Caffeine and Repentance

A Mid-Lenten Miscellany.

Vincent Van Gogh, "Noon: Rest from Work", 1890

As part of my own self-imposed Lenten observances, I have reduced my daily caffeine intake. Reduced mind you, not eliminated. Even so, it has been at times I am sad to report, rough going. I don’t believe myself a heavy coffee drinker. Generally speaking, I drink about two cups¹ a day and rarely after 10 or 11 am. I know that even that much can—and does—negatively affect my sleep. I also know that on days I delay my initial coffee intake due to fasting requirements to receive communion my utter and pathetic caffeine dependence is revealed in all its absurdity. Let’s just say that the cranky depths of my prayers up to heaven are best left between myself and the Almighty.

In retrospect, I may have been a tad rash in scaling back. Seriously, I must have been hopped up on coffee when I made the decision. But I am not turning back now. It’s a matter of principle! And I have already gone this far. Still, one thing that has been made clear to me is how even the slightest decrease in caffeine intake affects my ability to think clearly. Thus the dearth of substack posts over the past couple of weeks. It hasn’t been due to any lack in working on it, i.e., discussing my thoughts with the monks here and attempting to put them into a coherent written form. But alas, basic coherence yet eludes me.

I tend to process my thoughts through talking rather than writing. But once I am clear on my theme and how I want to approach it, the usual writing process is to get even more jazzed on coffee and just blurt it all out in a white-hot burst. Lately, however, having foolishly removed that from my menu of options, my otherwise decaffeinated efforts have fallen well shy of the mark. Honestly, what was I thinking!? Have I always been this slow?

Wait, don’t answer that.

One benefit though is that I have been sleeping a whole lot better. This probably has to do with a lot of things, but my reduced coffee intake is surely one of the more important. A fact that really has me reconsidering my whole approach toward life. What is it that motivates me—and our entire civilization, give or take—to get so addicted to the effects of coffee? What are we trying to achieve? The short answer is that I want to achieve, well, something. I want to live up to my full potential. That’s what I tell myself anyway because that’s what I was always told growing up and ever since. But lately, I have to wonder: do I even actually want that, and, if so, at what cost? I think I would rather sleep through the night.

Let’s face it, I am far less interested in achieving much of anything when I’m decaffeinated. What does that really say about what I claim to seek? And given where all this so-called achievement, writ large, has gotten us, I am not so sure that a principled lack of ambition isn’t the least of the two options. But be that as it may, in lieu of the standard offering, I offer you this series of loosely connected thoughts on a theme…sort of. It is, alas, the best I can do, considering.

---

Not coincidentally, perhaps, during my morning reading of Christ the Eternal Tao I was pointed to Chapter 37 of the Tao Te Ching. Which goes:

The Tao does nothing
yet there is nothing it doesn't do
if a ruler could uphold it
the people by themselves would change
and changing if their desires stirred
he could make them still
with simplicity that has no name
stilled by nameless simplicity
they would not desire
and not desiring be at peace
the world would fix itself

—Red Pine translation.

As it turns out I have thought about that passage for a long time now. It is a passage that has long resonated with me to my core. And yet, it is a bit disappointing how little of its message has affected the way I have chosen to live over the years. Despite my decades-long attempt of trying to put this into practice something deeper² in me more strenuously seeks the opposite. The world can dole out great rewards for those who will achieve its goals. This is no small thing. To truly put this seeking aside is to become, in many ways, a non-person.

Of course, we tell ourselves that it doesn't matter but it does. Even the affection of social unconcern can be and often is a way of garnering social approval. Rejecting social approval is what being cool is all about. This has long been commercialized. It is a trap that is difficult to escape. We are social beings and to be rendered an unperson is to undergo a kind of social death. Why else do so many of us engage so maniacally with social media? It is little other than a desperate plea for social recognition. I think large swaths of the internet would fit that bill. To be clear, I know I am hardly immune to this.

This commentary on chapter 37 strikes home for me:

Other creatures follow their natures without creating chaos or disaster. They change by themselves without seeking change. People, meanwhile, race through the realm of existence and never know a quiet moment. The abandon their original innocence and don’t practice the true Tao of doing nothing. They don’t care about their lives, until one day they offend and retribution arrives.

—Sung Ch’ang-Hsing.

Ouch. He didn’t have to get so personal about it. Sheesh.

A relevant chapter from Christ the Eternal Tao also gives a deeper gloss on all this:

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

Pleasure of the senses is succeeded by pain of the soul,
While acceptance of pain of the senses is succeeded by
     pleasure of the soul.
The soul-pleasure we call joy:
The endless joy of bingin oneself to the Way.

Thus the followers of the Way gladly accept suffering.
Patiently enduring involuntary afflictions,
They turn them into smooth, untroubled paths.
Through self-restraint, they do away with sensual pleasure,
Which is intricate, convoluted, wrapped around every sensible
     object.
Therefore, said the Ancient Sage,
"The Way unravels tangles,
Submerges turmoil."

Redirecting the impulses of their desire,
Followers of the Way act according to nature.
They no longer yearn for bodily pleasure,
Nor do they fear pain.
Overcoming such yearning and such fear,
Together with the sensual self-love that gave them birth,
They kill with a single blow all the passions.
Therefore, said the Ancient Sage,
"Control of the passions by will is called strength."

Free from desire for created things
Followers of the Way pass from outer to the inner.
Going beyond superficial aspects of these things,
They come to know their inner essences,
As words within the Primal Mind.
Therefore, said the Ancient Sage,
"The Sage is always without desire,
In order to contemplate the mysteries of nature."

Offering themelves to Him Who is beyond all created things,
Sharing in His self-emptying,
Followers of the Way become wholly united with Him,
The true goal of love and longing,
The true End and fulfillment of Desire.

---

Speaking of Wild Christianity.³ It is a bit of a conundrum as to how it might apply to the vast majority of us who might otherwise be interested. This is a good question and to be honest it isn’t all that clear on how to proceed. Is it merely a romantic aspiration with little realistic connection to our daily lives? I might certainly seem so, given that a vanishingly small number of us would ever genuinely consider it, at least in its most pristine form.

That said, it makes sense to formulate the idea in the most uncompromising way, at least at first. That way we can better understand just what exactly it is that is being proposed. But that doesn’t mean we have to wait until we have it all figured out in order to explore ways that it might be applied more practically. To that end, I came across a few videos that I think can begin to frame the idea in ways that are not only congruent with the more austere formulation but also might actually be achievable, if perhaps more than a little difficult.

Wild Christianity: Suburban Edition (16 minutes):

Having grown up in the suburbs myself, the whole idea of turning the drab and lifeless ‘burbs into a village, rich in vegetation and opportunities for reflection and communal life is very exciting to me. Maybe it’s time to start engaging the zoning laws now. It looks like people are starting to make it happen. I think this is a fight worth having.

It is of course there is little reason to hope for a Wild Christianity if there is increasingly less wilderness in which to do it in. The following is a short documentary (29 minutes) about Hugh Wilson, a man who has spent the last 30 years or so protecting a swath of land on the coast of New Zealand. Every little bit helps.

I don’t know. Put these two aspects together and maybe this whole Wild Christianity idea isn’t so far-fetched. It gives me hope.

---

One of the things I do think about a lot is what a practice of Wild Christianity might look like. This is no small thing. Hopefully, I will be able to start fleshing that out more fully in the future. Not surprisingly, one of the things I am doing in this regard is reading up on the subject⁴. There isn’t a whole lot out there that specifically addresses the topic, at least that I have come across so far. One book I have found helpful is The Practice of the Wild, by Gary Snyder. Snyder is, of course, famously a poet and Zen Buddhist. But much of what he says is applicable regardless. One passage, among many, stood out for me:

We still only know what we know: “The flavors of the peach and the apricot are not lost from generation to generation. Neither are they transmitted by book-learning” (Ezra Pound). The rest is hearsay. There is strength, freedom, sustainability, and pride in being a practiced dweller in your own surroundings, knowing what you know. There are two kinds of knowing.

One is that which grounds and places you in your actual condition. You know north from south, pine from fir, in which direction the new moon might be found, where the water comes from, where the garbage goes, how to shake hands, how to sharpen a knife, how the interest rates work. This sort of knowledge itself can enhance public life and save endangered species. We learn it by revivifying culture, which is life reinhabitation: moving back into a terrain that has been abused and half-forgotten—and then replanting trees, dechannelizing streambeds, breaking up asphalt. What—some would say—if there’s no “culture” left? There always is—just as much as there’s always (no matter where) place and language. One’s culture is in one’s family and the community, and it lights up when you start to do some real work together, or play, tell stories, act up—or when someone gets sick, dies, or is born—or at a gathering like Thanksgiving. A culture is a network of neighborhoods or communities that is rooted and tended. It has limits, it is ordinary. “She’s very cultured” shouldn’t mean elite, but more like “well fertilized”.

A lot to meditate on here, I think.

---

Finally, I would like to offer a poem associated with St. Manchan of Lemanaghan. A seventh-century Irish saint who ostensibly wrote a poem that, if I dare say so myself, might serve as a kind of anthem for Wild Christianity. That’s my vote anyway.

I wish, O Son of the living God, 
eternal, ancient King,
for a secret hut in the wilderness
that it might be my dwelling.

A very blue shallow well
to be beside it,
a clear pool for washing away sins
through the grace of the Holy Ghost.

A beautiful wood close by
around it on every side
for the nurture of many-voiced birds
to shelter and hide it.

Facing south for warmth,
a little stream across its ground,
a choice plot with abundant bounties
which would be good for every plant.

A few sage disciples,
I will tell their number,
humble and obedient
to pray to the King.

Four threes, three fours
ready for every need,
two sixes in the church
both south and north

Six couples as well
besides me myself
praying through the long ages
to the King who moves the sun.

A lovely church decked with linen,
a dwelling for God of heaven;
then, bright candles
over the holy white scriptures.

One room to go to
for the tendance of the body,
with ribaldry, without boasting,
without meditation of evil.

This is the housekeeping I would get,
I would choose it without concealing,
fragrant fresh leeks, hens,
salmon, trout, bees.

My fill of clothing and food
from the King of good fame,
and for me to be sitting for a time
praying to God in every place.

---

Anyway, I hope you are all having a fruitful Lent—be it caffeinated or not. Hopefully, I will be able to get out the next post without any undue use of coffee.

Alas, I make no promises.

1. Okay, maybe three cups. No more than that. Unless it is a Sunday. Then, apparently, all bets are off.

2. Deeper? Or more shallow? Or is it, rather, as Irish politician Charles Haughey had it, “deep down I’m a very shallow person?”

3. Wait, what?

4. BOR-riing.