My Meta-Modern Catholicism
A Beginner's Guide to a User's Manual
I had started meditating.
Something I’d dabbled in since high school, around age 35 I began to do it in groups.
It began with Unitarian Universalists. In both Waterloo and Iowa City, weekly groups would gather to practice what is generally called “Mindfulness Meditation.” This basic, surface-level form is shared by Zen, Vipassana, and Vajrayana practitioners alike.
It is also practiced by “Western Buddhists” (or “Buddhist Modernists”) and it went entirely secular when it became a staple of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction crowd.
I still practice this form today, although not formally. Instead, this form of mindfulness is something I engage in throughout the day as I face various challenges.
When I began meditating, I had my eye on Buddhism (especially having been a big fan of Kerouac and Ginsberg in college).
But as I became a regular practitioner, I became more and more interested in Zen due to the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh, a mystically ecumenical monk-turned-guru who, before his death in 2022, had become a publishing phenomenon. His method of working with universal human suffering in ways that referenced both Buddha and Christ, created a method of interacting with the world which emphasized compassion and wisdom. His way of speaking and writing was one which created a safe space for all to find a sense of home in the world, and his insights allowed us to find that necessary palliative which Freud deemed so important.
All was well and good. Until I got to that place within my psyche where I realized that it was no longer enough to simply understand the how of getting through life.
I had to know the why.
I was not going to get it via Thich Nhat Hanh. For one thing, there simply weren’t enough teachers. The closest to me was Jack Lawlor (who gave me the dharma name “Vibrant Commitment of the Heart), who lived far away in Chicago.
But, more, Thay was reaching the end of his bodily life, and his organization was soon to become decapitated. And, even if he wasn’t, his writing dealt with everything in a generic way which did not take me deep enough into Buddhist studies (which themselves rested on a bed of deeper Vedic tradition).
Fortunately, there was the occasional Rinpoche and Khenpo who visited Iowa City, all in association with the Gar Mila center. There was a place where I could practice at least once a week (if not more) in the company of others who were also interested in reading deeply into tradition, and taking their own personal dharma practices very seriously.
Nothing wrong with that, but it would involve travelling very deep into woods which were creatured but those of a culture very distant from my own. Not a bad problem to have, but it was certainly a problem.
One thing I noticed practicing Vajrayana was how similar it was to my native Catholicism (and, I would also notice, was especially similar to Orthodox Christianity). Beyond the adoration of icons, and the summoning of angelic beings and saints to assist in purifying my soul and spirit in pursuit of enlightenment, I found that truly practicing Vajrayana necessitated a good deal of renunciation, discipline, and powerful introspection.
Not unlike the sacrament of Confession.
Eventually, I would no longer live in Iowa City. Returning home to Waterloo, there wasn’t even a sparsely populated Vajra center. My options were to either go completely Western Secular, leaning entirely on post-Enlightenment reductionism, or to go Catholic or Orthodox.
Because my Dad was also raised Catholic, and there is a beautiful mini-Cathedral in Gilbertville, and he and I have been bonding over weekly attendance at mass, I have begun to become warm to the possibility of doing my spiritual work in this metier.
This is not without problems. But we all have problems.
My salvation (read “salve” — “palliative”) is dependent upon a number of things. I think of it along these lines:
Physical health and well being
Community and connection
Meaning and Purpose
A belief that my Life has intrinsic value
In order to achieve this sort of balance, it is requisite I participate in some sort of shared system. This is the “porch” on which the Stoics walk and practice their exercises.
While I do not think that Catholicsm, in its current state, is the end-all-be-all of religiospiritual practice — nor would I necessarily recommend it to others — it is a fine, and well-established, system.
One could do worse. Warts and all, it is an opportunity for my dragon to breath fire on the various demons which haunt my psyche, and a set of icons and prayers to offer daily practice and reflection in order to endear me to that one-which-is-not-one, the Alpha and the Omega, unmoved mover, pure Being itself, ipsum esse subsistens, the “I am that I am.”
In full recognition of the failure and ineptness of any human language but that of the most rarified theosophical diction (and poetic image) to approach such deep and lofty concept, I am warm to the idea that enduring confession and practicing sacramental ritual can be a golden ticket toward Eudaimonia.
This is not to say that I don’t think the species can and should be moving toward a Religion that is not a Religion, nor that I can’t be a part of this process of cultural evolution.
But in the meanwhile, I need to survive and thrive and, selfish though it may well seem, I take my own well being seriously.
I look forward to continuing to keep you all in the loop. And, as ever, I look forward to your letters.
Auspiciously,
Aaron