"Innering:" Meister Eckhart on the inner person; or why the inner person is needed more today than ever.
The inward path might seem selfish at first in our pained world. But it is also the path which transcends our ego towards Divine grace. It is probably the most needed political act of our times.
“In us there is another human; it is the inner human. The one the holy text calls the new human, a young human, a friend and a noble being.”
— Meister Eckhart
(my translation from BgT 76-140)
Dear dancing monks and weary pilgrims,
I have been trying since two weeks to find words. I promised some Lenten reflections on Meister Eckhart, the German medieval mystic of the inner path and his wisdom teachings regarding the inner person1. The path Eckhart offers is the inward path of deepening and becoming anew, and of meeting Divine truth at the ground of our soul.
But then the multiple tragedies of world news seeped into my brain and I started wondering what one possibly can say in a pained and suffering world about the process of “innering,” of inward deepening and coming home to one self.
As have many of you, I have been overtaken these last days by the pictures coming from Russia. An army of heavily armed police stands to threaten a constant trickling stream of mourners eager to honor the life and death of the Russian dissident Navalny. It brought back memories of my own upbringing behind the Berlin Wall. And it reminds me that those who take power by lies and brute force are always afraid of the truth teller and even of the very people they are supposed to lead. Autocrats and dictators exploit people’s longing for safety and salvation, and it breaks my heart to see the same storylines with the emergence of “Christian nationalism” here in North America - the unholy and dangerous merging of religion and nationalism.
“May be the news this time isn’t a distraction,” kind fellow writer and psychologist came to my rescue when I sent out my cry for help into our group chat. “May be the news is the muse this time.”
And then this thought slowly dawned on me. Of course!
The journey towards the inner person is also a political journey!
Developing one’s inner person is a political act, dear friend, it is building the heart from which humility, morality, and courage spring.
The outward person sees greatness in great achievements, in success, most often measured in numbers or money. The inward person measures greatness in stillness and compassion.
Gathering virtues is different from gathering things. A heart of gold is different from sitting on golden chairs. Our soul’s energy is too often vulnerable to promises of better, bigger, greater if we do not know about the way inside: deeper, wiser, purer.
The mysticism of Eckhart calls us to go into ourselves to meet God within instead of waiting for some external source to bring us the “kingdom of God” in the form of some obscure and ever more thirsty greatness. Instead, like many wise women and men before, Eckhart points to the kingdom of God inside us, the grace which awaits us at the ground of our soul.
Eckhart’s dialectics between the outer and the inner person mirrors the need of both, action and contemplation, external and internal work, or as the monastics have it: the “vita activa” and the “vita contemplativa” which spans that existential dialectics of what appears contradictory at first but needs each other in order to become whole. Activism without inwardness rings hollow just as plain “innering” without ever fruiting into good action would.
Thus the path inward to which the mystic way invites us is as much needed as it is practical. It leads us onto the path towards the chamber of our heart where the healing starts, for our soul and for our world.
“What the soul is in its ground, no one knows. What one can know about it must be supernatural, it must be from grace. The soul is where God works compassion.”
-Meister Eckhart
Innering & Deepening
While I wrote these musings, another notifying ding came in, this time a comment on my latest midweek blessing “Through the fire”. Thank you, for writing these poetic lines:
Dear Almut, You touch a thousand strands, a thousands chords of the heart with your words. We need the fire and we need to wait in quiet expectation, as you say. Here are the words I find most compelling. “Perhaps Lent is after all not so much about giving something up but more about deepening. About walking slowly and waiting patiently for Spring to finally come, about being present to the lengthening days even as the snow still flies, even when the present is full of mourning.” Thank you for your thoughts in this season of lengthening. Yes, Spring comes, for He is faithful.
Dear one, never underestimate what your note (which is after all an outward action) can do for a writer’s heart, or a preacher, poet, or a social activist. Or for any one else who risks to send her voice out. Your comment can, just as Kelly’s and Henry’s did 🙏, lift a writer over her writers block by reminding her of what her words do.
Thus, dear readers, thank you so very much for your kindness. For being here with me as I try to make sense out of the pain of this world and our soul’s longing. Thank you for letting me hear how my words resonate in your heart’s innermost chamber. And for taking patience as I develop a thought and walk through the valley of writer’s doubts. And for being here even if you struggle with what I propose in my writings.
If my Cloister Notes can help you find some inner peace and the courage to walk deeper where grace awaits you, then my outer work is sanctified, as it comes from the inward place I have come to call “The Cloister,” symbolizing the inner heart of the monastery, where every path comes together and goes out from.
So picture this: a garden like courtyard surrounded by the cloister walk, a bench, trickling water, a place to sit and retreat and pause. Listen to the birds singing of Spring, watch sun rays nestling on bare yet pulsing branches, feel a tender breeze calling your attention inward.
Sit here with me for a while. Just sit and let your heart rest or wander as it will:
What is asking you for deepening this Lenten season?
What resonates in you about the path inward?
Sit some time longer. Breathe.
Peace and Blessings to you in this time of lengthening and deepening, Almut
PS: As always, if you can, leave a heart or a word or a line that resonated with you, so we know you have been here. 🙏
UPCOMING
Join us for a journey into the depth of our soul.
The path of the inner person is difficult to pursue in a loud world. Our souls are distracted by so many things, so many voices, loud, urgent, and angry. How can one find the truth here? The outer strife is often louder than the voice of wisdom calling us inside. And the path inside is the path of Lent, a path we are often reluctant to travel.
Thus this is an invitation to travel it together in an intimate communion of kindred spirits.
Our Passion Week Consolations, born at the onset of the pandemic five years ago, invite you to a sacred time to tend to your sorrows and to be consoled by the Divine power of JS Bach’s Passion. Each day, you will receive a brief meditation, reflection or practice on an Aria, recitative or chorus, a link to listen and meditate on the piece yourself, as well as some tender guidance to visit your places of sorrow without getting lost in them.
You can follow our Passion Consolations every day or reserve a day or two during Passion Week to contemplate them in a self-guided retreat.
Join our communal lamentation this Passion week (March 24-31) comforted by the ethereal music of JS Bach’s Passion. It will be free for all sustaining members of our Cloister Notes.
In order to take part in this communal lamentation I invite you to become a sustaining member (for as little as 5$ a month). This will allow for holding a sacred space to share deeper conversation which can only be accessed by paid members.
You can become a paid subscriber here. As a paid subscriber you will not only have access to our Passion Week Consolations but also our next 12 Days of Christmas Contemplations, our full archives, readers’ corner and some more I will add over the year.
And if you feel you would like to give some more for this retreat opportunity and to help us sustain this labor of love you can do so by choosing (or upgrading) to becoming a founding member (it is a sliding scale so you can chose what amount suits you best.) Bless you for this!
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We are looking forward to welcoming you on this journey,
Almut with Chuck and little one
PS: If you do not have the means to become a paying subscriber yet, please respond to this email and I will comp you in for half a year, no questions asked.
And to my dear readers from monastic communities, let me know if you would like to participate in our Passionweek Consolations and I will comp you in as well.
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About Almut
Almut Furchert, Dr. phil., Dipl. Psych. is a German American scholar and practitioner, a psychologist turned philosopher turned writer, traveler, photographer, retreat leader and mother of a pre-schooler. She has taught and published on authors like Kierkegaard, Buber, Frankl, Yalom, Edith Stein, and Hildegard of Bingen. Almut is also a Benedictine Oblate and lives with her family in a little college town in MN, USA.
Eckhart writes in original German" “innere Mensch” often translated with “inner man.” Since the German “Mensch” means literally “human being,” newer translations use “inner person.”
Dearest Almut, your sorrow for these times is palpable in your writing. As a historian, I'd like to offer some background on Christian nationalism in the US. It has been a part of the ugly underbelly of the country for centuries. It was used as a means to justify slavery and to exclude who were and are deemed undesirables, Its had and still has the Klu Klux Klan since after the Civil War and Reconstruction as an organization to foster its goals. (If you want to know where to get KKK gear, I unfortunately know where it's sold at a store located in Kennesaw Mountain, GA) There is an excellent documentary offered by American Experience on PBS, Nazi Town, USA which chronicles the fascist, Christian nationalist movement in the 1920's and 1930's. There is a clip of Mussolini that stopped my heart and sent a shiver down my spine. He used the phrase," make American great." It provides the questions and foundation of what we are experiencing today. It sets the stage for why Christian nationalism has been given oxygen. That, in fact, it has always been here.
While I read your pain, I was heartened by your hope. I am so grateful for your words and work to remind us that working on our inner self, reaching to Divine grace will set our feet right. And as the late John Lewis said, will lead us to make good trouble. Thank you for honest, thought provoking and nourishing writing.
Thinking of the inward path as a needed political act in these times is a perspective that I resonate with deeply. Thank you.