Souljourners, etc.

This weekend I was at Mount St. Scholastica monastery in Atchison for Souljourners. The topic this month was "Contemplative shift," that is, the movement from external, enlightenment, scientific/rational/mind based (a.k.a. modern) spirituality to internal, mystical, intuitive based (a.k.a. postmodern) spirituality. The text for the class was Integral Spirituality by Ken Wilber, a buddhist philosopher. I found the book very challenging, both because it was quite complex, and because I never really "bought into"some of his philosophy, especially concerning nondualism (I think that Christianity, unlike Buddhism, has some non-negotiable dualisms, not least the idea that there is a strong distinction between the Creator and the Created).

The class was also challenging because, it seemed to me, the instructor was sometimes advocating that the modern means of spirituality was old and found wanting and that we all need to move into the postmodern/contemplative spirituality, or that spiritual growth happens primarily in the contemplative.

I do not see them as an either/or, but as a both/and. I find that there needs to be a synthesis of modern and postmodern. If "modern" can be basically be described as "external/rational" and "postmodern" can be described as "internal/intuitive", then I think a synthesis is needed because human beings are both. Ken Wilber does seem to make this point (that we are both), but I still get the sense that Wilber thinks that external/rational is a "lower-level" than the "internal/intuitive". It's hard to explain without really getting into it (which I don't want to do).

Probably the most helpful thing I received was a "map" of suggested spiritual practices that combine the external and the internal, the individual and the society. It looked something like this:

UL (individual/internal) tai chi, yoga, mental therapy, meditation, prayer, reading, journaling, study, visualization, etc.	UR (individual/external) diet, vitamins, fasts, exercise, medications, sleep, massage, etc.
LL (collective/internal) relationships with family, friends, animals, community service, local ecological action	LR collective/external [institutions] exercising civic duties, participation in teaching/educational systems, promoting healthy ecological systems, participation in healthy religious systems, etc.

After I got back from Souljourners, I immediately caught a cold, and spent most of the day Sunday sleeping in bed (like from 11:30 to 5:00pm!).

The photo above is one that Dean sent me and is of real flowers grown in Netherlands. They are called "tie-dye" roses. The color is injecting into the plants by syringes during the growth cycle. They are real, and certainly not "natural," but still pretty cool to look at.