Drawing on the work of American thinker Ken Wilber, Father Richard describes three stages of transformation: Growing Up, Waking Up, and Cleaning Up.
Growing Up refers to the process of psychological and emotional maturity that persons commonly undergo, both personally and culturally. We all grow up, even though inside our own bubbles. The social structures that surround us highly color, strengthen, and also limit how much we can grow up and how much of our own shadow self we will be able to face and integrate. But any full growing up has to be a growing outward and not just upward; in other words, we can be aware without being caring—which is not to be very aware!
By Waking Up we are speaking of any spiritual experience which overcomes our experience of the self as separate from Being in general. This is variously referred to as enlightenment, awakening, or unitive consciousness, and it should be the full Christian meaning of salvation. Unfortunately, we pushed all waking up into something that would hopefully happen later, in heaven or after death, or as a reward for good behavior in this world. This was a major loss and defeat for Christianity and a disastrous misplacement of attention. We became a religion of religious transactions more than spiritual transformation.
Waking up should be the goal of all spiritual work, sacraments, and Bible study, but, at least in the West, this has not been the case. Because we were not practice-based for the most part, and had a bias against inner experience, it seemed very presumptuous to actually believe—or believe possible—the conclusion of every significant mystic: Jesus’ “I and the Father are one” (see John 10:30), Augustine’s “God is closer to me than I am to myself,” [1] or Catherine of Genoa’s “My deepest me is God.” [2] Organized Christianity largely described waking up in terms of growing up, and that growing up was almost entirely interpreted in highly moralistic terms—and even that morality was largely culturally defined!
We ministers talked, wrote, and preached about Cleaning Up the most, but actually did this very poorly. We happily reminded people of their moral failings with regular shaming and reminders of their sins, particularly the “hot” ones. This led to religion being identified almost exclusively with morality, rather than any deep transformation of consciousness. Hear me, please. We do indeed need to clean up, but this largely involves putting boundaries to our natural egocentricity, which does have the potential to wake us up to the illusion of our separateness over time. The goal in waking up is not personal or private perfection, but surrender, love, and union with God. Any preoccupation with my private moral perfection keeps my eyes on myself and not on God or grace or love. Cleaning up is largely about the need for early impulse control and creating necessary ego boundaries so we can actually show up in the real and much bigger world.
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| Saved From vs. Saved For |
 When the younger son finally returned and was embraced by his father, it meant he’d successfully escaped poverty, starvation, and death in a distant country. This perspective, however, only looks back at what the son was saved from, it does not look ahead to what he was saved for.There is a detail in Jesus’ parable we must not overlook. The son begins apologizing to his father for his rebellion, but the father never responds or even acknowledges his remarks.Instead, the father said to his servants, “Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.” These adornments—particularly the ring—are symbols of the son’s identity and status. The son only hoped to become a servant in the father’s house, but instead, he was given back his full dignity as an heir with all of the authority the role includes. He will again rule with his father over the estate. Within too many Christian communities we fixate on what we are saved from— sin, death, and damnation—but we lack any vision of what we have been saved for. In the beginning, God created humanity to rule over creation on his behalf; we are to be God’s image-bearers on the earth who labor with him to bring all things into full, glorious flourishing. Like the younger son, however, our calling was interrupted when we rebelled against our heavenly Father.Through Christ, our full status and dignity as God’s children are restored. We aren’t merely saved from death and sin, we are also saved to reign with God and join him in the restoration of his creation. Many of us, like the younger son, come to our heavenly Father seeking to be rescued from the past and pulled out of the pit of sin we have fallen into. He certainly does that, but we then fail to celebrate the exalted status to which we have been lifted which is far above that of a servant, slave, or even restored sinner. He has made us a daughter or son with the full privileges, rights, and authority to rule alongside our heavenly Father. DAILY SCRIPTURE LUKE 15:11-24 GALATIANS 4:1-7 2 TIMOTHY 2:11-13 WEEKLY PRAYERFrom John of Damascus (676 – 749)Master and Lord, Jesus Christ our God, you alone have authority to forgive my sins, whether committed knowingly or in ignorance, and make me worthy to receive without condemnation your divine, glorious, pure and life-giving mysteries, not for my punishment, but for my purification and sanctification, now and in your future kingdom. For you, Christ our God, are compassionate and love humanity, and to you we give glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit now and forever and ever. Amen. |
