Considering Lent

Lent is observed by Christians as a time of preparation during the forty weeks between Ash Wednesday* and Easter**.

"Lent is a time for personal and societal repentance, a time for radical conversion, renewal and transformation,” wrote my friend Art Laffin... recounts Fr. John Dear in the following article, Lent and the Charter for Compassion: click here.

The aforementioned Art Laffin keeps the dream of social justice alive with the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker in Washington, DC. Dorothy Day was a writer and bohemian that responded to the poverty and inequity of her era by starting, firstly, a revolutionary journal called The Catholic Worker, which then turned into action caring for the homeless. But the life-style Dorothy Day lived, honored, and proclaimed was one of pacifism, nonviolence, and social justice. She is a stunning historical character in the history of the US and I urge you to learn more about her life and writings.

*Ash Wendesday is a day of repentance (ie. looking back on the suffering one has caused and becoming aware of one's actions in the world) that is marked by smudging ash on the forehead. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust... we begin from the earth and we will return to the earth. This is the great equalizer.

**Easter is celebrated by Christians as the time Jesus died and resurrected. Resurrection means renewed life, as in Spring, the earth renewing itself, all manner of creatures (rabbits!) reproducing...life in its greatest fecund daze. Fresh air, sunshine, green grass, ah!

C.G. Jung, The Red Book: Recovering the Soul

Jung’s Red Book is here. Well, actually it has existed since Jung began his “creative imagination” exercises in 1914 or so, then sat in his study for fifty years after he died in 1961. But an exhibition of the cataclysmic text just ended at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York, which included the original manuscript in a glass case and three facsimile editions placed around the room for people to examine, marking the first time The Red Book has been available to the public. Also on display were several series of images taken from the text—paintings done by Jung himself—in an attempt to offer some insight into the realm of transcendence created, or better yet, documented, in The Red Book.

The museum articulated the complexity of The Red Book’s purpose well:

“He wished to understand himself and integrate and develop various components of his personality; he wanted to understand the relationship between the individual and present day society as well as in the community of the dead; and he wanted to understand the psychological and historical effects of Christianity and the future religious development of the West… the manuscript serves as record of how Jung rediscovered his soul and overcame the malaise of spiritual alienation. He accomplished this by creating a new image of God and establishing a new psychological and theological cosmology.”

Cosmology means literally the study of the universe, and by extension, human placement in the universe. There have been many varying cosmologies throughout history, geography, and religion. In the Rubin’s complimentary exhibit, Visions of the Cosmos, Hindu, Buddhist, Jainist, Christian, Alchemical, Astrological, and scientific cosmologies are explored side by side, allowing witness of the striking visual similarities across time and culture, while also highlighting the differences of ideology. This context makes Jung’s Red Book images and ideas all the more relevant, all the more powerful.

The book itself is a kind of Medieval illuminated manuscript, with calligraphic German text and brightly painted images that illustrate or elaborate on what is written. The facsimile edition contains English translation in the back, which I sat reading and transcribing bits of into my journal, revealing Jung’s reality in poignant poetry:

“But the way is my own self, my own life founded upon myself. The God wants my life. He wants to go with me, sit at the table with me, work with me. Above all he wants to be ever-present. But I’m ashamed of my God. I don’t want to be divine but reasonable. The divine appears to me as irrational craziness. I hate it as an absurd disturbance of my meaningful human activity. It seems an unbecoming sickness which has stolen into the regular course of my life. Yes, I even find the divine superfluous.”

The honesty and borderline desperation of this excerpt strike me familiarly. I know that place of tension between the rational business of society and the bliss-fire cadence of my own relationship with the Divine. Many of us feel this frustration which sometimes becomes anger; resentment that things cannot just be simple, the way they “should” be, the way money and economy and manners dictate them. Because in the world of self-realization—of soul recovery—things get messy, black becomes white in an instant, art becomes science, love becomes a bird flying through an amber sky. Jung did experience what seems like waves of peace in relation to the God/Universe he explores throughout the remarkable Red Book:

Vocatus atque non vocatus dues aderit. Called or not, the God will be present.

The Fourth Day of Creation: The Creation of the Celestial Spheres from Tractus Mago-Cabalisticum et Theologicum, Gregorius Anglus Sallwigt, aka Gregor von Welling (1652-1727), Germany; 1781, etching, Collection of Mario Diacono, Brookline, MA- from Rubin Museum Visions of the Cosmos Exhibit, 2010

"Wind Tracks", the Kalachakra cosmic model, from Rubin Museum's Vision of the Cosmos exhibit, 2010

cosmology image from Jung's Red Book

mandala from The Red Book

Goddess Worship

La Chapelle Notre-Dame de la Medaille Miraculeuse is a beautiful sanctuary nestled in the center of Paris. The mosaic tiled walls at the altar gleam in fantastic hues of blue, white, and gold to create celestial backdrops, borders of lilies, bursts of light emanating from sacred hearts. A majestic Virgin, crowned and standing with angels, reigns over the entire space. This is the vision of holiness that appeared to St. Catherine in 1830, when she was a young, inexperienced nun just letting go of her place in the world outside the convent. The exhumed and mysteriously preserved body of St. Catherine sits to the left of the altar, and a quieter, more contemplative Madonna flanks on the right. This Virgin is a youthful, innocent woman, standing on the moon, a serpent at her feet, holding another orb, presumably the earth, in her hands. The image, though made overtly Christian with a cross stuck in the “earth”, also brings to mind many goddess images I have seen, from many traditions, over many spans of human history. And so I began to think more broadly about the very specific Virgin Mary inculcated in my mind as a child:

She is the Mother of All; moon, earth, heavens. The goddess divine both present in the world, and holding the world in her hands. She stands tall, confident, infallible. A snake appears at her feet, in this case meaning to symbolize the Christian female reclaiming Paradise from Eve’s error, a mark of triumph as her foot holds down the serpent and all its evil connotations in Christianity. But serpents have long accompanied images of goddesses as a symbol of wisdom and regeneration. Serpents were once known instantly as powerful symbols of knowledge.

Minoan Snake Goddess from Palace of Knossos, Greece, c. 1600 b.c.

Lid of Egyptian sarcophagus, the Louvre

Sekhmet

Athena

Buddhist Goddess

The Goddess is often depicted as a triple deity: Hera was associated with the three ages of woman; the virgin, the mother, and the old wise hag. (It’s worth noting here that the dictionary refers to “hag” as a witch or ugly old woman. The word “hagia” means holy; as in Hagia Sophia [Holy Wisdom] and Hagia Irene [Holy Peace].) Other goddesses with three aspects or forms: Hecate, the Celtic Brigid… and the three Mary’s present in the gospel stories: Mary of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus; Mary Magdalene, the apostle; and Mary, mother of Jesus.

Hecate

Brigid

Regardless of religious context, certain iconography seems to persist in our “collective unconscious” or social psyche. We continually seek to honor the Mystery of womanhood, the Mother, the earth, the moon and its cycles, the cycles of birth and death, and the Wisdom inherent in these. Whether we call Her the Virgin Mother, Devi, Manjushri, Isis, Shari, Athena, Hecate, Sekhmet, or Sofia; She persists in our hearts and minds.

Tanazanian mother at a clinic

[Note: Titles denote image above.]

Language

(excerpted from the glossary of Karen Armstrong's new work, The Case for God.)

faith. Trust; loyalty; the English translation of the Latin fides ("loyalty; "fealty") and the Greek pistis. It did not originally mean acceptance of orthodox theology. See belief.

belief. Originally the Middle English verb bileven meant "to love; to prize; to hold dear"; and the noun bileve meant "loyalty; trust; commitment; engagement." It was related to the German liebe ("beloved") and the Latin libido ("desire.") In the English versions of the Bible, the translators used these words to render the Greek pistis; pisteuo; and the Latin fides; credo. Thus "belief" became the equivalent of "faith." But "belief" began to change its meaning during the late 17th c. It started to be used of an intellectual assent to a particular proposition, teaching, opinion, or doctrine. It was used in this modern sense first by philosophers and scientists, and the new usage did not become common in religious contexts until the 19th c.

*

We cannot presume that words have always been used in the same way, with the same intent. We cannot assume when a person expresses him/herself with words, that we are perceiving exactly what they mean to convey. Language is a tool, not an absolute. Wisdom gives language its wings. Compassion acts as a bridge to understanding.

21st Century Paris: Monasteries & Cathedrals

Wandering around Paris brings many delightful surprises both historical and contemporary. I appreciate the presence of history in the throes of daily living, as well as the skill at which the French transform historical elements into useful new spaces. It’s an overlapping of time and place that allows a feeling of connection to thrive—connection to our shared past, and our shared present. Aged Catholic monasteries and cathedrals have an especially diligent presence in Paris.

In the 5^th arrondissement, on Rue de Vaugirard, I stumbled upon the doorway to the Monestere de la Visitation, which is very austere and run-down, but scaffolding is visible beyond the wall, a heralding of rehabilitation.

On Rue du Bac, down a cobblestone lane is La Chapelle Notre-Dame de la Medaille Miraculeuse (Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal) where a stunning chapel exists to honor the Virgin and the exhumed body of Saint Catherine, the nun that entered the convent there in 1830 and is said to have had visionary apparitions of instruction from the Virgin Mother. People travel there on pilgrimage from all over the globe and Parisians come throughout their regular day for what seemed like the liturgy of the hours. But even for someone without any interest in Catholic lore, the chapel makes for a welcoming, spirited space for rest and contemplation.

On Rue du Poissy sits an amazing old Cistercian (historically a very strict order) monastery now transformed into Le College des Bernardins, a place for inter-religious conversation, thought, research, and community. The large refurbished nave, with a web of arches, exists as both the entry and a place for art performances and exhibits. A tiny and very simplified meditation room sits tucked in the corner, open for any and all to reflect or pray quietly. Beyond this space is the college itself, with classrooms, libraries, etc.—creating a vibrant institute for intellectual and spiritual dialogue.

And in La Marais, near the Centre Pompidou, is an old run-down cathedral—St. Merri—dirtied by centuries of city air, having survived World War II, having stood unmoved among us and our ancestors, which hosts free classical concerts twice every weekend. It’s freezing inside in the winter, with no heat and very little sun penetrating the foggy stained glass, but all the seats fill for high quality music performances; the thunder of a piano or the cry of the violin echoing through the stone corridor.