Father, we have chosen a monastic way of life. Yes, you can help us to believe that you trust in the vision which has prompted us to do this. It will help us to be ready to have that vision grow, become more consistent in us, to make us better witnesses to be asked to continue. Well, it's evident that we're going to say something about the nasty witness particularly. However, before I do that, I'd like to add a kind of post script to what was said last evening about the David attitude.

[01:01]

So many things that could be said there, but there's one dimension of it that I don't want to forget or leave out of now. And that is that a person who has developed a believing or definite or Christian attitude toward life will manifest this not only by being ready for goodness and looking for it, ready for the happy surprise, filled with wonder, But also, and I think maybe especially, this will be manifested in the way this person handles unexpected, bad turns of fortune. You guys have to teach them how. Most of us make plans. We schedule things. We have, you know, things set up. We've probably got plans for next week, for this weekend.

[02:03]

And sometimes there's a lot of things we would like very much to do. But we can't control everything. And so it frequently rains on our picnics, to use a symbolic term. Now what do you do when it rains on your picnic? Well, I think the normal, natural human temptation is to gripe, to complain, to kick stone, to curse a little. Maybe to drown one's sorrow, if that's possible. But in general, to say, well, damn it, you know, try to make the best of it. Well, this is a moment of opportunity for David Baker. Because what he learned to say is, my plans have failed.

[03:06]

My plans have gone awry. Now, maybe something even better is going to happen. Maybe something even better is going to happen. Well, I'd better get ready. And very often, something better does happen. But only if one is looking for it. Only if one is ready for it. I can depict maybe an itch. Maybe it rained, that's a dramatic meaning. I can break a whole egg. Actually, if you give them a little egg, that's an easy concept. Or maybe I had a heart attack. Or even more important, maybe because it rained, I had to sit down and talk with someone whom I had never really met before. And all of a sudden, something happens that makes me forget all about the painting. This alertness, this openness, this readiness for the unexpected, which is better than what I had planned, I think is a crucial element in developing a life

[04:16]

which is filled with the kind of goodness and surprise and happiness that drives them mad. There's a classic example of this, I think. Of course, it extends way beyond what we might call a formal religion thing. It's not just something that happens amongst the court, or even Christians. But I'm always impressed by the way in which Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. Now, our scientists here know more about this than I do. As I heard the story, he was not at all looking for penicillin. He was developing a culture in which to raise germs. He was trying to keep these germs alive in his culture. And then he found that this mold came into his culture and was killing his germs. It was an unwanted thing. Now most of us, I think you can say, are damn bold.

[05:18]

You know, here I am in a culture, and I've worked for days to get it all set up, and then this here foreign element comes in, and, you know, that's kind of antiseptic, why don't we wipe the whole thing out and start over again. I'll try to be cleaner this time. He said, no, no, wait a minute, he forgot all about his original experiment. If this mold will be destroying my bugs here, maybe it'll kill bugs elsewhere. And that moment where it turns out to be one of the great blessings of humanity. Well, you can see, you know, that this can give one, you know, an experience of life that's full of adventure, of creativeness, and extremely important also, it ought to be a hallmark of religious people. because they are constantly ready for the surprise that God's mystery is bringing into life. So you see how far removed that kind of very carefully planned and controlled attitude is, how far removed that is from true spirituality.

[06:25]

I think it's completely phony spirituality when it says, I know exactly what's going to happen, nobody ever surprises me. You know, that's maybe stoicism. Nothing to do with Christianity. Well, the Christian is constantly looking for something to happen, to pull back. In the meantime, he makes tentative plans. Now, coming in then to the monastic witness, which of course is not far into this, is an extension and a concentration of the basic Christian witness. To put it in sort of academic terms, I would say that monastic ideal is centered in a witness to the transcendent. Monastic ideal, when you strip away all the cultural and traditional elements, all the practices which have become characteristic of monasticism,

[07:37]

form of life, the lifestyle, when you get beyond that and come into what you might call the basic instinct, which causes people to do this sort of thing, I think it is a discovery in a personal way of the reality of the transcendent. Now I tell you that kind of technical language, and you won't get any vocation by saying that you're looking for the transcendent. I don't think people are turned on by the transcendent. However, one can come to understand the transcendent in a much more concrete way. I think you have to begin with a kind of theoretical term. And so, all forms of monasticism, I believe, are various expressions of this discovery, but all with only a partial discovery, and therefore a quest, a seeking for the transcendent, for the beyond.

[08:51]

Transcendent, of course, is capitalized, and we find out to be identified with God. the transcendent, the ultimate beyond, the ultimate one who is not limited and controlled and imprisoned in this time and place, the ultimate free one is God. Now, it's clear that this monastic discovery, this monastic vision of the world is by no means limited to monks. nor is it limited even to Christians. It is an essentially religious instinct which cuts across all kinds of religion. However, an ethnic tradition is, I think, a development of a specific way of shaping one's life in response to this quest for the transcendent.

[10:02]

And here is where then the format of the life and the tradition comes in. And there are all different ways of doing it, but we have a certain configuration, a certain methodology by which we deal with this basic instinct for the transcendent. I think it's important, though, to keep in mind that the things which are most obvious in monotheism are not the things that are primary. And it is possible to be attracted to monotheism for many other reasons besides seeking to transcend it. One can be attracted because, you know, they're great to be civilized people. Long ago in time, this would be 12 long ago. And one can be attracted because of the orderly life, and all kinds of reasons. And it's important to sort these out because, you know, the only one reason is really valid. And I think that's the critical thing, and that's, I think, what Benedict is saying, when he says, when the novice comes in, go for one thing only.

[11:09]

Does he truly seek God? Read, does he truly seek the transcendent? Is he looking for something beyond all this? And if this is not there, no matter how talented or how otherwise adapted to monastic life he might be, I don't think we have to counsel him through nothing else. If he's looking for this, he might not fit in too well at all in terms of his behavior and what not. He might really be a kind of a misfit, but if he has this, doesn't make nothing to say, all the rest will come around. This is the critical thing. Truly seek God, that he is a seeker. He's resting, he's looking, not that far away, look in his eye. You know? And this is the essential thing, and of course it's not something that you can measure very easily.

[12:13]

And I think if what it's looking for is not that hard to find either. Now when one says that this is a witnessing to the transcendent, one says of course, first of all, That, we'll put it this way, the word transcendent has very little positive content in it. It says that which is beyond. It doesn't say what is beyond. And so, to get a feeling for what the transcendent means, one has to find out or try to describe what is beyond. And so, what it is not? The transcendent is not the secular. Now, of course, we know there's a long, you know, dispute about this secular versus the transcendent and so forth and so on.

[13:15]

Let me say fairly like then, that secular in this context does not mean does not mean that this world is bad. Now, secular means secularist, that is, it is directly opposed, the understanding of transcendence, is directly opposed to the philosophy, to the attitude, not only that this place and this time are good, But it's opposed to the point that this place and this time are all there is. That's where the distinction takes place. That's where the transcendent says, no. The true understanding of the transcendent and its sequence of events is not a denial of the goodness of this time and this place. That's a phony fanatic intuition.

[14:19]

No, it affirms absolutely the goodness of this life, this time, this place, this earth. However, only as a starting place, only as a staging area for a great journey through the transcendent, as a time and place to begin the quest. Where it takes issue with the secularist philosophy is where the secularist philosophy says this not only is good, but it's all there is. And I think there's a real distinction. So, what it does, the awareness of the transcendence and the belief in the transcendence does, is to relativize the secular. To relativize the tendency to make the secular absolute. That is, the totality. It says, no, there is more than this.

[15:22]

And it sees the secular, the disworldly, as a good and natural and beneficent reality, precisely however in its potentiality. In other words, it does not consider the fruit to be an enemy of the blossom or the seed. But it does reject the view that there is only a blossom or only a seed. Now, this has some profound implications for how one feels about this time and this place. If I think this is all there is, then as far as time goes, I'm always going to be in a hurry. I mean, this is all we're going to do with all the time we have.

[16:26]

For God's sake, we're not even sure of that. We expect to have a normal lifetime, but even that isn't sure. Even if we have an extraordinary lifetime, it's still not enough. So there's always an urgency and impatience about the limitation of time. Well, if one looks upon this as being its first step only in a long journey, well then, it's possible to relax. It's possible not to get caught up in that frenzy. And if this is not the only place there is, then it's not the only chance for succeeding. So the whole meaning of success is modified. It is not necessary to succeed here and as soon as possible and according with the terms of success as understood here. Now, success has an altogether different meaning.

[17:30]

Now, success means to arrive at this beyond. And that may mean not succeeding here at all, as Jesus did not succeed. Jesus, in terms of the secular, Jesus was a great failure. Lost his friends, lost his influence. At the time of his death, no one could say he succeeded. And yet, I think we consider him a predominant success overall. So one who discovered the transcendent is first of all one who had become aware of the incompleteness but the inadequacy of the secular of this time and this place.

[18:33]

So I think the first characteristic of this monastic intuition is a kind of restlessness, a kind of sense of the incompleteness of everything. One becomes aware that there is more, but one does not yet know for sure what the more is. So the quest becomes a seeking for the meaning, the nature of the transcendent. And to do that, one searches out other people who have had the same experience. From the very beginning, the monk has looked for kindred spirits. Am I the only one who feels this way about the world? Well, I heard so-and-so across the other mountain. I look him up.

[19:35]

Why do you feel like that? So there is, you know, a very, very traditional, ancient tendency for people who have this vision to come together. And so, I would say then that the first characteristic of the monk is that he is looking or searching for something. He's seeking for a fullness beyond. Gradually, with the help of others who perhaps have been at this thing longer, it becomes clear to him what this beyond is. And he is God, of course. But God is really not that much more concrete, meaningful, than the word transcendent itself.

[20:39]

So, I think the critical thing for us is to try to call the transcendent in helpful imagery. There are various ways in which Men have tried to deal with this question of transcendence. It is a part of mystery. Therefore, one can never have clear, precise, neat descriptions of it. However, one can learn a great deal about it. And I think because it responds to the dissatisfaction and the sense of inadequacy, incompleteness, which, you know, within the human heart, I think a very good name for the transcendent is home.

[21:46]

It is our true home. Now, here again, as in the case of God as Father. It's very important that there be some human experience of home from which one can proceed. If one has not had a good experience of home, if one has not wanted to go home from school for death, one must not think of Then this image needs to be modified to find some other image. Because home means a place you want to go. A place where there is a sense of belonging. Here at last, arrived, end of the journey. No need to go farther. And so, as God

[22:51]

His father, personally, and naturally, assuming that one has had a good experience with his father, is not, I think you should say, our mother, our uncle, our friend, who has not left us until we've experienced such a thing. I think a child that has never had a good father, maybe no father at all, We really cannot understand what our father means. And we talk about a normal situation, therefore, building on a human experience. And I think we need to modify some of these things in cases where that human experience has lagged out. But the manner in which one comes to describe and anticipate this home is greatly influenced by the sense of reclamation, the sense of inadequacy, the sense of homesickness, which causes one to be looking for hope in the first place.

[23:55]

Now, there have been a number of traditional images for describing the transcendent as a human experience, seeking of the transcendent. And I draw it here somewhat from an article by Herbert Richardson, who talked about three myths of the transcendent. And I think we recognize them. I'm not going to go into these articles, but I'll just use it as a kind of framework for discussing this question. First of all, the transcendent, probably in its earliest understanding, was described as a home high above this place of sorrow. the hope which is an escape from this veil of tears. Therefore, essentially in terms of being stuck in some place where there's a great deal of suffering and where one is constantly aware of being closed in.

[25:08]

Well, the veil of tears, a very honorable and traditional name in the circle of spirituality. A low, narrow, cozy in-place. To be released, to go home, means to rise up, to ascend, to go to heaven, to be delivered from, to be snatched out of. And heaven becomes a garden of pleasures, a very pleasant place. Wide, open spaces, no fear. Every fear shall be wiped away. And also there is in this image a sense that in going to this pleasant place, one is actually returning to a childhood place. The return to paradise is a very, very ancient theme in consciousness in Christian tradition.

[26:17]

And the biblical story of Genesis, which depicts man in an original paradise from which he is ejected, is part of this understanding. Man remembers an ancient childhood, which accounts for his present yearning. I remember having been someplace that was very nice. Maybe it's the womb. The awareness of the security and the happiness of the womb. I think that's not... I personally think it's completely futile to take a look to the Garden of Paradise, Garden of Eden. If you can get your congregation to send you over there to Armenia, or look for it, more power to you. You have the possibility, don't come to me to ask where to look for it. I don't think there's any place near the Garden of Paradise. I think it's theological to me. And maybe it's just the idea that God had for us from the beginning, and it's in His mind. I often think that the original paradise is something like the front page, the cover of a seed catalog.

[27:29]

When I order seeds, you know, my garden is a big pot. But I can see those vegetables just like in the front of a thirsty catalog. When God plowed His field, He knew, so I gave them all these wonderful fruits, which we are going to become. And in a way, the Garden of Eden is that idea, that understanding of what the fruit of all this can be. But it's in the seed of man. Man is, after all, an extension of God's idea. So I consult the seed in the inner part of my being. And I remember, in a certain sense, quotation mark, what my possibilities are. So, this... I've gone through the... what you just say, namely, I've gone through the heat, and the bugs, and the blight, and the harrowing, and the digging, and now I'm coming to the harvest.

[28:39]

I'm going back. Fulfilling that promise. Another image, another myth, is the transcendence of a home no longer high above this veil of tears, but at the end of history. At the end of history. No longer a cosmological image of moving from one place to another, but a temporal or historical image of moving through history to a homeland. This is more directly biblical than the other. The first one is really very Greek in politics. This is, I think, essentially biblical. The Exodus gave a decisive orientation to history. It broke the clinical cycle of Canaanite and other nature religions and launched the Israelites on a great historical adventure.

[29:41]

God is present, manifested at the beginning of history. And then he turns mysterious, seems absent. Only to show himself again at the end of time, when all things will be set aright. One makes this journey successfully not just by surviving, not just by hanging in there, but by making God present. by doing the divine thing, by liberating the slaves with care and love. In this view, the whole human project is dominated by promise. There are signs that transcendent everywhere, seeds of hope, seeds of promise. But the full revelation comes only at the end, in the radical future. So this myth is compounded as yet, and it's really tough to find a document on the last ten days. making the journey, looking at the constant colors of the horizon, learning to run toward that rather than move away from the other.

[30:51]

The reference is in the Bible, of course, everywhere. A text I read about Jesus, for the joy set before him. The thing I mentioned for benefit, running the way of God's command. There is a third myth, a third way of looking at this, and by the way, these are not mutually exclusive by any means, which finds the home not high above this place, a kind of refuge, a kind of escape, nor even just at the end of history, although that is also true, but which finds the ultimate home in one's true self, a journey inward, a journey through self-transformation, a journey through personal conversion, a journey toward truth.

[32:06]

Now, these are all the same journey. but the attempt to deal with a journey that can never be fully described in a different way. This journey is one which leads to great personal freedom. In a sense, I discover the divinity which is within. I think we have been far too much afraid of atheism. You know, anything that might suggest that God is present, you know, except in a very apparently distinguished way, in his creatures. You know, I think the spark of divinity is in every being, and especially in man, the image of God. And so I discover God in the transcendence. Not by moving out of myself, hardly even knowing myself, but by getting to know myself and moving toward the truth that is in me.

[33:14]

Not through some morbid introspection, but through an understanding of my potentiality. I discover myself as able to do divine things. As able to do the exodus thing. The failure of man is often to have an extoller interact with a sword in his scabbard, and to sit there and say, I can't do anything, what can I do about it? My God, I'm only one. What can I do about all these things? I've got this gigantic sword in my scabbard, get past me. My God, I think we'll see at the end. Well, I think I'm sore, just start moving it. And we'll see what we can do. No, we don't know the divine power that God has given us, the power of loving and thoughtless. And so it is discovering that, and instead of being some morbid introspection which makes me forget everything else, it sees me in terms of my possibilities of serving, of changing, of doing, of helping.

[34:30]

taking me outside myself, doing the creative and divine thing, far beyond anything I thought possible. Now, my time is up, but I want to take the characteristics of monastic life, the vows and some other characteristics, and use them, I think, I hope effectively to illustrate that all of these qualities that we wish on practices of monotheism do in fact derive their deeper meaning from this profound witnessing to the transcendent.

[35:19]

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