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Lenten Series
Liminal Space Giving up control in lifes second half
By RICHARD ROHR
Love is a harsh and dreadful thing. --
Dorothy Day
I think we have all learned by the middle of life that people do
not change easily. We try to change others, we try to change ourselves, we try
to improve situations by better communication methods, various coercive means
and sincere prayer, but, dang it, most of us are just like we used to be. Only
the disguise and the denial get better. It seems we dont meet that many
transformed people. What a disappointment.
My hope, as I get older, is that I hurt people a little less. My
hope is that I can at least see what I am doing a little better -- and more
easily apologize for my mistakes. My hope is that I can accept people and
situations as they really are. In these ways I have changed. But I must
painfully admit that I am in most ways the same person that I was as a
17-year-old-boy. The same underlying patterns of arrogance, denial, deceit,
rash judgment, lust and laziness are still with me. Now I just know how to
describe them better for NCR articles. All of my years of education, all
of my Franciscan training, all of my attempts at prayer, all of my wonderful
loves and my terrible mistakes -- you would think I would be different by now.
The truth is that I am radically different. The truth is that I am not
different at all. And both of those are true at the same time.
In my attempt to explain this ultimate paradox (and it is), let me
start by saying that I do not think all the expert communication skills in the
world, all the explanations of very helpful psychology, will ever make us
completely loving or lovable people. One speaker said recently, to my initial
shock, that if we actually communicated better we would probably love one
another less. We would know the mixed motives, the critical and judgmental
thoughts that are floating through one anothers minds, and would never be
able to fully trust or entrust ourselves to anybody. Instant mental telepathy
would be destructive of human relationships. What if there were a neon sign on
your head broadcasting what you are actually thinking moment by moment? Most
relationships would not even get off the ground. Thus Jesus, the consummate
realist, does not really teach communication skills, although I am all for them
myself. He just counsels a kind of larger trusting, a winning patience, a
brutal honesty, a radical letting go of expectations that finally gets called
love. Better communication will aid us. Love alone will save
us.
The great transformation that has gradually taken place in me --
almost entirely beyond my own efforts -- is that my Great Self has changed --
at least in my awareness of it. I live no longer not I, as Paul
would say (Galatians 2:20). The who is now different, which changes
absolutely everything at the deepest level. The what and the why and the how,
my personality as it were, are still a lot the same.
I still prefer to do things that I am competent at, I still do
things for at least partial self-interest, I still do things with the same
inner energy of an enneagram One. The only difference is that I have another
center of gravity now. You might say that I am still trapped in personality,
but utterly freed by essence.
Seeing it for what its
worth
Now I do not need to justify myself so much, or hate myself so
much, or compliment myself too much. I just see it and then see it for what it
is worth, which is not very much. Nothing worth defending or worth attacking.
Just another instance of ubiquitous humanity, worthy of pity and compassion
more than judgment or inflation. It allows me to say to others, come on
in. It allows me to say to myself, come on out. I have
learned to participate in something bigger, someone greater. I believe that all
authentic religion is an issue of radical participation. Participation in
another and larger life than my own. A life that can bear both the burden of
sin and the weight of glory at the same time. Little Richard can do neither of
these without self-destructing.
I use the word participation in contrast to ideas like
taking control, becoming religious, being
moral, practicing devotions and virtue, or joining a status group. All
these are ways of getting the what, the how, the why right. Nice things
actually. But the who is not necessarily touched at all. These are the
questions of the rich young man of the gospels. Thus Jesus does not really
answer the rich young man. He just tells him to leave it all.
This one issue is so crucial that it takes Paul all of Galatians
and Romans and central parts of Philippians to address it, but often his style
is so complex, his emotion so strong, that we still have been able to miss his
point. For Paul, the greatest danger to being en Cristo is
ironically a self-sufficient life of dedication and observance. His word for
this is, of course, the Law. A highly moral life allows you to get
the what down, get the how down, and even the why. I am doing it all for
God! one says. It makes you feel strong, good, identified, with
boundaries, clear headed, even a bit superior. It really works. There is only
one problem. It is pagan and Promethean and has almost nothing to do with the
mystery of vulnerability that was revealed in the crucified Jesus. This is
Gods great secret revealed in one powerless life called Christ. And only
the powerless understand.
Mere virtue demands self-control, but not participation. The who
is still little ol me. Moral observance by itself inflates the ego,
whereas participation in someone elses life always deflates the ego. This
is why pious religion is so much more popular than genuine spiritual journey.
This is why religious practice is so utterly dangerous. No wonder that Paul
speaks with absolute authority and even rage: Are you people in Galatia
mad? Has someone put a spell on you, in spite of the plain explanation I gave
you about Jesus crucified?
Are you foolish enough to end in outward
observances what you began in the Spirit? Have all the graces you have received
been wasted? (Galatians 3:1-3).
Religions two functions
Because many of us have unfortunately given up on Pauls
theological language, lets instead read from a contemporary teacher,
second to none, who can say the same thing in our own idiom. I will quote Ken
Wilber at length from his recently published journal, First Taste:
Religion has always performed two very important but very
different functions. One, it acts as a way of creating meaning for the separate
self: It offers myths and stories and rituals and revivals that, taken
together, help the separate self make sense of, and endure the slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune. This function of religion does not usually or
necessarily change the level of consciousness in a person; it does not of
itself deliver radical transformation. ... It consoles the self, fortifies the
self, defends the self, and promotes the self. ... [Which is a necessary and
good starting point, I might add!]
But religion has also served -- in a usually very, very small
minority -- the function of radical transformation and liberation. This
function of religion does not fortify the separate self, but utterly shatters
it.
Ironically, in my experience, too much of the first function
actually keeps you from the natural life movement to the second. This is the
rub. Or, as Jesus metaphorically put it, Unless the grain of wheat dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat (John 12:24). There might be nothing
worse than just being a nice little observant Catholic grain of wheat. It could
keep you from becoming the bread of Christ.
Suffering does the job
In my experience, the rules for the first and second halves of
life are utterly different. The church largely teaches the rules for the first
half of life, and actually does it rather well. Like St. Peter himself, the
church is afraid of the second half of life agenda. Being led where we
would rather not go (John 21:18).
Such transformation hardly ever takes place because we freely
march into it. We are normally taken to the place that last week I called
liminal space, a place where we are out of place -- the
place where all real transformation happens. In my experience, only some kind
of suffering is sufficient to destabilize the human ego in its endless attempts
at control. I just dont find that anything else does the job. I wish I
could, and believe me I have tried, but it is all cosmetic, Christian and New
Age sound and fury, signifying nothing. At least nothing that
lasts.
Now before you turn me off as a masochist or crypto-Jansenist, let
me define suffering very simply. Suffering is simply whenever you are not in
control. Not being in control is the unique character of liminal space. The
only way God can take control of your life is when you are somehow not in
control. It is really that simple. Even Wilber, more Buddhist than Christian,
says that the process of transformation largely depends on your learned
capacity to suffer. Finally, I am learning to understand, and sometimes
accept, the mystery of the cross in an honest and utterly realistic way.
So dont run too fast from such suffering. But dont try
to artificially manufacture it either. Just practice not being in control in
little Lenten ways. When the big opportunities for letting go are offered, and
have no doubt they will be, you will be practiced and ready to let God do the
really great work. In the West we have called this transformation process
salvation; the Jews might have called it passing over,
the Buddhists perhaps enlightenment, we Franciscans call it
poverty, but the Eastern church has most daringly and perhaps most
truthfully called it divinization.
Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr, popular speaker and author, is
founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, Albuquerque, N.M. This is
the second in a series.
National Catholic Reporter, February 8,
2002
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