Wolfe's mistress resent the time and creative energy that Perkins devotes to shaping and changing the huge piles of words Wolfe produces into the huge novel, "Look Homeward, Angel." So for me the question is, who is the genius is this movie?
I get no clue to Perkins' inner life from the always reticent Firth, whereas Wolfe is larger than life and easy to understand (in Law's great performance). How did Perkins manage to deal with Hemingway and Fitzgerald, both difficult, while being obsessed with the obsessive and compulsive Wolfe? And what did he see in Wolfe's undisciplined, unreadable work (so different in style from the other two masters)? I also wonder what point the producers of the movie had in mind--especially for non-writers.
I have no such doubts about the other film, with Dev Patel as a young Indian man, a mathematical genius, who leaves his young wife behind in 1913 to work with England's leading mathematician, played memorably by Jeremy Irons. I like the contrast between the older scholar's skeptical atheism and Patel's mystical belief in intuition: he believes that every equation reflects the mind of God. And Irons's character seems almost persuaded that this might be true.
The story is moving, as "Genius" is not, and sad in ways I won't mention. Having spent a summer at Trinity College, Cambridge, where most of the action occurs, and having been an academic who clings to religious belief, I naturally gravitate to this story.
How true (historically accurate) these stories are I have no idea; suffice it to say they are based on biographical reality; one of them ("The Man Who") is true to the human heart, which is what counts in the end.
Thursday, November 17, 2016
A divided America--linguistically
One of my favorite activities is to sit with a cup of coffee at the café in our local Barnes and Noble and look at three to four new books that look interesting. Usually, by reading the opening page, I can tell whether I want to continue.
Last week, I happened on a glossy book, intended mainly for non-readers since it is filled with colorful charts and maps; it's what used to be called a coffee-table book: Speaking American by Josh Katz, who surveys several dozen words and expressions used in various ways in the U.S. Of course, it is a fascinating topic for someone like me.
Some of the words pronounced differently in various regions are interesting for writers, especially poets concerned with sound (rhyme): "syrup" is pronounced "sir-up" by 53% of the population, we learn, whereas 36% say "seer-up." This despite many decades of TV and radio ads with their mainstream pronunciation. Regional differences do not die out very easily.
How do you say "route"? We seem about evenly divided, according to Katz's research, between saying "rowt" and "root." Oddly, he doesn't include the word roof, which has a variant pronunciation.
If the Brits have take-away food, most of us say "take out" while "carry out" is used in some parts of the Midwest.
"Skillet" is regional (Northeast mainly), as is the use of "sneakers" instead of tennis shoes. In Chicago, you might hear "gym shoes." (Frying pan is much more widespread than "skillet.")
Which is right? Wrong question! In matters of usage, there is no right or wrong; the sources from which Katz draws in his book merely record or describe what we say in this country. Of course, writers creating dialogue might be aware that their own regional usage (should we use garbage, trash, rubbish, refuse, or waste?) will impact readers in different ways. "You guys" is preferred by 50% of Americans in contrast to "you all" (10%) and "y'all" (28%) or simply "you" (10%)
I enjoyed looking at this book, reminding myself that we are divided not only into bitter political camps, especially following the recent surreal election; but, on a lighter note, by the way we speak, which proves again the adage (applied originally to the linguistic divide between Britain and the U.S.): we are divided by a common language.
Last week, I happened on a glossy book, intended mainly for non-readers since it is filled with colorful charts and maps; it's what used to be called a coffee-table book: Speaking American by Josh Katz, who surveys several dozen words and expressions used in various ways in the U.S. Of course, it is a fascinating topic for someone like me.
Some of the words pronounced differently in various regions are interesting for writers, especially poets concerned with sound (rhyme): "syrup" is pronounced "sir-up" by 53% of the population, we learn, whereas 36% say "seer-up." This despite many decades of TV and radio ads with their mainstream pronunciation. Regional differences do not die out very easily.
How do you say "route"? We seem about evenly divided, according to Katz's research, between saying "rowt" and "root." Oddly, he doesn't include the word roof, which has a variant pronunciation.
If the Brits have take-away food, most of us say "take out" while "carry out" is used in some parts of the Midwest.
"Skillet" is regional (Northeast mainly), as is the use of "sneakers" instead of tennis shoes. In Chicago, you might hear "gym shoes." (Frying pan is much more widespread than "skillet.")
Which is right? Wrong question! In matters of usage, there is no right or wrong; the sources from which Katz draws in his book merely record or describe what we say in this country. Of course, writers creating dialogue might be aware that their own regional usage (should we use garbage, trash, rubbish, refuse, or waste?) will impact readers in different ways. "You guys" is preferred by 50% of Americans in contrast to "you all" (10%) and "y'all" (28%) or simply "you" (10%)
I enjoyed looking at this book, reminding myself that we are divided not only into bitter political camps, especially following the recent surreal election; but, on a lighter note, by the way we speak, which proves again the adage (applied originally to the linguistic divide between Britain and the U.S.): we are divided by a common language.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
The election: detachment
I know I am one of many millions who have experienced shock, disbelief, grief and anger since the election of Trump. I could be angry at the media and the pollsters for misleading us or at the voters who chose radical change over continuity or at the crazy system which allowed Clinton to receive the popular vote but lose the election. But anger leads to more hatred.
I know that I must detach from the news, from the emotional upset that comes each time I revisit the election results. For me, the path has to be contemplative.
It was only when I turned off the TV news and absorbed the beauty of the moment, feeling a unity between myself and nature (specifically a tree outside the window), that I felt at peace, absorbed for a while in the now. Later, I used music with the same effect.
My wise wife, Lynn, reminded me that "God writes straight with crooked lines," her way of saying that eventually some good will come out of the new order. It's up to us to work in our own garden to make that happen.
As I pray for Trump and the country, I pray that each of us can find an inner peace that moves us forward.
I know that I must detach from the news, from the emotional upset that comes each time I revisit the election results. For me, the path has to be contemplative.
It was only when I turned off the TV news and absorbed the beauty of the moment, feeling a unity between myself and nature (specifically a tree outside the window), that I felt at peace, absorbed for a while in the now. Later, I used music with the same effect.
My wise wife, Lynn, reminded me that "God writes straight with crooked lines," her way of saying that eventually some good will come out of the new order. It's up to us to work in our own garden to make that happen.
As I pray for Trump and the country, I pray that each of us can find an inner peace that moves us forward.
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
The end is near
Finally, after an uncommonly nasty and embarrassing election campaign, the day for voting has come here in the U.S. Nearly everyone I know will be relieved to have it over.
What surfaced was summed up in a comment by Pope Francis over the weekend, in a veiled reference to the U.S. election: Do not give in to the politics of fear, he said, by building walls but instead work to build bridges.
"Fear numbs us to the suffering of others. It makes us cruel."
The anger felt by many during this long, long election cycle has been fueled by the age-old fear of change (immigrants, e.g.). I hope that fear can be replaced, more and more, by trust as the candidate of continuity (Clinton) does her best to be a builder of bridges. It is a daunting task. I pray she is up to it.
What surfaced was summed up in a comment by Pope Francis over the weekend, in a veiled reference to the U.S. election: Do not give in to the politics of fear, he said, by building walls but instead work to build bridges.
"Fear numbs us to the suffering of others. It makes us cruel."
The anger felt by many during this long, long election cycle has been fueled by the age-old fear of change (immigrants, e.g.). I hope that fear can be replaced, more and more, by trust as the candidate of continuity (Clinton) does her best to be a builder of bridges. It is a daunting task. I pray she is up to it.
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