“Rope which has been twisted and then unraveled”

Hello friends. The photo here is my 2015 reading at the Athens Word of Mouth Anthology gathering at Ciné with thanks to Penny Noah for capturing the poet in mid-stride.  In this post I’d like to expand on the spiritual and educational path that has led me to my near-92nd year; in many ways I think of my life and writing in terms of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ line, as ‘a length of rope which has been twisted and then unraveled.”

I look with gratitude to my religious and lay teachers. My views on religion expanded during my studies at the Catholic University in Louvain, Belgium, later during doctoral work at Union Theological Seminary and then at Columbia University in New York. Again, my immediate surroundings counted: living as an assistant editor at America magazine in New York during Vatican II itself, 1968, and with an inquisitive crowd of associates,  including a circle of enriching friends. Key elements of my spiritual growth were readings of Teilhard de Chardin, ecumenism, the spirit of Pope John XXIII, and discovering in myself a widening intellectual context in American culture. 

My leaving was in part driven by disillusion with the Church’s doctrine of celibacy.

Years ago I urged the church to spend a portion of Sunday services to teach and practice meditation among Christians. Ritual and sermon are not enough. Peggy and I belong to a weekly Buddhist sangha and we are exploring the meditative ways of a local Quaker meeting. Are we still Christians? Yes, why not? We try to follow the Spirit where she bloweth. John Courtney Murray, S.J. said in 1966: “Bianchi, you are becoming unstuck.” He didn’t mean unhinged. I think — I hope — he meant evolving. Best, Gene.