In My Beginning is My End
On going in circles.
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.
—T.S. Eliot, from “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets
No one can fully comprehend the uncreated God with his knowledge; but each one, in a different way, can grasp him fully through love.
—The Cloud of Unknowing
A little over two years ago I left the city that had been my home for over two decades. Honestly, I had never much liked the place, though its setting amongst immense natural beauty had been enchanting from the first. I had been worn down by routine and by the seemingly never-ending Covid restrictions—of which this liberal city was gleefully strict—and decided to move on.1
I had friends in a city about 90 minutes south and with their encouragement—and exceeding generosity—I made the leap into what I hoped would be a new, and better life. I was looking for something different. I had spent the previous 22 years in the same cramped apartment,2 and for the previous 12 years, the same cramped job.3 I was hoping for community, a new career,4 and maybe at this late hour of my life, love and, however improbable, a family.
Well, as these things go, it didn’t quite work out the way I had hoped. Everything fell apart and all my plans came to nothing. Which is to say, it worked out far better than I could have ever hoped.
For one thing, without any plan, intention, or expectation, I was given the grace to live a year of my life—the bulk of it in solitude—at a Benedictine monastery in the remote wilderness.5 Though more than a few people who know me well enough had suggested I become a monk, I never felt that this was my vocation. That said, I have long felt the call to silence and solitude. Through the generosity of the Abbot—and the hospitality of the monks—I was welcomed into the community and given all the silence and solitude I could have asked for.
It was the best year of my life.
I was able to live most of the day in semi-solitude in a small cabin. And at the same time, participate in the life of the monastery.6 I was given the opportunity, and exceeding joy, to be part of the choir at liturgy.7 I was able to take walks in the wilderness, climb the nearby outcropping of rock to take in the endless range of mountains, and generally leave the anxious concerns of the world behind me for a time.
But, if nothing else, I am far more certain that my calling is to a contemplative life. Whether it will be entirely ‘in the world’ or not, I do not know. Regardless, this is no longer a question for me. I am unable to see dedicating my life to anything else.
Near the end of my time at the monastery, my father went into the hospital in Arizona. Because I had no other obligations I was able to drive down there and spend time with him during the last few weeks of his life. It is, to say the very least, a profound and unsayable experience to be at the death of a parent. Particularly, as it was in my case, where there are many things left unsaid, issues and traumas never fully addressed, and many not at all. It is a moment of letting go—whether you want to or not.
All that I thought it would be like, it wasn’t. It was certainly intense, and in many ways overpowering. I think I will be feeling its aftershocks for a while. But it was also at the same time perfectly natural. However trite it is to note, human beings8 have been dying for a long time. It is a comfort to know that when my own day comes there is a good chance it can be as calm, peaceful, and as natural as any other important part of our lives. There is great comfort for me in this.
I remained in Phoenix for another week or two, but eventually, it was time to go.9 I then headed off to Florida to my mother’s house where my brother was visiting from England. I ended up staying there for three months. I seriously thought about moving there for good, but the West kept calling to me…and calling.10
I returned in August of last year.11 I then immediately set about looking for a job. It took me a little over two months and was touch and go for quite a while. When the dust cleared I was living 10 miles or so from where I had left only two years prior, and working again in shipping and receiving. Nothing had changed.
And yet, it seems so much has changed. For one, in the two short years since I left, the ‘development machine’ had not only failed to slacken but has only picked up its pace. New housing complexes and shopping malls are going up everywhere, with no end in sight. It is both unstoppable and unsustainable.12
But not everything gets erased. A week or so ago, in great need of a haircut, I went down to the nearby barber shop on Main Street. It has continuously been a barbershop in this same location for around 150 years. I love this. There is also a used bookstore on the same block, an increasingly rare find these days of the Amazonian Captivity. I am writing this post from the comfort of the public library, which is well within walking distance of my apartment. Despite the ever-devouring machine, many good things persist.
My living arrangements are curious, as well—at least to me. I am living in the refurbished husk of a former canning factory.13 It was built in 1887. Even old factories have more character than most of what we build now. But, ironically, this is where I have ended up. So far I love it there and it is very quiet. My studio apartment is my monastic cell. I couldn’t ask for a better place to live.
Though I am back in shipping and receiving, I have moved on from shipping high-end audio gear to shipping looms and spindles. I know nearly nothing about weaving, but it makes me glad to participate in the survival of older ways of doing things.14 That seems to me to be a fine way to make a living.
Sometime last summer I went off on something of a rant in the notes section of Substack. I still stand by what I said at the time. The gist of it was the realization of what I considered the true nature of the internet. Regardless of all of the great writing—and there is so much here—the internet itself is little other than ‘networked disconnection’. It is the simulation of community that only draws us further into isolation. The problem we are facing—the many, many problems—will not be solved on the internet. They can’t be. The more we seek answers here the deeper the problem becomes. We seek each other in the very place where no one can be found.
So then why I am back here? For many reasons, some of which I might be moderately aware of. I returned to the West because this is where I felt I needed to be. I had sought—like others here—a wild Christianity, but instead am living in the voracious appetites of the machine. There is little wildness in my general vicinity, and that isn’t likely to get any better. The opposite is, in fact, true.15
I had hoped to be able to leave the world for the wilderness and seek solitude. This was given to me for a time, but now I am back in the confusion of getting and spending. I don’t know of course, but it doesn’t look like I will be getting to live in the wilderness any time soon.
The question then becomes—for me, for any of us—how then do we now live? How do we live a contemplative life in the belly of the beast? How do we live in a factory, sometimes literally, and keep our humanity? Is it even possible?
I am hardly an optimist, but I do remain hopeful. A dark hope.
My intention moving forward is to try and more deeply fathom the question of how to live a contemplative life at the end of the human age and the dawn of the metamachine.16 The ground is shifting beneath our feet and nobody seems to be fully in control, or even know what is going on. In so many ways how we are living now has no precedent. We are in terra incognita, and here be dragons.
But we are not without resources to find our way through if such a path still exists. And even if there is no exit from the machine, how we live right now is a matter of the utmost importance. I say that without fear of even the slightest exaggeration.
What we do have is the ability to draw from a deep tradition of wisdom that may very well see us through. This is hardly the first time human beings have sought another way to live than in the Empire of Getting and Spending.17 To the contrary, as I am sure I have said before, it probably took all of a day and a half after building the first human city before some crank decided to pack his bags and head out for the vast emptiness. These men and women have left behind a record of their thoughts on the matter. It would be folly at this point—or really, ever—to ignore them.
But it has to be something far more than learning their thoughts and ideas. It must be something that we can and will live, even here in the belly of the beast. In other words, it must be practical. How can we die to the world, while amidst the world? In other words, how do we inherit the earth?
And it will be a path not of knowledge, of theory, of system building…but of unknowing and self-emptying. Only in our own radical undoing will we find a way.18 Of this I am most fully convinced.
My hope then, to the degree I am capable, is to begin…again. I hope you will join me.
An odd thing about that. I was long feeling crushed by the tedium of my life, but at the same time, I was tenaciously reluctant to leave it. I suppose it is a strange fact about some of us humans. We cling to our own misery. I wish I could say it was otherwise.
A dump, let’s face it. But it was cheap.
I.e., shipping and receiving.
I say that fully admitting that I have never had a career in my life, and if I were honest with myself, have never really wanted. If I wanted a career it is because I thought others wanted it, i.e., a would be a better “catch”.
Please see nearly all of my previous posts.
Who knew that washing dishes could be so meditative—and satisfying?
The acoustics in the monastic church are quite lovely and resonant.
And certainly not only us. I remember long ago our family cat knew exactly what to do when his time was up. He was a cranky, pugilistic, and cantankerous cat, but he didn’t make a fuss. I found him—after school on a cold winter day—outside in the bushes in front of the house. He surely would have quietly died there if I hadn’t found him. I brought him in so he could die in the warmth of the house. Maybe he preferred the bushes and the bitter cold. It probably would have been much quicker for him.
I stayed for the memorial and to be with my stepmother, at least for a time. But summer was fast approaching, and with it triple-digit temperatures. [For those of you who use Celsius, imagine a summer temperature of say, 43 C. In Phoenix, this is hardly atypical].
And calling…etc.
And once again, thanks to the abundant, and probably undeserved, kindness of a friend, I was able to find refuge and a place to spread my camping mattress while I engaged in finding work and a place to live. I am grateful to D and Boobah—the feline Cat/Dog extraordinaire. And also to A, for the shelter and fine conversation.
As a Gen-X apocalyptic collapsist, I only see one way this can end. We shall see.
It is part of an affordable housing program—affordable doesn’t necessarily mean inexpensive. But I hope it is doable.
Who else will make my pants come the end of the world?
My drive to work, however, is through a stretch of ‘undeveloped’ farmlands and horse farms. Off to the West lies the long expanse of the Rocky Mountains. This is a constant reminder—the present world will pass away.
Is it too dire, or simple, to say either metamachine of collapse? Maybe. Maybe not.
William Wordsworth, The World Is Too Much With Us:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45564/the-world-is-too-much-with-us
"Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” —John 12:24-26
Blessed Holy Theophany! "The beginning of the beginning." My Orthodox priest-monk just left from giving a house blessing. Just before he walked out the door, he stopped at my bookshelf and pulled out my old copy of The Cloud of Unknowing. I hadn't read it (or attempted to read it) in over a couple decades while I was wandering in the desert. And there is the quote you presented at the top! As it states, I've moved out from books into Love. Blessings!
Out of all the substacks I subscribe to yours puts me in the most “contemplative” mood.
I love your writing and I relate to everything you describe. I feel fortunate that some 30 odd years ago I settled down in rural Maine amongst cow farms and cornfields, grateful that my home town is not (at least yet) a draw for developers. So it’s remained pretty much the same all these years: quiet. Silence is everything today because “the world is (indeed) too much with us” and we with it. May you find all the peace and solace your soul desires.