Beatnik Christianity Holds Together Contemplative Practices and Social Justice

2 minute read

To use a biblical metaphor, the Church needs Mary and Martha. Whereas so much of our frenetic American society is focused on “Doing,” the Church should deliberately create spaces where “Being” and “Doing” are held in sacred tension. Jesus followers need opportunities to pause, center ourselves psychologically and spiritually, focus on being mindfully present in the moment, and discerningly ponder things to gain wisdom without rushing to judgment. At the same time (not “But”), we must also be relentless in our pursuit of reconciliation and shalom.

As the story goes, when Richard Rohr was a young man he decided to stop by Thomas Merton‘s monastic cottage on his way home from college for summer break. Right as the car pulled up the front door swung open and out walks Merton talking with Mother Theresa. It was a cardinal moment in his life. It inspired Rohr to start The Center for Action and Contemplation, which holds together in non-dualistic tension the place of contemplative practices and social justice within Christian spirituality. That’s a vision of Being and Doing that I enthusiastically support.

I’ve also heard Rohr tell the story that as a young priest he kept running into Jesus followers who were passionate about loving and serving others, but had little spiritual depth and richness. Of the small group who had gone deeper, they tended to almost obsessively focus on either social justice OR contemplative practices. It was seldom both. What Rohr teaches is bringing them together in sacred harmony. It’s crucial to be psychologically centered in the Spirit‘s presence, and spiritually attuned to the Spirit’s leading, in order to faithfully serve as Christ’s hands and feet in the world.

This yin and yang dynamic between contemplative practices and social justice has become such a defining part of my faith that, quite honestly, I now struggle to recall how I understood The Way of Jesus before it. It’s almost been like being born again… again. All throughout the gospels I see our Lord alternating back and forth between rest and work, re-centering and serving, healing and rebuking. The most vivid example perhaps being His prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane before being arrested and crucified. Jesus needed to first power up before giving it all.

The original beatniks offer a surprisingly decent template for this. Take the 1968 Chicago police riots, for example. A dozen years after published his famous poem, “Howl,” there was the O.G. beatnik, Allen Ginsberg, in the crowd of idealistic young hippies chanting, “Om” to try deescalating tensions before the police started the violence.1 Ginsberg was there as an activist to protest the Vietnam War, but as the tensions rose he tried in vain to be an agent of peace via contemplation. Allen Ginsberg was no saint, but I tell you, in that moment, he truly was.