More on Post-PhD Life, and the Walk for Peace

 

Another characteristic of post-PhD life is my attempt to honor the fact that I’m a being of body, mind, and spirit.  Pursuit of the PhD almost required all my resources go into the “mind” bucket; I remember some time after I defended climbing to the top of a hill in Marcus Garvey Park. There I sat to pray and meditate and nurture my spiritual side; the steep hike up the hill was enough to engage my physical body.  I’ve continued to exercise:  lifting, swimming, and just moving more while intentionally increasing my spiritual practices.

One of the things I decided to do was attend the CME Pastors’ Conference. It’s an Annual Conference held in Atlanta the first week of every year, and it coincides with homecoming for the Phillips School of Theology, THE Seminary of the CME Church.  The Conference always seemed a bit Phillips or ITC (Interdenominational Theological Center, a consortium of Atlanta-area seminaries of which Phillips is a member)-centric. Additionally, I find value in attending conferences where publishers offer books at a 20-40% discount; I was about to purchase a book at this conference and the preacher beside me nudged me and let me know he’d purchased it on Amazon for less than the conference price!!  So attending the Pastors’ Conference wasn’t a high priority while I was completing; having successfully defended, I was interested in attending the Conference.  The CME Church is a Connectional Church, and our national meetings are a bit like family reunions; I was excited at the prospect of seeing old friends and perhaps meeting some FB friends IRL.

I encountered that and more!  Dr. Michael Eric Dyson presented, followed by a Scholars’ Roundtable.  After worship and an alumni luncheon there was a special pastoral session on handling conflict, then a service by the Commission on Women in Ministry and an Outstanding Ministers Service that evening.  I think I left after the next day’s Plenary, but found that I didn’t need to attend every event, and time spent fellowshipping was time well spent.  I also managed to make some connections that will facilitate forward motion on some of my church projects, but the real value for me was in the corporate worship.  My home congregation has waned over the years, often resulting in a more intimate, private worship experience.  While private and corporate worship each have advantages, I don’t think I’d been in corporate worship since this summer in Sweden.  So the corporate worship was edifying and invigorating, it was great to see so many folk, and then I left the conference, rented a car, and headed to South Carolina to visit my Dad. He lives in a rural town that could not be more unlike the fast-paced life in New York City, and always provides a welcome respite. 

Headed to South Carolina after a spirit-filled conference would have been enough, but I heard about the monks Walking for Peace. They were to have been near Atlanta when I was there, but as I checked their route, it seemed that on January 8, the 75^th day of their walk, they would be about an hour’s drive from my Dad’s place.  They were to be in a little town called Saluda, the hometown and final resting place of one of my parishioners, so I thought that would be an appropriate site to visit.  As I drove through the South Carolina highways, I first had the opportunity to appreciate driving again – having lived without an automobile in NYC has been an adjustment and while I continually think about buying a car, for my purposes, renting one once a month or once every other month is sufficient.  So I drove through the South Carolina countryside – acres and acres of farmland, little cotton balls dotting the countryside, more roadkill than one would have expected, despite the deer and other critters scampering by the roadside.  For a native southerner who’s lived longer in NYC than anywhere else, this was a welcome change of scenery. There was even an old ESSO (Exxon’s precursor) sign!

Got to Saluda. It was the middle of the week, and I didn’t expect much of a turnout to see a bunch of Buddhist monks walking through a small South Carolina town. Boy, was I wrong!! The crowd was massive, though not nearly as large as it would grow by the time the monks reached Columbia, the state capital.  In Saluda, they were assembled at the Saluda County Courthouse.  I actually had to drive around for a while looking for parking, and ended up parking in a questionably legal spot a couple of blocks away from the courthouse.  When I approached, the monks were sitting in the yard, eating lunch. I snapped a picture of them before I knew of their request to not record them while eating, but once I learned of their request, I sat on the steps of the courthouse waiting for them to finish.

When they finished eating, the spokesperson, the Venerable Bhikkhu Pannakara, came to address the crowd.  To accommodate him, the police officers had those of us on the steps move off the steps.  We were free to sit on the ground facing the steps, which I did, gaining a front row seat in the process.  Venerable Bhikkhu spoke to us for 20+ minutes, on mindfulness, on taking a break from our lovers (electronics), on the monkey mind, and on meditation.  I recorded most of his talk, and will try to post it along with pictures from the event.  While nothing I heard from him was new, he delivered these truths in such a way that they not only made sense, but they stuck.  Earlier I noted the need to nurture my spirit more, and one of the best ways I know to do this is to increase my mindfulness and meditative practices. (Truth be told, there’s a thin line between corporate worship that is edifying and corporate worship that is performative; for me right now a bit of corporate worship is edifying, but too much becomes performative.  I’m grateful for mindfulness and meditative practices:  mindfulness to direct my focus away from the external world and meditation to really listen to the voice of God.)  So there was a tremendous benefit in this exposure as it redirected me back to mindfulness and meditation.  Perhaps even more significant, though, was the ENERGY (or spirit if you want) these monks generated. I said to someone that if they can simply be conduits of this sort of energy on their journey, they will bring about peace in our land.  I think of SC in general as a red state, one where the different races appear to coexist only because everyone “knows their place.”  I think of Saluda as another stereotypical Southern town, embodying all the best and the worst of those stereotypes.  What I saw was a town full of people desperately seeking peace.  I saw a town full of people who’ve not found the Love or Truth of the Christian Gospels, and who are still seeking.  In America in general, perhaps in the Western world, I see people who reject the hypocrisy they see in those of us who claim to follow Jesus, but who still seek the love, joy and peace they’ve been taught are available in Him.  And in today’s pluralistic society, even folk in the Bible Belt are willing to commune with Buddhist monks if peace is a probable outcome.

…. well, most folk, anyway.  The only sad spot in the gathering was a gentleman with an amplifier and a sign, trying to drown out the monks with his voice, and displaying a sign proclaiming “Jesus Died For You:  God Loves You And Wants To Save You From Your Sins. Repent of Sin. Believe the Gospel. Obey Jesus.”  It was quite sad; I walked past him at the end and told him I hoped he got to know Jesus some day.  That comment produced a response so charged that its vitriol was almost palpable.  The sad thing, and something I didn’t realize when I started chanting decades ago, is that the practice of Buddhism does not interfere with and is not contrary to the practice of Christianity.  I happen to think that some tenets of Buddhism enhance my practice of Christianity, and I have thoughts about where Jesus was from the ages of 12-30, but that’s a different conversation.

So.  I’m going to post this and hopefully either post pics and video from the day or link this blog to FB pics and video of the day.  I can’t overstate its impact on me; not only am I attempting to be more intentional in my daily meditative practices, but I’m slowly imposing some much-needed discipline throughout other areas of my life.  The monks remind me of how my spirit used to be before living in NYC for so long:  I remember being in my mid-to late-twenties before finally realizing that some humans are just mean, and despite where I live, my instinct is still to look every human in the eye and greet them with a smile.  I’d like to get back to that sort of gentle, unassuming outlook on humans, and think the only way I can is through much, much MUCH prayer and meditation.

There’s probably more, but this is part of my forced daily writing exercise, so I’mma post this and figure out the pics later.