How can we
cultivate the art of listening beneath the surface of family dynamics, corporate
scandals, political angling, global warming and warring, tensions in our bodies?
How can we
cultivate the art of listening beneath the surface of family dynamics, corporate
scandals, political angling, global warming and warring, tensions in our bodies?
The most important Hebrew prayer is the Shema, named for the first word meaning hear, listen or pay attention – or obey. “Listen, O people of God, the Lord your God is one.” Deep listening draws us into loving connection with God, neighbor and self, as Jesus reaffirmed in Mark 12:29. Mindfulness is the term for such contemplative listening in Eastern traditions. Shema means attentiveness with one’s soul, one’s whole being – heart, will, mind, and body. To write of anything significant begins with awareness of its significance for you.
The tree stands as a paradigm of the spiritual life in Judeo-Christian and scores of indigenous traditions. Imagine the upper part of the tree as a manifestation of our life of action, bearing fruit in the world, risking stresses of wind and weather. Imagine the root system as the hidden life of contemplation, beneath conscious awareness. Its trunk – interacting with earth and sky – represents mindfulness (shema): listening attentively as the Ground of our being nurtures us to listen attentively in the world of action. Yet it is one tree: a union of attention and expression. Mozart could contemplate a complete symphony, then furiously pen the notes to manifest the masterpiece he had heard from start to finish in his head. Contemplation focuses the imagination to create keen action.
Paying Attention
Life is ultimately defined by what we pay attention to. What we focus on feeds us – my translation of Ludwig Feuerbach’s idea that “man is what he eats.” Writing is a way of paying attention to things twice, savoring their layers, their essence. The same thing can be said of art, photography, cinema, music, dance, or any of the sciences. And each of these in turn depends on writing to pass on tools of the trade, as in the give and take that occurs in the healthy commerce of life.
Thomas Merton received countless letters demanding to know how he could produce so many books and pretend to keep a Trappist vow of silence in his hermitage at the Abbey at Gethsemani, Kentucky. He answered that writing was a form of contemplation, “writing and praying as I write.” Since prayer is not the opposite of action, but rather a form of action, we could also say writing is a form of action. A group of Palestinian and Israeli authors gathered at the Sheikh Hussein Bridge, a symbolic link to Israel and Jordan, to discuss new ways to achieve peace in the Middle East. Israeli Etgar Keret described it as “kind of like an AA meeting. It’s that kind of a support group” for writers on both sides to imagine a better future. The pen is mightier than the sword.
Most mornings,
before beginning the day’s work, I take some time to practice physical and
spiritual exercises (like some in this book) and to write in my journal. But
when I do serious writing, I hide away for a few days in a retreat center, a
monastery, or our cottage in upstate New York. Since I frame writing as action,
I tell myself to settle into contemplation first, so I can draw from its taproot
while I write. A decade ago, at the Jesuit Spiritual Center in Wernersville,
Pennsylvania, I wrote this prayer poem, and it now guides my writing for short
or long periods.
Writer’s Asceticism
Merton-like I hide away
to pray to write and pray
in this my hermitage,
to birth my heritage:
the gift of the burden,
the burden of the gift.
Reflection Questions:
I invite you now to pause and reflect on the place writing has in your life:
What gifts does writing bring? What struggles?
What invitation do you sense in relation to your writing?
Excerpted from Writing Tides: Finding Grace and Growth Through Writing © 2007 by Abingdon Press (www.AbingdonPress.com).
Kent Ira Groff, a writer, poet, speaker, and spiritual guide. He is founding mentor of Oasis Ministries for Spiritual Development in Camp Hill, PA and adjunct professor at Lancaster Theological Seminary. Kent is living in Denver, CO with his wife, Freddy. Several of Kent’s books are available from Faith@Work Resources.