Category Archives: Spirituality

Humbug Revisited: A Brief History of Christmas

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It’s coming on Christmas
They’re cutting down trees
They’re putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on
– Joni Mitchell

I can’t get the name of Walter Vance out of my mind.  He was the 61 year old pharmacist, with a history of heart problems, who collapsed in a West Virginia Target store shortly after midnight on Black Friday.  Witnesses told MSNBC that many shoppers ignored Vance and walked around or even stepped over him as he lay on the floor.

When NPR held a call-in show to ask about listeners’s Black Friday shopping experience, one caller reported that a woman had grabbed an item out of her cart, saying, “It isn’t yours until you’ve paid for it.”  The incident mirrors a scene in a commercial that ran incessantly in the days leading up to the event.

Sales receipts were no guarantee of safety either – just ask the shooting victims in several parking lot robberies.

Exhausted after an all-night shift, one Target employee drove her car into a canal.

All of these reports emerged after the infamous pepper spray story that had the media wagging its head – the very same media that helped whip crowds into a feeding frenzy during the previous days

None of this is new.  Christmas has always been the church’s most problematic holiday.  The Hallmark version we know today was in part, carefully crafted by early 19th century merchants, in a manner not different in essence, from the effort to persuade millions of seemingly sensible people to spend Thanksgiving night in big-box stores.

Santa Claus by Thomas Nast, 1865. Would you want this guy roaming around your home late at night?

The Bible does not give a date for the birth of Jesus.  Apparently, birthdays were not a big issue back then.  Origen of Alexandria, a 3d century theologian, wrote that “only sinners like Herod and Pharaoh celebrate their birthdays.”  December 25 was not fixed as the date of Christmas until the 4th century, and the nativity was largely ignored until the 9th century reign of Charlemagne.

Through the early middle ages, Christmas was overshadowed by Epiphany, which commemorates the visit of the Magi.  It was not until the high middle ages that Christmas emerged as a popular feast day.  “Feast” is an understatement.  In 1377, Richard II’s guests consumed 28 oxen and 300 sheep.  Caroling became popular then, though chroniclers complained of lewd lyrics.  The same writers blamed pagan holidays like Saturnalia and Yule for the “drunkenness, promiscuity, and gambling,” of the celebrations.

In 1645, in an effort to rid England of decadence, Oliver Cromwell and his Puritans banished Christmas in England.  The Pilgrims on the Mayflower were even stricter.  From 1659-1681, Christmas was outlawed in Boston.  English customs were shunned after the revolution, and Christmas did not become an official American holiday until 1870.

We can read on history.com that, “The early 19th century was a period of class conflict and turmoil. During this time, unemployment was high and gang rioting by the disenchanted classes often occurred during the Christmas season.”  The New York City police force was organized in 1828 in response to a Christmas Riot.  History.com continues:   “This catalyzed certain members of the upper classes to begin to change the way Christmas was celebrated in America.”  

In the absence of television, one thing 19th century chambers of commerce used to push their version of Christmas was Washington Irving’s, The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, a series of stories of life in an English manor house.  “The sketches feature a squire who invited the peasants into his home for the holiday. In contrast to the problems faced in American society, the two groups mingled effortlessly.”  Historians now claim the book does not describe any actual customs, but ones that Irving wished for and thus invented.  

Even more important to the evolution of Christmas was Charles Dickens’s, A Christmas Carol, with its strong message that celebrating this holiday can make you a better person.  Dickens’s book meshed with the Victorian emphasis on family , as well as a new appreciation of children.

Referring to the 19th century upswing of Christmas popularity, history.com says: “Although most families quickly bought into the idea that they were celebrating Christmas how it had been done for centuries, Americans had really re-invented a holiday to fill the cultural needs of a growing nation.”

The optimism of “a growing nation” that we see in historical prints and Christmas cards seems as quaint these days as the cards themselves.  For a sense of the collective mindset this year, I look at this photo of students at the Charles W. Howard Santa School in Midland, MI.  This year the Santas are learning to gently lower children’s holiday expectations.

Photo by Fabrizio Constantini, New York Times

I wonder what Santa said to the boy who showed up with a multi-page spreadsheet, cross referencing all the toys he wanted to different stores and prices. (What was he doing on Santa’s lap to begin with)?

***

Even a little research reveals that there is no “right” way to celebrate Christmas.  This holiday has been re-invented numerous times.  If individuals and families opt out of what no longer works and try to create saner traditions, no one will ever miss them.  I’ll go ahead and lead off with a clip from my favorite Christmas movie of all time, in the scene that inspired this post, and leads me to wonder if the pre-repentant Scrooge isn’t due for re-evaluation.

Meanwhile, Be Careful Out There, and in case you were wondering, I’m off to see the new Muppet Movie today.  I’ll soon be back with a report.

A Scientist Talks About Alternate Worlds

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I’ve spent the last 30 years deeply engaged in the study of Eastern and Western esoteric world views, so the topic of my last two posts, the legendary realm of Shambhala, does not seem impossible to me.  No more so than astral worlds or Faerie, or any number of things our senses do not perceive.  It’s not so often, however, that you hear a respected scientist support the existence of unseen realms, but I did this morning. Brian Green, a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia, was nominated for a Nobel Prize for his first book, The Elegant Universe, 1999, a discussion of string theory for laypeople.

Brian Green

I heard him on NPR discussing alternate universes, in a January interview that was rebroadcast on the occasion of the paperback release of his latest book, The Hidden Reality:  Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos, 2011.  (Link to the NPR Interview: http://www.npr.org/2011/11/04/141931728/exploring-the-hidden-reality-of-parallel-worlds ) According to Green, string theory is an attempt to bridge mathematical conflicts between Einstein’s theory of relativity, which accurately describes the behavior of large objects, and quantum mechanics, which details what is very small.  String theory, however, posits ten physical dimensions – that’s seven that we cannot perceive.

Green says:  “You almost can’t avoid having some version of the multiverse in your studies if you push deeply enough in the mathematical descriptions of the physical universe.  There are many of us thinking of one version of parallel universe theory or another. If it’s all a lot of nonsense, then it’s a lot of wasted effort going into this far-out idea. But if this idea is correct, it is a fantastic upheaval in our understanding.”

In addition to the half-hour NPR interview referenced above, you can check out more of what Green has to say about string theory on The Elegant Universe, a three hour presentation he hosted on Nova:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/

As Mulder and Scully insisted, “The truth is out there.”

The Story of Shambhala

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"Song of Shambhala" by Nicholas Roerich, 1943

The fictional earthly paradise of Shangri-La, discussed in my previous post, derives from early Buddhist teachings about Shambhala, a remote realm of advanced spiritual practitioners.  Shambhala is discussed in the Kalachakra Tantra, which Shakyamuni Buddha is said to have taught the Shambhala King, Dawa Sangpo, and 96 lesser rulers, over 2500 years ago.  The King taught all the citizens, since this practice leads to rapid enlightenment, which he hoped would enable them to withstand a threatened invasion.

This is the same “Kalachakra for World Peace,” that the Dalai Lama conferred last July in Washington, DC.  “World Peace,” does not mean it makes one a blessed-out pacifist.  Kalachakra means, “Wheel of Time,” and explores the cycles that affect individuals and the world at large.  It teaches that barbarian hordes periodically invade the civilized world and attempt to eliminate spiritual practice.  Such an invasion, leading to world war, is predicted for the year 2424, at which time, the Kingdom of Shambhala will again manifest in this world to turn the tide.

Kalachraka Mandala

Proponents say that those who take the Kalachakra initiation will be reborn on the victorious side, and the end of this conflict will usher in a new golden age.  (from, Alexander Berzin, Introduction to the Kalachakra Initiation, Snow Lion Publictions, 2010).

In common with the older Hindu epic, The Mahabharata, the warfare described in this teaching has inner and outer dimensions.  To the authors of Kalachakra, “barbarians” were non-Sanskrit speaking people who ate beef, and like Alexander the Great, periodically launched literal invasions.  The authors also understood “barbarians” to mean our own treacherous impulses like greed, hatred, and jealousy, which keep us bound to the wheel of suffering.  This inner war is part of every individual’s spiritual path.

Scholars have located Shambhala near Mount Kailash in the Himalayas, a place sacred to Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains.  They caution that only part of the journey is physical; arrival depends on knowing certain mantras and other spiritual techniques.

Shambhala is said to be near the 22,000' Mt. Kailash

A Western analogy that comes to mind is the Avalon of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s, Mists of Avalon.  When the priestess, Morgaine, falls out of inner harmony, she cannot reach the sanctuary.  In a similar way, some legends say King Arthur is not really dead.  The story says he will rise again at the time of Britain’s greatest need, and numbers of people reported visions of mounted knights during the second world war.

Paramahansa Yogananda (1883 – 1952), born in India, came to this country in 1920.  He was probably the most influential teacher of meditation and Eastern philosophy in America in the first half of the 20th century.  Yogananda predicted a similar time of turmoil, followed by a higher age of spiritual and creative growth.

Eastern concepts of time are cyclical rather than linear.  Yogananda outlined a 24,000 year cycle of four ascending and descending ages, analogous to what the Greeks called, gold, silver, bronze, and iron.  Yogananda’s predictions are eerily similar to what the world is experiencing now:  economic, climactic, and social disruptions.  The good news is that in this view, like that of Kalachakra, we are on the cusp of a higher age.  The bad news is, it’s not going to happen right away – as in, not in our grandchildren’s lifetime.

Still, a well known Tibetan teacher, speaking of our “degenerate” times, reminded his audience of how fortunate we are to live when profound spiritual teachings are available.  If we don’t get to chose all our external circumstances, according to Kalachakra and the teachings of Yogananda, we do get chose how to shape our response and our inner condition.

As Gandalf told Frodo, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

Shangri-La in Books, Movies, and Legend

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I recently wrote a short story about a group of people trying to find Shangri-La. For decades, the name has stood for an earthly paradise, difficult to attain. The name was so popular in the 30’s and 40’s that before it was renamed Camp David, Franklin D. Roosevelt named the presidential retreat ground, Shangri-La. After my story was finished, I began to research this mythical place about which I realized I knew very little.

The name, “Shangri-La” entered public awareness through a novel and a movie, which I will discuss today. In my next post, I will explore the Tibetan legend of Shambhala from which core elements of the story may derive.

In David Hilton’s 1933 novel, Lost Horizon, Hugh Conway, a world-weary British diplomat and WWI veteran, along with three others refuges from an uprising in India, board a plane that is hijacked to the remote mountains of Tibet. They crash land in the snows and find their pilot dead. The group is rescued by a postulant lama named, Chang, who leads them to the hidden lamasery of Shangri-La, high above a fertile and temperate valley. Here Conway finds peace, the stirrings of love, and a sense of purpose when the High Lama tells him he has been chosen to oversee the mission of Shangri-La – to preserve the best of modern civilization during a world war the lama, (who is 300 years old), has seen in vision.

Did Hilton foresee WWII when he wrote his book in the early 30’s? Perhaps, but he also studied a 1931 National Geographic account of an expedition to the borders Tibet. Unexpectedly temperate valleys lie along the Nepalese border, and Hilton may also have read of the legend of Shambhala, with a similar prophesy of a world war. This prophesy is part of the Kalachakra teaching cycle the Dalai Lama presents, most recently in Washington, DC, last summer.

Lost Horizon won public notice only after Hilton published, Goodbye Mr. Chips, the following year. Because it was later published as Pocketbook #1, Lost Horizon has been mistakenly called the first American paperback.

Frank Capra read Hilton’s book and immediately decided to make the movie version. Production began in 1936, with a budget of $1.25 million, the largest for any film at the time. After a $777,000 cost overrun, Lost Horizon, was released in 1937 to critical acclaim. A New York Times reviewer called it, “a grand adventure film, magnificently staged, beautifully photographed, and capitally played.” It won Oscars for Art Direction and Film Editing, and was nominated for Best Picture.

Both the book and the movie seem dated now. The romantic vision of humans-as-noble-savage will not appeal to our modern sensibility. The idea that people will be good if freed from want echoes both the pacifism that flourished after the first world war and the socialism that grew in response to the hard times of the ’30’s. I believe in the “higher vibration” of certain places, yet when Chang tells Conway the healing properties of Shangri-La have even eliminated human jealousy, it breaks my “suspension of disbelief.”

Even with this kind of flaw, I enjoyed the book and the movie. The specifics of the Lost Horizon’s 75 year old vision may be dated, but the archetypal longing for a golden age and heaven on earth is not. The book and movie tap into this, and the tale of paradise found then lost evokes our longing for the Garden of Eden, Atlantis, Avalon, and Shangri-La. “We are stardust / We are golden / and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the Garden,” sang Joni Mitchell in her song about Woodstock, another manifestation of longing for a world of peace and joy.

This longing will not go away because it expresses our true nature, according to the view that gave birth to the legend of Shangri-La. Next time we’ll look at the legend of Shambhala, which carries predictions that will echo some we have seen in Lost Horizon.

Seven Year Cycles, Part Deux

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While reviewing my previous post on seven-year cycles, two other writings came to mind.  In their own ways, both hint that our concepts of time, and and things like cycles, are just that – concepts.

The first of these writings comes from T.S. Eliot’s epic poem, The Four Quartets.

T.S. Eliot

You cannot face it steadily, but this thing is sure,
That time is no healer: the patient is no longer here.
When the train starts, and the passengers are settled
To fruit, periodicals and business letters
(And those who saw them off have left the platform)
Their faces relax from grief into relief,
To the sleepy rhythm of a hundred hours.
Fare forward, travelers! not escaping from the past
Into different lives, or into any future;
You are not the same people who left that station
Or who will arrive at any terminus,

***

Rodney Smith says something similar in Stepping Our of Self-Deception:  The Buddha’s Liberating Teaching of No-Self (2010).   Smith founded the Seattle Insight Meditation Society and is the author of, Lessons from the Dying which grew out of his years of hospice work.

Rodney Smith

He says, “future and past have no reality outside thought…no true authenticity other than the validity we give an idea or image.”   Smith does not deny our experience of past and future, but suggests that it’s not what we usually imagine.  Past and future, he says, are ideas we entertain in the present moment:  how could they be anything else?

His comments remind me of crossing one state into another.  The sign says, “Welcome to Oregon,” but you find no lines on the earth as there are on the map: one instance of the difference between a concept and the experience made visible.

Seven Year Cycles

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If you google on almost any topic related to “cycles,” you wind up with a flood of information.  Scientists define life cycles for everything from insects to stars.

Cycles abound in spiritual and esoteric traditions, ranging from newspaper horoscopes to “Days and Nights of Creation” lasting millions of years.

I was searching for something simpler than that.  Biologists say our bodily cells renew themselves every seven years.  Parallel to that, I’ve noticed my world of ideas, interests, and ambitions changing, sometimes radically, over a similar time frame.  I’m not the only one.  Google on, “seven year life cycle,” and you get 5,400,000 hits.  Although Rudolph Steiner wrote on the subject, most of the entries I found were generic, analogous to newspaper horoscopes.  Here is Aquarius.  Here are your life tasks between the ages of 21 and 28.

No doubt Gemini’s, and seven-year-olds, and seventy-year-olds each have things in common, but I was looking for individual accounts of people who find their ideas, concepts, and aspirations changing every seven years or so

What brought this to mind was thinking of 2005, a year in which I experienced many beginnings.  One night I woke up at 12:30am, grabbed a pen and a notebook, and wrote the opening pages of my first novel.  The momentum grew, and I finished the first draft five months later (in retrospect, it was pretty bad, though I doubt that I’ll ever have so much fun writing again).

Aided by a sabbatical from work, and energized by visits with family and friends I hadn’t seen in years, I was bursting with fresh energy, new ideas, and new ambitions.  Many threads in my life seemed to become clear.  I jotted some down in a notebook.  I underlined things I was very sure of.  A bit of skepticism remained, so I made  note in the margin:  “check back in five years.”

Six years later, in most respects, I am not the same person.  I don’t really read or aspire to write the books I cared about then.  My spiritual ideas have shifted.  What I value and want to accomplish are not the same.  My overall outlook is different.  I’ve noted these seven year changes before; this was just more pronounced.

Once again I have to conclude that most of the contents of consciousness are in flux and do not capture the “core” of who I am or who anyone else is.  The metaphor I use is the mirror.  A mirror is not defined by what it reflects from moment to moment.  “I” am not what passes through awareness, “I” am the indefinable awareness itself.

This is wisdom that’s thousands of years old but I believe it more and more as time goes on.  This is the koan:  what is a mirror beyond what it reflects?  What is the heart/mind beyond what it conceives?

The Ghost Star

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Twenty-one million years ago, in the Pinwheel Galaxy – a close neighbor in cosmic terms – a white dwarf star exploded.  This week, as the moon sets early, we will have the rare chance to see this one-time sun’s final blaze of glory from our own back yards, with just a small telescope or a pair of binoculars.  Scientists are calling this a once in a generation event; type 1a supernovas like this are usually much farther away.

How do you find it?  Locate the last two stars on the Big Dipper’s tail, and imagine an equilateral triangle pointing north:

According to a Washington Post article, because type 1a supernovas are equal in intensity, astronomers use them to refine calculations of distance.  In the 1990’s, Robert Kirshner of Harvard:  “led a team that leveraged this property to make one of the biggest discoveries of the past century: The universe is flying apart, rapidly accelerating.

To explain this, cosmologists were forced into an uncomfortable conclusion. Either gravity does not work the way it is supposed to, or a mysterious force is pushing galaxies apart at a quickening pace. They called this unknown force “dark energy” and still have little idea what it is, even though they are able to calculate that it constitutes an astounding 73 percent of all mass and energy in the universe.”  http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/brightest-supernova-in-decades-serves-up-cosmic-clues-for-astronomers/2011/08/31/gIQA88CqwJ_story.html

Telescopes large and small, both on earth and in space (the Hubell) will be trained on this event, in the hopes that it may even clarify the nature of dark energy.  Though I don’t have a telescope, my father’s old film camera has a telephoto lens, and I’m hoping that on a tripod, we may be able to see the pinwheel galaxy.

I find this of interest from more than a scientific (or aging Trekkie) perspective.  The world’s religions tell us that things are not what they seem.  Most of the time we can only approach such truths through inference, faith, or meditation.  For the next few days we will have the chance to turn our physical eyes on something dramatic that has not existed physically for millions of years.

Something to think about…

Bird by Bird and Other Writing by Anne Lamott

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“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day…he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead.  Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy.  Just take it bird by bird.” – Anne Lamont 

While hunting for something else, I came upon my copy old of, Bird by Bird:  Some Instructions on Writing and Life,” 1994, by Anne Lamott.  Those who appreciate Natalie Goldberg’s reflections on writing will enjoy Lamott.

“I dropped out [of college] at nineteen to become a famous writer.  I moved back to San Francisco and became a famous Kelly Girl instead.  I was famous for my incompetence and weepiness.  I wept with boredom and disbelief.”

Two things strike you right away about Lamott on writing:  she is very funny and she is a firm believer in telling one’s own unique truth.  This is a theme she returns to again and again.  Lamott has been telling her truths since her first novel, Hard Laughter, 1980, a largely autobiographical portrait of her eccentric family as her father was dying of a brain tumor.

Getting published was something Lamott had dreamed of since she realized as a child, that her father, the writer, was neither “unemployed or mentally ill.”  When Hard Laughter was published, three years after her father’s death, Lamott realized that public success was not what nourished her:

“I believed, before I sold my first book, that publication would be instantly and automatically gratifying, an affirming and romantic experience…this did not happen for me.  The months before a book comes out of the chute are, for most writers, right up there with the worst life has to offer.”

“I…try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all that it is cracked up to be.  But writing is.  Writing has so much to give, so much to teach so many surprises.  That thing you had to force yourself to do – the actual act of writing – turns out to be the best part.  It’s like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony.  The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.” 

Lamott has taught writing at UC Davis and at various workshops.  Bird by Bird mirrors the advice and methods she gives her students.

Anne Lamott

I have not read all of her sections on the mechanics of writing.  Suffice to say that I find her introspective style better suited to illuminating the twists and turns of the process itself than conveying nuts and bolts information.  Like Goldberg, I think the essay is the medium where Lamott really shines, and in another parallel, her most recent writings on spirituality are what I value most.

In Travelling Mercies:  Some Thoughts on Faith, 2000, Lamott holds nothing back in describing how her alcoholic bottom led her to Christianity – the last place, as a life-long bohemian, that she wanted to be.

“I became aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner, and I just assumed it was my father, whose presence I had felt over the years when I was frightened and alone.  The feeling was so strong I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there…after a while, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus…and I was appalled.  I thought about my life and my brilliant hilarious progressive friends.  I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian…I turned to the wall and said out loud, “I would rather die.”

I felt him just sitting there on his haunches in the corner of my sleeping loft, watching me with patience and love, and I squished my eyes shut, but that didn’t help because that’s not what I was seeing him with.”

Travelling Mercies relates how Lamott, as a newly sober alcoholic and single mother who had never been to church, sets out to follow her truth where ever it may lead.  People raised as Christians may not have wrestled with all the questions Lamott has to face, beginning with how she’s supposed to find a church to nourish both her and her son.  It continues with all the issues we face in living day to day.  What do we make of the death of friends, of loss, of a son who doesn’t want to go to church, or announces, “I wish I had never been born?”  These and other questions about living her faith seven days a week have led Lamott to write two other books on spirituality, Plan B:  Further Thoughts on Faith, 2006, and Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith, 2007.  My wife is reading that one now, and I’ve flipped through the contents and may borrow it when she is done.

In a prophetic passage in Bird by Bird, Lamott laid out a credo for her writing students that she continues to follow:

“Truth seems to want expression.  Unacknowledged truth saps your energy and keeps you and your characters wired and delusional.  But when you open the closet door and let what was inside out, you can get a rush of liberation and even joy.  If we can believe in the Gnostic gospel of Thomas…Jesus said, “If you bring forth what is inside you, what you bring forth will save you.  If you don’t bring forth what is inside you, what you bring forth can destroy you.”

If you haven’t discovered Anne Lamott’s work, I suggest you sample her titles in a bookstore or on Amazon, and see what she has to offer.  Her unique take on the life around her can bring you up short and shift your perspective on where you are and what you are doing.