What I learned from "Francis, A Saint's Way,"
by James Cowan
[Liguori/Triumph, Liguori, Missouri, 2001]

INTRODUCTION TO COWAN's WORKS

I am jealous of James Cowan. Every book I have read that has been written by him has a certain mix of ingredients. He visits a place where something happened or something out of the ordinary is happening, either to him, to local peoples, or to some historical figure either well-known or obscure. Then he describes his interior response to the setting and its history or occurrences, and weaves into that what he knows of either its history or the current experience of its inhabitants. The result is an always-subjective pseudo-historical-anthropological tapestry that is rich in information, sure, but above all it is a cauldron of personal interpretive insight, or hints at possibilities of insight. It doesn't matter that some of his books are novels and some are non-fiction. That classification just reflects a format choice.

This is what I have tried to do too, but on a scale that seems amateurish in comparison, hence the jealousy. The whole idea behind my selection of the domain name "thoughtsandplaces.org" for my personal web site is exactly this idea of associating inner experience with outer experience at specific places.

Cowan is just better at it. He travels to more varied and interesting places. He learns from the right people. As far as I have been able to judge, he gets his history right. He has a deep personal experience base. He has an uncanny intellectual ability to sense what is related across time and space. He uses his intuitive faculties to weave all of this together into a very rich and thought-provoking broth. I sense that his books are demanding on both the intellect and the intuition of the reader, for a full appreciation. I doubt his books are for every reader. They are neither lightly entertaining nor definitive historical resources, but they are definitely provocative, demanding both thought and introspection, and thus my cup of tea on all except the lazyiest of days.

That said, I'll set jealousy aside (yes, really!), and sharpen my keyboard to write what I think is an appreciative review of what I found important in one of his books. In some minor instances I may seem to turn critical, but objectively so, of course. No jealousy will show. Right.

WHAT BACKGROUND/BAGGAGE I BROUGHT INTO THE READING

I am relatively well read on Saint Francis. Or so I thought. I had read a few of the accounts by authors who emphasized Francis' rejuvenating influence on a decadent Catholic Church. I found the life of this person fascinating, and found his relationship with Clare and another woman of particular interest. I wrote about these things in a larger context in a series of articles on my web pages under the title A Women's Movement in the High Middle Ages (click to go there). There I placed the Saint Francis story into a context of showing that the relationship of Francis and Clare, and perhaps of Francis and Giacope di Settisole, was one of love and respect, love that is very deep and true, yet non-physical.

So do I need to change what I wrote? No, but I do want to repent of my ignorance on the subject of how Francis and Clare lived to illustrate the highest ideal of Courtly Love, and I do so in the next page of this section of six somewhat related pages. But in this page I want to walk through what I thought were the highlights of James Cowan's "A Saint's Way," in addition to that book's treatment on Francis and Clare and Courtly Love which I save for a closer look on the last page.

Highlights? Yes, buthighlights to me would not be highlights to you, you can be sure of that. So read the book!

Is what I have written before about Francis and Clare baggage I am dragging into this reading of Cowan's book? No, it is just background.

The baggage is several things about Francis' life I questioned before, and didn't like before. First is his relationship and attitude toward half of humanity, the female half. That aspect is what I explored before, with what remains a mixed verdict: mixed because I focused on the exceptions to his rules and gave him partial absolution, as does Cowan.

Another piece of personal baggage: I am uncomfortable with his attitude toward his body, and see it as very much related to his attitude toward women. I never understood it, and it bothered me. Cowan struggles with it and comes to an understanding and resolution for himself that I find has considerable merit. Again it is easy here to focus on what to me seemed a contradiction. I thought there was a definite conflict between his attitude toward his own biological makeup, and his general and exuberant love for nature. I never came to grips with what I thought was a loathing of his own human nature. On this one, I learned something useful from Cowan.

The last piece of personal baggage was my inability to take the stigmata serious. There was enough about this life that was fascinating and instructive to let this and the other two 'problems' I had with his life slip into the background. I essentially ignored the stigmata in my thinking on this singular life. Cowan's book takes away my ability to pretend it is just a story, or myth.

After reading Cowan I see that the stigmata was a very real phenomenon, the first of its kind in the world (I didn't know that), and an integral part of, if not a dominant part of, what Francis brought into the world. But here again Cowan has an intuitive-knowledge based explanation (neither a clinical or medical explanation, nor a simplistic faith-based explanation, in other words). Cowan's discussion allows me to slightly increase my comfort level and acknowledge its reality and central importance as a physical expression of a more subtle reality. How strange that Brother Donkey (as used by Cowan, also known as Brother Ass in other books, but either way Francis's pet name for his own body) becomes the vehicle for bringing this symbol into the world!

INSIGHT GAINED FROM COWAN'S BOOK

I did not realize that some of the other things I have written about at some length, such as the Cathar heresy and the ' Religion of Love' (or Courtly Love) heresy , had something fundamental to do with Francis' life and relationships until I read Cowan's book. It was obvious. But I had been blind to it since the settings and motives, I thought, were so different. But now I know better and it adds another dimension to my interpretation of Francis' exceptions to his rules concerning relationships with women. And maybe more.

What I will present below are highlights of the information in Cowan's book that I found of interest, and furthered my understanding in terms of the baggage items I discussed above.


FRANCIS AS NEW-ANCHORITE GOING WHERE
NO ANCHORITE HAD GONE BEFORE: THE STIGMATA

I didn't know that Francis was trying to re-introduce the early Christian anchorite tradition. On page 18, Cowan describes that tradition as involving the search for spiritual empowerment and enlightenment on the part of monks who lived alone in very remote places. Cowan writes:

" There the early Christians did battle with the devil, lived on bread and water, while slowly deepening their consciousness to the point where it was transformed into a well of simplicity and wisdom. This was the payoff for living a life of solitude: the hermit took refuge in the desert in order to live outside history, and so learned how to converse with angels. "

Cowan suggests that Saint Francis was returning to this tradition, which I never suspected from my previous readings. One twist that Francis made to this tradition was, however, to require his 'brethren' to stay fully dependent on and integrated into their local and regional societies. That is a good twist in my opinion. But it is a radical departure from the hermit's life that is the anchorite tradition. It is a new tradition, in my view. Well, new from an anchorite standpoint, but it is also a direct re-introduction in Francis' age of the practice begun by Jesus 1200 years earlier which led to the phenomenal growth of the very religion Francis is rejuvenating.

Is this a criticism of Cowan's comparing Francis to the anchorites? Not really, because Cowan does make a compelling case for his comparison. But in my opinion he misses an opportunity to also compare the success of his brotherhood with the fact that its rule is based on the instructions given by Jesus to his own missionary force. Much later in the Americas and Europe (especially England) the Mormons again employed this very same rule and the result was phenomenal growth for this new-world religion plus a cast of leaders that could withstand the forces attempting to change and destroy their new church, from within and without, forces that included the US Army! And in all three cases, early Christian, Franciscan, and Mormon, it was found that this formula for phenomenal growth or rejuvenation was too demanding and had to be softened and modified during the very same generation that implemented it.

The formula? It is found in the book of Matthew Chapter 10, verses 5 through 15, in the Christian Bible's New Testament. Travel with little to no personal property, just the clothes on ones back, and no money, and beg for your sustenance all the while untiringly teaching the world of the joyous news that is your sole motivation in life at the moment. That is my paraphrase of course, the New English Bibe says in verses 9-11 to

" 'Provide no gold, silver, or copper to fill your purse, no pack for the road, no second coat, no shoes, no stick;the worker earns his keep. When you come to any town or village, look for some worthy person in it, and make your home there until you leave. Wish the house peace as you enter it, so that, if it is worthy, your peace may descend on it; if it is not worthy, your peace can come back to you .'"

And what were they to do in each town and village? Verses 7 and 8 give that charge:

" 'And as you go proclaim the message: "The kingdom of Heaven is upon you." Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out devils. You received without cost; give without charge. '"

Early Christians, Franciscans and Mormons documented many miracles on these missionary journeys by two men going from door to door, village to village, nation to nation, teaching and asking for daily sustenance from God, which was always provided through the people they encountered. They even begged passage to other nations and continents.

The very fact that this modus operandi succeeded caused such conviction and faith that the force was unstoppable. But also unsustainable, except in Francis' case where the ideal was modified during his own lifetime, yes, but only modified. While it was employed, Christianity mushroomed, Francis revived Catholicism, and Mormonism exploded onto the American and English scenes creating its entire first generation of leaders in the process. All through the simple method of requiring of its ambassadors the adoption of this selfsame mode of being while acting as missionaries to the world.

But let's get back to the comparison Cowan does make, and makes on a very good basis:
Cowan explains the difference between the Franciscan anchorites and the originals in these words (page 142):

". . . Francis had tried to forge a spirituality from an extreme asceticism matched by a reverence for the beauty of ecstatic experience. Alone among men, he had bridged the gap between the asocial life of an anchorite in the desert and the more inward dispensation of the monastic orders of his time. As far as he was concerned it was not good for a monk to quit the world altogether, nor was it of any value to society for men to gather in monasteries without sharing their spiritual largesse. He had founded his brotherhood as a lay brotherhood that lived in the community. In fact, it relied directly on the community to survive. Begging, as we know, was the only way for a brother to eat. Each friar depended on the good will and tacit support of everyone in the community. His spirituality was nourished directly by all those who revered his presence in their midst.

"In this sense, the Franciscan brotherhood possessed far more popular appeal than the larger orders, which regarded themselves as bastions of spirituality rather than its nurturers. In his own lifetime Francis saw his order grow from the original twelve to numbers exceeding five thousand. Every member of his community was expected to interact with society in some way, yet at the same time maintain his distance. A fruitful tension emerged between a grass-roots spirituality that satisfied popular expectations, and the maintenance of the principle of strict ascetic practice and solitary retreat by the brothers themselves. They, in turn, became the conscience of society without incurring its disapprobation. The Franciscan emerged as a counterweight to the emerging materialism inspired by a new mercantile class. "

Back on page 19, Cowan gives another partial explanation of why he believes Francis to be a new-anchorite. The explanation is a good one I never would have considered from reading alone, and Cowan found it coming to him as an association suggested through experiencing places where anchorites dwelt, and a place where Francis similarly dwelt at times:

" The narrow cave in which Francis once slept reminded me of a prehistoric shelter I had visited in the Sahara Desert. I think I imagined Francis as a latter-day Paleolithic person, content to while away his time under the cooling influence of stone. Its very inertness suggested to me something that the rest of us wouldn't even dream of-that is, the prospect of attaining to a state of rapture through converse with earth. "

Rapture through converse with earth reminds me of a rather common perception among devotees of the New Age, and the esoteric sciences in the past few centuries, the notion of the earth being a Being, having a life, a spirit. This is also a well accepted doctrinal point among Mormons, as witnessed by this statement from Brigham Young (many others can be found to have said the same or similar things, but I am reminded of things I knew well, based in my own experience which included a couple of decades revering and studying the lives of men such as Brigham). Brigham Young touched on a notion that seems to come universally with mystical insight, namely seeing that all that is, has life. This means he recognized that the planet Earth is a living being (but expressed it in quite a literal way, illustrating the making of a universal insight into an insight specific to a particular religious tradition by clothing it in the symbols and words of scripture revered in that tradition):

The terra firma on which we walk, and from which we gain our bread, is looking for the morning of the resurrection, and will get a resurrection, and be cleansed from the filthiness that has gone forth out of her. . . . We are of the earth, earthy, and not only will the portion of mother earth which composes these bodies get a resurrection, but the earth itself. It has already had a baptism. (Journal of Discourses, 1853, 1:274)

This idea, refreshed by reading Cowan's book, caught my attention because of my own experiences of feeling myself in a state of communication with, receiving enlightenment from, the Earth. I celebrated an instance (my first actually) of this experience in another web page called ' Radical Unity ' (click to go there), although it is rather obscured and reinterpreted there.

This association between a heightened awareness of the holiness of nature, avoiding the distractions of property or money, and periodic, radical withdrawals from the world into an extreme ascetic state is a whole constellation of related ideas that I missed in my previous readings of Francis' life. And it is a very important dimension of Francis' life, because it led to the central symbol of the stigmata that Cowan says is perhaps Francis' one unique statement to the world. When I fist read that I was skeptical, I am seeing now that this is so.

At the end of Cowan's book he comes back to typically and masterfully weave several themes together so that when you read them you intuit the point and agree with it, but have a hard time getting a grip on it intellectually. What that means is that I agree with this statement but find it very hard to put into my own words, so I will cite Cowan's from his pages 174-175:

" Francis became a bridge between ancient thought and his day. He made people realize that the soul inhabited psychic territory, and therefore could not be dispelled from the world. His love of nature, and his awareness that all things were alive (including rocks), reached back to the ancient Greek belief in empsycha, which maintained that "all things are full of gods" (Thales). To suggest that life emerged from non-life was both irrational and unnatural. Francis believed this also. He knew that the limitlessness of the soul could not be comprehended, or experienced under normal life conditions, that somehow a person must engage in acts of psychic or spiritual vertigo in order to realize his own stigmata ."

Thus it was his acts of extreme ascetism, his beating his body into total submission that I so abhor, that allowed him to enter into this state of " psychic or spiritual vertigo " and " realize " his stigmata. And those self-same ever-festering wounds, in turn, kept him in such a state, and hastened his death.

MORE ON THE STIGMATA, AND DEATH

On page 176 Cowan draws a conclusion about the stigmata that gave me some more pause. It requires reflection to digest, intuitive digestion that is:

" One shouldn't see Francis's Stigmata solely as the reflection of some religious event. It is far more than that. It is the re-creation of an idea of suffering, and of conflict, that is deeply imbedded in human experience. Any thought of eliminating it from the world is futile, however much we might desire to see an end to conflict and suffering. According to Heraclitus, a wise observer in these matters, Homer was wrong when he wrote: "Would that Conflict might vanish from among gods and men!" Rather, as the philosopher believed, there wouldn't be any "attunement" (harmony) without highs and lows and the nourishment of the opposites (contrasts). The Stigmata reflects a momentary resolution of these opposites, these opposing forces of conflict, before they too fall back into the abyss of Justice, which is none other than the cauldron of existence itself ."

The last time I had read such a declaration for the absolute need of opposition for there to be life and progress was many years ago in the Book of Mormon, where it says: (2 Nephi 4:11-12):

" For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, . . . righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor sensibility. Wherefore, it must needs have been created as a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God. "

To me there is a not-so-subtle common theme in these words by Joseph Smith and by Cowan. Existence and justice are mentioned in both as needing a polarity of opposites, and continuing opposition, to suspend them in what we see as our daily experience of living in a state we call reality. Resolving that polarity is anathema to life, it brings death.

We will not explore Francis' outlook on death in the detailed and fascinating way that Cowan does in his Chapter 11, but suffice it to say it was different from what I had expected to read. I have in the past had a feeling, as fully expressed and explained by Cowan in several places, that this Sainted person was on a very perilous edge between orthodoxy and heresy and may have been unaware of this himself since he refused scholastic training in theology. He wanted no part of the parsing of spiritual reality into boxes made of words, and got furious with his own brethren who thought the Franciscan order needed formal theological training. These ideas are explored in several of Cowan's chapters, and as I write I am thinking primarily of his treatment of this and the next paragraph's topic in his final chapter.

Although he revered the general and local leaders, the hierarchy of his Church, he refused to become a priest and would not allow it for his followers. Why? My interpretation of Cowan's arguments gave me the impression that Francis saw the learning of dogma and the memorization of and focus on ritual as spiritual traps that would trammel the experience and appreciation of the ineffable God. In this sense, Francis was a true mystic. In this sense, also, he was a true kindred spirit to the Persian poet and Muslim, Rumi, his contemporary whom he never met. Cowan makes this same observation on his pages 119 and 120, citing a Rumi couplet dedicated the the same Lady Poverty revered by Francis!

So, we come to a strange dimension of the Saint Francis story that I also had never appreciated until I read Cowan's book: his apparently close affinity to the mysticism of Islam and his awareness of the ideas and ideals of the Cathars and troubadours: "heretics" all.

SAINT FRANCIS A STUDENT OF ISLAMIC MYSTICISM?

In my readings on Saint Francis' life I had become aware that he visited the Holy Land and nearby Muslim lands during a crusade, and visited with local dignitaries near Damietta. From my readings I didn't think he had done anything more than try, unsuccessfully, to "convert the heathen" as so many other Christian men have felt called to do in other times and places. But Cowan puts a whole new light on this visit with Muslim leaders and says it was a pivotal point in Francis' life, changing him for the remainder of his life. That, of course, caught my attention as a new piece of information.

On page 112 Cowan criticizes one of the pious histories, suggesting the account by Jacques de Vitry is " incongruous ":

" On the one hand we hear of Francis being granted audience by a 'cruel beast:' yet on the other we hear how he listened 'attentively over a period of days'to reasonable arguments put forward by reasonable men. One gains a strong suspicion that Francis's sojourn was written about with propaganda in mind. Nor would have Francis wished to invite criticism by disclosing details of his discussions with the sages and poets at the sultan's court. It may be, as Idries Shah suggests, that Francis wished to question Sufi teachers there about their special methodology known as dhikr, the ritual act of remembering, so similar to the technique of 'holy prayer' developed by Francis himself. It may be no accident either that the Franciscan dress, with its hooded dress and wide sleeves, is the same as that of the dervishes of Morocco and Spain.

"There are other similarities between Sufis and the way Francis conducted his spiritual life. We note that he never became a priest, and sought to spread his message among all the people. This is how Sufis operate, even today. We know that he saw a seraph with six wings at LaVerna, an allegory also used by Sufis to convey the formula of the bishmillah. It was Francis's salutation as well: 'The peace of God be with you!' He was reputed to have thrown away spiked crosses that were worn for the purpose of self-mortification by many of his monks. Such an action may or may not have been reported exactly. Rather, it may resemble the Sufi practice of ceremonially rejecting a cross with the words, 'You may have the cross, but we have the meaning of the cross?' One final similarity between the Sufis and Francis was in his rejection of personal salvation as the primary object of asceticism. Sufis, may have regarded salvation as an expression of vanity, since it placed too much emphasis upon one's personal spiritual expectation ."

Cowan then reviews what is known about the cross-fertilization between the Muslim and Christian worlds in the Middle Ages, suggesting from that review that many Sufi-Muslim and even Cathar ideas had spread into the area where Francis lived. This leads Cowan to suspect that Francis took advantage of his meeting with real Muslima and Sufis to have serious discussions on their ideas:

" Of course, arguments about one religion or another would have arisen, but more likely in the spirit of open inquiry than that of denigration. I cannot see the court sages granting Francis so much of their time if they felt that they were dealing with a man unsympathetic to their ideas. Not having to deal with the constraints of doctrine as he might have back in Italy, I suspect Francis rather enjoyed the opportunity to explore the subtleties of theology with his hosts ." (pp. 113-114)

As I noted already, Cowan suggests there were similarities between the thought of Francis and that of his Sufi contemporary, Mevlana Jalalludin Rumi. Having read of the acts and words of both men, I am not surprised. For one thing Rumi like Francis revered his religion as a pointer to the way to experience God, but made no bones about that being equally true for Christians living their religion, and decried blind practice or following of ritual. Rote or routine religious observance was useless to the obtaining of God-knowledge. This attitude is just like Francis's attitude to his own religion which he respected. However, as Cowan notes toward the end of his book (p. 171):

" That he clearly aligned himself with the Church does not negate his bid to create a spirituality based upon the principles of early Christianity, rather than those of institutional religion itself. No one was more aware than he as to the risks inherent in intellectualizing spirituality. He wanted his to be simpler, more flexible, less conditioned by doctrine. . . . His religion was a religion of the heart. "

Where Cowan did surprise me, is where he asserted that:

. . . " once he had returned from Egypt it seems that a new level of consciousness entered his thinking. Man must learn to withdraw from the super-substance of being in order to realize his essential nature. He must learn how to grapple with his love and longing for the perfect and complete discovery of the Father. Though the Father reveals Himself eternally, He has no wish to be known other than in His unsearchable, primordial being. It is only through His spirit that He provides people with the ability to conceive of Him, and to speak about Him ."

Cowan suggests this is a Sufi insight as well. Elsewhere he had already suggested this was a radical departure from the more commonplace Catholic idea that through the Church and its clerics one approached God, and that similar insights coming from others had gotten them branded as heretics. Francis, however, as Cowan notes on pages 168-169, was smart enough to respect curial authority, he was not a rebel, even though he chose to obey God directly:

" Obedience for him never truly entailed the acknowledgement of human authority; his was directed to God alone ." (P. 168)

His life was lived in such an open and remarkable manner that:

" Kings and popes acknowledged his gifts, and defended him against those who might wish to dilute his message. Even the sages of Egypt had no doubt in their minds that they were dealing with an exceptional man who radiated a love for humanity ." (P. 171)

SAINT FRANCIS' LINKS WITH CATHARS AND TROUBADOURS

I was really surprised and fascinated by Cowan's convincingly linking the influences of Southern France to Francis. Both the heretical Cathar spirituality and the songs of the practioners of the religion of love, the troubadours, seem to have been part of Francis' awareness. Cowan suggests this is because in his teen years, Francis may have accompanied his father the cloth-merchant to the Languedoc on fabric-purchasing expeditions. Francis was known to sing troubadour songs, in French, in his hometown. He may also have been positively influenced by his father to take these culturally different traditions serious.

Cowan says of the Cathars on page 26:

" The Cathars were free spirits in a world of institutionalized privilege, both secular and sacred. Their language was the language of a new kind of freedom-that of a people standing up for their own comprehension of divinity, and the right to take charge of their own lives as a result." . . . "Cathar France represented the unraveling of medieval Europe; what the movement wished to replace it with did not occur until much later, however, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with the birth of the individual as someone superior to either state or Church ."

Cowan suggests on this same page that Francis' father, the cloth merchant who traveled to Cathar France to buy cloth, perhaps at times with Francis in tow, was a secret admirer of these heretics and attempted to infect his son with their ideas. He suggests that

. . . " Francis was brought up an alien in his own town. Exposed to Cathar ideas of dualism from an early age, at least in terms of the idea of bodily self-sacrifice and discipline, a singer of troubadour songs, the son of a largely absent father, he was left to his own devices. I suspect his very freedom as the son of a well-to-do merchant only heightened his disillusionment with the way things were done in medieval Assisi ."

But Cowan suggests Francis did not just adopt something he had learned elsewhere. On page 27 he suggests that Francis went beyond the Cathars and troubadours, but also adopted their ideal of a sex-less life in practice. This is a complicated discussion. Francis, according to Cowan

. . . " chose a path that went far beyond any dreamed up in France or northern Italy. The Cathar leaders, for example, expected men and women to submit to the ultimate rejection of procreation as a way of resisting evil. The troubadours, for all their gaiety and non-conventional mode of being, were still in league with fin' amor, a distant love, as a means of defying the regime of marriage, which they saw as a mere contract. Both the Cathars and the troubadours were, in their different ways, committed to the idea of barrenness, to a lack of fecundity as an ideal in human relations. Reproduction became anathema to a people who saw their fertility as little more than liegeman to the old aristocratic temper ."

Cowan expanded on this topic and seemed to be speaking of my attitude toward asceticism (p. 28):

" I know it might sound strange that sexuality-or the lack of it-was central to Francis's perception of the birth of any new, spiritualized being. Some may even argue that his denial of the body was an aberration, that all it did was contribute to a general sense of self-loathing that pervades Christianity anyway. " . . .

On page 28 Cowan presents what perhaps was Francis' feeling on this topic, feelings similar to the Cathar ideal of denying the urge for procreation:

. . . " to starve evil into submission. The voluntary destruction of the body, its appetites and desires, was a participation in an act of severance: the soul was finally separated from matter. To love God was to love the possibility of dying ."

There are several problems I saw when I first read this. The Catholic Church required, at this time, its clergy to be celibate, so Francis was not creating a new thing here except perhaps in his vehemence on the subject. The Church saw sex outside marriage, even outside of a procreative context, as evil, but sex within marriage for the purpose of having children was a sacrament.

Cathars were of two varieties just like the lay-folk and clergy in the Catholic faith. The Perfecti were celibate as Cowan describes. The normal member was not. Sex was a negative thing if it was to bring a new life into this evil world. Sex was not evil as a recreational activity among the run of the mill member, and marriage was definitely neither encouraged nor a sacrament.

Then enter the troubadours, whose ideals were all about a deep love at a distance, no sex. But even its most well known theoretician, Andreas Capellanus (click to go to my website discussion of this man's work), wrote that this was the ideal, not the universal expression, of courtly love. It was a very delicious thing to experience one's love object up close and naked, skin to skin, while maintaining one's chastity. But it was also delicious to consummate non-marital love in the usual way, though a grievous sin. And finally if a man were revering a love-object from afar, but was burning to distraction with sexual desire, it was OK to rape a peasant woman to take care of that burning. Just don't tell her you love her or she will forget her station in life, Capellanus advises.

My point? At the highest level of idealization, Cowan is correct in comparing these three very different views on life and how to live it. At the normal working level the comparison breaks down.

I could not help but be impressed by this hearsay evidence of Francis' exposure to the culture of what is now the south of France. Cowan cites a source as suggesting that those who oberved the outcast Francis as he left his hometown (page 43):

" Those who passed him on the track recall with some surprise, and not a little confusion, that he sang aloud and in French like a man demented. It seems that a foreign language, the language of the outsider and of the troubadours had become his only companion."

This is pretty compelling evidence for Cowan being right about the troubadour (and thus perhaps also Cathar) influence on Francis.

On his way out of his hometown he was robbed and beaten. In nothing but a torn rag he showed up at, and was finally taken in at, an abbey where he worked hard for some sustenance.

THE NAKEDNESS SYMBOL

On page 42 Cowan discusses Francis' stripping himself naked, in public, just before leaving town, as a symbolic act:

" It is a significant moment. We are aware that Francis has embarked on a course from which there would be no return. To go naked into the world is to renounce all its fabrications, all its pretense, and all its belief in the purely fortuitous act of worldly acceptance. A man who goes literally and figuratively naked takes upon himself a unique responsibility, for he is placing himself between man as a figure of concealment, of selfhood, and the mysterious perturbations of the Invisible. This is the chasm that Francis crossed that day in Assisi, just as he was to cross that chasm at La Verna in order to receive the Stigmata years later. Nudity was the log over which he climbed to place himself in a condition of complete acceptance. His destiny now was in the hands of God. "

As you may or may not know, the relationship of nakedness and gardens is in and of itself of interest to me ( see my page on the topic ). It is the symbolism of the Garden of Eden story. Hence my interest in what Cowan had to say on the topic of nakedness and the importance and character of location. Apparently the Umbrian countryside was a giant garden, symbolically, and Francis made himself naked in it to return to the primal state in which myth places the first humans while they were still walking and talking with God. Francis achieved that part of the primal state as well, and has the stigmata as proof.

Here are things Cowan said that led me to believe it served as a garden.

THE INFLUENCE OF PLACE

Cowan makes some statements about the Umbrian countryside and how attached its people were to it. On page 48 he describes it as a

. . . " land of sweet melancholy. You only have to peer into the paintings of Umbrian artists like Perugino, Gentile da Fabriano, and Benedetto Bonfigly to see how deeply attached people were in those day to tree-clad hills, contorted vaults of stone, and garden seats overgrown with vine. I sense a wistfulness at work in the mind of these artists: they were forever trying to capture something that they felt was there, hovering between appearance and non-appearance, that slowly revealing image of nature in some way attemting to contemplate itself. . . . It's no accident that Umbrian artists liked to paint their Madonna and Infant portraits in the countryside, rather than in an enclosed architectural background so favored by Florentine artists. I think they believed that the Virgin would feel more at ease seated among rocks, trees, and flower-decked gardens than in some regal boudoir in town ."

It is no big stretch to say that here Cowan was making an observation, with data to back it up, about which he had written an entire book. Cowan's " A Mapmaker's Dream" explores the influence of place on life along a multitude of evidential lines supporting several variations on the theme. His book " Letters From A Wild State " also refers to this theme many times. I believe this is the same primitive and primal state of intimacy with place that is symbolized in the Garden of Eden myth.

RELATIONSHIP TO ANIMAL KINGDOM

There were several heart-warming stories concerning Francis' attitude to animal life in Cowan's book, including his buying captive animals to set them free and talking to an errant wolf and having it mend its ways. One of the icons I found to illustrate this page celebrates that feat, or miracle. These stories and his overall relationship to nature are contained in Cowan's Chapter 7.

I am not so sure there is a great deal of difference between the views of Saint Francis and Brigham Young when it came to our relation to nature and its animal creatures in particular. I remember well the impact of this statement by Young when I first read it long ago:

Let the people be holy, and filled with the Spirit of God, and every animal and creeping thing will be filled with peace; the soil of the earth will bring forth its strength, and the fruits thereof will be meat for man. The more purity that exists, the less is the strife; the more kind we are to our animals, the more will peace increase, and the savage nature of the brute creation vanish away. (Journal of Discourses, 1852, 1:203)

Francis showed this to be so, by his own example.

ECSTATIC COMMUNION, A KING AND A FRIAR-MINOR

Cowan suggests on page 56 that:

. . . Francis may have seen the kingdom of heaven not as a place, however otherworldly, but as a state of mind. He may have regarded it as a Zen Buddhist might--as a state of satori, or even Nirvana. Many Christians do not like to think of their religion as the repository of ecstatic experiences, unless they are associated with deeply emotional religious events. But when one talks of "bliss:" it is no more than an acknowledgment of reaching a state of understanding of the Eternal Nature. Bliss allows one to glimpse the primary foundations of the kingdom of heaven--that is, the final severance of humankind from time. understanding this condition is to enter a state of "bliss."

Cowan gives an example of ecstatic communion through the account of one of Francis's close associates, a Brother Giles, meeting with King Louis of France (Saint Louis) and neither saying a word to the other, both communicating with a greater reality while in each others' presence. As Cowan notes on page 57:" They became absorbed into something far greater than themselves ." Cowan then continues with another illustration from among Francis' followers (p. 57):

. . . John of La Verna (1259--1322), was a man who achieved a state of bliss while living as a recluse at La Verna. It was said of him that "he was raised to such a marvelous light in God that he saw in the Creator all created things, both in heaven and on earth, all disposed in their various realms. . . . Afterwards God raised him above every creature so that his soul was absorbed and assumed into the abyss of the Divinity and Light, and it was buried in the ocean of God's Eternity and Infinity, to the point where he could not feel anything that was created or formed or finite or conceivable or visible which the human heart could conceive or the tongue describe?' Later, when he had meditated upon what had happened, Brother John "came to unutterable insights" which informed him that only through Christ could everlasting life be achieved.

This "ocean of Eternity and Infinity" is a fitting way to describe what those like Francis were committed to understanding. They were true adventurers of the spirit whose destination was always going to be that of ecstatic experience. Poverty, chastity, and trusting self-sufficiency were all part of the discipline that they applied to themselves, knowing that in doing so they were perhaps preparing their minds and spirits for a visitation by the seraph. . . .

It should be noted that the reference to the "visitation by the seraph" is a reference to the night that the first human being, namely Francis while at La Verna, received the stigmata, the wounds of Christ, administered by an angelic messenger called a seraph.

I chose to keep these two examples together because they illustrate what I thought to be an interesting point. In the case of the king and the follower of Francis, two persons seemed to have achieved equality in terms of their ecstatic experience.

One practices total poverty, non-attachment to- and total lack of desire for- "things," chastity, non-attachment to- and total lack of desire for- sexual expression. These are the things that also played such a great role in preparing Francis and the Franciscans for ecstatic experience. But then comes the other, a king who knows neither poverty nor chastity. He leads crusades. He is the father of eleven children. His mother is Blanche of Castille who undid the Cathars in the name of religion and captured the Languedoc in the name of the throne of France.

About 67,000 Muslim people died in the Christian conquest of Damietta when Francis visited the Sultan in the enemy camp there. The city was lost by the Christians within two years. About 20 years later came King Louis and recaptured the city with his army, but then was captured himself and he bought his freedom by giving back the city! This was the King Louis who met with Giles for a mutual ecstatic experience of God, without exchanging words. Louis IX was made a Saint for his dedication to the well being of the Church. He was exemplary, at home, in his pursuit of justice and personal piety. And he is at, or at least very near, the level of the most dedicated of Francis' first generation of followers in terms of ecstatic experience! What an enigma!

I believe it shows there are many ways to approach the experience of ecstasy. It is part of our human nature, simple as that, but it no doubt does require effort to get in touch with that part of our nature. Returning to Cowan's page 57, he says about these types of ecstatic experiences:

"They are the product of a careful application of mind over matter, the thoughtful and resolute attempt at dematerializing the visible world in pursuit of something more rarified."

In the case of Francis and his followers this is no doubt true, this was their path, and self-denial was their tool. But what about the French King, Saint Louis? There are others tools that can put one on the path to ecstatic revelation. But these thoughts do make me recall something on this topic by the second prophet of Mormondom, named Brigham Young, a man who is usually not praised for his insights into the ecstatic state, but who said at one time that when a man experiences the revelatory state it involves:

. . . "the influence of the Almighty, enlightening his mind, giving instructions to the understanding. When that which inhabits this body, that which comes from the regions of glory, is enlightened by the influence, power, and Spirit of the Father of light, it swallows up the organization which pertains to this world. Those who are governed by this influence lose sight of all things pertaining to mortality, they are wholly influenced by the power of eternity, and lose sight of time. All . . . that pertains to this organization, which is in any way independent of that which came from the Father of our spirits, is obliterated to them, and they hear and understand by the same power and spirit that clothe the Deity, and the holy beings in His presence." (Journal of Discourses, 1852, 1:90; see also 1853, 1:241)

Young suggets that all that is not as God is, including time, is temporarily obliterated as one experiences the mind of God. Is this not the same as saying that the visible world and all that is related to it is dematerialized as one is ushered into " something more rarified. "?

A NAIVE AND UNDISTORTED VISION

On page 90 Cowan refers to Francis attempting (and achieving in the end) . . . " a naive and undistorted vision ." This reminds me of Christ's advice to become as little children in order to gain salvation. It also reminds me of a mystery in my own transition from childhood to adulthood, where I had the distinct feeling at times of having moved behind a veil as compared with the clarity of my experience of the world as a child. It wasn't until about my fiftieth year that I had an experience that showed me I was still there behind the veils constructed by my intellect. As a child I had apparently lived on an intuitve level, later my intellect took over and constructed facades through which I had to see the world jus as other had to see me through them.

An intellect is crucial to a productive life in the world, but by taking on and acting out the personas constructed by the intellect we run the danger of losing childlike wonder and clarity of truly being in the moment. Now I know again that I can move from one state to the other, that both are part of who I am in the world, but one is more who I am while the other is like my clothing, it allows me to be effective in the world as it is. What helped me see this clearly, with childlike clarity of perception, is the mantra I was challenged to repeat to myself until I actually believed it and came to live it: "I am not my intellect. My intellect is my tool, it helps me be effective in the world, but it is just that, my tool. It is not me."

It was after that experience that I realized that the comparison I had already made, based on experience, between being in love and being what a religious person might call being "in the Spirit," looked, felt, and were experienced the same way. Having relearned to enter into an intuitive mode, relaxing the intellect, brought me again to a state that felt like being in love felt, or what feeling the presence of the Spirit felt like during my very religious period of life. Of course reading Cowan's book on Saint francis has caused me to question whether or not I have this right, as you can see if you read the sixth page in this series.

Perhaps being in an intuitive mode involves a momentary quieting of the intellect's propensity to spoil the experience of the present. The intellect does this by dredging up the past's potentially related, and always negative, personal experiences. I suppose it can also base future-fear on the mere knowledge of the negative experiences of others. In either case it often magnifies detrimental and difficult aspects and projects them onto the future.

There is a very real sort of protection provided through this mechanism, but at the same time it can cause a loss of ability to live lucidly in the moment. That dilemma brings me back to Jesus' advice to be wise as serpents yet harnmless as doves. I suppose it is, in this case, to be open but wary. Wary of those who sense, are attracted to, but prey on the openness of others. Other who derive life from others. It is probably good to be wary. But if you let that wariness get too strong your life becomes preoccupied with a fearful expectation of bad things that can happen in the future. Then, childlike wonder and joy become all but impossible.

Liberation from this oppressive type of future-dread, even temporarily, is a revelation: colors are brighter, music is more melodious, and love is worn on ones proverbial sleeve and rubbed onto everyone and everything you contemplate, see, or touch. It is like being in love, because it is Being, in Love. But, read the next page and see that there is likely a bit more to it than that.


CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Reading this book reaffirmed what I have thought for some time in many convoluted words, but which Cowan reduces to a single line on his page 176:

" Francis belongs to the whole world, not just to Assisi or the Church ."

Amen!