Already I’ve experienced the limitations of this new lectio method. Two days in, I sat down to read, and
had soon fashioned a thesis statement. Initiated by nervous energy, this "overarching theory" absorbed me for the rest of my lector time. Afterwards, sitting in the wrecked
remains of my peace of mind, I wrote something in all caps and underlined
it. Thrice. Koanic work, y’all, is
fueled by intuition, not reason. Anxiety is a great indicator that something’s not right.
While I want to leave it there, I also want to show my work, even
if the paltry shack I sat to build is uninhabitable. While I’m at it, with a little help of Mark’s
temptation in the desert story, I’ll
try to demonstrate that Jesus went through this too, though with an aplomb
that’s markedly fancier.
I.
When tempting him in the desert, Satan told
Jesus to turn rocks into bread. He was
asking the Lord to deny reality, under-nourishing though it may have been. As I sat in Starbucks, I knew this moment.
It’s the moment when I am tempted to weave theories of life out of the
wasteland of meaning that is normal experience.
My tendencies to OCD thought patterns have too often rendered me a
football that insight picks up and runs with. It’s a trap I’ve willingly fallen
into before, and will again. In the case of this first temptation, it’s with
the Scriptures that Jesus refuses self-made meaning.
Though this post’s framework
comes from Mark, I began, that day in Starbucks, with John’s Gospel. “What has
come into being in him was life,” says the text, “and the life was the Light of
all people. The Light shines in
the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
A Koan unifies opposites. I was curious about the meaning of
words like “life” and “overcome.” In
Judo, “overcoming” an adversary is simply a matter of sidestepping an enemy’s
violence, continuing their momentum into the nearby wall. What if Light’s way of overcoming
darkness was to yield to it? Christ,
who knew no sin, became sin for us. Jesus
was the light, and he became darkness for us.
II.
Then the devil took Jesus to the highest point
of the temple. He employed scripture, tempting
him to use things religious in making a spectacle of himself. Jesus was better at seeing this trap than I
usually am. When nervous energy decides to play grab ass with my attention
span, it’s actually my love of good things that hooks me.
The thought occurred to me:
If it’s in the unity of opposites that our salvation is achieved, then we have
to question how we have interpreted another scripture.
I turned to Matthew 6: 22 ‘The
eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will
be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of
darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”
Cascade-style, the thoughts
came: If health comes as a result of acceptance
that I’m unhealthy (which is the case for us,) then admitting my dualistic
mindset is the first step to recovery.
“If the light inside you is
darkness, great is that darkness.” This
is Jesus saying that, when light becomes darkness, that’s good. St. Paul would echo it: we walk by
faith, not by sight. It’s
healthy to be full of light. But
if you’re unhealthy, full of darkness, then that’s Christ. And now we’re back at the beginning. Christ was the Light of all people. As
the Good Friday Liturgy says, “O happy fault, that gained for us such a
savior!”
None of the above paragraph
is false. But the process of trying to
fit big thoughts in small boxes was slowly bulldozing whatever peace of mind the
morning held. Pair that with too much
coffee, and it’s a recipe for becoming a frenetic mess.
III.
After that, Satan takes Jesus to a high
mountain, tempts him with political power, if only he’ll bow to him. Jesus simply tells him to go away. After I left Starbucks, I had to go home and
lie down. I had to listen to myself
breathe, to notice the tension I’d allowed into my body. I had to say gentle things to it, inner
parent to inner child. It seems silly,
but it’s what I ended up needing to do to reclaim a sense of centeredness.
I can’t stress enough how important realization is. A ring I
knelt and give someone is the foundation of a relationship. A ring I steal is a $20 negotiation at a pawn
shop. Truth may be graspable by reason,
arrived at by effort. But wisdom—and
this is all that matters to the efforts at Under
the Influence—wisdom is given. I would rather write nothing, publish
never again, than compromise on this.
The only thing worse than serving bullshit-cooked-from scratch to others
is serving it to myself, telling myself it tastes like chicken.
Consider, with me, this bit from Luke:
‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed;
nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There it is!” For, in fact, the
kingdom of God is among you.’ Then [Jesus] said to the
disciples, ‘The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of
the Son of Man, and you will not see it. They will say to you, “Look there!” or
“Look here!” Do not go, do not set off in pursuit. For as the lightning flashes
and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in
his day.
Before God and everybody, I’ll say it: Though Under
the Influence came about because embittered silence about the sacred wasn’t
working, I won’t allow all things holy to be coopted by the worst parts of
myself. If this isn’t an exercise in
being present, it’s worthless.
So here I am. Again. For real this time. I mean it.
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