Letting God outa' the Box

Thursday, September 25, 2003

 
Interesting question about living the 'middle way', especially opposing the middle way to the 'truth'.

In Anam Cara, O'Donohue feels that the entrusion or development of Dualism in Christian thought was (and still is) a great tragedy. As he states, dualistic thought lead to our separation of body and soul...at least in our minds. We label the soul as good and the body as bad. This simple shift in our mind set allows us to easily move into a position of dividing all the world into opposing sides...good/bad, light/dark, right/wrong. However, to quote a professor of mine, 'It is more complicated than that'.

In the creation story of Genesis, it is God who has the power of separation and division...the light is separated from the dark. In the New Testament, it again is God who will separate the wheat and the chaf. So, I wonder, if we are called to take on, or even usurp, God's activity? Did the tree of knowledge (the tree of good and evil) open up the door and reveal our ability to also separate and divide?

In Christ's coming to earth, He came as the light in the darkness...He came as a healer...to heal the riff in our lifes. Could this riff be the division with in ourselves...the separation of ourselves? As followers of Christ, are we called to do as He did...work to heal the divisions with in the world....within ourselves? Are we called to shine light into the darkness...find the good in the bad...find the love in a world of hate? Are we called to live in the chasm of the middle way?

If dualism were the way and the truth, it would seem that all we would need from God is the Law to instruct us on what is right and what is wrong. YET, "If all we needed was the Law, why did Jesus have to come, why did He have to die on the cross?"

Christ brought the message of God's love...God's healing, redeeming, re-joining love!

So, God's love is wonderful and great...but what do we do with? How does that heal all the divisions and pain in the world? I find guidence concerning this in Christ's words concerning removing the log from my own eye before attempting the speck in someone elses. Have I accepted God's love by learning to love myself? Have I allowed God to heal the divisions in my own heart? Do I still 'hate' the body and love the soul? Do I still attend to live with a divided self?

I think the 'truth' is to be found in the 'middle way'...the truth is that God loves us, warts and all. The "Loving the sinner and hating the sin" mantra, makes me feel schizophrenic and at war with myself...feeling like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. Yet, the middle way is the path of forgiveness and a path of honesty. Honestly accepting that I do right and wrong, and actively seeking forgiveness for the things done and left undone, known and unknown. Once I can honestly accept myself and become my own "anam cara" (soul friend), I can become a soul friend with God. Once I find forgiveness for myself, the path for finding forgiveness for any one else becomes much easier. Once I begin to love myself, as God loves me, and can begin to love God back. In loving God, I honor and hold sacred God's creation... God's universe and all that is in it. I learn to hold myself as well as others sacred...as children of God.

For me, living the middle way is living the path of love and truth. It means surrendering to the truth that both good and bad live with in me. It mean working every moment of every day at trying to put forth more good into the world that bad. The middle way means holding myself, honestly, warts and all, in a relationship with God...seeking forgiveness and healing for my warts...knowing full well that I am not perfect. The middle way does not mean accepting my warts and imperfections, nor does it allow me to live in denile of them. The middle way is the ugly path of accepting and dealing with them, knowing full well that they will grow back.

Where does scripture fit into all this? Well, rather that reading scripture and applying it to the world outside our selves, what if we saw scripture within ourselves...like analysing our dreams. In doing so, the characters in the stories are not ourselves and others (seeing ourselves as Christ or a disciple and someone else as the Pharasees). It is seeing all the characters as part of ourselves...we are both disciple and Pharasees...part of us is Moses, while part of us is Pharaoh. The lessons learned are not to change others to our way of thinking, but to heal and instruct our inner life. Part of us is loyal to Jesus, but part of us knows we are Peter and we may betray Christ to save our own skin. What if the scriptures are a parable of our inner human life?

O'Donohue reminds us that in Genesis, it is from the clay that God formed us...let us not choose to be at war with the clay of our creation. For in giving life to the clay of His creation, God joined the body and the soul...let no one put assunder what God has joined together.
Fr. Bill 8:17 AM

|

Monday, September 08, 2003

 
First, most hearty and gracious thanks to all who gave there support, through physical presence or spiritual presence, to our wedding on Saturday!

Love is a wonderful, strange and uncapturable thing. Love is so much like God for me...it is not something I can completely posess...it is not something I can put into a box or a simple gold band. Love is something that posesses me.

Am I worthy of such love? NO WAY! There is nothing I can do that would make me worthy of such a wonderful gift...all I can to is accept it. In accepting love, I do not gain much control over something so powerful and pervasive...it controls me. It seems that the only thing I can do is allow it to control me...by attempting to control love, I only belittle its greatness...bound by my humanity, I can only limit loves power.

God is love.

When we say that the scriptures contain all that is need for our salvation, I worry that we have place limits...the human limit of words...on the scriptures. If I turn and see the message of love contained in the scripture, I begin to see the limited box of words opening up...God's love breaking to walls of any human confinement.

When I opened up my own personal walls and allowed my self to see that God truly loves me...the box that was me began to open...open to possibilities beyond my imagination. A sense of worthiness came over me (I wish I could think of a better word than worthy)...I began to see that I was precious to God. As I began to accept this love, I internalized it...I began to see how precious all of God's creation is.

I did not know how scripture fit into this equation...in to my new life. Scripture has always been a group of stories, lessons and laws. But as a discussion the other night revealed, scripture is my story...not a history...but my very own story. It may seem crazy or even blasphemous, but actually placing myself in the story reveals new meaning. Give it a try!

In Adam, I am a child who has done something that I was told not to. Because I did so, consequences and change happens in relation to my action. Although, as a chastised child, I may think that God no longer loves me. Yet placing myself in God's role in the story, how would I feel? I think I would be upset in many ways...first, because I know the consequences that will happen because of Adam's action, and because I still love Adam...I may even be and sound angry, but I would also feel hurt and sorrow because I love Adam, as any parent loves their child. How would do you think you would feel in these roles?
(thanks to Susan, David, Henry, & Gary for our exhausting discussion that led to my thoughts)

In all the recent hulla-balloo concerning Bishop Robinson and the positive and negative feelings surrounding it, I can rest assured that God's love will not be restricted by our human disagreements. It seems that needing to be right and correct may be more attributable to our humanity that to God. Just as in scripture, I can embody this story...try to see it from the perspective of both sides...but what is God's point of view? If my belief follows my previous example, God loves all involved....how do I look through the eyes of love at this situation?
Fr. Bill 8:28 AM

|