The gospel figures who are important to me don't have that status because they make me feel good. The folks I figure I'd hang out with are often the darker ones. I hear a lot of myself in the healed demoniac, whose desire to accompany Jesus is refused and redirected. Jesus says "Go home to your family and friends, and tell them all that the Lord, in his mercy, has done for you." Vocations that are mandates from (instead of accompaniment of) Jesus--they were always a bit uncomfortable to me. But I might just be living in one of them, so I've got to claim that discomfort gently. I hear a lot of myself in Bartimaeus, who is blind as he tells Jesus he wants to see. There's a tension in having the mercy of God right in front of me, and being unable to see it...my history with long term, low grade depression has ensured this hits me palpably. I empathize with the blind fellow whom Jesus has to touch twice--because when Jesus touches him once, he can see people, but they look like trees. Accurate seeing, and not seeing people as potential crosses to bear-- has always been a challenge for me.
More than the rest, though, I empathize with the bloke who said "I believe, help my unbelief," because faith isn't the hard part for me. The hard part is the way faith is limited by wisdom. I'm the only one who can do my round of living and dying, sinning and repenting, suffering and coming to acceptance. Whether I like it or not--and let me assure you, I don't--taking responsibility is a sharing in Christ's cross, a total consent to the ways life energy and death energy are the same. Unwillingness can sneak in all over the place. I might take responsibility but then be resentful, as Gesmas (the "wicked thief") was. I might take responsibility, but look for a future time that's better than this one, again seeking to abdicate my responsibilities, as Dismas (the good thief) did. The point is to become the Christ who takes those voices as they are, and treats both of them compassionately--either with loving quiet or with consolation. And to realize that none of the voices--of unwillingness or hope or acceptance--are coming from outside me: they're just mirrors of what happening within. That kind of "expanded agency in adversity" is common only to those who've exhausted their questioning of the whirlwind. When the Romans conquered the temple, the holy of holies--the temple's inner sanctum they thought would be full of treasure--it lay utterly empty. And the brokenness of an open heart chakra is empty as well. The paradox of mercy is: that void is a ministry and a healing, one that witnesses to the Spirit's energy.
I thought it would be easy to be a good human. Sources like Aquinas say "just do it, it gets easier." Blokes like Aquinas never met addicts, or abuse victims, or anyone whose unconfronted subconscious defensiveness short circuits conscious choosing. It also turns out that the ability to be a good human is proportionate to one's willingness to admit they're a bad one. In other words, attachment to "not being bad" can't solve your issues. But it will always be true that virtue produces substantially less of the anxiety, remorse and blame that makes life unmanageable.
I didn't know what I expected from the Church, when I consciously chose to remain a part of it. I know that, over time, parish life seemed hollow. Charity isn't reducible to volunteerism, what you put in the poor box, or the number of parish committees in which you hold down a chair. In other words, an initial experience of Jesus doesn't imply an ongoing program of transformation. Care of others doesn't imply self care. Intimacy with Jesus doesn't imply "feeling at home" in a parish full of people who may be simply spiritualizing their flaws rather than confronting them. I have had to formulate my own program of transformation, out of bits and pieces pulled from various snap shots of Catholic thought throughout history (as well as from other religions that, quite frankly, have more fully developed programs of transformation than Catholicism.) I've had to give myself permission to avoid those parts of parish life that aren't life giving, surrounding myself, instead, with a group of like minded people who love me enough to gently call shenanigans on my bullshit. Whoever can mutually refrain from bolting while honesty grows, those are my people.
After 7 years in a monastery, I thought something as simple as paying attention would come naturally to me. Turns out I come from a long line of creative folks, who spend a great deal of time in their heads. Any shiny object, in my psyche or in the world, can get in the way of what's right in front of me. And we're living in an age of shiny objects--the internet, and advertisements exploit what we find pleasurable. Our work obligations play on fear of sitting still, fear of "failure," fear of poverty. The dopamine fasts en vogue for the last few years aren't a terrible place to start--taking breaks from internet and other such pleasures. The bottom line is, at some point I had to stop willfully forcing myself to "pay attention" and be conservative and mindful about where I willingly pointed my focus.
I don't know God's will. Some days I'm just too exhausted to care. Neurotic overwork taints my spirituality more than I'd like it to. The three part Zen dictum "Quit trying, quit trying not to try, quit quitting" is gospel to me because of it. I only know that, no matter how much I spiritualize it--and I've done so, with gross abandon-- my way hasn't worked. So I'm suspicious of all strains of the spiritual life that boil down to "I've got to do something about this." Because I don't know how to avoid being hoodwinked by the blinding light of my own angelic egotism. My record isn't stellar. Much as I might dislike it, though, pointing out to the world that religion isn't about sick misuses of spiritualized self-will might just be my corner of the Dharma. Because I've tried to stop talking about it, and it never seems to work.
Self-emptying comes for everything on earth, and makes paupers of us all. Before students become teachers, all students die, all teachers die, all teachings lose meaning. I didn't know this in the fascination phase, when the whole spiritual life was a devotional trip and no internalization of mystery or self-discovery had yet begun. The "death" bit got snuck in towards the end, when I was already hooked. In the end my only consolation is, as Ram Dass put it, the fact that "those who die before they die do not die when they die." But to those of us who were surprised and incredulous: the reality of death was there the whole time. The fact is, I had eyes but couldn't see. I had ears, but couldn't hear. Not till I descended with the mind to the heart. The heart, see--the heart hears everything. And it remembers: followers of the Way are no greater than their teacher.
Redemption isn't what I thought it would be. Whenever I went looking for it to come from others, it hid inside me. And it involved work and responsibility. When I was not looking for it, it revealed itself in others. And it was totally effortless. How it manifests, and where--it defies both description and my efforts at control.
In any case, most egos are little shits. Getting any particular ego to do constructive work is a dance, and my feet are coordination-poor. All of the theological rules end up getting broken when dealing with the psychological demands of surrender and rebirth. Hitting bottom is easy only for those whose face has never hit concrete because they found the bottom of a bottle first. Suffice to say, surrender earns one zero gold stars, and it only happens once trying has become too much of a trial. The reward is relief--which is no small potatoes--though relief is under no obligation to be exciting.
To be clear: the "I" that I'm working with--I'm learning that it's more elastic than I once thought. There's more room to part with my defensive mental default mode than I'd anticipated. There's more room to balance my nervous system. But my mental pathways are ingrained enough that doing so takes substantial hustle. I had to learn about Kundalini Yoga, and apply it. In other words, I had to mind my own energies. I had to learn about Pranayam, and apply it. Anxiety had literally changed my ability to breathe, and I had to make a decision to turn that around. I had to learn about reframing, and make peace with all of the continuous-play mental-messages my family of origin left me with.
It's difficult, because however true it is that we'll need to forsake ego in the end, there are lessons to be learned in the meantime. However loud my sanctimonious cries of "how long, O Lord--" maybe God hasn't permitted me to shed my selfishness because I've thus far refused to learn its lessons. Maybe the work of "accepting the things I can't change" is more ongoing than I anticipated. And maybe getting comfy with spirituality's limits is more important work than mining its depths for insight.
Thea Bowman, that powerhouse of an African American nun who died of cancer in 1990, said "I've always asked God for the grace to live until I die." Ram Dass put it just as simply. Referring to life as a school, he said "take the curriculum!" My willingness has never been that enduring, nor my words that concise. Being a student of wisdom, if it allows me words at all, certainly proves me much less eloquent. But further denial is fruitless. I am here. And if I am here, then I'll work with willingness till I'm open, and here to learn.
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