Oh the delight awaiting children
on the edge of glades filled with light.
That dappled ground stirs no fear for
those readied by stories told at night.
Every step a soft whisper on deep humus.
Every large stone a call for sacrifice.
Every tree a witness to the movements.
Every breeze shaping a truthful heart.
Even now when the wind blows gently
I feel the persistent press for knowing
someone ageless pulsing through it all
and tapping out the rhythms for my life.
Ronald Purser is pulling back the curtain on mindfulness; his book will be released in July. I am surrounding by mindfulness talk. This past year, reading Paulo Freire brought me to say to myself, “Mindfulness is not conscientization.” Maybe I should start saying that out loud so we can challenge this thought… so here we go.
In my work with students I find that mindfulness has become the mantra of the academy especially as it relates to student stress. That’s convenient isn’t it? Mindfulness changes the geography of a problem. It allows the university to off-load responsibility from the faculties so they don’t have to change the demands they are putting on students, staff, and even administrations. Instead the student bears the weight of being stressed out. The student bears the weight of not being able to learn fast enough. The student is solely and personally responsible. The student just needs to be trained in how to cope.
It’s a perfect storm. Top ranked universities are supposed to launch top notch students to the world (to the employers waiting on them.) At the same time, there is more to learn; the sheer amount of information and the depth of that information has made for enormous silo’s of specialization in university degrees. And yes, students may be showing up at universities with a lower threshold for some kinds of stress.
I’m all in for a holy pause. However, mindfulness is not helping address the conditions that a student may become aware of when they stop moving. I fear that mindfulness without an ethic for evaluating the world forces coming down on us may indeed be making us sicker. The source of some problems are located outside of us. However, mindfulness as a new technology for health has no authority for identifying oppressive forces.
Is mindfulness conditioning us to be passive?
While there may be some good brought through “mindfulness” maybe it doesn’t go far enough. If mindfulness does bring some pause and some space for restoration, maybe it just centres us in our selves. And here’s the catch: If its always our neighbour’s fault that they are not able to cope, then love for neighbour only means that I have to help them cope. That’s a small view of love isn’t it? I find that so unsatisfying. True love means that I may sometimes need to do something to lift the burden or to address a system that is arrayed against. True love will find a way for mercy to do its work.
Mindfulness as it has been constructed in public discourse creates a vision of society and what it needs. Ronald writes, “Underneath its therapeutic discourse, mindfulness subtly reframes problems as the outcomes of choices. Personal troubles are never attributed to political or socioeconomic conditions, but are always psychological in nature and diagnosed as pathologies. Society therefore needs therapy, not radical change.”
I read this article and feel primed to read Purser’s book when it comes out.
Be mindful of God.
In Vancouver I feel like I’m surrounded by the mindfulness mantra. It’s been a topic of conversation in our household. So here’s what I have been saying, “Be mindful; but be mindful of God.” I’ve been saying this to myself and to my kids while they are growing up in the school system. Be mindful of the God who has been revealed in Jesus Christ. The One who cares. The One who enters into life. The One who has moved into the neighbourhood. The One who is active, challenging, and prophetic toward the powers and principalities arrayed against the glory of God finding its home in people. Be mindful of God so you can live loved. Be mindful of the One who loves you.
The Apostle Paul lives out of this kind of mindfulness and encourages us: Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. (Phillipians 4:5)
See what this kind of mindfulness does?
We are to become a gentle force against that which would destroy people. So, be mindful of God. Being mindful of God unveiled through Jesus Christ fortifies us to love and to pray.
What’s your take on mindfulness?
Photo credit: Netaly Reshef
Over the last seven years I have listened to a lot of students. In conversation through five big ideas of the Gospel and the Christian worldview, I ask the question “How do we know our relationships are broken? What have you seen and observed about relationships with people, the stuff of earth, and self that indicate these relationships are infected with brokenness?”
More often than not these days, people are struggling to answer the question. From my perspective it seems they are struggling more than they did seven years ago. I wait out the struggle and make a few suggestions and by and by we make some progress with the topic. But I’m troubled.
While there may be several sources for the general reluctance of my companions to identify what’s wrong with the world, at the end of the day, I think its a general reluctance to go on the record as saying, “That’s wrong.” “That’s wrong” or “That’s broken” sounds so sure and confident. Our global-traveling, urban-living, culture-crossing people, are not sure they’ve got the corner truth on what’s wrong in the world. And that’s ok, because if the only authoritative source for what is wrong is yourself, you’ve got to be pretty confident.
But what is not alright is the lack of access to any moral authority beyond themselves. I’m not even hearing my companions call upon the rule of law, the graceful creative vision of a society to implement rules, as a nod toward something outside of themselves.
From the Christian worldview, the Law, revealed in the Scripture, is a gift from God. Not only does it stimulate for us a vision of what life with God could look like, it creates a vision of what a people incarnating God’s love looks like. The Law is a companion bringing us to the Cross of Christ. For without the Law as revealed in Scripture, the Cross of Christ would lack meaning. The Law can bring us outside the oppression of self and gift us with a cognitive capacity to say, “That’s wrong.”
However, the Law is powerless to invoke complete righteousness and grant perfect justice. Its through the Law that we learn God’s grace is required. Its through the Gospel that grace is applied to us.
While my companions in Gospel conversations are reluctant to go on the record as saying, “That’s wrong,” I’m noticing as well that all kinds of people are struggling to recognize elements of our brokenness: lying, theft and adultery; abuse, torture and murder; neglect and contempt. Perhaps that’s a symptom of not really knowing God.