The Carmelites

The Carmelite novices and me

For almost a week now, I have been enjoying the hospitality of the Carmelites, the “O.Carms” to be exact.  They have a house that is their headquarters here in Malang, and they were willing, and I was told, “waiting” to take me in here, even though I am no longer teaching at the Catholic seminary.  Since I have been here, I have felt so embraced and included in much of their life.  From the first day when the Provincial showed me all around the house, my presence here has not seemed intrusive but welcome.  Two of the other guests are priests who usually live in Rome, in the “Curia,” the vast bureaucracy run by the Vatican to administer the various orders around the world.  Conversations that occur around or after the dinner table or during my weekend stay at a villa in the nice, cool city of Batu have allowed me a glimpse of political-religious realities in countries such as the Phillipines and China.  Everyone is so forthcoming and open! 

One day I had the chance to help one of the priests with his Powerpoint presentation for the conference that begins this week.  I was introduced to meditative dance, not just in the abstract, but we did the dance together, mirroring each other’s slow, meditative movements!  Through conversations with him, I have learned about the importance of the body in any real transformation.  He takes candid pictures of the novices when they first come in to begin their journey to priesthood, and you can read on their faces worry, skepticism, doubt, fear, sadness, the negative emotions and thoughts.  They are taken when people are unaware of what their faces are projecting.  Then he showed me pictures of the same men years later, after their formation, and better, transformation as priests.  Their faces reflected happiness, lightness, peace. 

This week, I am privileged to attend the Carmelite Formators’ international course with priests and brothers, and a woman from Holland who belongs to the first order of priests (hmm. . .) coming together from all over the world.  The theme is “Walk with Us: ‘Growing in the Contemplative Dimensions of one’s Life.”  It is comforting for me to see that even as Carmelites they struggle with how to convey the meaning of contemplation in the 21^st century world.  And yet they seem to know that it is exactly what is needed—the silence that enables a person to listen and be present, especially to listen within, and to respond with love.  The best definition of contemplation came from the presenter, Fr. Anthony Pereira, a biblical scholar and teacher, now fifty years a priest, who said, “joy is the essence of contemplation.”  That is what I experience here with these priests—joy.   And a comment that someone in our small group discussion made to him about the Carmelites:  “you are real.”

Today in the New York Times, David Brooks talks about Martin Buber’s “I-Thou” relationship.  He tells us that Buber’s writing reminds us to be “intentional and brave about relationships.”  That is a reminder I have been given all through my stay in Indonesia--in Yogyakarta, in Bali, and in Malang.  I am amazed that this is who I have become in relationships with so many I have met, and what I have been given here.  This has been and continues to be a wonderful way to wrap up my stay here in Indonesia.

My Life at the Catholic seminary of Vincentians and the Ordination of a Bishop

  My life has taken such an amazing turn, that over the last month or so, I just keep marveling.  Having come to Indonesia as a Fulbright Specialist to teach at CRCS in Yogyakarta, I now find myself, by way of my good Carmelite friends in Bali, teaching at the seminary known as STFT Widya Sasana.  One blog cannot do justice to the entire experience, because it is so many-layered.  I have never before taught seminarians, as most of my teaching has been in secular environments, such as at Appalachian State University and even Berea College, with its Christian commitment.
Yet, I feel at home here in many ways.  I am drawing on my Catholic roots, the spirituality learned mostly from the Jesuit Sodality of Mary when I was in high school, and then further formed by the brief stay with the Carmelites of Cleveland.  All of that marked me in ways that are mostly unconscious and little articulated.  However, here I am doing what in some ways is most natural for me, teaching.  It helps that I kept drawing on this tradition intellectually by my work on the Catholic poet and priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and my continual fascination with the mystics, and on "saints" not recognized officially by the church, such as Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day.  Still, there is a sense that it is highly presumptuous of me to be teaching these young men to be priests!  I hope and can already see that in little ways they are also teaching me.

  I am living with the Vincentians, an order also known as the Congregation of the Mission, because they were founded in the 17th century by St. Vincent de Paul, a priest who first wanted only to make money by serving in the big urban parishes of Paris, and then underwent a "conversion" to see his mission as serving the poor of Paris and in the little villages, where people knew both spiritual and material poverty.  I am gaining a great deal of respect for this order in my long conversations over dinner with various priests here.

    I am including here a short video on the life of St. Vincent, who sounds remarkably like the saint who will be canonized today, Mother Teresa of Calcutta!!

 Besides learning about the order, there is another reality that is emerging as I begin to peel back a couple more of the layers of this many-layered society.  Everything here has to be said in plural (and in the Indonesian language, plural is indicated by using the noun twice!).  A remark that one of the Vincentians made last night is interesting.  He expressed the sentiment that there is a deep spirituality and love for silence in the Javanese people, thanks to the immersion in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions that came to this island many centuries before either Christianity and Islam.  In the book I am reading here, In the Time of Madness:  Indonesia on the Edge of Chaos, the author talks about "panditos," Javanese sages, who went to caves to practice meditation and influence the harmony of the earthly realm.



  Even politics is seen to be under the supernatural, with the ruler possessing or losing wahyu, literally "light," but a supernatural kind of power and charisma.  In my second tour of this island, I see even more how prevalent "kejawen" the indigenous Javanese practices and beliefs, are to this people.  On the other hand, the hegemony of Java, where most people live, and where the government resides, leaves behind those from the outer islands, further from these centers of political and even spiritual power.  I learned last night that in Borneo, in the western part of Kalimantan, where this order of Vincentians has missions, Christianity only came in the 1970s and has not yet taken root in people's deep attitudes.   More and more, I see people here identifying with their tribe, which I don't put in quotation marks, because there is still a reality of tribalism that operates brutally at times, as in the late 1990s, when Dayaks, the people of Borneo, turned on their Madurese immigrants in absolutely horrendous fashion.  Javanese not only distinguish themselves from those of the Outer Islands, such as Sumatra, Kalimantan, Papua, and others, but from the Chinese who have lived and prospered here for a very long time, and who make up a significant part of the population of the Catholic Church here.  That story is one I will have to leave for now.

  That brings me to the beautiful ceremony of the ordination of the new Bishop of Malang yesterday.  I got to know him briefly while sharing a meal with him in Bali, thanks to my good Carmelite friend, Fr. Joseph.  He too is a Carmelite, a more contemplative order than the Vincentians. The Carmelites and Vincentians were among the earliest Catholic orders to establish a base here in the city of Malang.  I know from his first responses when told that the Pope wanted him to be bishop, that he had many reasons why he could not do it, and he had wanted to spend the rest of his life teaching and writing books.  I know from watching him give a careful presentation on Genesis 1 and 2 as a "talk show" for the community in the capital city of Bali, Denpesar, that he is at heart a teacher, and I saw him patiently answer many questions about marriage from the lay people who attended. I also saw him acknowledge his grief over the loss of his brother, a fellow Carmelite just a year before.  I shared with him my own family's story of my father as a Holocaust survivor and my mother a former Benedictine nun!  So we made a good personal connection, and that was evident when he invited me to accompany him to the opening Mass on the first day of school here. Knowing his heart made this whole ceremony-- watching him prostrate himself while a litany of prayers was said over him, then the laying on of hands by each of his fellow bishops, the reading of the letter from Pope Francis by the papal nuncio, his receiving the symbols of the episcopate (ring, mitre, and big hat)--much more moving for me.

  So I continue to be awed by all that I am learning and experiencing here, both the beautiful and the terrible.  I am so very far from understanding it, but just keep opening myself to these offerings from some great spiritual Source.

My Class at CRCS

Teaching the course on “Religion, Women, and the Literatures of Religion” was one of the highlights of my teaching career.  From the first day, when I stepped into the classroom and was greeted with smiles and welcomes, I knew I could feel comfortable bringing what I knew and wanted to teach to these students.  This class of students had already been seasoned and prepared to be a community of learners by having studied the better part of the year in this unique program.  I did not detect the kind of competitive edge that is so much a feature of classroom interaction in the United States, and I feel that has something to do with the culture here of long-standing collaboration and sharing.  It was certainly evident in the way these students worked together, laughed together, and enjoyed time after class, such as in “buka puasa,” the opening of the fast that comes during Ramadan.  Coming from various parts of this vast country, from Medan on the island of Sumatra, from Aceh, from the small island of Lombok, as well as many cities around Java, they also represented diverse religious backgrounds, the majority Muslim, but also Protestant Christian and Catholic Christian (the one Catholic being a Sister of Notre Dame whom the students had come to see as “ibu,” Mother).  About three-fourths of the students were male, and although that might have seemed an impediment to learning almost the entire semester only about women, these young men showed no signs of resistance, and in fact demonstrated an amazing openness and willingness to engage the issues confronting women in the Middle Ages as well as today. 

What was just as impressive to me was that they were reading and writing academic studies in English, a discourse that can be difficult even for native speakers!  They stretched themselves in so many ways that it was truly admirable, and I know many of them struggled.  Despite that, they produced response papers that were for the most part readable and intelligent, some brilliant.  I heard so many new insights from their unique perspectives, and they helped me to look at these works by medieval and modern women with new eyes. 

The content of the course consisted primarily of writings from Christian mystics and visionaries of the Middle Ages, as well as a thesis written on Sufi women mystics.  We encountered the remarkable prison diary of St. Perpetua, martyred in 203 C.E., and marveled over the multi-talented abbess, musician, poet, prophet, mystic, Hildegard of Bingen, discussed food in the writings of the unique medieval women’s group, the Beguines, and then focused on the book, Showings, written by Julian of Norwich.  I would like to include here some of the comments students made when reading her beautiful treatise, to give some idea of how open they were to learning across boundaries of time, gender, and theology:

“Her style of contemplating God is set in the fourteenth century, but the meaning is still alive and meaningful today and invites us to share in that same trustworthy love. “

“Showings reveals a woman who experienced God directly and as “our mother.”

“Her revelations of the feminine side of God are a very significant contribution to all of us now.”

“God’s grace and divine love through a feminine figure is such an empowerment and encouragement for all beings, not only women.  Also men, because the feminine qualities show how simply love can comfort and heal, just like a mother’s love.”

“The dualism of feminine/ masculine no longer exists in Julian’s understanding of God.  God is feminine, and at the same time also masculine.  The human/body and the divine, the feminine and masculine, each of both is actually a union.”

I was very happy to have Najiah Jim’s Master’s Thesis on Sufi women, based on her interviews with three women connected to   pesantrens, in order to balance what could have been an over-emphasis on the Christian tradition, the one I know best.  We also had a chance to invite Yuli Yulianti, a Buddhist scholar who happens to be a friend of mine.  Yuli helped explain how the female lineage in Theravada Buddhism died out, and has not been restored because the line was broken.

Two of the most exciting, energizing classes were led by Bu Dewi Chandraningrum, who brought us readings from her edited volume, Body Memories.  I was very happy to have Bu Dewi’s presence in the classroom, and to see the student’s immediate warm responses to her as she sometimes spoke in Bahasa Indonesia, the language most accessible for them.  In her first class, she divided the students into three groups, in discussion of three topics relating to the female body:  menstruation, sexual intercourse, and childbirth.  What could have been a class of silence, embarrassment, or even giggles, became a serious, mature conversation among the students.  I was awed by their willingness to discuss such sensitive topics together, with mixed genders.  Bu Dewi’s second class introduced us to the women activists of Kartini Kending, and the opposition to the proposed cement factory that has already decimated villages and their way of life in northern Java. 

I would like to say in conclusion, that based on the readings from the women mystics like Julian of Norwich, whose theology of the body is holistic, non-dualist, and healthy, and intensified in the sessions led by Bu Dewi, this class became almost a spirituality of the body.  Sacred sexuality and the sacredness of the female body became an underlying theme.  I will let one of the students have the last w  “Women’s bodies can be very good when interpreted as fertility, mercy, and wisdom, but they can also be interpreted as objects attracting sexual desire or even worse as spiritually less than men.  . . .  The narration of Hawa (Eve) and Sri (Javanese goddess figure) could be seen from any point of view, depending on our intention.  Yet, perceiving that male is more spiritual than woman by nature is not only male centrist, but also discriminating over the other and shows how arrogant it is.”  This student and others showed me at what depth of understanding they were interpreting what they read and heard.  They were a gift and joy to teach!

ord by quoting from his final paper:

Coming to Bali!

I am fulfilling a dream I had five years ago, and a promise I made that I would return some day to Bali, and in particular to a special retreat center nestled high in the mountains of central Bali, where  the air is cool and fresh.

I am able to spend a week here on this lebaran holiday (like our Christmas) for the end of Ramadan, and already I have been welcomed "home" by the director of the retreat center.  The beauty and spirit of this place is so indescribable, that I will have to post some pictures to give some idea of what I see and absorb here day after day.

  There is also a real prayer life here, as the morning and evening "Office," the "Liturgy of the Hours," are said in chapel every day, and at the morning office, there is also the Mass integrated into the reading of the psalms.  Because I had just had the experience of monks at the Buddhist vihara in Batu, just above the city of Malang, I can feel the connection as this beautiful ritual of chant moves us into and out of the day.  There is also a special devotion here to Bunda Maria, the Mother of Carmel, because this is a Carmelite retreat house, in the spirit of the prophet Elijah, and the saints like St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avia, and so many more.

  What I feel most of all, and what has brought me back here is that I am loved.  Just a little while ago, another Maria, who does many duties here, and who once gave me a head massage that cured my bad flu, told me we have been friends for five years.  Whenever I contacted them over the years, I heard, "We are waiting for you."  They have waited for me here for five years, and all I have done is show up and receive this love.  All I can give is my heart, and I give it gladly, freely.

 To sum up, what I experience here is growth, the growth of so many varieties of fruits and vegetables and flowers, and the growth of the spirit of love and community.  I am being planted here.

"We are the Sufis"

I have wanted to post this blog for some time, but life has gotten in the way.  Too many experiences and meetings with amazing people and of course the teaching of my class twice a week.
  Before I left Indonesia five years ago, I had wanted to meet some real Sufis, the subject of my first research proposal.  My friend, Pak Habib, fulfilled that desire the very last week of my stay, on our trip to Lamongan to meet the former jihadist fighter, Ali Fauzi.  We stopped at a Sufi shrine, where men and women were gather to pray.  I was invited into the inner circle of the shrine.  By the very end of my visit, I asked Habib, where were the Sufis while I was here?  His answer is the title of this blog, "We are the Sufis."

  Now that I am teaching in a multi-religious, very open and inclusive center of religious studies, I am constantly reminded of the importance of the Sufis.  In fact, one of my friends who works at the Center has written her M.A. thesis on Sufi women, a very interesting contribution to the class.  She shared her thesis with us, and we got to read how she had come to interview three women identified with Sufism in some way.  We heard so many of the themes that we had come across in the medieval women mystics of the Christian tradition: emphasis on experience, intuition or inner knowing, memory of God, body memories.
 This background was vital when we visited a "pesantren," an Indonesian boarding school for children and high schoolers, where a variety of subjects, in Islam and the Qur'an, as well as a broader curriculum are taught.  We met and talked for two hours to the "kyai," the leader of the pesantren.  He was a man trained in psychology, and also brought to the conversation his own emphasis on being at the center where he said the "essence" or "reality," is, not only around the periphery where interpretation and commentary arise.  That was so very consistent with the essay by Bro. David Steindl-Rast, "Mysticism: the Core of Organized Religion," http://csp.org/Steindl-Mystical.html, that we had begun our class with.  I looked at Najiyah, the woman who written her thesis on "Women, Spirituality, and Power" after interviewing the kyai's late wife, and we both felt the coherence immediately.

At the Vihara ("Buddhist Monastery")

My time at the vihara was a gift of peace and connection with those who live a life of dedication and meditation.  I was given the honor once again of presenting the dishes at the meal to Bhanti, the abbot, who is now 86 but still immediately launches into perfect English when he sees me.  Monks eat their last meal of the day before noon, so we met in the dining hall about 11:00.  As a woman, I could not directly hand the dishes to Bhanti, but placed them on a cloth on the floor, where they were then handed to him by one of the monks.  Still, Bhanti's vihara is unique and "revolutionary," as my Buddhist friend, Yuli, says in having a group of young nuns studying at the Buddhist college there.  They will either return to their villages as lay women or continue there as teachers in small colleges or as spiritual guides in the viharas.  Buddhists here in Indonesia go back long before the arrival of Islam in the 14th century or so, brought by traders from India.  There are now a small minority.

The visit also brought me into contact with "Sister" Mutia, who was so helpful to me, as a friend, and even as a psychotherapist.  She immediately asked me about my well-being and saw that I had done a good deal of healing since my last few months of pain over the end of the marriage.  Her very presence is a comfort.

I also managed to get in a trip to the "Gereja Igen," the cathedral church at the center of Malang, thanks to my good friend, Pak Habib, who was always willing to "jemput," pick up and drive us everywhere.  Habib's friendship was one of the special gifts of my time in Indonesia, because, as an anthropologist, he is knowledgable about so many of the cultural and religious oddities underlying the mainstream of Islamic religious life.  He loves talking about the wayang, Hindu goddesses, rituals of various sorts from the Javanese indigenous spirituality.

So as is obvious, the life here is almost too rich to capture in simple blog form.
  Once again, I would like to resort to the book I have mentioned and use a quotation that she ends with:  "Citizens of a bounteous land, Indonesians are united, too, by an extraordinary generosity of spirit, a tolerance of difference.  They welcome strangers like me into their homes and their lives, they go out of their way to help people in trouble. . . . .Indonesia's upsides--the openness, the pragmatism, the generosity of its people, their relaxed attitude to life--are ultimately the more seductive traits, and the more important."  

In Batu and Malang

I have come back to the city of Malang and the little hill town to the north,  Batu, where the air is amazingly cool and fresh,  even cold at night.  I was here five years ago as a Fulbighter, and now wanted to come back to meet old friends.
 Before,  I lived in a gated community which could be isolated from everyday life.  Now I live with a family,  the gently invite me into their life and into speaking the language.

  Today I will go to the vihara,  monastery,  to meet my old friend, Mutia, who was such a help to me before. Mutia cannot be a nun though she looks like one,  because the monastery in the Theravada tradition.  Yuli, a budding Buddhist scholar working on her Ph.D. in Leiden, came with me here from Yogya, and told me on the 8-hour train ridethat Buddhism revived here only in the 1950s.  The vihara is one of my spiritual homes here in Indonesia, where I went for meditation and peace.