Dear Harry,
About five years ago I had the idea to form a meditation group in our local community here in Los Angeles, on the Franklin Hill, at the far east end of the Hollywood Hills. I put out word on Nextdoor, our friendly online neighborhood network, and was surprised at the number of responses. People were interested. Inspired. I invited everyone to join us at our house on a Wednesday evening, early, before the dinner hour, and spend a quiet hour with me in meditation.
We began to make a weekly practice of it, gathering each Wednesday in our living room. Using as a model the method I have learned from many years of sitting with Thanissaro Bhikku, Abbot of the Thai Forest monastery who has served as guide to my Sunday morning sitting group in Laguna Beach, I introduce the session with a 20-minute guided meditation, then lead the group into a further 20 minutes of silent introspection, leaving a last 20 minutes or so for discussion, questions, even chit-chat, whatever feels right for the occasion.
Since the arrival of the coronavirus to disrupt personal contact of this kind, we have managed to maintain our weekly ritual thanks to the online technology of Zoom. It is not the same, of course, but we do achieve a measure of community, even through the medium of our computer screens.
For me, this has become a gratifying way to fulfill my lasting need to be of service. You, Harry, an Anglican minister, had your “flocks”—the congregations that attended services in your churches every Sunday morning. Your calling was a service that extended far beyond those services, however. Every day of the week you were out among your parishioners, visiting the sick—and bringing communion to them when they so desired—comforting the sorrowful and grieving, feeding the hungry and providing what aid you could to the poor and destitute. You instilled in me, as I was growing up, the model of service as the proper way to live my life. For many years, I failed to recognize it as such but now, as the end of my own life approaches, I am much aware that to lead a good life means to live as much for others as for myself.
Seeking reassurance from within, I often ask myself if writing is an act of service, because I have done it all my life. From one point of view, it can seem like a selfish, self-serving way to live, and there have been many times when I castigate myself for having chosen a path that is so solitary, so introspective, so internal. And then there are those moments when I hear from someone who has read some words of mine—no matter whether they have appeared in a magazine, a book, a blog, or simply online, on social media—someone who wants to let me know that I have in some way touched them; even changed their life. At such moments I take great joy in allowing myself to feel that I have indeed been of service.
Still, there is nothing quite like being of service to even a small group of present fellow human beings, a tiny “flock”, if you will. So Wednesday evenings act as a kind of spiritual and emotional anchor in my life, a marker that lets me know exactly where I am in the passing of each day of the week, whether in anticipation or in retrospect. I am immensely grateful to have found it, and immensely grateful to those friends who join me.
I sit alone each morning—I have done so for a quarter century already—and that practice has brought about many changes in my life. It is a silent, solitary pleasure, an act of connection with the universe and, more intimately, with myself. And... the difference between this and sitting with others is substantial. I can feel it, physically, in my flesh and bones as well as knowing it in my mind; I feel the togetherness, the common intention, the community of human souls. It is, of everything I do, the very best.
So, Harry, I have yet another reason to say thank you. I regret that Idid not know enough to say it often while you were alive, but it feels good to say it now.
Thank you, Harry, for this gift among many, your son, Peter
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