Father Richard explores how chasing success is one of the greatest temptations we face. The things that Jesus cared about, such as powerlessness and humility, instead become our shadow.
Our shadow self is any part of ourselves or our institutions that we try to hide or deny because it seems socially unacceptable. The church and popular media primarily focus on sexuality and body issues as our “sinful” shadow, but that is far too narrow a definition. The larger and deeper shadow for Western individuals and culture is actually failure itself. Thus, the genius of the gospel is that it incorporates failure into a new definition of spiritual success. This is why Jesus says that prostitutes and tax collectors are getting into the kingdom of God before the chief priests and religious elders (see Matthew 21:31).
Our success-driven culture scorns failure, powerlessness, and any form of poverty. Yet Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount by praising “the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3)! Just that should tell us how thoroughly we have missed the point of the gospel. Nonviolence, weakness, and simplicity are also part of the Western shadow self. We avoid the very things that Jesus praises, and we try to project a strong, secure, successful image to ourselves and the world. We reject vulnerability and seek dominance instead, and we elect leaders who falsely promise us the same.
I can see why my spiritual father St. Francis of Assisi made a revolutionary and pre-emptive move into the shadow self from which everyone else ran. In effect, Francis said through his lifestyle, “I will delight in powerlessness, humility, poverty, simplicity, and failure.” He lived so close to the bottom of things that there was no place to fall. Even when insulted, he did not take offence. Now that is freedom, or what he called “perfect joy”!
Our shadow is often subconscious, hidden even from our own awareness. It takes effort and life-long practice to look for, find, and embrace what we dismiss, deny, and disdain. After spending so much energy avoiding the very appearance of failure, it will take a major paradigm shift in consciousness to integrate our shadow in Western upwardly mobile cultures. [1]
Just know that it is the false self that is sad and humbled by shadow work, because its game is over. The true self, “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3), is incapable of being humiliated. It only grows from such supposedly humiliating insight.
One of the great surprises on the human journey is that we come to full consciousness precisely byshadowboxing, facing our own contradictions, and making friends with our own mistakes and failings. People who have had no inner struggles are invariably superficial and uninteresting. We tend to endure them more than appreciate them because they have little to communicate and show little curiosity. Shadow work is what I call “falling upward.” God hid holiness quite well: the proud will never recognize it, and the humble will fall into it every day—not even realizing it is holiness. [2]
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John Chaffee
I just can’t fully give up on faith.
I don’t know if it is because it won’t give up on me, I have no idea.
Here is what I believe: The literal world is at stake, and it is dependent upon each of us to double down on faith individually and to take it more seriously than ever before.
This does not mean that we double down on some immature and fractured understanding of the faith that diabolically tears the world apart with its tribalism and foolishness. It means that we take the time to find the minority and mature understanding of the faith that recognizes a global common humanity that teaches us to give up our ego, our need for power and security, that dissolves our tribal lines, focuses on accountability for ourselves (and not just for those outside of our chosen group), takes the Sermon on the Mount seriously, and would make a conscious decision to be a healing and reconciling presence.
A few years ago I heard someone speak about how spirituality is the sole discipline that encourages us to wake up to our responsibility to one another and the world around us. A healthy spirituality is the only thing that reminds us to give up the vices that modernity values as virtues, and encourages us to “aim up together.” Without a healthy spirituality, we are prone to using business, science, economics, and the like in horribly inhumane ways, ways that create human collateral, atomic warfare, homelessness, and selfishness on a massive scale.
So yes, I understand some people’s decision to walk away from childish and unhealthy spirituality, but that does not necessarily mean to walk into the desert of nothingness. To me, it means to consciously double down and commit to a healthier and holier faith practice that might actually save the world.
Just because ego and greed and hatred are doing cosplay as religion, I don’t want us to give it that much credit. I want us to insist that no, there is real religion! —Omid Safi
In an episode of CAC’s podcast Everything Belongs, CAC staff member and poet Drew Jackson dialogues with guest Omid Safi, a poet and Islamic scholar. Jackson asks: How might poetry support our efforts for peace, particularly in the conflicted space between religious identities? Safi shares his perspective that it is not religions that are in conflict, but the shadow selves of hate and other harmful beliefs disguised as religion:
I fundamentally do not believe that there is religious conflict and tension in this world. There’s conflict in this world! There is genocide in this world—we’ve been watching it for a year and a half. There is racism, there is starvation, and the intentional starvation of people. There’s occupation. There’s lots of hideous things happening.
I think that’s ego, and that’s greed, and that’s selfishness that’s putting the small self individually, communally, nationally, and racially on the throne of wrong and to put, as Brother Martin [Luther King Jr.] used to say, the right forever on the scaffold. [1] Greed and ego and hatred love to do cosplay [2].… Their favorite costumes are the things that are of light, including religion.
I want us to really sit with that question: Is there actually religious conflict in this world with what we findour religious traditions teaching us? At the heart of the Jewish faith, that beautiful noble tradition: Be kind to the stranger for you yourselves were once strangers in Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:19).Our beloved Christ:Be kind to the poor, the orphan, the needy, the widow; that which you do to theleast of these, you do unto me (Matthew 25:40). Our beloved Prophet Muhammad:That the cry of the orphan rises all the way up to the throne of God and shakes it to its mighty foundation. [3] These folks are drinking from the same fountain. They’re bathed in the same light.
I want us to be able to discern the meaning of that beautiful prayer of the Prophet Muhammad when he says, “My Lord, allow us to see things as they are in You. Allow us to see things as they are in truth.” Just because ego and greed and hatred are doing cosplay as religion, I don’t want us to give it that much credit. I want us to insist that no, there is real religion! There’s real faith, and it’s humble and it carries the scent of love and concern, not just for our own kind, but for all of us.
____________________________________________
Sarah Young Jesus Calling
Learn to relate to others through My Love rather than yours. Your human love is ever so limited, full of flaws and manipulation. My loving Presence, which always enfolds you, is available to bless others as well as you. Instead of trying harder to help people through your own paltry supplies, become aware of My unlimited supply, which is accessible to you continually. Let My Love envelop your outreach to other people.
Many of My precious children have fallen prey to burnout. A better description of their condition might be “drainout.” Countless interactions with needy people have drained them, without their conscious awareness. You are among these weary ones, who are like wounded soldiers needing R&R. Take time to rest in the Love-Light of My Presence. I will gradually restore to you the energy that you have lost over the years. Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and you will find rest for your souls.
RECOMMENDED BIBLE VERSES: Exodus 33:14 NLT 14 The LORD replied, “I will personally go with you, Moses, and I will give you rest—everything will be fine for you.” (Related scriptures = Exodus 12:21, Joshua 22:4, Isiah 63:9)
Matthew 11:28 NLT 28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. (Related scripture = Jeremiah 6:16)
Additional insight regarding Matthew 11:28-30: A yoke is a heavy wooden harness that fits over the shoulders of an ox or oxen. It is attached to a piece of equipment the oxen are to pull. A person may be carrying heavy burdens of (1) sin, (2) excessive demands of religious leaders, (3) oppression and persecution, or (4) weariness in the search for God.
Jesus frees people from all these burdens. The rest that Jesus promises is love, healing, and peace with God, not the end of all labor. A relationship with God changes meaningless, wearisome toil into spiritual productivity and purpose.
Today’s Prayer: Dear God, I thank You for Your boundless love that surpasses my human limitations. Guide me to relate to others through Your loving presence rather than relying on my own inadequate abilities. I recognize the need for rest and rejuvenation, for I’ve often felt drained by trying to help others in my own strength. Like a wounded soldier needing R&R, I come to You seeking restoration. As I rest in the light of Your love, I trust in Your promise to renew my energy and refresh my soul. Thank You for inviting the weary and burdened to find rest in Your arms. In your Son’s name, Amen.
Jungian therapists Connie Zweig and Steve Wolf describe shadow work as a path to deeper moral integrity and intimacy with our own soul.
For most people … greater shadow awareness can lead to greater morality. In fact, Carl Jung, who coined the term “shadow,” posed it as a moral problem. He suggested that we need a reorientation or fundamental change of attitude, a metanoia, to look it squarely in the eyes—that is, our own eyes:
The individual who wishes to have an answer to the problem of evil … has need, first and foremost, of self-knowledge, that is, the utmost possible knowledge of their own wholeness. They must know relentlessly how much good they can do, and what crimes they are capable of, and must beware of regarding the one as real and the other as illusion. Both are elements within their nature, and both are bound to come to light in them, should they wish—as they ought—to live without self-deception or self-delusion. [1]
This idea—that to face the best and the worst in our own natures is to live an authentic life—is not new. Theologians and philosophers in many traditions have pointed to the hidden reality of our split nature, and its secret value…. Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it beautifully: “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” [2]
Zweig and Wolf suggest we search for answers in the mystery of what we have placed in the shadow:
Throughout human history, wise women and men, in their own ways, have understood the old Sufi parable of the person who looks for the key under the lamppost because that’s where the light is, but it’s not where the key was dropped, which is in the darkness.
Looking into the darkness or living with shadow awareness is not an easy path…. Rather, to live with shadow awareness we follow the detours; we walk into the debris, groping our way through dark corridors and past dead ends. We look for the key where it is difficult to find. Shadow-work asks us to turn in that direction.
It asks us to stop blaming others. It asks us to take responsibility. It asks us to move slowly. It asks us to deepen awareness. It asks us to hold paradox. It asks us to open our hearts. It asks us to sacrifice our ideals of perfection. It asks us to live the mystery.
We suggest that you relate to the shadow as a mystery, rather than as a problem to be solved or an illness to be cured. When the Other arrives, honor that part of yourself as a guest. You may discover that it comes bearing gifts. You may discover that shadow-work is, indeed, soul work.
This past weekend, our kids visited their biological dad’s house for the first time in over two years.
For the sake of privacy, I won’t share many of the details, but you can probably guess: it was a big change. For them, for their biological dad, for my partner and I, for our community around us. Even our dogs, nonplussed for the most part, probably smelled the shift in the air.
And this morning as I sit to write this, I keep coming back to the same words:
We don’t always create change; change creates us.
I’m far more comfortable with the experience of being in control and using my agency and imagination to develop something new from the old. But most change just happens, entirely regardless of our desire for it. A car merges wildly into our lane and we have to adapt; an illness is discovered and we’re faced with what to do; the President sets a new horrific policy and we’re challenged with how to respond.
Change tends to require us to shape ourselves around its presence.
For my kiddos, this meant being a lot more tender in the lead-up to their visit. More big emotions, more questions, more worries, more long hugs seemingly out of the blue. For my partner and I, it meant leaning into the logistics: how to best prepare them, how to prepare their biological dad to have success, how to make sure our home held them with love and care beforehand and after. And of course, feeling our own big emotions as well.
And as it often goes when change happens, I’ll be processing this newfound reality for quite awhile.
The newness of change and what it unearths in us and around us lingers. This is part of why I think it’s so important to stay gentle with ourselves and what we believe the outcome of any change “should be.” The truth is, I don’t know what comes next – but I trust in my family’s capacity to meet it and hold the messiness of it without losing the center we’ve come to know.
So that’s my invitation for you this week:
Whatever change you find yourself navigating, how can you meet it with gentleness and intentionality? What might become possible if you trust in your capacity to hold the change and to shift with it, while staying true to your center?
Spiritual writer Ruth Haley Barton explores the necessity of doing our shadow work through the story of Moses, who was born into a Hebrew family and raised by the Egyptian pharaoh’s daughter (see Exodus 2:1–15).
As an outsider both among his own people and among the Egyptians who had raised him, [Moses] probably wrestled every day with issues related to his identity. Should he fit into the environment in which he had been raised and follow the path marked out for him there? Or should he identify with his own people and try to make it by those rules instead?…
We can be fairly certain that Moses developed some pretty good coping mechanisms for dealing with the pain of his situation, as all human beings do. All of us develop ways of adjusting and staying safe in the midst of whatever danger or difficulty is present in our environment….
It appears that one of Moses’ coping mechanisms was to repress his anger since he had nowhere to go with it…. One day his anger—anger that had probably been building for quite a long time—got the best of him and everything exploded…. When he saw an Egyptian abusing a Hebrew, his anger overwhelmed him, and he killed the Egyptian. Then he tried to hide his sin by burying the body in the sand. This reactive and out-of-control response was a snapshot of Moses’ leadership before solitude.
Barton invites us to consider how silence might help us respond when we are trapped in reactive patterns:
That one glimpse of the destructive power of his raw and unrefined leadership was so frightening to Moses that he fled into solitude…. He said, in effect, “This part of me, if left as it is, will be no good for anyone.” Yes, he ran because he was afraid of Pharaoh, but oftentimes it is the fear of being found out or the actual experience of being found out that alerts us to what lies beneath. It actually places us on the path of self-discovery and (hopefully) forces us to do whatever work we need to do to take more responsibility for the dark forces that have propelled our bad behavior….
There is some behavioral pattern, something unresolved, something out of control enough, something destructive enough, that we say, “I must go into solitude with this.” We thought we had kept it fairly well hidden. We thought we could manage it or at least keep its destructive nature fairly private, but now here it is—out there for all to see—and it is wreaking havoc on our attempts to accomplish something good.
We must not ignore this moment when it comes…. If such a moment comes early on as it did for Moses, thanks be to God…. If it comes later on—as it does for most of us—then thanks be to God. It means that God is at work, leading us to greater freedom than we have yet known.
Authenticity
From Chuck DeGroat
True authenticity is not the loudest voice in the room, nor the most unfiltered confession. It is not the impulse to say whatever we feel, whenever we feel it. That may be catharsis, but it is not always truth.
Authenticity is quieter than that. Truer. It is the slow remembering of who you were before the world named you too much or not enough. It is not performance, nor rebellion against performance—it is the shedding of both. It is the alignment of your outer life with your inner essence, the part of you that was whispered into being by God.
This week’s meditations focus on the shadow self, a recurring theme in Father Richard Rohr’s work.
The shadow self is an essential concept in my work, which always needs initial clarification and definition. My understanding of the shadow comes primarily from Swiss psychotherapist Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961).
Let’s begin with the personal shadow. During the first half of our lives (and for many, into the chronological second half of life), we are building up our persona, our separate or false self. To put it very simply, as children we learn which behaviors cause approval and disapproval from our families, teachers, and friends. If we want to have some sort of control over our lives and create pleasant outcomes, we tend to develop those things which are acceptable and repress those things which are not. Those things we repress or deny about ourselves become our shadow. The qualities we “place” in our shadow aren’t necessarily bad; they’re simply the ones that are not rewarded by our family system or culture. [1]
Persona (the self we present to the world) and shadow are correlative terms. Our shadow is what we refuse to recognize about ourselves and what we do not want others to perceive. The more we have cultivated and protected a chosen persona, the more shadow work we will need to do. Therefore, we need to be especially careful of clinging to any idealized role or self-image, like that of minister, parent, doctor, nice person, professor, moral believer, or president of this or that. These are huge personas to live up to, and they trap many people in lifelong delusion that the role is who they are and all they are allowed to be. The more we are attached to our protected self-image, the more shadow self we will likely have. In my experience, this is especially dangerous for a “spiritual leader” or “professional religious person” because it involves such an ego-inflating self-image. Whenever ministers, or any true believers, are too anti anything, we can be pretty sure there’s some shadow material lurking somewhere nearby. Zealotry often reveals one’s overly repressed shadow.
Our self-image is not substantial or lasting; it’s simply created out of our own mind, desire, and choice—and everybody else’s preferences for us! It’s not objective at all but entirely subjective (which does not mean that it doesn’t have real influence). The movement to second-half-of-life wisdom has much to do with necessary shadow work and the emergence of healthy self-critical thinking. These alone allow us to see beyond our own shadow and disguise and to find who we are, “hidden with Christ in God,” as Paul puts it (Colossians 3:3). The Zen masters call it “the face we had before we were born.” This self cannot die, lives forever and is our true self. Religion is always in some way about discovering our true self (or soul), which is also to discover God, who is our deepest truth. [2]
Humility Welcomes the Shadow
To know love we have to tell the truth to ourselves and to others. Creating a false self to mask fears and insecurities has become so common that many of us forget who we are and what we feel underneath the pretense. Breaking through this denial is always the first step in uncovering our longing to be honest and clear. —bell hooks, All About Love
Richard Rohr describes the temptation to hide and deny what we’ve been taught is unacceptable within us:
We identify with our persona/mask so strongly when we’re young that we become masters of denial and learn to eliminate or hide anything that doesn’t support it. Neither our persona nor our shadow is evil in itself; they just allow us to do evil without recognizing it.Our shadow self makes us all into hypocrites on some level. Hypocrite is a Greek word that simply means “actor,” someone playing a role rather than being “real.” We’re all in one kind of closet or another and are even encouraged by society to play such roles. Usually everybody else can see our shadow, so it’s crucial that we learn what everybody else knows about us—except us!
Holy or whole individuals, the ones we call “saints,” are precisely the ones who have no “I” to protect or project. Their “I” is in conscious union with the “I AM” of God, and that is more than enough. Divine union overrides any need for self-hatred or self-adoration. Love holds us tightly and safely and always. Such people have met the enemy and know that the major enemy is “me” (to borrow from the comic strip character Pogo). But they do not hate the “me” either; they just see through and beyond the little “me.”
The closer we get to the light, the more of our shadow we see. Thus, truly holy people are always humble people. Christians would have been done a great service if the shadow had been distinguished from sin. Sin and shadow are not the same! We were so encouraged to avoid sin that many of us avoided facing our shadow, and then we ended up “sinning” even worse—while unaware besides! As Paul taught, “The angels of darkness must disguise themselves as angels of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14). The persona cannot bear to see evil in itself, so it always disguises it as good. The shadow self invariably presents itself as something like prudence, common sense, and justice. It says, “I’m doing this for your good,” when it actually manifests fear, control, manipulation, or even vengeance. Isn’t it fascinating that the name Lucifer literally means “light bearer”? The evil one always makes darkness look like light—and makes light look like darkness.
The gift of shadowboxing is in recognizing the shadow and its games, which takes away most of the shadow’s hidden power. No wonder that Teresa of Ávila said that the mansion of true self-knowledge was the necessary first mansion on the spiritual journey. Socrates said the same thing, “Know yourself!”
Learning from the Mystics: James Finley
Quote of the Week: “The three directives are: Find your contemplative practice and practice it. Find your contemplative community and enter it. Find your contemplative teaching and follow it.” – from The Contemplative Heart, p.20. Reflection There is nothing so slow as spiritual growth. Not only that, but it does not happen accidentally! This means that if we want to grow at all in our faith, it will take both patience as well as intentionality… not to forget it is a grace through and through! Unfortunately, there are so few that can speak to an authentic deepening of faith. Few people have gone the distance and reported back about the journey.
Fortunately, we have spiritual masters such as Jim Finley. In the quote from The Contemplative Heart (above), we have a distillation of Jim’s thoughts and process. As a former monastery monk himself, he sought to take his monastery training out into the world. His life goal came to be “a monk beyond the monastery walls.” During his later work as a clinical psychologist and spiritual director, he stumbled upon “three directives” that he would encourage his patients and clients to follow. Let’s walk through them together.
Find your contemplative practice and practice it. – Whether our practice is morning prayer or evening prayer, it does not matter. Whether it is done in silence with a candle or being present at a child’s soccer game, all activities are already spiritual, the thing that qualifies our contemplative practice is that we are present in it. Baking, playing music, going for a daily walk, there is no hard line concerning what is contemplative or not. The fact of the matter is that the word “contemplative” simply means “to see deeply.” Whatever practice we stumble upon, that helps us to see ourselves, others, the world, and God “deeply” is the practice that we must incorporate into our lives. Given that each of us has different temperaments and affections/proclivities, it is a marvelous freedom that our practices resonate with our personalities while fulfilling the same goal, “to see deeply.”
Find your contemplative community and enter it. – To take faith seriously, and to attempt to deepen it is a lonely activity. There are only so many people in the world who take earnest care of that task. Still, those people are out there. It may take some searching, and it may even take some creating, but “no man is an island.” Whether at a church, coffee shop, bar, or barn, it does not matter. The Holy Trinity itself is a community, and so we should find it no far leap to say that we were meant for the community as well. So search online for a local group, or start one yourself. The reality is that we all need other people to “mirror” back to us how we are doing as we pursue intimacy with God and authentic Christlikeness.
Find your contemplative teaching and follow it. – Our “teaching” can come to us in any number of ways. It can be through the tried and true books of church history, it can be through podcasts, it can be through YouTube videos, and it can be through a mentor who speaks to us. The fact of the matter is that we are better off listening to the teachings of people from beyond ourselves in life and history rather than simply trying to teach ourselves (which would likely come with much trial and error). All the contemplatives of church history are speaking of the same intimate and infinite mystery of God, the task at hand is to find the one contemplative whose words are like a key that unlocks us. Some keys will fit, and others will not. The goal is to find the contemplative teaching that opens us up to greater expression and receptivity to Divine Love. In a world that benefits and even profits off of shallow faith, seeking out a contemplative practice, community, and teaching is a rebellious task. It is counter-cultural while also being deeply life-giving. As you are able this week, see about developing a practice, finding some people to do it with, and finding something or someone to start learning from!
Prayer Heavenly Father, speak tenderly to us, and invite us into greater and greater intimacy with you at all times. If we do not have a practice, help us to discover ours. If we have no community, help us to stumble into it. If we have no teaching, help us to find it. All we ever want is more of you, and that alone is the heart, core, roots, and foundation of every one of our prayers. Amen and amen.
Life Overview of James Finley Who is He: James Finley When: Born in Akron, Ohio in 1943. Why He is Important: As a Clinical Psychologist and Spiritual Director, James speaks from the depth of his own experience and training about the life of a Christian mystic. Most Known For: James was a direct mentee of Thomas Merton while living in the cloistered monastery of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Trappist, Kentucky. (Also one of the Faculty of Center for Action and Contemplation)
Father Richard describes the importance of Tradition, which includes a legacy of wisdom, beliefs, practices, prayers, and rituals:
I don’t believe that God expects all human beings to start from zero and to reinvent the wheel of life in our own small lifetimes. We must build on the common “communion of saints” throughout the ages. This is the inherited fruit and gift, which is sometimes called the “Wisdom Tradition.” It is not always inherited simply by belonging to one group or religion. It largely depends on how informed, mature, and experienced our particular teachers are.
Most seminaries, I’m afraid, have merely exposed ministers to their own denomination’s conclusions and don’t offer space or time for much Indigenous, interfaith, or ecumenical education, which broadens the field from “my religion, which has the whole truth,” to some sense of “universal wisdom, which my religion teaches in this way.” If it is true, then it has to be true everywhere.
There have been countless generations of sincere seekers who’ve gone through the same human journey and there is plenty of collective and common wisdom to be had. There is ongoing wisdom that keeps recurring in different world religions with different metaphors and vocabulary. The foundational wisdom is much the same, although never exactly the same. As in the Trinity, spiritual unity is diversity loved and united, never mere uniformity. [1]
Here is my succinct summary of this deep and recurring Wisdom Tradition:
There is a Divine Reality underneath and inherent in the world of things.
There is in the human soul a natural capacity, similarity, and longing for this Divine Reality.
The final goal of all existence is union with Divine Reality. [2]
I trust and hope that my writing and teaching contain more than my own little bit of experience and truth, precisely because I have found some serious validation in both the Hebrew and the Christian Scriptures, along with the testimonies of many other witnesses along the way.
1.
“You cannot follow both Christ and the cruelty of kings. A leader who mocks the weak, exalts himself, and preys on the innocent is not sent by God. He is sent to test you. And many are failing.”
When I have taught the Scriptures, I enjoy telling people they are timely as well as timeless.
They were written for a particular people, in a particular place, dealing with a particular problem.
Yet, they can be applied to anyone, no matter where they are, dealing with very different situations.
The Scriptures have much to say about leadership today.
Whether people want to admit it or not, the Bible is inherently political. If the Second Greatest Commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself, we must pay attention to public policies and politicians. Out of sincere love of neighbor and a call to help them to carry their burdens, a faithful follower of Christ must push back against abuse of power and any attempt from the Top of a society to take advantage of or dehumanize those at the Bottom of a society.
2.
“There was not a single question or doubt I raised for which our good Lord did not have a reassuring response. “I have the power to make all things well,” he said, “I know how to make all things well, and I wish to make all things well.” Then he said, “I shall make all things well. You will see for yourself: every kind of thing shall be well.”
Surprisingly, I have been reading Julian of Norwich’s writings. I have read them three or four times before, but this time, they are gripping me and holding my attention in a new way.
It is fascinating that she writes about Christ as our “liberator,” God “one-ing” us to Himself, the need to know ourselves to know God, sin as “nothing,” and the insistence that through God “all things will be well.”
The quote above stood out to me, and it demanded that I reread it aloud.
It is beautiful because it says God has the power, the knowledge, and the wish to make all things well, and we will see it someday for ourselves.
Now that is a bold hope.
Despite all the pain, devastation, fractured relationships, natural disasters, wars, and conflicts, somehow, God will make all things well.
3.
“We can be sure that whoever sneers at [Beauty], as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past, whether he admits it or not, can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love.”
Hans von Balthasar was an important theologian of the 20th century. His magnum opus, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, was based on the idea that theology is often built upon logic but can also be built upon beauty. Drawing from the Greek philosophers and their trifecta of “goodness, beauty, and truth,” he sought to frame the Christian faith in a new fashion.
I stumbled upon von Balthasar’s work after reading Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. Through The Soul’s Journey into God, I learned how Bonaventure saw Christ as an archetypal beauty, through whom all other things derive their own beauty.
Perhaps it is the fact that a large part of my interior life leans toward being an Enneagram 4, but I find a strange poetic comfort in the idea that our beliefs about God can be based on beauty as much as logic.
4.
“Poetry is an invitation to be completely present to the world.”
My goodness, I feel that we all would benefit from getting out of our heads a bit more often and being more present to the world.
This probably means that all of us would benefit from experiencing more poetry.
5.
“Who, looking at the universe, would be so feeble-minded as not to believe that God is all in all; that He clothes himself with the universe, and at the same time contains it and dwells in it? What exists depends on Him who exists, and nothing can exist except in the bosom of Him who is.”
One thing that I enjoy about the early Patristics of Church History is how they emphasize the mutual indwelling of God in all things and all things in God. It is as if God is pregnant with the universe, and the universe is pregnant with God.
Instead, most people have a more Platonic understanding of reality today. If they are not strict materialists, most people believe we are here on earth and God is up, off, and far away in some other realm that is more perfect than this one. As I said, this is more of a Platonic way of looking at reality than a Christian one.
The end of the New Testament finishes with a New Heaven and a New Earth that are merged together in a New Jerusalem, a Garden-City.
That is more an eschatology of integration rather than separation.
I am convinced that the realization that God is not far off but is intimately a part of everything we experience with our five senses would completely transform our ethics, mode of being in the world, appreciation for the environment, and love of each other.
It’s as if the solid green
of the valley
were an island
held and bound
by the river flow
of stone
and when
in summer rain
white limestone
turns black
and the central green
is light-wracked
round the edges,
that dark
reflective gleam
of rock
becomes
an edging brilliance
that centers
each field
to deep emerald.
No other place
I know
speaks
simultaneously
of meadows
and desert,
absorbing dryness
and winter wet,
the ground
porous and forgiving
of all elements,
white and black,
wet and dry,
rich and barren,
like a human marriage,
one hand
of welcome
raised,
the other
tightened
involuntary
on a concealed
knife in the
necessary
protections
of otherness.
As if someone
had said, you will
learn
in this land
the same welcome
and the same exile
as you do in your
mortal vows
to another,
you will promise
yourself
and abase yourself and find yourself
again
in the intimacy
of opposites,
you will pasture yourself
in the living green
and the bare rock,
you will find
comfort in strangeness
and prayer
in aloneness,
you will be proud
and fierce
and single minded
even
in your unknowing
and you will
carry on
through all the seasons
of your living and dying
until
your aloneness
becomes equal
to the trials
you have set yourself.
Then this land
will become again
the land
you imagined
when you saw it
for the first time
and these vows
of marriage
can become
again and again
the place you
make your
residence
like
this same
rough
intimate
and cradled
ground
between
stone horizons,
embracing
and also,
like the one
to whom
you made the vows,
always beyond you,
both utterly
with you
and both
strangely beautiful
to know
by their distance.
-from The Seven Streams: An Irish Cycle, originally published as The Vows at Glencolmcille in Everything is Waiting for You
Father Richard describes the importance of Tradition, which includes a legacy of wisdom, beliefs, practices, prayers, and rituals:
I don’t believe that God expects all human beings to start from zero and to reinvent the wheel of life in our own small lifetimes. We must build on the common “communion of saints” throughout the ages. This is the inherited fruit and gift, which is sometimes called the “Wisdom Tradition.” It is not always inherited simply by belonging to one group or religion. It largely depends on how informed, mature, and experienced our particular teachers are.
Most seminaries, I’m afraid, have merely exposed ministers to their own denomination’s conclusions and don’t offer space or time for much Indigenous, interfaith, or ecumenical education, which broadens the field from “my religion, which has the whole truth,” to some sense of “universal wisdom, which my religion teaches in this way.” If it is true, then it has to be true everywhere.
There have been countless generations of sincere seekers who’ve gone through the same human journey and there is plenty of collective and common wisdom to be had. There is ongoing wisdom that keeps recurring in different world religions with different metaphors and vocabulary. The foundational wisdom is much the same, although never exactly the same. As in the Trinity, spiritual unity is diversity loved and united, never mere uniformity. [1]
Here is my succinct summary of this deep and recurring Wisdom Tradition:
There is a Divine Reality underneath and inherent in the world of things.
There is in the human soul a natural capacity, similarity, and longing for this Divine Reality.
The final goal of all existence is union with Divine Reality. [2]
I trust and hope that my writing and teaching contain more than my own little bit of experience and truth, precisely because I have found some serious validation in both the Hebrew and the Christian Scriptures, along with the testimonies of many other witnesses along the way.
It’s as if the solid green
of the valley
were an island
held and bound
by the river flow
of stone
and when
in summer rain
white limestone
turns black
and the central green
is light-wracked
round the edges,
that dark
reflective gleam
of rock
becomes
an edging brilliance
that centers
each field
to deep emerald.
No other place
I know
speaks
simultaneously
of meadows
and desert,
absorbing dryness
and winter wet,
the ground
porous and forgiving
of all elements,
white and black,
wet and dry,
rich and barren,
like a human marriage,
one hand
of welcome
raised,
the other
tightened
involuntary
on a concealed
knife in the
necessary
protections
of otherness.
As if someone
had said, you will
learn
in this land
the same welcome
and the same exile
as you do in your
mortal vows
to another,
you will promise
yourself
and abase yourself and find yourself
again
in the intimacy
of opposites,
you will pasture yourself
in the living green
and the bare rock,
you will find
comfort in strangeness
and prayer
in aloneness,
you will be proud
and fierce
and single minded
even
in your unknowing
and you will
carry on
through all the seasons
of your living and dying
until
your aloneness
becomes equal
to the trials
you have set yourself.
Then this land
will become again
the land
you imagined
when you saw it
for the first time
and these vows
of marriage
can become
again and again
the place you
make your
residence
like
this same
rough
intimate
and cradled
ground
between
stone horizons,
embracing
and also,
like the one
to whom
you made the vows,
always beyond you,
both utterly
with you
and both
strangely beautiful
to know
by their distance.
-from The Seven Streams: An Irish Cycle, originally published as The Vows at Glencolmcille in Everything is Waiting for You
In the Living School: Essentials of Engaged Contemplation course, Brian McLaren explores the value of our inherited faith traditions, inviting students to both honor and wrestle with them:
When we begin exploring the contemplative life, we discover a rich heritage, an ancient Tradition. For millennia, scholars, mystics, theologians, our ancestors, and people of faith in general have been blazing the trail we are now walking. We don’t have to figure out everything on our own. But being part of a tradition brings both blessings and challenges.
For example, our tradition can be the ground on which we build, or it can be the ceiling above which we aren’t allowed to grow. It can be a greenhouse that protects us from certain dangers … but that also deprives us of needed challenges.
My original tradition was a very conservative wing of the Protestant movement called the Plymouth Brethren. There were blessings in my inherited tradition to be sure, but it didn’t provide much breathing room for someone like me. I found it confining and problematic as I grew older. I was so relieved to discover there were wider and deeper Christian traditions that I could explore.
I realized that there’s a difference between a living tradition and a dying or dead one. A living tradition is still learning and growing. Yes, it looks back to celebrate its many discoveries, lessons, wisdom, and gifts from the past, but it doesn’t act as if it already has all the answers. It uses its blessings from the past to prepare participants in the present for new discoveries, new lessons, new wisdom, and new gifts.
If we’re part of a tradition over time, we realize it can change, for the better or for the worse. It can become narrower and more rigid or wider and more flexible. It can become more argumentative and arrogant or more curious and humble. It can become deeper or shallower, more self-centered or generous, more ingrown or expansive, more loving or cruel, more stagnant and complacent, or more vibrant and alive. Every tradition is “in the making,” constantly growing and changing, just as we do as individuals. Even resisting change changes a tradition!
I think what we are all really seeking is a living and healthy tradition, something that isn’t just about words or arguments, but that is about life in all its fullness and about deep, deep love—a love for this earth, a love for each other, and a love for God who we experience both within us and all around us. When we find a way into a tradition like that, a tradition of love and growth and wisdom and humility and respect—what an honor and blessing! What a waste to only live your life for something small and self-centered when you have a chance to be part of a bigger story and a deeper Tradition.
Telephone Poles & Crosses. Skye Jethani
Jesus had a reputation for healing on the Sabbath, which the religious leaders saw as a violation of the Torah forbidding work on the seventh day and definitive proof that Jesus could not be a true prophet, let alone the Messiah. God’s chosen Savior, after all, would not break God’s laws. Jesus’ reputation may have been why a Pharisee invited him to his home on the Sabbath for a meal. Luke tells us that “they were watching him carefully” when a very ill man came before him. The whole scene feels like a setup. They were trying to catch Jesus breaking the law, but he deftly turned the trap back on them.“Which of you,” Jesus asked, “having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” Recognizing the trap, the Pharisees didn’t answer. Jesus proceeded to miraculously heal the sick man as the self-righteous dinner guests remained silent. Why didn’t the Pharisees answer Jesus? Why didn’t they object to his “work” of healing on the Sabbath? They knew the Jewish law made an exception on the Sabbath if someone’s life was in danger. In Jesus’ scenario of a son or ox falling into a well, death was not an immediate risk, but the Pharisees knew they would each have pulled them out in violation of their own strict reading of the law. Jesus was showing his hosts that there is no law of God forbidding compassion. In fact, our devotion to God should promote, never prevent, merciful actions toward those in great need. The real sin was not healing on the Sabbath, but failing to recognize the inherent value of a person burdened by illness.True religion will never allow the first part of the Great Commandment (“Love the Lord your God with all of your heart…”) to become an excuse for not obeying the second part (“…and love your neighbor as yourself”). Sadly, separating these two things has always been a common error made by religious people. Yet, throughout both the Old and New Testaments, the Lord makes it abundantly clear that the primary way we honor, serve, and worship him is by loving those created in his image. For example, in the book of Isaiah, God’s people were engaged in religious rituals of worship, including fasting, to express their deep devotion to the Lord, but he utterly rejected these religious activities. Why? Because they their worship of God did not translate into compassion and justice toward the poor and oppressed (see Isaiah 58).David French has referred to this narrow focus on God while overlooking the needs of others as “telephone pole” Christianity. In our recent podcast conversation, he explained to me that people who only focus on their vertical relationship with God are like telephone poles—they are one-dimensional and “siloed in this personal relationship with Jesus.” But we are called to a two-dimensional faith. Our vertical connection to God is supposed to support and empower our horizontal engagement with our neighbors which is cross-shaped Christianity. In French’s view, that means engaging the gospel’s call to “ameliorate injustice in the world.”It’s a simple but useful metaphor that also explains the core conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders. The Pharisees in Luke’s story practiced a telephone pole faith in which the Sabbath was about honoring God and nothing more. Jesus, however, represented a cross-shaped faith in which his devotion to the Father was always, always, always revealed through his love and compassion for others. Therefore, healing a suffering man was also a way of worshipping God on the Sabbath despite the Pharisees’ objections. Likewise, we shouldn’t be surprised today when those who insist on uniting their Christian faith to justice and compassion are accused, like Jesus was, of being unfaithful to God’s law. In today’s religious landscape, telephone poles are everywhere—but it’s the cross that heals the world.
In conversation with Randy Woodley in the Essentials of Engaged Contemplation course, CAC faculty member Carmen Acevedo Butcher shares her relationship with Scripture:
Scripture can be many things to many people. We have the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament in the Christian tradition, and Jesus had the Tanakh [1] and quoted from its Torah, Prophets, and Psalms, with special love for Isaiah and the Psalms. We have nature. We have other scriptures from other faiths and wisdom traditions. I always like to stay really open when we use the word scripture and not assume that I know what it might mean for someone else.
For me, Scripture was first the Hebrew Bible and then the New Testament—and in my childhood, I experienced it as mostly learning about what it said so I could pass some imaginary test on being good that some imaginary policeman installed in me. But eventually, Scripture for me became about transformation, about finding out who am I and how I can be more loving and self-aware.
The Christian Scriptures are an anthology written by human beings. They contain the good, the bad, and the ugly. We should wrestle with them. In the end, what I’m supposed to walk away with from reading the Christian Scriptures is a sense of astonishment about God’s love. If they’re not coming across as astonishing, then I need to take another run at it…. My hope always, for my own path of growth and transformation, is to try to read the Scriptures as Jesus did.
CAC affiliate faculty member Randy Woodley shares his perspective that written Scriptures are a “late arrival” to the broader story of creation:
There are a lot of Indigenous perspectives, but I believe the written Scriptures are a late arrival. What Creator first gave us is creation. It’s amazing that when the written Scripture does come along it wonders at, and is in awe of, all of creation and what it has to teach us, including what the animals and the ants have to teach us. Jesus did the same thing. He reveled in the flowers and trees, the seeds and the soil. In a way, Scripture verifies creation as Creator’s first story.
The other thing we have, besides creation, is our conscience. Human beings have always had their own hearts to go by. In a way, Scripture reflects that as well. It tells us stories about how we should and shouldn’t act. We learn those things from the stories….
Scripture is one of the tools we have to understand the right way to live. I appreciate it, not as a rule book, but as stories that align with creation. The teachings and creation align with our hearts and align with good solid communities whose values are soaked in love and caring. When I see something in Scripture that looks like the opposite of that, then I have to say, “Well, I’m supposed to learn something about that. I’m supposed to learn how not to do that or not to act that way.”
“Not only do I reliably know where I am when I wake up, I never wake up in pools of vodka vomit anymore. It’s so bad for your skin, you know…very corrosive.”
She writes and speaks about personal failings, recovery, grace, faith, and really whatever the hell else she wants to. She always sits in the corner with the other weirdos. Nadia can be found a couple days a week inside the Denver women’s prison where she is a volunteer chaplain.
You can subscribe to The Corners to receive her writing in your inbox weekly.
—
How old are you, and how long have you been in recovery?
I’m 56 years old and have been clean and sober for 33 years.
How did you get there?
Back in 1991 there was a protective bravado to my drinking. I was proud to be such a drunk, but since I mostly kept company with other drinkers, it all seemed normal.
My main drinking buddy at the time was named Alice and after a particularly messy night that involved a lot of vodka and a brief confession that she had been in and out of AA and thinks it’s time to go back, she looked at me and said, “Nadia, you know that you’re an alcoholic, right?” To prove her wrong, I stumbled into a church basement off 14th street in Denver. I remember not taking my sunglasses off even though it was already dark out. And I remember being glad since I cried the whole time.
It was the first time in my life I had heard anyone speak honestly about what it felt like to not be able to control your drinking. And the honesty of it all just sort of broke me down. I’ve been sober ever since.
What are the best things about being in recovery?
Not only do I reliably know where I am when I wake up, I never wake up in pools of vodka vomit anymore. It’s so bad for your skin, you know…very corrosive.
Truthfully, living life every single day for years on end without any chemical escape hatches, without ever blunting the pain, without checking out when it’s hard or painful, turns you into a pretty solid human. I guess they call it resilience. Or reliability. It just feels like having emotional core strength to me.
I always assumed I’d be dead by 30, so at times it has felt disorienting to still be standing while my closest drinking buddy, and my ex-boyfriend, and my cousin, and my nephew, and so many fellow addicts that I love are buried in the ground. And just to be clear, I have never found a satisfying answer to why them and not me. No one can convince me that the reason I am alive and Jimmy, who I loved with my whole heart, and who I ran with for years, and who was in and out of AA, drank himself to death is because I worked the steps harder than he did, or because he didn’t want sobriety as much as I did, or because “God wanted another angel in heaven” or anything equally facile.
What’s hard about being in recovery?
Nobody tells you when you get sober that if you have the grit and grace to stay that way, to accumulate not just days, but weeks, months, years and even decades of sobriety, just how many people you will bury. Not every addict and alcoholic gets to have and keep this gift. And so the cost of having it myself is that my heart has broken over and over again watching people I love die. The cost of long term sobriety is something akin to … survivor’s guilt, I guess. I always assumed I’d be dead by 30, so at times it has felt disorienting to still be standing while my closest drinking buddy, and my ex-boyfriend, and my cousin, and my nephew, and so many fellow addicts that I love are buried in the ground.
And just to be clear, I have never found a satisfying answer to why them and not me. No one can convince me that the reason I am alive and Jimmy, who I loved with my whole heart, and who I ran with for years, and who was in and out of AA, drank himself to death is because I worked the steps harder than he did, or because he didn’t want sobriety as much as I did, or because “God wanted another angel in heaven” or anything equally facile.
As a theologian, I also want to say that even while I find the words, “There but for the grace of God go I” on my tongue, I find it “problematic”, as the kids say. While I can attribute my sobriety to God doing for me what I cannot do for myself, the extension of that same thought is less helpful; that somehow God bestowed grace upon me and not Jimmy makes me want to never stop slapping God, so it might not (theologically) be the most sound sentiment.
How has your character changed? What’s better about you? What do you still need to work on? What “character defects” do you still wrestle with?
I’m more honest. I have tons more integrity. I try to be of service to others and trust me, that was in no way a priority for me before getting sober.
But to be clear, it’s not some sort of “I once was blind but now I see” story – it’s more of a “I once was blind, and now I just have really bad vision” sort of story.
(I once heard Dan Harris [founder of the meditation app, 10% Happier] say that his wife likes to call it 90% Still An Asshole)
My first reaction to almost everything is “fuck you.” I almost never stay there but I almost always start there. That hasn’t changed, which for a long time I found really disappointing. Like, how in the world do I still think such consistently horrible things after all these years of WORKING ON MYSELF. But in my case, progress doesn’t look like receiving a personality transplant. It looks like the fact that yeah, I still start with “fuck you,” I just very seldom STAY there. The time between my reaction (which is still pretty shitty) to my response has gotten real short. Progress is seen in the speed at which I move out of “fuck you.”
I was at a meeting recently where a guy said, “I’m not responsible for my first thought.” I liked that. I’m responsible for my actions; my thoughts might never get cleaned up enough to take to anyone’s mother’s house.
Truthfully, living life every single day for years on end without any chemical escape hatches, without ever blunting the pain, without checking out when it’s hard or painful, turns you into a pretty solid human. I guess they call it resilience. Or reliability. It just feels like having emotional core strength to me.
What’s the best recovery memoir you’ve ever read? Tell us what you liked about it.
I love that she was a dominatrix while high on heroin AND simultaneously an honors student at The New School. Febos, like the rest of us, is not just one thing.
Her writing is funny and visceral. I’ll never forget the way she describes how we addicts separate ourselves from ourselves.
For three years in the 1990s I was Febos’ Summer Camp counselor. Now we are just friends.
What are some memorable sober moments?
Too many to list, but the one that stands out for me is the first time I bought toilet paper BEFORE running out.
Are you in therapy? On meds? Tell us about that.
I’ve been on Wellbutrin for 30 years. Praise God. Alleluia.
For the last 16 years I’ve met regularly with a spiritual director; someone who pays attention to how I speak about myself and my life. I’m too close to see myself sometimes. Jane is in her 80s now and I can’t imagine anyone else being for me who she has been for me.
Sometimes I’ll be talking for a while and she’ll say, “That’s different than how you used to feel/act/respond,” and I trust her so much that I am willing to believe her. She is a reliable narrator in my life.
My first reaction to almost everything is “Fuck you.” I almost never stay there but I almost always start there. That hasn’t changed, which for a long time I found really disappointing. Like, how in the world do I still think such consistently horrible things after all these years of WORKING ON MYSELF. But in my case, progress doesn’t look like receiving a personality transplant. It looks like the fact that yeah, I still start with “Fuck you,” I just very seldom STAY there. The time between my reaction (which is still pretty shitty) to my response has gotten real short. Progress is seen in the speed at which I move out of “Fuck you.”
What sort of activities or groups do you participate in to help your recovery? (i.e. swimming, 12-step, meditation, et cetera)
I am still to this day, an old school Twelve-Step girl. God help me, I love a group of drunks in a church basement. I know there are a lot of folks who are critical of it, but for me, I am who I am today because of relying on a power greater than myself, attempting rigorous honesty, having sponsors, taking responsibility for my shit, and trying to be of service to others. Microdosing and navel gazing may work for others but would never work for me. Give me a path toward pawning off my narcissism as a virtue and I’ll for sure take it. As I said, old school.
I am a Sacred Harp singer. It’s the oldest American musical form, and very “anti-excellence, pro-participation.” I sing for 2 ½ hours every Monday with a group of other people who just love singing with and for each other. No auditions, no performances, no commitment, no leader. I love everything about it and you just can’t beat the feeling of gladness that comes from your brain being awash in oxytocin and dopamine. And you know what? That shit is free.
I walk outside for at least an hour every day—sometimes 2 or 3. I feel less neurotic, and less like everything is awful when I am walking through the park by my house. I try to listen closely to see if birds are singing. They usually are and I am usually too in my head to notice. So noticing birdsong is a form of contemplation for me.
Are there any questions we haven’t asked you that you think we should add to this? And would you like to answer it?
Nah. I’m good. Thanks for allowing me to tell my story as a Sober Oldster!
This CO2- (Church Of 2) is where two guys meet each day to tighten up our Connections with Jesus. We start by placing the daily “My Utmost For His Highest” in this WordPress blog. Then we prayerfully select some matching worship music and usually pick out a few lyrics that fit especially well. Then we just start praying and editing and Bolding and adding comments and see where the Spirit takes us.
It’s been a blessing for both of us.
If you’d like to start a CO2, we’d be glad to help you and your partner get started. Also click the link below to see how others are doing CO2.Odds Monkey
Steve Harvey Introduces Jesus To A Secular Audience
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Jesus had a reputation for healing on the Sabbath, which the religious leaders saw as a violation of the Torah forbidding work on the seventh day and definitive proof that Jesus could not be a true prophet, let alone the Messiah. God’s chosen Savior, after all, would not break God’s laws. Jesus’ reputation may have been why a Pharisee invited him to his home on the Sabbath for a meal. Luke tells us that “they were watching him carefully” when a very ill man came before him. 