The Performance Principle<\/strong><\/a>\nFriday, March 22, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>Religion in the second half of life is finally not a moral matter; it\u2019s a mystical matter. While most of us begin focused on moral proficiency and perfection, we can\u2019t spend our whole lives this way. Paul calls the first-half-of-life approach \u201cthe Law\u201d; I call it the performance principle: \u201cI\u2019m good because I obey this commandment, because I do this kind of work, or because I belong to this group.\u201d That\u2019s the calculus the ego understands. The human psyche, all organizations, and governments need this kind of common sense structure at some level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But that game has to fall apart or it will kill you. Paul says the law leads to death (e.g., Romans 7:5, Galatians 3:10). Yet many Catholics I meet\u2014religious, laity, and clergy\u2014are still trapped inside the law, believing that by doing good things or going to church, they\u2019re going to somehow attain worthiness or acceptance from God. This was Luther\u2019s authentic critique of much of the Catholic church as he knew it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the only ways God can get us to let go of our private salvation project is some kind of suffering. This is why Christians hang the cross at the center of our churches, why we kiss the cross, and why we say we\u2019re \u201csaved\u201d by the cross. Yet for all this ritualization, it seems we don\u2019t really believe what the cross teaches us\u2014that the pattern of death and resurrection is true for us, too, that we must die in a foundational way or any talk of \u201crebirth\u201d makes no sense. I don\u2019t know anything else that\u2019s strong enough to force you and me to let go of our ego. However we\u2019ve defined ourselves as successful, moral, better than, right, good, on top of it, number one . . . <em>has to fail us!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the point when we don\u2019t feel holy or worthy. We feel like a failure. When this experience of the \u201cnoonday devil\u201d shows itself, the ego\u2019s normal temptation is to be even stricter about following the first half of life\u2019s rules. We think more is better, when in fact, less is more. We go back to laws and rituals instead of the always-risky fall into the ocean of mercy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet that is the only path toward our larger and True Self, where we don\u2019t need to prove ourselves to God anymore; where we know, as Thomas Merton (1915\u20131968) put it, it\u2019s all \u201cmercy within mercy within mercy.\u201d [1] It\u2019s not what we do for God; it\u2019s what God has done for us. We switch from trying to love God to just letting God love us. And it\u2019s at that point we fall in love with God. Up to now, we haven\u2019t really loved God; we\u2019ve largely been afraid of God. Finally, perfect love casts out all fear. As John says, \u201cIn love there can be no fear. Fear is driven out by perfect love. To fear is to still expect punishment. Anyone who is still afraid is still imperfect in the ways of love\u201d (see 1 John 4:18).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Growing in Christ: Week 1 The Performance Principle Friday, March 22, 2019 Religion in the second half of life is finally not a moral matter; it\u2019s a mystical matter. While most of us begin focused on moral proficiency and perfection, we can\u2019t spend our whole lives this way. Paul calls the first-half-of-life approach \u201cthe Law\u201d; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17908"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17908"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17909,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17908\/revisions\/17909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>Religion in the second half of life is finally not a moral matter; it\u2019s a mystical matter. While most of us begin focused on moral proficiency and perfection, we can\u2019t spend our whole lives this way. Paul calls the first-half-of-life approach \u201cthe Law\u201d; I call it the performance principle: \u201cI\u2019m good because I obey this commandment, because I do this kind of work, or because I belong to this group.\u201d That\u2019s the calculus the ego understands. The human psyche, all organizations, and governments need this kind of common sense structure at some level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But that game has to fall apart or it will kill you. Paul says the law leads to death (e.g., Romans 7:5, Galatians 3:10). Yet many Catholics I meet\u2014religious, laity, and clergy\u2014are still trapped inside the law, believing that by doing good things or going to church, they\u2019re going to somehow attain worthiness or acceptance from God. This was Luther\u2019s authentic critique of much of the Catholic church as he knew it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the only ways God can get us to let go of our private salvation project is some kind of suffering. This is why Christians hang the cross at the center of our churches, why we kiss the cross, and why we say we\u2019re \u201csaved\u201d by the cross. Yet for all this ritualization, it seems we don\u2019t really believe what the cross teaches us\u2014that the pattern of death and resurrection is true for us, too, that we must die in a foundational way or any talk of \u201crebirth\u201d makes no sense. I don\u2019t know anything else that\u2019s strong enough to force you and me to let go of our ego. However we\u2019ve defined ourselves as successful, moral, better than, right, good, on top of it, number one . . . <em>has to fail us!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the point when we don\u2019t feel holy or worthy. We feel like a failure. When this experience of the \u201cnoonday devil\u201d shows itself, the ego\u2019s normal temptation is to be even stricter about following the first half of life\u2019s rules. We think more is better, when in fact, less is more. We go back to laws and rituals instead of the always-risky fall into the ocean of mercy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet that is the only path toward our larger and True Self, where we don\u2019t need to prove ourselves to God anymore; where we know, as Thomas Merton (1915\u20131968) put it, it\u2019s all \u201cmercy within mercy within mercy.\u201d [1] It\u2019s not what we do for God; it\u2019s what God has done for us. We switch from trying to love God to just letting God love us. And it\u2019s at that point we fall in love with God. Up to now, we haven\u2019t really loved God; we\u2019ve largely been afraid of God. Finally, perfect love casts out all fear. As John says, \u201cIn love there can be no fear. Fear is driven out by perfect love. To fear is to still expect punishment. Anyone who is still afraid is still imperfect in the ways of love\u201d (see 1 John 4:18).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Growing in Christ: Week 1 The Performance Principle Friday, March 22, 2019 Religion in the second half of life is finally not a moral matter; it\u2019s a mystical matter. While most of us begin focused on moral proficiency and perfection, we can\u2019t spend our whole lives this way. Paul calls the first-half-of-life approach \u201cthe Law\u201d; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17908"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17908"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17909,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17908\/revisions\/17909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}