A Mysterious Presence in the Darkness

In the spring of 2003, while on sabbatical from our parish work, my family travelled to the west coast of Ireland. This photo is of the Gallarus Oratory, an early Christian site located on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry. My then thirteen year old daughter Bekah, no doubt chilled and made grumpy by a raw wind blowing in off the North Atlantic, stands in the doorway, reluctantly consenting to a photograph.

Chet Raymo, professor emeritus of physics and astronomy at Stonehill College and a part-time resident of the Dingle Peninsula, wrote about the oratory in his remarkable book Climbing Brandon: Science and Faith on Ireland's Holy Mountain. I offer a somewhat lengthy excerpt from the book. Please read on. You won't be disappointed.

Of all the places Irish men and women built for prayer before the coming of the Vikings in the ninth century, only one remains intact. At Gallarus, on the Dingle Peninsula west of Mount Brandon is a structure that must be counted as one of the most remarkable in all of Ireland, even in all of Europe: the Gallarus Oratory. The building is about the size of a one-car garage, rectangular in plan, in the shape of an overturned boat. it is built of unmortared stone, beautifully fitted together, with corbeled side walls about a yard thick curving upward until they meet at the ridge line. A small trapezoidal opening at the front may have once been closed by a door of leather or wood; an adult must stoop to enter. A timy arched window at the rear admits a shaft of light into the gloom. The structure is as weathertight today as when it was built.

Everyone who sees the Gallarus Oratory for the first time is stunned into silence. They have never seen anything like it, and never will. Inexplicably, almost miraculously, it has survived the ravages of time, in particular the predations of farmers seeking building stone. There are other structures like it on the Dingle Peninsula, but all exist only in fragments; the Gallarus Oratory has the look of a building that was constructed yesterday. Exactly how old it is no one can say...it is almost certain that the building was in place before the Vikings came ravaging along this coast in the year 850.

Perhaps the Gallarus oratory survived because it early became and remained a place of pilgrimage, or perhaps because even from the earliest times people recognized it as something of an architectural masterpiece. The oratory, as its name implies, was meant for prayer, and one cannot enter that cool darkness without feeling a sense of mystery that provokes a contemplative response. What sort of prayer took place in the cool cave of the Gallarus Oratory no one can say at this remove. Perhaps a tiny oil lamp flickered in the waxy darkness. Was there an altar against that back wall? Surely no seats or benches in this restricted place. It is hard to imagine an exuberant congregation singing a Te Deum--the voices crushed back to earth by the weight of the corbeled stone. Rather, one imagines a single person, or two, or three, prostrate in the dark, praying as Thomas Merton defined monastic prayer: A silent listening of the heart.

A few years ago, I spent the night in the Gallarus oratory. I can't say exactly why I went there late in the evening, or why I intended to sit up all night unsleeping in that dark space. I suppose I wanted to experience something of whatever it was that inspired Irish men and women to seek out these rough hermitages on the edge of civilization. They were, to be sure, pilgrims of the Absolute, seeking their God in a raw, ecstatic encounter with stone, wind, sea, and sky.

The sun had long set when I arrived at the Gallarus, although at Ireland's latitude the twilight in summer never quite fades from the northern horizon. It was a moonless night, ablaze with stars, Jupiter brightest of all. Meteors occasionally streaked the sky, and satellites cruised more stately orbits. Inside the oratory, I snuggled into a back corner, tucked my knees under my chin, and waited. The darkness was palpable, pungent...I could see nothing but the starlit outline of the door, not even my hand in front of my face. The silence was broken only by the swish-swish of my own breath. As the hours passed, I began to feel a presence, a powerful sensation of something or someone sharing that empty darkness. I am not, as you surely know by now, a mystical person, but I knew that I was not alone, and I could imagine those hermit monks of the seventh century sharing the same intense conviction of "someone in the room." At last, I was spooked to the point that I abandoned my interior corner and went outside.

A night of exceptional clarity. Stars spilling into the sea. And in the north, as if as a reward for my lonely vigil, the aurora borealis--the northern lights--danced toward the zenith. How can I describe what I saw? Rays of silver light streaming up from the sea, as if from some enchanted Oz just over the horizon. Shimmering columns of fairy radiance, black night made suddenly phosphorescent.

The Gallarus Oratory was built for prayer at a time when the world was thought to be charged with the active spirit of the Creator: every zephyr blew good or ill; springs flowed or dried up at the deity's whim; lights danced in a predawn sky as blessings or portents. Today, we know that the lights dance for reasons that have nothing to do with our supplications or with a deity's willfulness; electrons crash down from the Sun, igniting luminescence. But our response to the lights might be prayerful, nonetheless: wonder, thanksgiving, praise. If we are attentive and knowledgeable, the lights will lead us into encounter with the ineffable Sprit that stirs the universe into a ferment.

As the Sun brightened the eastern sky and the last shreds of aurora faded, I was suddenly startled by a pair of swallows that began to dart in and out of the Gallarus Oratory, hunting insects on the wing. I followed them inside and discovered a nest with three chicks perched on a protruding stone just above the place I had been sitting. The mysterious presence I had felt so strongly in the darkness was not a god, nor fairy spirit, nor angel, nor demon, but the respiration and featherings of swallows.

(DSH Photo: Rebekah at the Gallarus Oratory, Dingle Peninsula, Ireland; May, 2003)

Airborne

"You just got home from a three-day Zen sesshin three hours ago and now you're drinking a beer and watching NASCAR. Chock it up to the multi-faceted complex world of Dave!" said Sukie.

Well, it wasn't just any beer; it was a Sebago Brewing Company Frye's Leap IPA. And it wasn't just any NASCAR race; it was the Aaron's 499 at the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama (Confederate flag, anyone?). And it certainly wasn't just any finish; on the last lap, Carl Edward's 99 car went airborne and flipped into the catch fence, crashing back down onto the frontstretch in a flaming wreck. Edwards extricated himself from the flames and actually ran across the finish line.  Rookie Brad Kaselowski went on to win the race with Dale Earnhardt, Jr. right on his bumper. The video of the final lap has become a top YouTube pick.

Several years ago, when I confessed to my best friend that I was a NASCAR fan, he very nearly disowned me. He was so disgusted that he couldn't even respond. My co-workers are mystified, if not appalled. My wife has learned to tolerate my occasional Sunday afternoon race viewing. My daughters shrug their shoulders and say "whatever." My dog falls asleep on the living room rug.

I've even been to a few races. And, yes, I've been to the spring race at Talladega with my brother, nephew, and another friend. (Oh, by the way, he's the same friend that I was a Civil War reenactor with for ten years. But I'll save that one for another post...). I've been to the August race at the Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee. And I've driven over to the New Hampshire International Speedway for the mid-summer event.

What a minute, you may be wondering, aren't you the Episcopal priest Zen student hospice chaplain contemplative guy? What's up with the NASCAR thing?

Isn't there a contradiction here somewhere? You bet. Chock it up to the many selves of the self that is no-self. The bottom line is that I don't worry about it much. Life is too short.

In those immortal words of Darrell Waltrip: Boggity, boggity, boggity! Let's go racing, boys!

Back Home

When I arrived at the office this morning after three days of being on retreat with my Zen community, one or two of my co-workers asked: "So are you refreshed?" Mmmm...refreshed? Well, maybe. Never really thought of a Zen sesshin as being refreshing.

Challenging? Demanding? Exhausting? Yes, by all means. Illuminating? Depends on what you mean by "illuminating." The light gets cast on the whole inner enchilada. And much of it ain't pretty. 

But then there are moments of ease, of clarity, of delicious pure awareness--of how the sunlight with shadows of branches blowing in the wind is cast on the warm hardwood floor of the zendo, of the geese and ducks splashing in the pond water out back, of a night full of stars, of a teacher who quietly assures me that I'm not a total shit or a basket case after all but fully human, a fellow journeyer on this amazing endeavor of coming alive, of having one's heart stretched and melted and transformed in the crucible of practice.

I inevitably dread going on sesshin and I'm always happy to come home. And I also know that, as hard as it is, sesshin is the most important work I do, that we do together. As I'm often reminded by my teachers, this going on retreat is not a private affair. It's about saving all beings. It's about transforming a world of suffering. As we sing every evening at the close of the day...

I vow to wake all the beings of the world,

I vow to set endless heartache to rest,

I vow to walk through every wisdom gate,

I vow to live the great Buddha way.

(DSH photo: Boundless Way Zen, April sesshin, 2009. Note: that Teddy Bear sitting on the floor wearing a rakusu in front of David Rynick is actually James Ford. He had to leave, with his wife Jan, after the close of day ceremony on Saturday evening. Such are the hazards of being Zen teacher and parish minister!)

Gone Sitting

I'm leaving this afternoon for a three-day retreat (sesshin) with Boundless Way Zen at Alyson's Orchard in Walpole, New Hampshire. Our meditation hall (zendo) is their event center atop a hill surrounded by apple trees and a small duck pond outback. Weather expected to be warm over the weekend. Back Sunday afternoon.

Our Solemn Obligation

Last October, during Parent's Weekend at George Washington University, my family had occasion to visit the World War Two Memorial on the National Mall. The memorial was dedicated in May of 2004 and commemorates the 16 million who served, the over 400,00 who died, and all who supported the war effort from home.

No sooner had we arrived than a tour bus from Texas pulled into the parking area. Onboard were a group of WW2 veterans, some of whom disembarked from the bus under their own steam, many others with the assistance of their caregivers. Walkers and wheelchairs were unloaded and distributed.

Twenty-four bronze bas-relief panels flank the north and south ceremonial entrance of the memorial, with walkways gradually descending into the inner oval with its pool and fountains. I watched an elderly gentleman with a dark blue Navy Veteran cap, his chair being wheeled down the entryway. He asked to pause at each panel--on the south side depicting the Pacific theater of war--and gazed intently, describing to his caregiver what each scene portrayed, from Pearl Harbor to enlistment to shipbuilding to the Navy in action to jungle warfare.

Walking a few paces behind, I listened intently, and drawing nearer, introduced myself, shaking the man's outstretched hand. He said that he had piloted an amphibious landing craft during the war, delivering Marines onto islands held by the Japanese. He said that it was his honor and privilege to visit the memorial. He was grateful for this tribute to his generation.

As he approached the last two panels, one depicting an impromtu battlefield burial and the next a celebration of VJ Day, I noticed that he was silently weeping and wiping his eyes with his handkerchief.

I accompanied him further on and watched as he looked up and read aloud a quote from Admiral Nimitz carved into the stonework:

They fought together as brothers-in-arms. They died together and now they sleep side by side. To them we have a solemn obligation.

I asked if I might take his photograph. He graciously agreed and turned his wheelchair to face the camera. And I thought how much this man reminded me of my own father.

Jack Heald served as an officer aboard the USS Converse from November, 1942 to January, 1944. His destroyer squadron won a Presidential Unit Citation for "extraordinary heroism" during the Solomon Islands campaign. Among other harrowing episodes, his ship was struck amidships by a torpedo that failed to detonate. Years later, his youngest son, then a boy, opened a closet at home where his father kept his dress uniform and stared up in awe.

Walking alongside that elderly Navy veteran, I regretted that my father did not live to see the World War Two Memorial. Dad never talked much about his war experience. I encouraged him to write it down but he never did. In an effort to downsize and clean-up before she moved to retirement housing, my mother threw away the letters my father had sent to her while he was in the service. Even now, she regrets having done so.

One summer evening, driving home from a USS Converse reunion in Bath in 1989, my father began to talk. But mostly about how the ships themselves had changed over the years, about how much more spacious the accommodations were onboard a modern destroyer than the "tin cans" he and his fellow veterans were crammed into, with barely an inch of steel separating them from a torpedo and the watery depths.

Every day the ranks of my father and mother's generation--many have called it the "greatest generation"-- are diminishing. As a hospice chaplain, I am keenly aware of their passing. We owe this generation our love and respect, just as we do all people, both the living and the dead. But this generation is passing away now, before our very eyes. And soon there will be none left. They carry away with them the many-faceted singular stories of their lives, each story precious, each life unique and irreplaceable.

These men and women deserve our heartfelt thanks and our attentive, listening presence. Many of them sincerely feel that they have nothing special to share, nothing that anyone else would want to hear, nothing of value to pass onto in the next generation. They are mistaken. We owe it to them to pay them homage, to honor their legacy, and to pass their stories and memories along to the next generation. They are each one of them heros, each one utterly ordinary and divine.

This is much more than an obligation. It is our solemn honor and privilege.

(DSH Photo: US Navy Veteran at the World War Two Memorial, Washington, D.C, 2008)

Love at First Sight

It was love at first sight. Michael drove his battered Oldsmobile sedan down the dusty farm lane and parked it alongside the other cars in the field. My eye was immediately drawn to the pink and yellow form bobbing atop a spring adhered to his car's dashboard. As I walked closer, I saw the saffron robes, the bald head and the pudgy hands folded in its lap. A bare foot peaked out from under a fold of its robe.

Michael and I had arrived at the farm for a traditional seven-day Zen retreat or sesshin.

"It's a Dashboard Monk. I picked him up at a joke shop in the city," Michael said.

I was speechless.

Michael read my mind. "I'll see if I can find you one. Give me your address before we leave."

Several months went by and I heard nothing more from Michael until the day a mysterious package arrived in my mailbox. It had a Brooklyn, NY return address. He hadn't forgotten me after all.

I hot-glued the little Buddha to the dinghy dash of our '93 Honda Civic. He proved the perfect adornment for our otherwise trashed car. With the rear wheel wells rusting away, a left front parking light duct taped in its frame and the pearl green paint sloughing off the hood in sheets revealing the silver undercoat beneath, the monk sat placidly like a lotus in muddy water.

We went everywhere together. He became my friend, teacher, soul mate and dharma brother, all rolled up into one. If the road was smooth, I patted him on the head so that I could watch him bounce and sway on the spring. I made up ditties and sang to him.

No matter how rough the road or deep the pothole, Dashboard Buddha always came back to the stillpoint. Sitting unperturbed with those pudgy hands folded neatly in his lap and that hint of a smile on his pink lips, he was the embodiment of equanimity, peace and joy. No matter what my mood, he reminded me of my essential nature. And this is what he said:

Nirvana is right here, before our eyes;

this very place is the Lotus Land,

this very body, the Buddha.

I eventually sold the Civic to my friend George, the owner of a local gas station, for a hundred and ten dollars. When I dropped the car off, I cleaned out the refuse--miscellaneous papers, plastic Diet Coke bottle tops, old banana peels, Snickers candy bar wrappers--and threw it all in a black trash bag. Finally, I carefully chiseled off the Dashboard Buddha, dusted him off, and put him in my pocket for the ride home.

In place of the Civic, we purchased a new Toyota Yaris. Reluctant to mess-up the Yaris' pristine dashboard, the monk now sits, on perpetual retreat, atop my writing desk.

I'm thinking he may have to come out of retirement. The open road beckons.

(DSH Photo: Open Sky and Dashboard Buddha: Rt. 295, Portland, ME)

Burning Like a Ceaseless Flame

Several years ago, on a Friday evening, an hour or so after sunset, my daughter Bekah and I drove out to Springbrook Farm in search of spring peepers. We parked the car off the road by a broad low-lying meadow on either side of the farm's namesake brook. In the spring, the brook floods from snow melt and rain. And so we walked down into that watery meadow. Wearing sneakers, Bekah was brought up short by the flood and retreated. But I waded out into the middle of the meadow, all the while with the water threatening to overtop my wellies.

Out in the midst of that meadow, under a sickle moon and a sky full of stars, I stood still listening. The whole place seemed to sing. Soon the high-pitched shrill of the peepers overwhelmed my ear's dynamic range. My whole body became a tuning fork struck by the reverberant voices of hundreds of tiny frogs.

In his book The Path: A One-Mile Walk Through the Universe, Chet Raymo, scientist and mystic, professor emeritus of physics and astronomy at Stonehill College, writes of a water meadow near his home in North Easton, Massachusetts:

In spring...the water meadow teems with life...Red-winged blackbirds take up residence in the young alder and willow trees that are colonizing the meadow. Canada geese and mallards, in faithful pairs, swim among emerald shoots of new grass. Then comes the magic day in April when the entire surface of the water meadow begins to sing, the choiring of spring peepers, a hallelujah chorus in celebration of new life. 

Of course, it's not new life at all. Life was there all along buried in the frozen mud or in rock-hard seed cases on the branches of trees. Life doesn't come and go; life persists...

Often I have taken off my shoes and rolled up my pants, and waded out into the midst of all this animation. Every sense is stimulated by the brash exuberance of living things...

Behind the water meadow's rich diversity of life there is a molecular unity (evident in images displayed on the color computer screen) as beautiful as a cathedral's rose window or flying arch. Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis, one of the greatest of Gothic builders, hoped that his cathedral would reveal the divine harmony that reconciles all discord, and that it would inspire in those who beheld it a desire to establish that same harmony within the moral order. The molecules of life, revealed by science, achieve the same effect. They inspire a reverence for the invisible harmony--of form and function, of complexity and simplicity--that is the miracle of life. Here in the water meadow it burns like a ceaseless flame.

Check-out Chet's blog at Science Musings.

(Google Image Photo: West Rose Window, Chartres Cathedral, France)