A More Humane Spirituality of Both-And

Many years ago I picked up this print while on a yoga retreat.  It reads:

Woman remembering to trust the universe.

At the time I bought it, I remember being drawn to the words and the drawing, even though I did not entirely understanding them.

I still revisit this print often- particularly as of late.

I am magnetically drawn to these words: "remembering" and "trust-" yet sometimes they feel impossible.



It makes me wonder if remembering and trusting might be valid (and difficult) spiritual practices- spiritual practices that may underlie faith.

In the 14th and early 15th century there lived an English Christian mystic named Julian of Norwich who lived as an anchoress (a sort of female religious hermit).  She lived in a cell attached to a church that was surrounded by the plague, poverty and famine of medieval Europe, and one of this woman's most famous quotations is:

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

I often think about Julian's words, and the historical context of Julian's words, during times of duress. 

Times when remembering, trusting and faith feel ridiculously challenging. 

I think to myself, "if this woman could do it during the black plague, then surly I can do it during one U.S. election cycle!"

But to be honest, it can be hard.

Like recently with my mother's latest  (unexpected) cancer surgery, and both of my kids being sick with the flu, and a tragedy at work.   During times like these I can easily feel overwhelmed and lose my center, and remembering, trusting and faith can feel like moons away.

In years past, when I noticed the distance I had traveled from my center I might react by spiritually strong-arming myself. 

I would purposefully push myself into contact with my faith in god and spiritual values in order to find some perspective.  And I realize now, it had a sort of aggression to it.

By moving so quickly to what some might call the universal (god), and in so doing almost dismissing the particular (me and my day to day life), I, at a minimum, engaged with myself  harshly and unmercifully, but probably more squarely inhumanely.

This is not a judgment.

I was raised culturally with a lot of that 'ol New England pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality that most surely has influenced my spiritual life- and then some.

Yet, understanding the causes and conditions for an unhelpful response doesn't make it okay.

Lately I've been intrigued by spiritual writings that seem to hold both the universal and the particular with the same sense of awe and tenderness, and I'm beginning to wonder if this compassionate approach (or method) may be a more humane path toward remembering, trusting and, ultimately, faith.

In Buddhist teacher and author Thich Nhat Hanh's 2008 book Breath: You are Alive! he writes about what he calls the "two dimensions of reality" which are identified as: the historical dimension and the ultimate dimension.

He writes:

We live in history. In this dimension, there are birth and death, a beginning and an end, being and nonbeing, high and low, success and failure.  We are used to dwelling in this dimension... But the two dimensions belong to each other.  You cannot take the historical dimension out of the ultimate dimension, or the ultimate dimension out of the historical dimension. It is like the wave and the water.  You cannot take the wave out of the water, nor the water out of the wave.

In the past when I would try to nearly force myself into a space of god (the "ultimate" dimension) it was like I was trying to pry the wave out of the water.

In another text, Not Always So by Buddhist teacher and author Shunryu Suzuki, the same idea is represented, but in slightly different language.  He writes:

That is our spirit when we say, 'We pray that the Dharma wheel and the material wheel go smoothly forever'...If we are too involved in the idea of time or taking care of the material world, we will lose our way.

I know I can very easily lose my way when I can only see the narrow worldly pain (or material wheel) that is directly in front of me. 

Yet, swinging the pendulum all the way to over to what is godly or universal (or the Dharma wheel), as if to invalidate or evaporate what is particular, is not helpful (or compassionate) either. 

No, I think it has to be both-and.

A path toward a faith that is remembering and trusting would include the universal and the particular, the historical and the ultimate, the material and the Dharma.

Going forward, I pray that you and I meet ourselves with awe and tenderness, remembering and trusting both the wave and the water.

May it be so.