Camille | Questions Cafe

In the past few months studying the Philokalia, I eagerly looked for the three lead idols in my life: gluttony, avarice, and the desire for the esteem of others. Gluttony cropped up first, easy to find. Similarly, I caught myself falling into the lull of wanting people’s admiration, praise or approval. I really struggle with those two.

But avarice? I pondered greed, studied its forms. Eventually, I concluded that it perhaps, just wasn’t the one of the three that wormed it’s way into my life as easily.

Being here in Atlanta, without a job, our own house, or a plan, punctured that image. I got a small contract writing for a digital communications company.

But there I was (and am), still worried about money and time. Unwavering, fear around our finances, calling, and time have followed me.

So now I know – of the three, my idol is actually most likely Avarice. Contrary to my earlier belief, this season has led me to suspect that Avarice, in fact, is the idol most deeply embedded inside me. Upon reflection, it’s made sense. Of course it was the one I thought I struggled with least; it’s the one most integrated into my assumed habits. Questioning it would be like questioning my arm, and so of course I don’t see it. It’s just my arm.

Perhaps this is part of what Jesus means by “if your right hand causes you to sin.” If something so close to you, so familiar to you, so much that it seems to be part of you, causes you to sin, cut it off. It’s a warning: the thing inside you, attached to you, is much more likely to make you sin than the enemy you see coming.

Similarly – does the person with a log in their eye know they have a log in their eye? Almost certainly not! Because we become so accustomed to the way things look from our eyes, we can’t even dream of questioning the vision we perceive.

Here’s Jesus’ brilliance: chortling, he informed us that we all have a log in our eye. But how capable are we of identifying, let alone removing a log ourselves? Certainly we need the Holy Spirit and community to do so.

Avarice, then. For me, I want to be able to do, to get what I want. I want independence, to be able to choose. I don’t want to be limited, tied down, denied freedom afforded to others that I have equally “earned.”

Therein emerge my issues with money. I don’t want to have to rely, to scramble, to beg. I hate being at the mercy of others’ kindness of evaluation. I hate others having power over me. I want to be able to get more, to get once next freely, on my own terms. Hello, dear sweet Avarice.

Steps I’m Taking to Cut it Off:

Giving – all this stress about money is making me realize that I need to let it go. We’re upping our giving in this season.
Gratitude lists – I’m consciously writing out lists of things I’m grateful for.

What other ideas do you have? What practices have you undertaken when dealing with gratitude?

I never expected to have a conversation with a tree. But that’s why we go on pilgrimages. We go to Assisi for the hope of a stunning encounter, a proverbial mountain-top experience. We return because, as a thin space, the place itself invites us into a deeper understanding of the cosmos, our relationship with the divine, and with creation itself. Often, all we have to do is listen.

A statue of St Francis overlooking the Umbrian Valley at San Damiano.

Three years ago, I visited the birthplace of Saint Francis for the first time. Standing at the gates of Eremo delle Carceri (or the hermitage of cells), I surveyed the mountainside and the trees. I imagined what Francis and the twelve brothers must have experienced on their “lents,” or forty-day excursions there. Each brother found their own little cave, and they watched each other in pairs. Throughout the time, one of them returning to town to beg for food for the others. Our group would only remain for three hours, but I felt determined to taste what the brothers must have found there.

Our guide laid out the day’s conte mplative exercise for us. We were to find an object from nature and “be” with it for twenty minutes. After twenty minutes, she instructed us to engage it in some way. As someone who spoke to the wind and blades of grass as a kid, I jauntily traipsed through the gates onto the wending trails. I followed one up the mountain, carefully avoiding the “expert climbers only” fork until I came to a wall separating the forest from the road. Disappointed to have found the edge, I ambled along the wall, still uncertain of what object I would choose. Suddenly, a bulbous growth caught my peripheral vision. Looking up from the steep path, I found myself gawking at the ugliest tree I had ever seen.

Elizabeth guides you through Beholding in Nature contemplative exercise.

Imagine that a person, short and squat of stature, had been frozen into tree form with their arms stretched out overhead, lumpy face turned towards the sky, mouth gaping open. Except where its chest would have been, a huge, misshapen, twisted growth sagged forward. It looked like a tumor. Indeed, I would almost have imagined the tree howling at the weight of it.

Of course I immediately knew that I would perform our contemplative exercise with this tree. I whipped out my journal and sat before it, willing myself to behold without internal commentary. Mostly, I spent the time trying to shoo away thoughts of how unbelievably diseased this tree looked.

My timer beeped – the twenty minutes had passed; it was time to engage the tree. Without thinking, my mind blurted a question. “Are you happy?” I asked.

An unearthly voice, cold but not unkind, rose in my mind.

“I have stillness and I am whole,” it rang, “what is happiness to me?”

The answer stunned me into silence, as did the foreign sound of the voice. My mind whirled as I grappled with this response. I have always desired happiness (as many of us have). And yet this idea struck me as deeply, profoundly true. If I could live in true stillness, know my wholeness before my creator, what, in fact, could mere happiness add? Or rather, were those two elements the pieces of true happiness, albeit from an arboreal perspective?

While I chewed on these thoughts, the voice in my mind returned. “I know I look sick, but I will be here as long as the others.”

I sat a while longer with the tree, recording this conversation in my journal. I wondered if I even believed it was possible for a tree to speak with me. When our time on the mountain had ended, I thanked it, and gingerly returned down the steep path to the entrance gates. I couldn’t explain what had happened. I still can’t. But as I turn over the words I heard from that tree, I cannot help but recognize that they are true. More than that, they are true in a way I would never have understood on my own.

Each time I go to Assisi, I visit this tree-friend. I have never taken its photo. Perhaps you could say it has been out of respect. But if you come with us to Assisi one day and would still like to see it, I’d be happy to introduce you.

-Elizabeth

Want to try this contemplative exercise? Download the pdf guide or let Elizabeth guide you through it with this video.