Practicing Imperfection: A Priest’s Journey through Meditation, Messing Up, and Ministry
By Charles T. Dupree and Curtis Almquist
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About this ebook
Drawing from childhood experiences, a recent sabbatical, and the experiences of serving as a parish priest, Dupree examines some of life's larger questions. As an Episcopal priest, he is clearly religious, but also whole-heartedly spiritual. Uniting those seemingly conflicted qualities, he helps us see that we are all looking for the same thing: freedom from that which no longer serves us.
In our modern world, it is difficult to carve out the space to examine what is going on in our lives and minds; meditation is a way to create that space. This is a book for people who want to be released from the pressures of being better, smarter, or more successful, and those who want to lighten up and be a fuller participant in life.
Charles T. Dupree
The Reverend Charles Dupree is a priest in the Episcopal Church and an accomplished artist and musician. He enjoys speaking about the beauty and mystery of the spiritual life and the gift of living as a creative being. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana.
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Practicing Imperfection - Charles T. Dupree
Practicing Imperfection
A Priest’s Journey through Meditation, Messing Up, and Ministry
Charles T. Dupree
Foreword by Curtis Almquist
9052.pngPracticing Imperfection
A Priest’s Journey through Meditation, Messing Up, and Ministry
Copyright © 2016 Charles T. Dupree. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Resource Publications
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
paperback isbn: 978-1-4982-9870-4
hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-5741-1
ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-9871-1
Manufactured in the U.S.A. January 10, 2017
Table of Contents
Title Page
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Breath
Chapter 2: Surfing
Chapter 3: Sunset
Chapter 4: Yoga and Weight Lifting
Chapter 5: Passing the Time
Chapter 6: Sacrifice
Chapter 7: Steps
Chapter 8: When’s Lunch?
Chapter 9: Ruined
Chapter 10: Churchgoing
Chapter 11: Meditation, Interrupted
Postscript
Bibliography
Foreword
The ancient etymology for the English verb to meditate
is to measure, limit, consider, advise. To meditate is a thoughtful and wise practice. The words meditate
and medicine
share the same Latin root, so to meditate is also about the healing and wellness of the soul. To meditate is to breathe in what is life-giving, and to breathe out what is life-clogging or life-compromising. To meditate is respiratory therapy for the soul. To meditate is a salubrious alternative to anesthetizing ourselves with drugs, to habitually escaping through entertainment, to endlessly striving not to disappoint anyone, especially ourselves.
To meditate is to live life intentionally, to engage life responsively not just reactively, to be really present to the gift of now. With all our technology gadgets, it is so easy, so tempting, to be virtually present across all kinds of platforms, but not to be really present anywhere at all. You can literally gain the whole world with a click on a keyboard, but lose or misplace your soul.
Meditation for the soul is like grammar, punctuation, and syntax to language. Without this ordering, and without space between the words, life becomes like a run-on sentence. It’s gibberish. It will make no sense. Meditation for the soul is also like the rests in music. Without the rests—the changes in cadence, the pauses and silences, the primed expectations—what wants to be harmonized, orchestrated, and resolved is just a cacophony of noise.
A practice of meditation is especially important and particularly hard for those involved with the leadership in the church. I’m speaking here of aspirants to Holy Orders, seminarians, and the ordained. I’m also speaking of those who have relationships with these people: family members, colleagues, friends, and parishioners. Most everyone. Meditation is especially hard and particularly important because of the hyper pace of modern-day life, the tyranny of others’ urgent expectations, and our own drivenness. Leadership often exposes us at our best and at our worst. I was speaking to a Brother in the monastery where I live about some inner conflict I was experiencing. I said to him as an aside, I guess I’ve got some ‘baggage’ around this.
My Brother responded, Curtis, that’s not baggage, that’s freight!
Our baggage, our freight, needs to be off-loaded and sorted; meditation is such a helpful vehicle for lightening and enlightening our load.
In the Gospel according to Matthew, we hear Jesus say, Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. . ..
This may seem both seductive and impossible. In actuality, we’re rescued by this word perfect.
In the Greek, this is not a command but rather a promise. In the Greek, this is future tense, not imperative tense. In the end, we will be made perfect, complete, and whole. Jesus promises it will be so. But this conversion is a lifetime process. The founder of my monastic community, Richard Meux Benson, reminds us Jesus’ work of perfection in us is gradual. Benson says, We cannot bound into the depths of God at one spring; if we could we should be shattered, not filled. God draws us on.
We’re reminded that God has all the time in the world for us—this world, and the next.
In the meantime—and sometimes it is a very mean time—we live with imperfection, which some days can be quite disordered. St. Paul says to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
I understand the work out
; however my emotional repertoire in the workout is much more messy than just fear and trembling.
When I’m reminded again (and again) that I am not my own god, that the end in life is not to get my own way, that other people are trying (or not trying) as hard as I am to pull off life, I get in touch with all kinds of emotions: anger, resistance to surrendering, denial, resentment, despair, humiliation. I have come so far; I have so far to go. The story is told from the early centuries of the church where Christian monasticism was born in the Egyptian desert. An old woman, who had lived her entire life since childhood on the outskirts of a monastery, had one question she had always wanted to ask a monk. But this was an enclosed monastery, the monks never coming outside the monastery precinct. Never. Except one day. One day an old monk came out to walk into the desert. The old woman hobbled toward him to ask him her question of a lifetime: What do you do in there?
So the story goes, the old monk looked to the ground, then looked to the heavens and, with tears in his eyes, said, We fall down and we get up again. We fall down and we get up again. We fall down and we get up again.
In the stories that follow, Charlie Dupree speaks plenty about falling. I think you will find his transparency inviting, disarming, helpful, hopeful, delightful. I certainly do.
You will also discover that Charlie makes a distinction between meditative practice and prayer. Charlie prays; however this is not a prayer book. For Charlie, meditation is an attentiveness to our own inner voices, thoughts, feelings, and patterns. I find this encouraging. At those moments when my prayer has dried up and when God seems very distant or illusive, I meanwhile have myself. God has entrusted me with myself. Paying attention to what is going on within my own soul will inevitably help me locate God. Or rather, paying attention to what is going on within my own soul will help me discover where and how and why God has found me.
For those who are leaders in the church—and for those who know and relate to them—life is full of challenge and, I would say, equally full of provision. Claiming practices that are life-sustaining is essential. We cannot just be dispensers of help and hope.