Days 5-9: For Whom the Bell Tolls

Buddhist love bells.  Big bells, little bells, bells that go dong and bells that go ding, all through out the day they ring, ring, ring.  Every time one rings, an angel gets its wings...wait, wrong story.

The bells called us to the next event such as meditation or meals.  They were used during the gatherings as a way to focus our attention.  The sound of the bells was held in such high regard that any time a bell rang everyone was supposed to pause whatever they were doing, take a breath and recenter.  At first this practice was kind of cute.  People would be talking, the bell would ring and everyone would stop and smile or even chuckle.  By the second day, it felt more like an interruption and by the third day it was a bit of an irritation.  I often had that same feeling as when Erin and I were in the midst of a deep conversation only to have our seven year old jump in the middle to say that he was hungry.  Ding...dong...  Hadn't I come on retreat to escape interruptions?  Hadn't I come here to be able to sit, meditate, contemplate and think deeply?  Yet, here they were interrupting us.

Interruptions, of course, don't have to be irritations.  They can also be opportunities.  I'm not sure when, but at some point on the retreat I remembered this.  I even made it one of my three sabbatical virtues; welcome interruptions.  Over the next few days I started to learn to welcome the interruptions of the bell.  I couldn't help the initial moment of irritation, but slowly those moments grew smaller and less powerful.  Perhaps they even helped me with other interruptions.

One afternoon I was on my way to make some tea.  I passed Travis, one of my fellow retreatants, and we nodded.  We did a lot of nodding at the monastery, nodding and bowing. Often folks just walk on by, but this time Jeff said hello and stopped.  I stopped as well, he asked a question and we began a conversation.  I knew there  was another gathering coming soon and if I wanted to get some tea that I'd need to finish the conversation, but we continued.  The bell rang and we paused.  I knew I'd lost my chance to get tea, but I could still make the gathering if I left at that point.  But as we paused in the reverberation of that bell, I remembered my rule, welcome interruptions.  Here was another human being, a person created in the image of God whose story I knew only a little and he was now standing before me willing to share some of that story.  In that moment I let go of my tea, let go of my need to be at all of the events and let this interruption be an opportunity.  Travis and I talked for another half-hour during which I learned where he was from, why he'd moved to California and that he'd recently finished hiking the Pacific Coast Trail.  This last one was something I'd love to do part of some day so I had a number of questions.  In welcoming this interruption, I had been welcomed.

I should mention one other piece about the bells. The invitation to pause in their sound is not relegated to bells rung by the monks, but extends to all bells.  When the clock chimed we paused.  When a cell phone rang, we paused.  Even when a distant ambulance rang, we paused.  On one level these interruptions were irritations, on another they were genius.  Everyone who climbs a mountain for a mystical experience eventually wonders how they will maintain its effects when they return to the valley.  While not completely possible (or even really the best thing), the monks gave me a gift to help with this question. It was a gift I didn't even need to pack.  They'd be ringing all around the valley and I had the freedom how to hear them - as interruptions or opportunities.  "Ask not to know for whom the bell tolls" wrote John Donne hundreds of years ago, "it tolls for thee."

Days 5-9: Why are you going to a Buddhist Monastery?

Signs like this appear all over the campus

When people asked what I was doing for my sabbatical I always told them I was going to a monastery.  What I didn't always mention was that it was a Buddhist monastery.  When I did mention it, some people were surprised, others confused, a few were disappointed, but everyone was curious.  "So tell me," many asked, "why are you going to a Buddhist monastery?"  This is a fair question.

Before arriving at Deer Park Monastery I answered by talking about Thich Nhat Hanh, the founding monk.  I had never heard of Hanh until a few years ago when he was interviewed by Krista Tippet on her podcast "On Being." In that interview I learned that he was born in Vietnam in 1923 and became a Buddhist monk just sixteen years later.  He was influential in establishing Engaged Buddhism which attempts to apply the insights of meditation and Buddhist teachings to help alleviate suffering and social injustice.  While in Vietnam the communities (Sangha's) Hanh founded trained lay leaders and worked diligently to educate, heal and encourage impoverished Vietnamese people.  When the Vietnam war began he worked to bring reconciliation between North and South and was even nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr. who called Hanh "the Vietnamese Ghandi."  Neither the North or South viewed Hanh this fondly.  He was unwilling to take sides and as a result both communist and non-communist banned him from the country.  He has lived in exile ever since. In that time he went on to establish Plum Village, a monastery in France. From this home, dozens of other monasteries have been established including Deer Park, where I was over the last few days.  So, I would answer those who asked why, that I am drawn to learn more about a person who was so peaceful that both sides wanted to get rid of him.  That kind of person sounds familiar to me.

View of Deer Park from a surrounding hill.  

It wasn't until I had been at Deer Park for a couple of days that I found myself able to articulate the second reason, and perhaps stronger reason, for my visit.  During our orientation one of the monks started by saying, "Each day has an abundance of gifts to offer, but to receive them we must slow down, stop and notice."  Hanh puts it this way in one of his books, There are things available to us twenty-four hours a day.  It depends on us to enjoy them.  The fresh air is available to us twenty-four hours a day. The question is whether we have the time and awareness to enjoy it.  We cannot blame the fresh air for not being there...one of the conditions that helps us be free to enjoy what is there is our mindfulness.  If our mindfulness is not there, then nothing will be there.  We will not be aware of the beautiful sunshine, the fresh air, the stars, the moon, the people, the animals, and the trees.  In the words of another great thinker, "Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around for a while you could miss it."  Thanks Ferris.

Not only do I sit at the beginning of a day full of boundless gifts, but I sit at the beginning of a four month rest from work.  There is no way to fully appreciate all that is before me, but I desperately want to suck the marrow out of as much as possible.  Mindfulness, a term you have likely heard, is the practice of this awareness.  I went to Deer Park to cultivate mindfulness, a mind fully attentive to each moment; each image, sound, creature and person.  Is this possible?  Absolutely not.  No one can be fully attentive to everything, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth trying.

It is in part because each moment holds so many stimuli that the teachings of mindfulness involves so much meditation.  A typical day looked as follows:

5:45 Sitting Meditation
7:00 Eating Meditaton
9:00 Working Meditation
12:00 Eating Meditation
1:00 Walking Meditation
4:30 Sitting Meditation
6:00 Eating Meditation
7:30  Dharma Sharing
9:30 Holy Silence (Sleeping Meditation)


Do you notice a theme?  It is as if someone said, "Meditate always."  In one of our sharings someone did say this.  If you're familiar with the New Testament this might sound familiar.  Change one word and this phrase could have come from the lips of the Apostle Paul who in his letter to the Thessalonians said, "Pray always." (1 Thess. 5:17)  If you view prayer, as I have, only as the time I spend talking to God in the morning and giving thanks before meals, then Paul's imperative feels impossible.  However, if it means something more like, "always pay attention to the gift in each moment" then that feels different.

In the next few days I hope to post a few more reflections on my time at the monastery, but until then you might be wondering, "Well, did it work?  Are you more mindful?"  If I had any doubts about the answer when leaving the monastery they were  eliminated when I dropped my rental car off.  After handing him the keys the attendant said, "You seem really relaxed."  I paused before answering "Yeah, I am."

Days 3-4: Rules for a hospitable Sabbatical

"Are you excited?"  This was the most common question in the weeks leading up to my sabbatical.  Sometimes I replied with a simple yes, while other times I explained that I am never really excited until I've finished packing and I still had much packing to do - both literal and metaphorical.  These answers were the truth, but not the whole truth.

Accompanying excitement was her cousin emotion of fear.  The fear wasn't so much of traveling tragedies like crashing planes or getting lost.  The fear was more of messing up, FOMU if you will.  I feel like a painter who has been given a fresh, clean, large perfect canvas, a cup of brushes and a palate of full of paints.  What an amazing gift, so few people ever get such a privilege.  This canvas could become a sunset over the Pacific, the wrinkled face of a relative or an explosion of colors in an abstract arrangement.  What possibilities!  What possibilities?  Where do I start?  What color do I use?  What subject do I choose?  One mistake could ruin the whole canvas.  Coming back to the sabbatical canvas; what will I do?  Where will I start?  What if what I choose to do turns out to be a waste of time?  What if hospitality is a useless theme?  It felt as if one mistake could ruin the whole four months.

Upon further reflection, it could have been this pressure that led to me climbing under the broom tree on Sunday afternoon.  "Okay Ken," the voice on my shoulder said, "now you better have a great sabbatical experience to share with the people or they'll be disappointed." "Don't mess up," said another voice.  Instead  of feeling liberating, four months of Sabbath felt weighty, heavy.  Then, in a moment, something changed.

On Monday, as usual, I went for a run at Fort Steilacoom in Lakewood. Somewhere between the parking lot and Pierce College I had an epiphany.  There is a trail that runs north/south.   To the west is a hill upon which sits the ruins of the old hospital. To the east is a row of tall narrow trees.  The two pair to form this canopy under which the dirt trail goes.  I remember running down the shadows of this trail, Tallulah a few steps in front, breathing hard, beads of sweat on my brow from the unusually sunny day and thinking, "this is beautiful."  It felt like a scene that should be in a movie, this scene, this moment was worth capturing but there were no cameras.  So I blinked - click - and stored it in my mind - only now to be shared for the first time.

A while back I wrote a poem that ended with the following refrain.
Be present to the presence
at the end
all moments are key moments
and life a field of bushes burning
to be noticed

It was right to compare this sabbatical to a blank canvas, what was wrong was to see it only as one canvas.  If each day is a canvas then I have 120 to paint upon.  If each hour then I have 2880 and if each minute is a moment then 122,800 are still before me.  And if you go so far as to say each second is a moment then each of us have 10,368,000 upon which to paint this sabbatical season.  With such abundance who needs fear messing up?

Mary Oliver's poem "Rules for Living a Life" is so memorable and powerful it is worth repeating here.

Rules for Living a Life
Pay attention
Be astonished
Tell about it

In that vein I have come up with my own version for this season.  Here they are so far:

Rules for a Hospitable Sabbatical
Welcome interruptions
Capture moments
Give thanks 

I don't yet know the form or frequency of these posts.  Had I to guess they will fall into one of these rules; interruptions, moments and thanks.  We shall see, after all we have over 10 million chances to do so.

A brief update
As I write I sit in a cafe, right on the famed Highway 101.  From my Uber driver (Evangeline) to my host in Encinitas (Dave) I have already experienced a wealth of hospitality.  You can see from the pictures that this coastal town is beautiful.

In just a few hours I will drive forty miles East into the hills of Escondito to Deer Park Monastery where I will stay until Tuesday.   While there I will sleep in a dorm, get up at 5:00, meditate, eat vegan meals and learn to practice a form of paying attention called mindfulness.  The community is very different  from what I'm used to and to be honest I'm a little nervous. I don't feel quite in control, a little vulnerable.  And yet, that in some ways is the perfect place to be.

Sabbatical Day 1: Under the Broom Tree

The prophet Elijah is one of the greatest figures in the Old Testament.  He called fire from heaven, raised the dead and ran faster than chariots.  His greatest feat came in an epic battle with the prophets of the foreign God Baal which he won in dramatic fashion to the delight of the whole nation of Israel.  If the Old Testament had superheros Elijah would have been Superman.  And yet, it was after his rising to his greatest victory that he descended to his lowest moment.  Upon hearing that Jezebel was trying to kill him he "was afraid and ran for his life."  Traveling a day's journey into the desert "he came to a broom tree.  Sat down under it and prayed that he might die."  Instead of celebrating like he'd won the Super Bowl Elijah was depressed.  Instead of going to Disney World, Elijah ran away to the desert. I always wondered why, how could this be.  Then I became a pastor and began to understand.  

Sunday mornings are a big day in the clergy world.  It is the day of gathering, the weekly welcome, the time when God's people get together to worship the creator of all that was, is and is to come!  We pastors spend a week preparing the order and content of that service and then with the benediction and a few cups of coffee it is over.  Though fire usually doesn't come from heaven nor enemy prophets defeated, the completion of each Sunday worship is a victory.  And yet, like Elijah, when it is over most of us pastors wonder if it mattered at all.  By 2:00 on Sunday afternoons I am ready to lie down under a broom tree and sleep.  



Despite this pattern one would think that the Sunday before a four month sabbatical would be different.  Numerous grant applications, two years of preparation and countless conversations had gone into preparing for this day.  With a supportive congregation, a capable musician on board and not just one but two gifted pastors to shepherd the congregation one would think this a day fit for joy and celebration.  It was...and yet.  Perhaps it is feeling "on", or maybe it is the energy it takes to preach or perhaps it is that I get up at 4:00 in the morning. Regardless the reason, at 2:00 that afternoon I found myself falling onto my bed exhausted, not just from fatigue, but with something else - sadness.

And so, this is where I begin my sabbatical, under the broom tree.  Like Elijah I don't imagine I will stay there.   Also, like Elijah there will be travels, encounters with strangers and of course hospitality.  But right now, on Sunday afternoon, I am sad, perhaps even depressed and that, hopefully is okay.

Sabbatical Sunday: A question answered

I confess that I don't always believe what I say.  Not that I preach things with which I disagree, more that I sometimes say things that I'm not quite sure I fully buy.  I say them perhaps hoping saying them will help me more deeply believe them.  That being said, on May 8 (my last Sunday before sabbatical) I read John 13.  Much of the sermon focused on Jesus act of washing the disciples feet.  In so doing I was inviting the congregation to offer hospitality to one another in a similar fashion.  What I didn't expect was the impact the first verse would have upon me.  "Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father.  Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love. "  

Thirteen years  ago I sat across from a committee assigned to assess my fitness to become the Pastor of Manitou.  "What frightens you about this call?"  they asked.  The exact words are lost to time, but my response was something like, "I know I want to lead this congregation." (Pause)  "What I don't know yet is if I will love them."  31 baptisms, 52 funerals, 130 session meetings, 650 worship services and thirteen years later I had one moment. 

After singing "On Jordan's Stormy Banks" Nyk began to lead the congregation in the call to worship.  Instead of joining in I stopped and looked out across the sanctuary.  Hair  blond, black and gray; skin smooth and wrinkled; bodies limber, robust and bent were before me.  I saw them flawed and beautiful, wounded and wonderful, sacred and profane, crotchety and kind; children, addicts and  disabled all of us.  In that moment I saw them and oh what a gift.  After thirteen years the answer had arrived.  Like Jesus I  "loved my own who were in this world."  

Thank you, 
beloved Manitou, 
for the gift of this sabbatical.
Amen, 
Let it begin.