An All-Embracing Perfection (2)

The idea and desire of perfection has been on my mind a lot recently.  This is what I wrote a few years ago about the plague of perfectionism.  This seems, on the surface, to be a noble goal but can lead to many wrong turns and dead ends in life.  It is a candidate for something to give up in Lent. 

Yesterday afternoon I found a copy of a few pages from a book.  I don’t remember making the copies and it doesn’t identify who the author is or the title of the book, so it is a bit of a mystery at this point.  The title of the chapter the pages are taken from is, Jung on the Life of Christ. 

 The author draws on Carl Jung from his work, Psychology and Religion.  The subject of the chapter is addressing our need for perfection.  He addresses the inevitability and value of error:

 

We all must do what Christ did.  We must make our experiment.  We must make mistakes.  We must live our lives out of our own vision of life.  And there will be error. If you avoid error, you do not live; in a sense even, it may be said that every life is a mistake, for no one has found the truth.  When we live this, we know Christ as a brother, and God indeed becomes man. This sounds like a terrible blasphemy, but not so.  For then we can understand Christ as he would want to be understood, as a fellow man; then only does God become man in ourselves. 

 The theological issue of whether Jesus was perfect man in the sense of being without sin, is one which some part ways with Carl Jung.  I believe there may have been times in the Gospel records that indicate that he was close to being in that state.  Perhaps the best example is the record of his despair on the cross.  However, I don’t want to get into that debate today.  The issue that caught my interest is the need that we have for perfection.  As Jung notes, the only way to avoid error is to not live life i.e. live life in a cocoon.  That itself is an error so we cannot win that game either way.

 We inevitably fall into error.  As we state in our baptismal covenant that we will sin; it is part of the human condition.  It is what we do when that happens is the journey that Jesus calls us to travel.  If we are to acknowledge to others and especially ourselves, that we are in error, we can know Christ as a brother as Jung states.  Indeed, we will know that Christ does know this about us as he is fully human as well as fully divine.  To acknowledge that we are not perfect is difficult to accept as it is a defeat for our egos; our egos do not like to admit that.

One of the challenges for Christians is to deal with imperfection.  The teaching of the church has been that we should be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect.  A few years ago, I found a small book in a bookstore, or I should say, it found me. It is entitled A Prayer for the Cosmos by Neil Douglas-Klotz.  This little gem is a translation from Aramaic sources of The Lord’s Prayer and other sayings of Jesus. One of the passages that the book addresses is from the Gospel of Matthew chapter 5 verse 48, that is traditionally translated, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” However, the translation by this author reads, “Be all-embracing, as your heavenly Father is all-embracing.” I felt my discovery of this book and this passage to be a physical gift from the Divine.

To be honest I do not like to acknowledge that I am wrong.  It is easier to acknowledge my mistakes about things that don’t truly matter to me.  However, for these things which are near and dear to my heart―the things I believe define me―I find it a true challenge to face that part of myself. 

However, I believe that is what we are called to do as Christians.  To be as honest with ourselves is the most important part of carrying our cross.  It has been and continues to be a struggle.  When I am honest, I know that I am not perfect in the important things or even the unimportant ones.  However, I know that I can strive to be all-embracing.  Of course, I won’t be perfect in that either. 

 Blessings on your journey and remember it’s okay to run into obstacles and wrong turns along the way.

Souls Lost and Found

I have been rereading Soul Making by Alan Jones and finding it to be good for my soul.  I decided that I would write about the soul for this edition following up on one that I wrote about a year ago.  Seemed to be the right thing to do when I received a Daily Meditation for Richard Rohr which spoke about the soul:

The heart of Rumi’s teaching lies in the Sufi concept of tawhid (or “oneness”). This is a longing for mystical union with the Beloved, with the divine lover from whom one has been separated. In the opening lines of his most famous work, the Masnavi (his “flute songs”), Rumi portrays the soul as a reed cut from the damp reed-bed of God’s own heart. It yearns to return to its source, finding a transient joy in becoming a reed flute through which the divine breath of love’s fire passes. [1] Like a drunken fool, Rumi is smitten by love. He can think of nothing else.  The core of discernment for him, therefore, isn’t a question of “What should I do?” or “What is expected of me?” It is rather “What do I love? 

All was well and all manner of things were well, as Julien of Norwich might say, when I left the book on the Via train to Toronto on Thursday.  So, this seemed to turn into a case of a lost soul.  The question then was, what happens when you lose your soul?  Is that possible or is it just mis-placed?  Perhaps it is a case of a broken reed that needs mending, or a reed flute that is out of tune.   

Well, my plans for this changed again when I was driving to a near-by town of Nairn Sunday morning to be the guest preacher.  I left in what should have been lots of time only to find that the road was closed and there was a detour which took me to my destination by the long way around.  I did manage to make it to the church on time but I was a bit rattled.  The theme of detours seemed to fit well with my thoughts about the soul.  So, I am now wondering about the detours that lead us from the path we are intended to be on in the journey of soul making in our lives? 

I noted in my exploration of the soul a year ago that none of the books I have that deal with the soul, including Soul Making, actually have a definition of soul. I turned to a definition of soul in The Encyclopedia Britannica which defines soul thus:

soul, in religion and philosophy, the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being, that which confers individuality and humanity, often considered to be synonymous with the mind or the self. In theology, the soul is further defined as that part of the individual which partakes of divinity and often is considered to survive the death of the body.

Turning back to the idea of detours in the soul-journey Richard Rohr again addressed this in one of his Daily Meditations while I was away in Toronto:

Falling down and moving up is the most counter-intuitive message in most of the world’s religions, including Christianity. We grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right. That just might be the central message of how spiritual growth happens, yet nothing in us wants to believe it. I actually think it’s the only workable meaning of any remaining notion of “original sin.” There seems to have been a fly in the ointment from the beginning, but the key is recognizing and dealing with the fly rather than throwing out the whole ointment! (Richard Rohr)

It is my natural inclination to avoid detours in my life and unexpected things that throw me off my planned journey.  However, I have to acknowledge that the detours in life are a part of life and the falling down on that journey will lead to places, both physically and spiritually, that may be what I am intended to take.  If not that, at least what will open new possibilities and new awareness of where the spirit is calling me.   So, those detours and even dead ends can lead to unexpected places and in this case tow wrongs may make a right. 

May you be blessed by those detours on your journey and who knows where they may take you.

How Can I Keep from Singing

Music has always been a big part of my life and continues so today.  Yesterday, Lorna and I participated in a “Joyful Noise” service at our parish church of St. John the Evangelist in Strathroy, Ontario.  I can say it was both joyful and noisy in a good way.  Lorna and I are also embarking on a musical journey which will end on Good Friday at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, Ontario, with a performance of Faure’s Requiem.  This latter endeavor is turning out to be something of a challenge as neither of us are as familiar with the piece as we thought we were, having last been involved in a performance more than 25 years ago.  I know the music is buried in my memory somewhere but the excavation has not revealed much so far.  In any case, a bit of a musical challenge never hurts – even for someone of my advanced years.

With these current musical exploits, my thoughts have turned to the part that music can play in our lives.  Whenever I think of music in a religious setting i.e. church choirs and music in worship, I think of the quote by St. Augustine who is famous in choir circles for the quote, “He who sings prays twice.”  One comment I found on this quote suggested that “singing adds to our praise and worship of God—that our voices are gifts, with which we can make music to the Lord.” 

I certainly agree with that as music has been a gift in my life that may have waxed and waned at times but has never left me and I thank God for that gift in my life and for the joy it has brought to the world.  Writing this, I am reminded of a Twilight Zone episode where aliens landed on earth and things looked pretty grim for the human race as the aliens, with their vastly superior technology and weaponry, were deciding if there was any reason why humanity should be spared extinction.  Well, thank God, someone whistled a tune – perhaps whistling in the dark at the dark possibility that lay ahead.  This amazed the aliens who did not have music of any kind in their world.  Well, you can guess the rest - they were enthralled by the rich music that was available and on offering and humanity was saved. 

As with many of the episodes in that wonderful TV series, that edition caught the essence of being human.  Perhaps the lesson is that we need to keep making music to save our world.  I am sure music has saved many human beings literally and metaphorically.  It has certainly been my rock and salvation which has brought me joy and comfort frequently in my life.  I invite you to reflect on the part that music has played in your life.  Do you have a song that resonated with you deeply when you first heard it?  For me it was ‘How Can I Keep from Singing’ by Robert Lowry.  Do you have a song that is connected to a special event in your life? 

In any case, let's keep on singing and making the music of the spheres and may you be blessed with music on your journey. Now, back to relearning the baritone part of the Requiem.  

 

Spiritual Resilience

Have you ever wondered if prayers and/or other spiritual practices such as meditation or Centering Prayer, make any difference?  Those thoughts have sometimes snuck up on me when I am not looking.  They encourage me to be discouraged about those spiritual practices which I engage in.

I practice Centering Prayer regularly.  This can be best described as a form of meditation in which I empty myself and try to let go of intervening thoughts my ‘monkey brain’ produces to make room for an awareness of God in my existence.  I also pray daily to give thanks to God and to ask God for help for myself and others.  Help and thanks are two basic types of prayer as I wrote the last time.   However, sometimes I wonder if these spiritual practices make one iota of difference to anyone or anything or even to me.  Recently I attended the funeral of someone I have been praying to receive healing.  So, was there any point to praying those prayers.  That is just one example of many that can lead to doubts.

In the case of Centering Prayer, that doesn’t seem to be leading anywhere.  I still have thoughts flooding into my head at times – it doesn’t seem that I am making any “progress” at getting better at that practice.  And that is exactly what is wrong with this response.  It is not a question of making progress or getting anywhere as we often assess life.  We live our lives trying to make progress or get better at whatever, or working to accomplish goals.  If we don’t reach those goals or get to our appointed destination, we view it as a failure.  This is the way that our ego views our lives and the world.  However, that is not the point of a spiritual life.  God says somewhere, “my ways are not your ways.” (it actually Isaiah 55: 8 – thanks Google)   God does not expect or want us to be and become spiritual successes in that sense.   

However, there is a point – or probably many points to spiritual practice.  However, they are not the ones that the world usually uses to assess activities or undertakings.  One benefit (if we are judging the activity by benefits) is described by Brian McLaren.  He describes the radical trust and resilience that spiritual practices can offer in difficult times or apparent lack of ‘progress’:

We have to prepare ourselves to live good lives of defiant joy even in the midst of chaos and suffering. This can be done. It has been done by billions of our ancestors and neighbors. Their legacy teaches us to see each intensifying episode of turbulence as a labor pain from which a new creative opportunity can be born. Life will be tough; the only question is whether we will become tougher, wiser, and more resilient.… The communities that learn and teach … spiritual resilience will become vital resources for everyone. (We can hope that some Christian communities will take part in this work.) These individual and communal practices will help us dump bitterness, fear, disappointment, and toxicity and refuel with mercy, vision, anticipation, and equanimity. They will help us ignore what deserves to be ignored and monitor what needs to be monitored. They will help us reframe our narratives, so we can mourn, grieve, and lament … even as we imagine, celebrate, and labor for the birth of a better future.… To use familiar biblical language, we will need to walk by faith through the valley of the shadow of death [Psalm 23:4], always holding anticipative space for something beautiful to be born, especially during the most painful contractions.

Beyond that, or in addition to that, we can do what we can to open ourselves to the divine presence in our lives that is always present.  In doing so we can have faith that the results are in God’s hands and leave it there.  God’s ways may not be our ways but we can be assured that they are the way, the truth and the light. 

May we be blessed to be open to the divine presence in our lives on our journey.