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beyond the grinding
There is a grinding inner world behind our eyes and between our ears. Our thoughts being grist for some mill whose operator we only seem to be. The thoughts themselves are often wrapped in anxiety, born along by fear, an unnamed and therefor wild dread, or thoughts that seem to suck the beauty out of life into the wormhole of boredom. And this is why we pray and why we avoid prayer. We seek to pray because of this, to escape it, or move beyond it; but when prayer simply leads us deeper into this grinding world, we avoid it. Ecstasy is what we seek, to stand outside of all this, or within it, to peer beyond it.
This morning, psalm 24, Robert Alter translation. “The Lord’s is the earth and its fullness/The world and the dwellers within it/For he on the seas did found it/and on the torrents set it firm.”
To meditate is to stand with or within the grinding of one’s thoughts, peering beyond them to these other thoughts, the thoughts expressed in the words of the psalm. It’s like being a child in a house full of conflict, tension, boredom, and looking out the window at the world, determined to take it in as it is out there. The child peers outside intently, focusing attention out there, and as the attention of the child is sustained–noticing the trees, the sky, the flora, whatever it is that is there–something lovely happens: the grinding receeds, and if attention is sustained for a time, even, in blessed moments stops altogether.
This is what the mystics call ecstasy, I think. The standing from within one’s self outside of one’s self. It’s something we can do. It’s something our brains crave to do, and will if we let them.
“The Lord’s is the earth and it’s fullness” for example. The only thing that one’s “I” is called to do with this is notice it, is to attend to it, is to pay it some mind with the mind. Like an artist is called to take in a scene, notice it in its details and its overall effect, its parts and its whole, so as to comprehend the scene. There is an “out there” out there.
“The world and the dwellers therein” Noticing this, that I am part of a “we,” the dwellers within the world, the earth and it’s fullness which begins as the Lord’s. Attending to that, the noise inside finds its proper and infinitely smaller proportion.
And so you go on peering out the window of your soul, with your thoughts attending to the thoughts of another, conveyed through the words of the psalm. In much the same way that work at its best absorbs us, and can be a kind of ecstasy allowing us to stand for blessed moments within ourselves of course, but using our selves for something other than simply noticing the noise we make inside.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:11 am
About ten years ago I was one of those people who was so afraid of God’s judgment the fear was literally killing me. A wise person suggested I start reading some things like the “Tao of Pooh” to take the edge off my fear. That led to reading sacred poetry from sources other than Christian. One of my favorites is Rumi (a Sufi from a few centuries ago) and he was very good at describing the inner shift that needs to happen to stop the thoughts of the “little me” and plug into something bigger:
Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Of course there are many wonderful Christian mystics and it was helpful, and continues to be so, to read about other traditions. I feel it has given me a clearer vision and a closer walk with Jesus. It was difficult for me to understand any situation or system unless I step outside (even for a minute) to get a better look.
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:56 am
sometimes one’s own tainted inner self corrupts the view outside the window i think. we’re cynical that the view is a facade, that its really no different than what’s going on inside. maybe we know that’s not the case, but our past experiences of stepping outside have been troubled by our inability to see the outside for what it is. we step outside, see rain and thunder and we know no other way but to interpret that as more noise. we can’t see it as something beautiful and grand. part of us knows that there is beauty in the rain if we had eyes to see, but we get distracted by what’s going on inside and can’t find our way to be compelled to search deeper for what lies beyond. or maybe we’re afraid of trying to connect with that beauty and have our attempt come up empty. either way, we find ourselves turning away from the window. still left with a longing to be transported outside and to revel in all of it, but unable…or unwilling to allow ourselves to have any hope in being able to see it or be in it.
April 4th, 2008 at 10:44 am
it makes me wonder whether the Spirit isn’t doing some window-washing and then rapping at the windown to call us forth and lead us into ‘all truth’…at least this is the hope i hold to in my own buzzing-beehive of a brain…