on serenity and renewal
I'm a grinner, and there are many kinds of grins that plaster my face. There is an "I caught you" grin. A sheepish grin. A teasing grin. A jaw-clenching, holding my words back grin. Many kinds of grins, yes.
The grin of this autumn, though, has been a grin of awe. When I grin like this, my eyes drop to the floor, and then up to the sky, and a choked, but not forced laugh parts from my lips. Usually it is solitary, and I clasp my hands together - and that should be the clearest sign to you, my friend, that my grin is not a grin so much as it is a prayer. I couldn't even tell you what I'm in awe of, or who I'm praying to. If meditation is a silent, empty exercise - perhaps prayer is its counterpart, a filling up.
On the "glass half empty" side, it's correct to say I was burnt-out this semester. I tuned out of Quantum Mechanics as soon as the professor referred to the field's philosophical questions as uninteresting and pointless for our study. On the "glass half full" side, however, I was constantly thinking this semester, and maybe thinking a bit too much to be usefully partaking in university life. I got exposed to alot of ideas, digested them, made some serious value shifts which I think were noticeable.
I suspect that people new to my life, however close, only know of my spiritual life at best in passing... especially since I'm not inclined to talk about it in person. It is my center, though, and I don't mind taking a shot at writing about it. One example in point. If I had stayed Catholic through high school, I probably would have become a Jesuit monk or something. Even though I can't fully identify anymore with this strange theism, I feel like learned alot from it, and that if I had different experiences I would probably still follow it. People like Meister Eckhart, or Saint Teresa have been teachers from the different past for me. I could even foresee myself, as Kerouac described, becoming a "crazy, solitary Catholic mystic" when I'm an old man. You never know.
The grin of this autumn, though, has been a grin of awe. When I grin like this, my eyes drop to the floor, and then up to the sky, and a choked, but not forced laugh parts from my lips. Usually it is solitary, and I clasp my hands together - and that should be the clearest sign to you, my friend, that my grin is not a grin so much as it is a prayer. I couldn't even tell you what I'm in awe of, or who I'm praying to. If meditation is a silent, empty exercise - perhaps prayer is its counterpart, a filling up.
On the "glass half empty" side, it's correct to say I was burnt-out this semester. I tuned out of Quantum Mechanics as soon as the professor referred to the field's philosophical questions as uninteresting and pointless for our study. On the "glass half full" side, however, I was constantly thinking this semester, and maybe thinking a bit too much to be usefully partaking in university life. I got exposed to alot of ideas, digested them, made some serious value shifts which I think were noticeable.
I suspect that people new to my life, however close, only know of my spiritual life at best in passing... especially since I'm not inclined to talk about it in person. It is my center, though, and I don't mind taking a shot at writing about it. One example in point. If I had stayed Catholic through high school, I probably would have become a Jesuit monk or something. Even though I can't fully identify anymore with this strange theism, I feel like learned alot from it, and that if I had different experiences I would probably still follow it. People like Meister Eckhart, or Saint Teresa have been teachers from the different past for me. I could even foresee myself, as Kerouac described, becoming a "crazy, solitary Catholic mystic" when I'm an old man. You never know.
For now, though, I have Eastern leanings, and in particular I identify as a Buddhist. I'm trying to read more original sutras on this extended vacation, and I'm also trying to read behind Buddhism and investigate its Hindu and mystic origins.
Maktub. I do not want to be melodramatic, but this is a season of beginnings.
posted by Steve C at 6:54 PM
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