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Functionalism wants to acquire and control; its hunger is endless. The reverential mind can let things be and celebrate a person’s presence or a thing’s beauty without wanting something from them. There is an ascetical rhythm to experience. It is content to endure its own emptiness and does not need to rush to fill the emptiness with the latest distraction. It is interesting that asceticism has always been a key practice in the great religious traditions. In its most intense form, the ascetical mind was very bleak and engaged in a radical denial of self and the world. Its more balanced expression recognizes and respects the otherness and the beauty of the world and endeavours to transfigure the desire to define oneself through possessions, achievements, and power. Much of contemporary life suffers from a vast over-saturation. We have so much that we are unable to acknowledge or enjoy it. There is the obscenity of banks buying Van Gogh paintings as products and storing them in their dark vaults where no eye can enjoy them.

We would benefit greatly were we able to develop a more ascetic approach to our lives. As with all manner of spiritual discipline, we gain most when we are willing freely to choose what is difficult. To include the ascetic as a vital dimension in our daily life would deeply enrich us. It would gain us a sense of space. It would help us make clearances in the exponential growth of banality, sensation, and exteriority that leaves us so distracted and overwhelmed. It is interesting that much of the modern fascination with mysticism is more self-indulgent than ascetic. We like to filter out the appealing insights or ideas and often choose to forget the ascetic demands of the mystics. Yet it is only through inner clearance of the ascetical that the insights can take root and grow in the clay of our lives. The writings of John of the Cross have the severance of asceticism at their core. The practice of ascetical longing clarifies all belonging.

To reach satisfaction in all

Desire its possession in nothing.

To come to possess all

Desire the possession of nothing.

To arrive at being all

Desire to be nothing.

To come to the knowledge of all

Desire the knowledge of nothing….

To come to be what you are not

You must go by a way in which you are not.

When you practise even some small asceticism, your experience gains a new sense of focus. Consumerist culture is not simply an outer frame that surrounds our lives. It is deeper and more penetrating than that. In fact it is a way of thinking that seeps into our minds and becomes a powerful inner compass. Consumerism and its greed are an awful perversion of our longing; they damage our very ability to experience things. They clutter our lives with things we do not need and subvert our sense of priority. They reduce everything to its functionalist common denominator. In contrast, the ascetical way clarifies our perception. It helps us to see clearly and sift the substance from the chaff. The fruit of even limited asceticism is clarity and discernment; you begin to recognize as chaff much of what you had held for the grain of nourishment.

Consumerism leaves us marooned in a cul-de-sac of demented longing, helpless targets of its relentless multiplication. The ascetical approach is selective and subtracts from the feast of what is offered in order to enjoy, explore, and celebrate. The functionalist mind only multiplies everything. It fills its own house to the brim. Within its creed of acquisition, it becomes a helpless victim of the insidious multiplication of things until there is such a false fullness that the natural light of life cannot get in anymore. Milton says in Book 8 of Paradise Lost, “But man by number is to manifest / His single imperfection…” In the dreary liturgies of this creed, asceticism is anathematized or treated as treason. There is a driven desperation at the heart of functionalism. Deep down, it is a craven desire for identity and poise, but it is also a desperate flight from oneself. At its root, it is a fear of nothingness. It panics in the face of the creative and generous uncertainty at the heart of life. Any ascetical practice is difficult; you learn to walk a little on the path of self-denial. You could build into the rhythm of your week some little practice: it could mean fasting from food on a particular day; risking more regular and clearer meeting with your solitude; coming out from under the protection of your entrenched opinions or beliefs; visiting a prison, hospital, or old people’s home once a fortnight or once a month. The intention of an ascetical discipline is not to turn you into a spiritual warrior, but to free you for compassion and love towards others and towards yourself.