Undoing the Self (part II)

In recognizing that the self, which we have so long identified as who we are, is not the authentic self; and in stripping away layer after layer of evidence to that effect, we are left standing naked before god and the universe. The question we face in our nakedness is, "If I am not that, then who am I?" Our introspection leads us to what might be called our potentialities. But even these have taken on a different quality. No longer do we see our potentialities as what we can or might do or accomplish. Our true potential is to be used in whatever service each situation might require of us - to be an instrument of god's workings.

When I stop to think of that, I am forced to realize that I am not all powerful, I cannot "do" everything and this aging body certainly is not capable of what it once could do. That notwithstanding, the requirements of being an instrument of god's workings in the world seem far larger than any of that which my ego-driven self has been or ever will be able to perform. But that isn't the issue. It is god working through us, not our (willful) working of what we think god wants of us. There is a difference. I think that the 12-steppers slogan of "let go and let god" means that (though their arrival at that slogan and interpretation of its meaning may vary greatly).

This is no blind faith, It is a step out over the void like the Indiana Jones scene before he throws dirt on the invisible path. It is Moses in the desert saying "Okay, but I don't know why you would pick me!" It is the blind Saul going to the home of his enemy, Francis stripping off his clothes and stepping into the arms of his bishop. No slogans here! Just fear and trembling... and stepping forward, saying "Here I am, take me."

Hope

Hope is the power of the present moment that serves to interrupt and alter the current path of past-to-future that we perceive as existing within our worst-case fears, and moves us in the direction of possibility.

Undoing the Self

I think for the most part, developmental theories have it all wrong. Most believe that the tasks of growing, developing and maturing are learning what it is that we can accomplish and do with our lives. And while to an extent that is true, we make a critical error in assuming that is who we really are. As infants we make this discovery that we can grab and manipulate the things of our world. So as we grow we layer on that basic belief that the more we can do and control the more a unique individual we become. This, the theorists claim, goes on throughout our stages of establishment and generativity to a point when we can no longer sustain that level of output identified with our self concept. Thus in later years we are told we enter a period of decline and begin preparing to die! Erikson even says that we either get that as a level of acceptance or we fall into despair.

But what if our task as mature adults is not simplification and decline but one of recognition of the essence of who we really are? The complexity of the veil, the disguise we have concocted and used as the projected (false) self through all of those years, begins to unravel and be exposed for what it really is. Wisdom begins to recognize all of the actions and accomplishments as delusions and begins to detach from them in an effort to rediscover the true self that is already, and has always been, there. Simultaneously we begin to uncover the in-dwelling god that as well has been there all this time, from whom we have succeeded in distancing ourselves through all or our doing.

However, because we have such an investment in the idol we have constructed out of our accomplishments, this transition often does not happen without some significant disruption of the self, or more accurately, of the ego. Thus many only come to this realization after a near death experience, after a debilitating injury, after the body begins to fail. In the sadness that may fall into despairing over the lost trappings of our youth, we turn inward to contemplate (some for the first time) who we really are if we are not our doing-ness and our accomplishments. The great sages have been preaching this message for eons – that we are not what we do but how we are that matters. (part II to follow)

Fractal Spirituality

Okay hold onto your suspenders for this one. I have been trying to make sense of all of the literature on spiritual development and to the best of my understanding it fails on two counts: One, most theories of spiritual development start with a presupposition of some religious belief system and track the development of individuals through and around that systematic belief. Two, most of the spiritual development theorists if not all seem to follow along with the same stage theory as cognitive development (most of which tracks through youth and teen years but stop at young or middle adulthood).

I would like to play with a different theory of development - fractal theory. In the mid seventies, scientist who had been studying chaos in nature found that instead of pure randomness, that which seemed to be chaotic actually followed extremely complex but self-repeating patterns. Everything from shorelines to crystal growth patterns seemed to fit these complex patterns produced by interacting forces. The name fractals is credited to Benoit Mandelbrot, an IBM mathematician and Harvard professor. The easiest way to describe a fractal is by looking at a head of cauliflower. If you were to look at one clump of the whole head up closely it would look exactly like the whole head, and if you broke off one flowerlette it too would look like the whole head and so on. Ferns, river deltas and the ubiquitous 70s paisley are all fractals. And so is, I contend, the growth, pattern and development of the individual spiritual experience.

But what is most remarkable about fractals is that there is something undiscoverable about them. While much of the pattern can be reduced to complex formulae, when it is reduced to its smallest element the pattern is still there in its entirety (not totally reduced and understood) and when looked at through the widest perspective that same undiscoverable element seems to be present. Its puzzle cannot be known - only seen and observed. Furthermore, there is no real stage system to its increasing complexity, just greater and greater complexity revealed.

It seems to me that we grow our spiritual side in this beautiful, complex and ultimately puzzling way. Some element of what I believe today has within it the imprint and patterning of what was set in place originally in my DNA and early prayer life. And why my unfolding is different than yours or Luther's resides as well in the magnificently complex intertwining of the fields and forces that shaped this life. Mandelbrot's original question concerned measuring the shoreline of Great Britain, causing him and his students at the time to wonder about the forces patterning coastline development. So too is our spirit shaped, moved and modeled by those great unseen forces within and without us.

The Gospel According to Nikos

Forgive me. I have just watched for the umpteenth time the Last Temptation as brought to us by Martin Scorcese, William Defoe, Harvey Keitel and Nikos Katzanzakis. I cry every time; I get sick every time; I am turned inside out every time. I don't care that Matt or Mark or Luke or John didn't write it that way. There is more real "gospel" in that story than anything I have ever seen.

Does anyone really know the story? Why is it we wait for a Messiah or believe one to have been here? Is it so unbelievable to accept that god lives and beats in each of our hearts? Is that so difficult to believe that we have to make up stories of some superhuman god-like being that came and walked among us; to ascribe holier than thou characteristics to some other person? Is it so uncomfortable to believe that normal idiots and screw-ups like you and me would be chosen?

Well just look at the evidence. God ONLY chooses screw-ups. Not saints - you and me. The bible and history are filled with examples of the kind of sinful ne'er do wells that god picks for this work. (Still William Defoe dutifully plays the perfect one). But what about you? What about me? Aren't you perfect? Do you fight the voices in your head like I fight mine? Like I am called? C'mon! For 35 years I fought that voice calling me - and it has never stopped. Am I to believe that voice is god? I am so regular, so sinful so filled with sin, so average.

Is there a movie of a regular messiah - an everyday messiah? I wonder.

Apologies

Sorry, sorry! If these things get sent immediately upon posting then you got three versions of that last one as I successively saw different mistakes or typos. I don't know how not to have that happen.

Also a quick apology for my absence - I have a heavy reading load in my course and it consumed all of the extra time I might otherwise have spent here. KG

The Space In-Between

It's Saturday - the Saturday between "good" Friday and Easter Sunday. I suppose Saturday could get jealous - if it were that kind of a being. But such is not the case with this Saturday. Its purpose is very clear - to be a space in-between.

How should we observe In-Between Saturday? What happens on this day. I think for most of us it is just a day to get over or through. But imagine THAT first one - the the one that was not yet In-Between. The darkness was all around, the execution had happened, the curtain in the temple had been ripped and the earthquake had really shaken everyone. They probably hid and got drunk trying to numb it or just blot the whole damned thing out. Half horrified, half scared out of their minds (who was going to be next to suffer that fate?

Saturday - a time of crouching in the corner and thinking waaaay too much. Who am I? Who was he? What do I really believe - if I can ever believe in anything again? We don't talk much about Saturday as "Holy Saturday" (I think perhaps traditional Catholics still do). But this is the truly "holy" space. It is the in-between space where god does god's best work on us. It is only when we are sufficiently disturbed, sufficiently ripped out of our made up "realities" that we are not deafened to the Divine message. It takes going into the in-between space (what Richard Rohr calls the liminal space - the threshold betwixt and between) to get the real work done.

Real persons of faith know this place - they know that this is the only place where faith becomes just that - faith. This place of not knowing, and of not trusting one's own mind and senses - this is where faith is forged. Everyone who was there on Friday, who had any wherewithal with which to perceive anything, knew what happened! And Easter, well, SOME of those who were there saw and believed (blessed are those who did not see and still believed) and some could not. I somewhat suspect that those who saw and believed, and those who didn't and did, were the ones who went deep into the In-Between space that Saturday.

It is difficult to stay in the In-Between spaces. We are an instant gratification culture. We want it now. We even manage and expedite changes - thinking we are in control of it all. But Saturday - Holy, In-Between Saturday, teaches us to sit and wait - a skill we have all but lost. That is how I intend to spend today - sitting, wondering, waiting, scared....