more on transformation

Commenting recently on a blog talking about how the church restricts God, I wrote, "The way of Jesus is the way for us all... suffering, death, resurrection. The sad thing is that there are few who know how to get to that place. Our self righteousness prohibits us. We are taught to avoid suffering. "Suffering is bad." "Suffering hurts."

Then today in my email I get this taken from Richard Rohr's Letting Go: A Spirituality of Subtraction:

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth: it is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword" (Matthew 10:34). Wow! If Jesus said this, he was surely not expecting the religion of niceness, of pretty words and feel-good experiences that we have become. He knew that Big Truth always divides before it can unite a few at a deeper level. I think most of the thousands of sermons I've heard in my life have been about “being nice” in one way or another. That's how domesticated the gospel has become--as if Jesus were a Divine Miss Manners, and the Church existed to maintain proper social order and class. Yet many are entirely content at that level, and Church has not usually been a passionate search for God. The word nice isn't found anywhere in the Bible, to my knowledge.

"There's nothing more dangerous to true religious thinking than conventional thinking, easy conformity, being like everybody else in our social group. There's no depth or power at that level. Mass consciousness is never going to be ready for anything that asks them to “die” or that does not make them feel secure and superior. So we have settled largely for civil religion and cultural Christianity. It's so much more comforting to be nice and “moral” at a small level--than to be faithful to Big Truth—which cuts us all open like a sword."

I'm not sure the church can restrict God, but I do think the church, for the most part, sees itself as responsible for "right relationship with God" by keeping moral codes and principles through discipline. This approach does not work. At least not from a heart level. Our self righteous ways will never put us in right standing with God. Performance and conformity are futile. We will eventually wear ourselves out trying to be good enough or by trying to attain some position or perform deeds that are pleasing to God. These actions eventually lead to suffering. Coming to the end of ourselves happens only when we have suffered enough. Then comes death. And, in due time, resurrection and re-creation.

reality

C.S. Lewis in A Grief Observed wrote about the shattering of his faith after his wife's death:

"You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. (p. 22)

"Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief. (p.23)

" ...if my house was a house of cards, the sooner it was knocked down the better. And only suffering could do it. (p.38)

"God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down. (p. 52)

"My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence? And most are 'offended' by the iconoclasm; and blessed are those who are not. (p.66)

"All reality is iconoclastic." (p.66)

If decision is needed between reality or a concept developed in the mind, take reality. Life is found in reality. Truth is found in reality.

surrender through suffering

Speaking of surrender (Waterloo), I found the following writing posted online at one of the forums I read. It goes to the heart of why we in 1st world countries have such a difficult time understanding the importance of surrender in living our lives here on earth. I believe the abundant life is accessed through surrender. If we tend to have a fix-it/controlling type personality, we hinder our own surrender. We oppress the parts of us that we hate, deny, or fear. Our image-possessed culture, whether in church or out, teaches us to protect this illusion.

For us 1st world people, these hidden parts are best exposed through pain and trauma. Disillusionment is not far behind. We then are presented with an opportunity to confront "our weak spot" or spots, as in my case. But it is only an opportunity. It won't happen on its own. We chose whether to confront or continue to deny. Here's the writing:

SUFFERING

What is the oppressed part of your being?

Do you realize with what difficulty surrender will come to a fixing,
managing mentality? There's nothing in that psyche prepared to
understand the spiritual wisdom of surrender. All of the great world
religions teach surrender. Yet most of us, until we go through the
hole in our soul, "our weak spot in the middle", we just don't think
surrender is necessary. At least that's how it is for those of us in
First World countries. The poor, on the other hand, seem to
understand limitation at a very early age.

The Third World faces its limitation through a breakdown in the social-economic system. But we have to face our limitations, it seems, in the interior world. That's our liberation theology. We must recognize our own poor man, our own abused woman, the oppressed part of ourselves that we hate, that we deny, that we're afraid of. That's the hole in our soul. It's the way through, maybe the only way, says the crucified Jesus. (from Breathing Under Water by Richard Rohr)