Beauty Goodness Trust
The chilling tenor of the recent convention in New York stirs images of Pontius Pilate, “What is truth?” The political landscape has a lunar feel, bereft of the life-giving interconnectedness of the human community. One can only fantasize as we approach or surpass $200 billion expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan, how the community of nations, its peoples, could have been graced, enriched by a more creative use of our resources. Gratitude, perhaps, to us Americans rather than this consuming hatred. The political realism ridiculing such largesse is an empty shell consumed in the smoke of Baghdad. Vote Republican, Democrat, Nader, or choose the Dorothy Day option, who considered the system so fractured and corrupt, she chose not to participate, refusing to settle for the lesser of two evils. We all need to discern carefully. Bill Moyers sums up the situation, “Our times cry out for a new politics of justice. This is no partisan issue. It doesn’t matter if you are a liberal or a conservative—Jesus is both and neither. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat or Republican Jesus is both and neither. We need a faith that challenges complacency at all power. If you are a Democrat, shake them up. If you are a Republican, shame them. Jesus drove the money changers from the temple. We must drive them from the temples of democracy.” We need to pray for our country. Whatever the outcome, we need to be grounded in deeper identities. Good teachers are as rare as a rose in December; this summer a group of us were twice blessed. Lee Hoinacki, our resident scholar at St. Malachy, taught a course on Dying is not Death and Robert Kennedy, S.J. gave a week retreat on Zen and Christianity. Lee reflected on the ineffable beauty we fortunately find sometimes in a fellow human being, an encounter with translucent goodness that is a way to faith, “a way to faith, faith in the eternal reality of beauty, together with truth and goodness, as transcendentals, as an entry to faith in God.” “Everything in the world that is fine and beautiful is an epiphany, a radiance and splendor breaking out from a veiled or hidden depth of being.” Lee, a great admirer of Simone Weil, quotes from her Waiting for God.
In a time of ubiquitous war, the assassination of children; is this search for beauty an indulgence? I believe it is Dorothy Day quoting Dostoevsky who said, “In the end it is beauty that will save us.” Robert Kennedy can communicate a sense of excitement, an energy about the world of Zen. A neophyte should remain silent but some comments are irresistible. There is no finality to this endeavor, to know; to discover; it is an unending process, “as we set out on the path of light and darkness where all is one . . ., where there is no one truth to be known.” There is a comfort in “not knowing” because it spurs us on in this quest to discover our natural face, this quest for God, perhaps to deconstruct some of our spirituality that may be suffocating us There is a reality check to the excitement, there are no shortcuts to insight but there are marvelous teachers who have poured out their lives in the quest and call us to venture out of shallow into deeper water. We who have been weaned on dogma and certitude are called to “experience” a truth, to trust ourselves. Zen captures your mind with the message of “now”—the present moment, to be fully alert, to listen, to be focused on the unlimited possibilities of total engagement in this moment. There is no past or future. Kennedy has immense respect for the Zen Masters who over a thousand years have pursued the truth relentlessly. But there is no cloning; we all have a unique gift and destiny Self mastery and self reliance lead to decisiveness. Fr. Kennedy is especially gifted in illustrating the wisdom of Zen and Christianity through modern poetry. He quotes a memorable poem by Denise Levertov, Annunciation in the House illustrating Mary’s openness and courage and the tragedy of faint hearts who lose opportunities. Lastly, this Zen retreat ended each night with a solo, mournful chant that went something like this.
Joe Bradley |