On the Read

The Lords of Discipline, by Pat Conroy Recommended by Michelle...

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:22:00 -0600

The Lords of Discipline, by Pat Conroy

Recommended by Michelle Wolfson

As I sit down to write about Lords of Discipline, I’m...

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:20:00 -0600

As I sit down to write about Lords of Discipline, I’m having the bizarre experience of momentarily having absolutely no idea what I want to say about it. For someone like me, that’s an anomaly. It’s not that I didn’t like the book. In fact, I loved it. But I didn’t love it because it forged new literary territory or changed how I see the world in some earth shattering way. I loved it because the story is great, the characters are interesting, and the writing is honest.

As a relatively analytical person, it’s easy for me to slip into the mode of trying to “figure things out”, whether “things” is a book, a movie, a poem, a relationship, a big life challenge or whatever. But I’ve also begun to realize that the drive to analyze everything can sometimes have the affect of making it harder to step into and experience something fully. There is something inherently riveting about human drama that goes far beyond whether or not there’s a final lesson that can be extracted from it. I could speculate as to why we love drama so much, but that would be beside the point. With The Lords of Discipline, the point isn’t to figure the book out, the point is to enjoy it.

Thus, I loved the way that Will (protagonist) explores what it means to be good, to be a man, and to be a true friend, but I can’t say that it brought me any closer to understanding those things on an intellectual level. What it did do is pull me into the drama of someone learning what those things mean to him. That drama itself, the struggle of finding definitions of strength, loyalty and morality to live by, is something I can relate to deeply. I imagine that’s the case for most people. So maybe it’s as simple as that: we enjoy stories whose drama speaks deeply to the drama we ourselves experience (sorry, couldn’t help it).

This seems the right moment to pull out this wonderful clip in which Kurt Vonnegut describes the “shapes” of stories we all love.

Enjoy.

In this clip Michelle Wolfson reads from The Lords of...

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 19:24:00 -0600

In this clip Michelle Wolfson reads from The Lords of Discipline, which follows four boys through their years at a military academy in Charleston, South Carolina.

One character in the clip is singled out for particularly cruel treatment by upperclassmen because of his tendency to piss his pants whenever he’s yelled at, but his fellow freshmen begin to rally around him when they realize that he’s actually the toughest S.O.B among them for not dropping out despite the abuse.

Michelle rocked it.

"In some deep instinctive way, I needed there always to be a Snipes at the Institute, perhaps..."

Wed, 30 May 2012 21:02:00 -0600

“In some deep instinctive way, I needed there always to be a Snipes at the Institute, perhaps throughout my entire life. I required always the hostility of the announced enemy, the devout and certified adversary. I needed the symbol of something worthy of encounter on the road, to test the resonance and mettle of my own humanity. If I could always be waging war against Snipes, I would never have to turn a cold eye inward to discover the subtle and unexamined evil in myself.”

- From The Lords of Discipline, by Pat Conroy

Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia...

Wed, 23 May 2012 15:00:00 -0600

Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Recommended by Patrick Edwards

This is a recording of Patrick Edwards reading a few choice...

Wed, 23 May 2012 14:58:00 -0600

This is a recording of Patrick Edwards reading a few choice excerpts from Love in the Time of Cholera in Spanish. He chose passages that illustrate love in different forms, from passionate, to patient, to lusty.

Beautiful.

This is a brief but wonderful recording of a conversation with...

Thu, 17 May 2012 18:28:00 -0600

This is a brief but wonderful recording of a conversation with Patrick Edwards, who recommended Love in the Time of Cholera to me. The gist: the story of love is only a small piece of what love is.

Love and Suffering

Thu, 17 May 2012 18:22:00 -0600

“For three nights he slept with irons around his ankles in the cells of the local garrison. But when he was released he felt defrauded by the brevity of his captivity, and even in the days of his old age, when so many other wars were confused in his memory, he still thought he was the only man in the city, and perhaps the country, who had dragged five-pound leg irons for the sake of love.”

- From Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

One of the things that distinguishes us as humans is our ability to think symbolically. It’s what enabled us to develop language, since in essence a word is simply a symbolic container for meaning that, with the exception of onomatopoeias, has very little to do with the form or sound of the word itself. Although we’re perhaps not as aware of it, we’re constantly applying the same symbolic approach to virtually everything we experience in our lives. We turn objects, people and experiences into symbols that are just as powerful as words, and often even more so.

Our symbolic instinct reaches it’s full potential in the context of suffering. Some of the most potent cultural symbols of our day, i.e. Christ on the cross, involve the symbolic transmutation of an act of suffering into something far greater than itself. When someone makes a conscious decision to open themselves to suffering out of love for something or someone, that suffering in effect becomes a symbol of that love.

A few months ago, I had an experience that brought this home in a powerful way. I was spending time with people in a group setting, and made the decision to leave because at the time I was going through a challenging period and wanted to avoid negatively impacting the people around me. After leaving I felt lonely, on top of the struggle I was already going through. What I noticed, however, is that irrespective of whether leaving the group was the right choice in the end (in retrospect I don’t think it was), I could consciously choose to experience the loneliness I felt partially as a symbol of my own desire to respect and support other people’s experiences.

That realization set off an avalanche, and I couldn’t stop noticing how all of life’s various challenges, pains and frustrations can act as arrows that point to something greater and more important than themselves; toward a deep desire to express love and be loved. Quite literally, I couldn’t stop seeing love everywhere. Even seemingly trivial things like washing the dishes shone with a different light. Why else would I wash dishes if not for a desire to care for myself and the people I live with by creating an environment that supports their and my wellbeing? Even the mild suffering of washing the dishes, or appreciating it when someone else does, becomes a chance to notice something beautiful.

The ability to transform an experience of suffering into an experience of love, not because the suffering is shoved away but be because it comes to represent something far greater than itself, is, to me, the best kind of alchemy.

“Unconditional love is opening your heart up to every...

Wed, 16 May 2012 16:48:00 -0600

“Unconditional love is opening your heart up to every person no matter what your experience has been so far.”

What is unconditional love? In this recording, Patrick Edwards, who recommended Love in the Time of Cholera to me, answers in a beautiful way.

"He had the weak pulse, the hoarse breathing, and the pale perspiration of a dying man. But his..."

Wed, 16 May 2012 16:47:13 -0600

“He had the weak pulse, the hoarse breathing, and the pale perspiration of a dying man. But his examination revealed that he had no fever, no pain anywhere, and that his only concrete feeling was an urgent desire to die. All that was needed was shrewd questioning, first of the patient and then of his mother, to conclude once again that the symptoms of love were the same as those of cholera.”

- From Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“When I was twenty I quit school at the University of...

Tue, 15 May 2012 21:59:00 -0600

“When I was twenty I quit school at the University of Colorado and followed a girl down to South America”

Patrick Edwards, who recommended Love in the Time of Cholera to me, tells the powerful story of reading the book for the first time while going through heartbreak and battling typhoid in South America.

The recording was made in the back of Patrick’s car in Yellowstone National Park. I was struck strongly by the story the first time I heard it, and I’m thankful that he was willing to share it again.

Two Principles of Love

Mon, 14 May 2012 18:58:00 -0600

I arrived in Bozeman, Montana a couple days ago after hitchhiking from Seattle, Washington. I took my time (three days) and had some great adventures along the way, as well as plenty of time to think. One topic that kept arising for me was an idea that can be summed up in two statements:

1. Love needs to be protected and nurtured in order to grow.

2. Love needs freedom from constraints in order to fully express itself.

I think both statements express an important truth. There seems to be the potential for the two principles to work together and balance each other, and also for them to come into conflict. At this particular juncture in my life the conflict between them can frequently seem more emotionally present than the synergy, so my friend Patrick’s recommendation of Love in the Time of Cholera couldn’t be more relevant.

The thought that struck me after getting part way through Love in the Time of Cholera and its multiple interwoven love stories is that the two principles aren’t just statements about how love can be cultivated, they’re statements about two of the most basic things that love is. As human beings we really have two things to offer each other: service in support of each other’s wellbeing (nurturing), and respect for each other’s autonomy (freedom).

When I say that I love someone, in many ways what I’m saying is that I have a strong desire to offer my energy to help that person grow, and also that I recognize the beauty and completeness they already possess and trust that they ultimately know the best way to continue to express that in the world.

"At eighty-one years of age he had enough lucidity to realize that he was attached to this world by a..."

Mon, 14 May 2012 17:23:00 -0600

“At eighty-one years of age he had enough lucidity to realize that he was attached to this world by a few slender threads that could break painlessly with a simple change of position while he slept, and if he did all he could to keep those threads intact, it was because of his terror of not finding God in the darkness of death.”

- From Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Apprenticed to Spirit, by David Spangler Recommended by Love

Mon, 14 May 2012 16:35:00 -0600

Apprenticed to Spirit, by David Spangler

Recommended by Love

Forget Spirituality, Cultivate Awareness

Mon, 14 May 2012 16:34:00 -0600

I’ve always been a bit baffled by the words “spirit,” “spiritual,” and “spirituality.” As they’re used in common parlance, they seem to be umbrella terms that can contain, depending on the day, vague connotations of the religious or mystical, connection with something greater than oneself (usually “God” or the divine), a specific non-physical part of a person’s being, the entirely ineffable ground/source for existence (a la Ken Wilbur), and any number of other things. It’s one of those words whose meaning has become so vague as to render it almost useless unless it’s carefully defined at the beginning of a conversation. I’ve found the same to be true of “God” and “soul.”

However, my biggest issue with the idea of “spirituality” isn’t its vagueness, it’s the way it’s often positioned as an antonym of “physical,” with physical virtually always being considered the less desirable of the two. This is an unfortunate pattern that I’ve noticed in many uses of the word spirit, but to illustrate the issue I’ll pick one definition. For now let’s let “spirituality” mean a proclivity for experiences of depth and connection with something greater than oneself.

The thing is, I’ve had experiences that qualify under that definition in virtually every area of my life: in my happiest moments as well as my darkest ones, in nature, at the grocery store, while rock climbing, listening to music, meditating, washing the dishes etc. In my own life I’ve found that there aren’t any clear boundaries on where, when, or how “spiritual” experiences can happen. That seems to be the case regardless of which common definition of spirituality I happen to pick.

To me that’s a strong indication that the idea of spirituality as something that is only accessible by negating or transcending the physical is completely bunk. Experiences of depth and connection are available, at least as a possibility, everywhere and in every moment. That’s part of what makes the human experience so endlessly fascinating to me. All that’s required is that we take the time to notice, and that we embrace our physicality rather than reject it out of hand because of some predefined notion of what spirituality is or where it lives. That means cultivating awareness.

As one of David Spangler’s guides says to him in Apprenticed to Spirit:

“The problem with humanity isn’t that you’re incarnated, it’s that you’re not incarnated enough.”

“So often our metaphors of incarnation are those of exile...

Tue, 08 May 2012 17:23:00 -0600

“So often our metaphors of incarnation are those of exile or of journeying. We travel from God; we are returning to God. We are "strangers in a strange land,” banished from our true and heavenly home.“

My friend Love reads the closing passage from Apprenticed to Spirit, by David Spangler.

"If I were to draw a “map” of your life, there are many ways I could do so, depending on..."

Tue, 08 May 2012 17:15:00 -0600

“If I were to draw a “map” of your life, there are many ways I could do so, depending on my starting point. I could map your life chronologically; I could map it according to your interests and desires; I could map it geographically by the places you’ve lived and visited; I could map it by your relationships. Each map would be accurate insofar as it went and each map would be incomplete. Each map would be useful for a particular purpose”

- From Apprenticed to Spirit, by David Spangler

“Many of John’s teachings and field trips over the...

Mon, 07 May 2012 13:35:00 -0600

“Many of John’s teachings and field trips over the years had been to show me that the physical plane was not the "dumping ground” of creation, not a fallen or lesser realm. It was a place of spirit and creativity as much as any other realm.“

In this clip my friend Love reads from Apprenticed to Spirit, by David Spangler.

I met Love at Berkeley Barefoot Boogie, about a year ago. As many who know me well are aware, I love to dance. However, I’m not a huge fan of nightclubs for a variety of reasons and good dance parties are few and far between, so I’m constantly on the lookout for other opportunities to move my body to some music. Barefoot boogie is essentially a bunch of people dancing however the hell they want to a wide variety of tunes. Perfect.

Love, who had her five year anniversary of going by the name "Love” while I was visiting her here in Seattle, was up for milkshakes after the boogie. We wasted no time in becoming friends, and here I am a year later.

"“I have a task for you. I want you to love this man for whom you currently feel such hatred..."

Sun, 06 May 2012 18:56:00 -0600

“

“I have a task for you. I want you to love this man for whom you currently feel such hatred and anger. I want you to find that place in you where you can embrace him as your brother and hold him with compassion and love.”

Naturally, given this task, my loathing for this man leapt up even more! “But John,” I said, “this man is a monster.”

“And you would cast him out. I understand. But God does not cast him out. I would like you to discover how God can do this. You are not sanctioning what he has done by loving him; you are keeping open the door for his liberation and transformation in the future.”

”

- From Apprenticed to Spirit, by David Spangler

The Worthwhile Challenge of Encountering a Truly Different Worldview

Sun, 06 May 2012 18:39:00 -0600

The Challenge:

When I began this project I made it clear that I would read absolutely any book that one of my hosts recommended in good faith, and I did that with the knowledge (and even hope) that some of the books I would read would be far off my usual literary path. Apprenticed to Spirit, by David Spangler, is perhaps the first book that really fulfills that hope, and it has brought with it some very interesting challenges that I think are worth talking about.

Simply put, I disagree strongly with many of the Spangler’s basic conceptions of reality. The book is autobiographical and centers on a series of interactions Spangler had over the course of 27 years with a non-physical being named John. Spangler ascribes John the same kind of reality that I would ascribe to a chair - that is to say, a reality independent of Spangler himself and consistently perceivable by others with similar “skills”. He also assumes the reality of other ideas I have trouble accepting such as reincarnation, various psychic phenomena, personology (deducing personality tendencies from physical traits) etc.

My Beliefs:

This clash in worldviews plays into two core beliefs I have:

1. Truth matters. I also happen to have (in some cases) strong ideas about what is true and what isn’t. Perhaps even more importantly, I have strong ideas about what constitutes valid evidence for truth and under what circumstances it even makes sense to talk about truth (hint: not always). When something comes into conflict with those ideas, my first instinct is to defend them.

2. Experiences are always valid, but explanations only sometimes are. This assumes, of course, that the person describing an experience is doing so in good faith and with the intention of fidelity. In the case of David Spangler’s experiences with John, I’m not questioning that those experiences occurred or that they were deeply important to Spangler or even the possibility that they could impart valuable insight. What I can’t help but question is whether Spangler’s explanation for those experiences, i.e. that they represent actual contact with a being with independent reality, is the best one.

The Resolution (an ongoing process):

As I read Apprenticed to Spirit I find that the two beliefs above come into a natural tension. #1 triggers an urge in me to stop reading because I find it hard to trust someone whose basic beliefs don’t jive with my understanding of reality on such a fundamental level. #2, meanwhile, causes me to want to temporarily suspend my disbelief for the sake of finding what is valid or insightful or valuable in Spangler’s experience rather than getting hung up on whether his implicit explanation for those experiences is true.

I’m going with the latter.

Fully entering the world of a book isn’t about letting go of your own conception of what’s true, it’s about letting go of the need to compulsively defend that conception. That goes for non-fiction as much as fiction. I’m pretty convinced that I get the most out of a book when I open up to it completely by provisionally “trying on” the author’s reality. Anthropologists know this principle well and use it all the time in the context of studying other cultures.

I’ve also noticed that my instinct to voraciously defend my conception of truth at all times seems to stem at least partially from my own insecurity. If I was 100% confident in my worldview, I wouldn’t feel as compelled to defend it. The fun thing is that as I’ve become more confident in my own map of reality, I’ve simultaneously become more comfortable stepping into other people’s maps. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those are also the moments when I learn the most.