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Good
Religion, Spirituality, and African Americans
by Harold Dean Trulear, professor of church and society
at New York Theological Seminary and associate pastor, Community Baptist Church, Paterson,
N.J.
Much of the scholarly and popular attention given to African-American religion in
general and to the black-church tradition in particular falls into two categories. First,
there is an ever-growing body of literature that focuses on black religious movements and
social protest, rehearsals and analyses of the role of religion in the struggle for racial
justice, civil rights and human dignity in American society. Connections are made, and
rightly so, between the religion of enslaved African Americans and resistance to the
institution of slavery, the black independent church of the nineteenth century and the
genesis of Black Nationalism, the moral power of the black-church tradition and the civil
rights movement, and the communal ethics of black religion and economic development.
Second, there is increased attention given to the worship tradition of African Americans,
so far as it reflects the more dramatic and emotive styles of its free-church traditions,
and more recently, in keeping with perceived continuity with and retrievals of an African
spiritual heritage. In this vein, scholars, journalists, and other interested souls
provide a window to the world through which to view the dynamics of spirituals and gospel
music, the fervor and depth of the preaching event, and the drama and intensity of
corporate praise and prayer.
In both cases, certain concepts of spirituality emerge. In the former, spirituality comes
to mean the clear appeal to a religio-social value system that contextualizes all claims
to justice. The inherent critique of racial conventions takes on prophetic dimensions as
religious moral norms become the background against which society is judged. In the
latter, spirituality is found in the freedom of a demonstrative worship style that serves
as a rehearsal of eschatological identity. The church context provides this freedom not
solely for cathartic purposes, but in demonstration of the reality that there is a place
and space of freedom where persons may celebrate their God-given dignity and worth, values
not necessarily ascribed to persons of color in a world dominated by the cultural hegemony
of the majority.
At the same time, both concepts are susceptible, and may even lend themselves, to
distortions or excesses which point to a degeneration of tradition that one might call
"bad religion." Such terminology is not foreign to the ears of a tradition that
lays claim to the African-American spiritual, "Have You Got Good Religion?" Such
a question implies norms and standards by which religious faith and its expressions may be
judged, evaluated, and critiqued - perhaps even rejected. Good religion and its attendant
spirituality are therefore discernible and/or recognizable - to be sought and desired.
In the spiritual, the text contains two signal criteria for good religion. The first,
conversion, reflects the community's understanding that persons must embrace an
alternative worldview in order to have good religion. There is a need for a new way of
looking at self and the world. The lines "Have you been baptized? Certainly,
Lord," point to the necessity of metanoia, a change in thinking that enables one to
revisualize life under the auspices, care, and, even, superintendency of God. Conversion
involves a shift in consciousness that helps persons to see and consciously experience the
presence and activity of God in the world.
The second criterion, an ethic of altruism and commitment, ushers forth in the lines,
"Do you love everybody? Certainly, Lord." It signals the reality that good
religion is interpersonal. Good religion can be discerned in the treatment human beings
give one another. Good religion extends this love beyond the boundaries set by social
convention; the question is, "do you love everybody?"
Both criteria point to the common element of transcendence in religious experience.
Indeed, it is argued here that transcendence, the God-given human capacity to imagine
beyond the self and its own desires and interests, is the essential stuff of spirituality
in general and historic African-American spirituality in particular. The spirituality of
African-American religion, whether viewed through the lens of social protest or divine
worship, is most prone to degeneration and distortion when the forces of human predicament
and social reality work against and threaten to obfuscate the human capacity for
self-transcendence.
Without transcendence, social protest can degenerate into base group self-interest. Calls
for "inclusion" replace cries for "transformation." Groups lose sight
of the moral ground offering context and mandate for social transformation, and come to
see the goals of protest as ends in themselves, valued now primarily for their benefit to
the protestors.
This is not to suggest that self-interest is plainly immoral; rather it is to question
whether a truly transcendent ethical response to social evil can end with the
inclusion\integration of the protesting group without that group's looking toward forms of
inclusion for others. A sense of transcendence enables a people to use their own
experience of oppression as a window to the ontic existence of oppression, thereby
creating solidarity with others who are oppressed. As such, an "out-group" that
has an authentic spirituality will work for justice for other peoples as well.
Without transcendence, the drama of the rehearsal of eschatalogical identity is vulgarized
into emotional catharsis that may feel good but does not produce meaningful life. If
worship is the rehearsal of eschatalogical identity, it is also the celebration of the
author of the eschaton, the One Whose presence is the guarantee of new life, as well as
the ground of prophetic critique of the old. The consuming pursuit of relevance in
religion often unwittingly combines with the growing alienation and isolation of
contemporary culture to inhibit our ability to see "beyond" and thereby reduce
religious ecstasy to simple emotion.
The emotion of the moment becomes the experience to be pursued, rather than the
Transcendent Source of true ecstasy. Black religious thinkers as disparate as philosopher
Cornel West and Pentecostal Bishop T. D. Jakes lament the cultural erosion of
transcendence. West links the loss of transcendence to the loss of relationality. In an
essay on popular music, he points out that "the roots of the Afro-American
spiritual-blues impulse are based on the supposition that somebody - God, Mom, or
neighbors - cares." The loss of the sense that there is someone who cares, of quality
relationships between God and humanity, leads to a lack of hope, and participation in
rituals that "parody transcendence itself."(1)
Relatedly, in a recent sermon, Jakes declared, "If all God does in a worship service
is make you feel good, then he's nothing but a pusher." Jakes went on to draw
parallels between the experience of true religious ecstasy and transcendence on the one
hand, and the futility of narcotic efforts at transcendence, whether they be
substance-induced or religiously invoked. It is a false transcendence that excites the
senses, but fails to bring worshipers into the world of conversion.
Good religion, then, in the historic African-American context, consists of a spirituality
that is grounded in transcendence. It involves a conversion to a worldview where God is
the central reality. It calls forth relationships of love and justice. It reflects the
communal dimension of faith rehearsed in the spiritual as the words are sung in call and
response between leader and people. "Have you got good religion? Certainly,
Lord."
1. Cornell West, Prophetic Fragments (Grand Rapids,
Mich.: Eerdmans, year), 187.
2. T. D. Jakes "Going From Oil to Light," sermon preached at the consecration of
Bishop Donald Hillard Jr., Ocean Grove, N.J., November 1995.
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Spirituality for
Passionate and Rapidly Changing Times
by Carolyn M. Craft, an Episcopal priest and professor
in the department of English, philosophy, and modern languages at Longwood College,
Farmville, Virginia.
Although I am often emotionally expressive, I like myself best when I am calmly engaged
but not ego-invested, and when I am aware of interconnections, rather than of differences,
between myself and others. Yet the particulars of my life, including some recent hurts,
lead me often to focus on difference even as God calms and calls me to empathy and
compassion for others, to acceptance and discerning courage which both speaks out and is
silent. Often, too, I see passionate intensity which scares me, in the world, in our
nation, in the Christian church, and in my own church - the Episcopal Church. Spirituality
is about counting blessings, about goodness, about life, but often the opposites of pain,
evil, and death lead to deeper spirituality - to a bridge between God and self - or so
they have for me.
I have been blessed, tremendously blessed, with family, friends, department colleagues;
with opportunities for intellectual, psychological, and spiritual exploration; and with an
abiding sense of God's presence and love - which sometimes disappears in order to make me
more aware of its presence. Nevertheless, I have also suffered from sexism and racism, as
well as from marginalization in my second part-time profession. In none of this am I
unique: many, even most, women have suffered from the sexism of our educational systems,
our employment opportunities, and our churches. Among my blessings is an increasing
awareness of these types of discrimination, which are pervasive yet seldom noticed; but
that awareness also brings pain. In addition, out of concern for others, there are deep
feelings I cannot share. Some involve the marginalization which women and part-time
professionals often suffer; this awakens my deeper concern for our society as it shifts to
more part-time professionals: will the next generations readily undergo intensive study
and preparation if employment is uncertain?
I am frightened that revealing my hurts will reveal the insensitivity of others,
frightened of seeming to claim greater closeness to God than I have, and afraid to reveal
the sense of intimacy with God which comes at times. I'm painfully aware of the passionate
intensity of some who are, at least in my perception, passionately wrong, and I'm aware of
my own need to disengage and examine, to be quiet and to listen. So I write with an
engagement which may be hidden beneath the explanation I must give. Christian history and
the lives of great as well as lesser Christians are full of misunderstanding, of being
ignored, of being misunderstood: how can I expect to be exempt? The spiritual life schools
us in getting what we don't deserve - the grace, goodness, salvation, and love of God
which are always more than we deserve - and also in getting not precisely what we deserve
when others' failures of empathy intervene.
Three identities shape my life. As a woman I grow increasingly mindful of gender issues in
my personal and professional lives, in my local community, and in the world. As a college
professor (thirty-one years of teaching English and twenty-one of also teaching religion,
especially world religions), I guide intellectual inquiry which is supposed to be both
committed and yet dispassionately directed wherever truth leads. As a priest (twelve
years, almost eight of those as Priest-in-Charge or Vicar of two Episcopal churches, an
experience enriched by the fact that I am Caucasian and my parishioners were
African-American), I experience the tensions of otherness, whether defined by religion, by
race, or by gender, and the responses of inclusion and exclusion which sharpen my
awareness of God as Other who relates not only by creation but also through incarnation
and inspiration.
My identities as woman, professor, and priest articulate my sense of call: to nurture and
to care for; to teach and to facilitate others' self-discovery; to be a sacramental person
who leads them to discover their own sacramentality; and often to the service of standing
and waiting, of preparing the way for other women. There are other identities too:
daughter, sister, aunt, friend, and citizen - national and global.
Christian Sacraments - holy cleansing (Baptism), holy eating (Eucharist), holy
ratification of God's indwelling given in Baptism (Confirmation), holy reconciling
(Reconciliation), holy blessing (Anointing the Sick), holy uniting (Matrimony), and holy
ordering (Ordination) - are particulars which point to universals. Consecrated bread and
wine lead us to discover the ultimate holiness of all eating, the life-from-death and
growth-from-destruction reality of food. Through the same bread and wine, we discern the
Body of Christ as Sacrament and as Christian community through which individuals are
remade in the divine image and likeness. We as particulars become pointers to the truly
universal - to God whose image we bear. This sacramental richness points to my
understanding of spirituality, my own and others': it is the tug toward less of self and
more of all - more connectedness with others, more letting my own struggles point to those
of others, more attachment to God. How to realize these in my own life? An impossible
task, except that God values the effort and uses the very small to bring forth something
greater in the blessed community God is birthing.
Spirituality involves "hints and guesses" (in the words of T. S. Eliot)
reverently received with passion and detachment, with commitment but without grasping -
received as gift and shared with others, so that each of us, brought into relationship
with the ultimate Giver, becomes both giver and gift to others. It is the passion of
silent awe before the immense graciousness of God.
Spirituality challenges us to a pervasive wholeness within life, a balancing of various
polarities or a tension of opposites. Maturity or the second half of life, according to
Carl Jung, should be characterized by development of the fourth or hitherto least-used
function, whether it be thinking, feeling, sensation, or intuition. This form of
maturation has been and continues to be part of my own quest through psychoanalysis, other
therapies, the Alexander technique, and the Enneagram. I hope to expand my compassion and
be expanded by my pursuit of ethnic studies, feminist and womanist studies, and studies of
cultural and religious diversity - and to incorporate them in teaching and preaching. As
our planet becomes, through communication, technology, and increasing interdependence,
even more of a global village, both Christians and non-Christians are called to a
spirituality that embodies interdependence and diversity, inclusiveness and difference,
individual and community. Spiritually, as well as intellectually, I have learned not only
from Christian teachers but also from Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, and Muslim teachers, as
well as from agnostic spiritual seekers.
Spirituality at its best leads to an appropriate valuing of oneself - to self-confidence,
self-respect, and humility kept in creative tension. It leads as well to community with
the other - with family, friends, neighbors, other Christians, and ultimately to
increasing community with all people, with nature and the cosmos, and with the true Other,
God. Self-confidence rooted in God and in the development of one's own call and abilities
provides courage on the path toward deeper identification with others - or so it does for
me. It facilitates more engagement and spontaneity in preaching and teaching, and it
enables me to risk letting my self flow into others, my identity expand to contain and be
contained by other people - even other sentient beings, Earth itself, and God. Orthodox
Christian doctrines incorporate this vision of God who is One-yet-Three and who wants to
share intimately in our lives, not only through creation, redemption, and sanctification,
but also through living a fully human life and uniting us to God's very self; creation in
the divine image, redemption through Jesus Christ, and the inspiration and indwelling of
the Holy Spirit prepare us for this destiny. These dogmas, reflected on passionately,
profoundly, and silently, propel us toward Being and beings.
Jesus Christ, our lord and companion, is the Christian's exemplar of opposites reconciled,
of identity in difference, accomplished through the hypostatic union of two natures, fully
human, fully divine, and through a single human life lived radically for others - for all
others. We who have "put on Christ" in Baptism are similarly called to contain
contradictions until they are resolved in God.
Much of the language and many of the themes of Christian spirituality - at least as I see
it - come from tradition and are enriched by traditional associations; much of the way I
view the human condition comes from awareness of the rapid pace of change in daily life,
and in human culture and from contemporary analytic modes. Challenges to Christianity from
the disciplines of science and history, as well as from other religious traditions,
increase the need for radical trust, for willingness to be led by rapidly multiplying
human knowledge and by God into the wilderness of unknowing, not-knowing, and discovering
what I might prefer to avoid: truths that emerge from probing the unconscious mind and
from studies of the brain, truths about the limitations and contradictions of human
knowledge, and truths about the God of mystery who reveals and yet conceals, who is both
revealed and hidden. For me, often the passionate pursuit of knowledge which is my
intellectual bent and my professional calling as a professor, and the passionate pursuit
of belief and faith which is my emotional bent and my professional calling as a priest,
must be held together by the trust that somehow God is in both and also elsewhere in the
unknowing of spirit - a call that as I grow older articulates more loudly in my being.
Our age calls for deeper appreciation of the interpenetration of sacred and secular, body
and spirit, brain and mind; it demands reverence and respect for that which is beyond all
distinctions in ourselves and in God and summons us to mystical union with others and with
God as ultimate other. Meister Eckhart spoke about a seed of a pear tree growing into a
pear tree and a seed of God growing into God. This is an image of the spiritual path all
of us - consciously, unconsciously, and in diverse ways - pursue through God's gracious
Spirit. Spirituality is reverent awareness, an awareness which issues in gratitude, in
availability to others and to God. This compassionate awareness must, of course, issue in
deeds of compassion. For me, counselling students and pastoral ministry are important ways
in which I try to put thought into action and worship into relationship. In such
self-giving, we receive and are blessed, by God and by other persons, as we become blesser
and blessing.
Life itself, and Christian life even more intensely, is a journey into the unknown which
is yet well-known, into God who is Other, yet one of us, and within us. Many opposites are
to be held together in tension; the ultimate opposites, God and self, are to be bridged in
that union with God to which we are called and for which we are created, redeemed, and
sanctified. Although people have more control over the environment than ever before, our
increasing knowledge leads us into greater uncertainty and demands ever more radical trust
of God who, in Gregory of Nyssa's phrase, leads us "from glory into glory" and
from mystery into mystery. The Holy Spirit in our midst leads us forward. With our Muslim
sisters and brothers we know, in a deliberately incomplete comparative expressing God's
incomparablility, "God is greater." With our Jewish brothers and sisters, we
know God uses wilderness as liberation and preparation. With other spiritually committed
persons, we respond to common environmental, economic, social, scientific, and political
challenges to the human family. This transformation is not our doing, though we may choose
to cooperate with the dark and hidden process which is passionately alive within us. All
this I believe with calm but passionate sureness. We are called to risk, to exploration,
to becoming increasingly co-creators with God; we are given identity without boundary as
grace expands us. Here Christians are; here human persons are; here I am by the grace of
God.
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Spirituality in a
World of "Fields within Fields within Fields ..."
By Eugene Fontinell, professor emeritus of philosophy
of Queens College, CUNY, and the author of Toward a Reconstruction of Religion
(Doubleday, 1971) and Self, God, and Immortality
(Temple University Press, 1986).
How delightful it is to be invited to express my view of "spirituality" in
one thousand words. I am thereby commissioned to practice one of my specialties - making
outrageous overgeneralizations and oversimplifications and blaming the editors (May the
Holy Light shine upon them!) for denying me the space to make the distinctions,
refinements, and qualifications which are called for.
One of the striking ironies of the present age is that there has been/is arising a
phenomenal resurgence of materialism while at the same time a variety and diversity of
spirituality claims are proliferating. What is startling about the emergent materialisms
is that they are not coming from physics, which earlier in the century dealt what appeared
to many to be a death-blow to classical materialism. Rather, they are emerging from the
biological and cognitive sciences. As regards the latter, strong A-I proponents
are secure in their faith that we will in the "near" futures see computers arise
"who" can not only calculate but also feel. When that happens, as one of the
leading believers has recently noted, they will be just as deserving of "rights"
as old-fashioned humans are.
In the biological sciences, the genetic codes are someday to be not only enumerated but
also "cracked." Already there has surfaced the hypothesis which attributes
happiness to the presence or absence of a particular gene. Can the discovery/creation of
faith, hope, and love genes be far off? If and when such an age of gene-creation arrives,
those still talking about spirituality will have a standing equivalent to that of the Flat
Earth Society. In the meantime (now), we are witnessing a veritable flood of spirituality
claims from a variety of sources - from Eastern, Western, African, indigenous peoples,
among many others. And such spirituality proponents are to be found among some of the most
respected intellectual figures of the day.
Although there have been a few significant efforts to reconcile the scientific and
nonscientific perspectives and claims, the more dominant tendency is simply to juxtapose
them. We are in danger of relapsing into a mode of ontological dualism, into that
"partitioning of territories" lamented by John Dewey at the outset of the
century, in which "facts" are the domain and responsibility of the sciences and
"values" that of philosophy and religion. How are we to avoid this dualistic
abyss? My ploy, aided and abetted by thefts from a variety of sources but principally from
a mode of Jamesian\Deweyan pragmatism, is to jettison the worlds of both
"matter" (body) and "spirit" (soul) in favor of an ever-moving
constellation of distinct, interrelated, and overlapping "fields" of energy or
activity. In this framework, both materiality and spirituality are metaphysical metaphors
constructed for the purpose of orienting us within this "blooming, buzzing
confusion" which we refer to as the world or reality.
Having put my key metaphysical presupposition on the table, let me pose the bottom-line
pragmatic question: What boots it? What difference does it existentially make whether we
speak in terms of a world of continuous, interrelated, overlapping, interdependent,
transacting fields, or one in which we have ontologically different worlds of matter and
spirit, mysteriously joined? Of course, the most obvious difference is that my
presupposition dissolves (not solves) a problem that has bedeviled Western thinkers to
some extent from its earliest moments, but most acutely since the modern scientific
revolution and Descartes's radicalization of the mind\soul\body split. Due to
space limitations, I will be forgiven if I do not attempt a detailed description of the
variety and diversity of responses to this problem. Most of us, however, are aware, at
least at an impressionistic level, of what some of the most significant responses have
been. In the philosophical realm, both idealism and materialism claim solution by
dissolution - idealism gets rid of matter and materialism gets rid of spirit. In the religious\moral
realm, until quite recently, the two worlds were presupposed and the ultimate problem\task
was how to get out of one - the lower, material world - and into the other - the higher,
spiritual world. Evoking a moral-arena metaphor, the task was to live with the body and
material goods insofar as this was necessary but continually to struggle to keep our focus
upon the higher, spiritual world and the values associated with it. Needless to say, this
perspective gave rise to numerous articulations. In the world influenced by Christianity,
at least, they ranged from seeing the material world as evil, as the source of all
temptations, continuously to be opposed and struggled against, to viewing the body and the
material world as morally indifferent realities to be used by the soul for its spiritual
enhancement. The former view has, of course, been the dominant if not the exclusive view
until quite recently. There has been/is emerging, both from within and outside traditional
religious communities, numerous efforts to overcome the isolating and de-energizing
effects of hierarchical dualism, while not accepting the reductive materialisms which are
also taking on new life.
One of the most significant new perspectives, attracting both those within and outside
formal religious communities, is that which has been designated "ecotheology."
Let me simply - oversimply - state what I consider the minimal requirements for any
ecotheology that merits consideration and development. Negatively, it must not become
mired in the problems, touched upon above, which accompany metaphysical or ontological
dualism. Further, it must not lose a dimension of significant distinctness and difference
between those modes of activity metaphorically designated "material" and
"spiritual." Finally, it must not so identify the divine and the earth\universe
that it eventuates in or is indistinguishable from an unrefined, sentimental pantheism.
Positively, it must affirm a significant mode of continuity between the human, earthly,
and divine fields of activity. This continuity must make possible, indeed make necessary,
creative transactions not only between similar centers of activity but between diverse
centers, narrower and wider. More specifically, human centers of activity must have
possible consequences not only for human and earthly activities but perhaps also for
divine activities. Only in some such way, I would suggest, can those who locate their mode
of spirituality within a religious context and community avoid the charge independently
made by both Nietzsche and Dewey that religion is de-energizing in that it distracts
humans from the concrete, creative tasks which are related to the enrichment and
development not only of the human community but indeed of the world - and perhaps, I would
add, even of God.
My conditions for a viable ecotheology are the same as those for any viable philosophy of
spirituality - indeed for any morality or religion. My fundamental metaphysical
presupposition for any and all of these has already been touched upon: that what we refer
to as the world or reality is best and most fruitfully described as "an ever-moving
constellation of distinct, interrelated, and overlapping 'fields' of energy or
activity." A crucial character of this world, as indicated, is
"continuity," a continuity which allows for and indeed brings forth a rich and
diverse plurality, incorporating a significant but nonisolating distinctness among all
fields of activity while avoiding any smothering "identity" or individual
person-obliterating "absorption."
Given such a world, it must be asked whether spirituality is any longer a useful category,
even understood as a symbol or metaphor? Does it not carry too much negative baggage - its
abstractness, its contrast with the "active" life, its association with ghosts,
spirits, magic, bizarre claims? All the baggage, of course, is not negative, for it is
also used to designate dimensions of depth and vital enrichment in acts and works of art
as well as in a multiplicity of individual and communal activities ranging from the love
of others to heroic acts of self-sacrifice, whether expressed in religious or moral terms.
In any event, as Tillich noted years ago, we can neither will into nor out of existence
significant human symbols. Symbols\metaphors, however, may die but the richer
ones neither die nor remain static. Instead, they are reconstructed and this, I suggest,
is what is happening and hopefully will continue to happen with spirituality; not because
as a term or a metaphor it is particularly important, but rather because, however
haltingly and inadequately, it has served to keep humans open to and aware of dimensions
of reality and modes of life that, though elusive, have energized humans both individually
and communally, thereby avoiding the ever-present threat of vital impoverishment. It is
such a threat that James suggests cannot be met by materialism, which, he contends,
"will always fail of universal adoption, however well it may fuse things into an
atomistic unity, however clearly it may prophesy the future eternity. For materialism
denies reality to the objects of almost all the impulses which we most cherish" The
Will to Believe [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979, f.p. 1897], 71).
In conclusion, let me simply state that with the particular reconstruction I am
suggesting, one is more comfortable speaking in terms of spiritual life or spiritual
experience. These terms, I believe, keep the focus more on the concrete. Even here,
however, the pragmatist might not consider the term "spiritual" indispensable.
What is indispensable are those fruits which emerge from both individual and communal
human activities. Do they enrich us, deepen us, open us to new possibilities, and offer
the hope of fulfilling our most profound yearnings? Do they extend and enrich our sense
and experience of that "more" which James insists characterizes all levels of
human experience. It is when humans are confronted with that widest and most encompassing
"more" that they are led to invoke such terms as "spirit" and
"spiritual." It is also here that humans have been and will likely continue to
be divided on the character of this "more," that widest reality and mode(s) of
activity within which we live and move and have our being-becoming. Hence, this
"more" has been diversely expressed as a personal God, a collectivity of gods or
spirits, nature, Gaia, the universe, Being, or Non-Being.
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Exodus: My Spiritual
Map
by Carol Ochs who teaches at Hebrew Union College--Jewish Institute of
Religion in New York City. She is currently preparing a new edition of her book Women
and Spirituality for Rowman and Littlefield Press.
The Bible tells a story with a beginning, a middle, and a projected end. But that story is
not where we start from, but what we arrive at. We cannot begin by claiming a story - it
is a discovery along the way. At some point, living the spiritual life, we rule out chance
and randomness and affirm a plot that preceded our consciousness:
My form was not concealed from You
when I was shaped in a hidden place,
knit together in the recesses of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed limbs,
they were all recorded in Your book;
in due time they were formed
to the very last one of them. (Ps.139:15)
I take that to mean that determinism is not a doctrine, it is a discovery. We discover
there is a book, a story of which we're a part. We consent to be a part. This happens for
us as a people - Exodus is an older text than Genesis. Genesis 1, which recognizes order
in the very structure of creation, is one of the texts of the Torah written last. And, in
our "personal Torah" the recognition of the meaningfulness and design of all we
have experienced in our lives is left for the last stage of life - the time Erikson labels
"integrity." Naturally, we cannot see the whole at the beginning. We tell
ourselves that we can; we convince ourselves that we write our story as we live our lives
- not that we are lived. Later, we discover the deeper truth of "we
are lived," recognizing at the same time that there are no accidents; it all makes
sense; and our freedom was never compromised. This last point, the compatibility of
freedom and determinism makes no sense before it is experienced.
Even now, like Moses, I have seen the Promised Land from the top of the mountain. I have
not touched its soil, breathed its air, or seen its vegetation close up. In so many ways
my vision is obstructed. Before I climbed the mountain, I guessed - always incorrectly -
about what would distinguish the Promised Land from any other land. I was trying to see my
life as a narrative but didn't know in what story I was:
Too much is made of choice:
we merely came the way we could
being what we were, and we were changed
by the terrain we came by. Nor could we
see around a single bend
until we'd turned it.
("It's Not Cold Here," Elinor Wilner)
Freedom is not synonymous with choice. Freedom is being unobstructed, acting out of our
deepest nature - that nature that God saw in our unformed limbs.
We've all heard the story before - so we know that the children of Israel were slaves, and
we know Pharaoh is the villain; and we know that it is a story about the birth and
formation of the Jewish people who will carry the message of Sinai to all the nations of
the world. But we look at our own lives and we haven't heard the story before. Just so,
the Israelites started their story not knowing that they were enslaved any more than I
knew I was a slave. Even now, recognizing that I am not as enslaved as I once was, I still
have to ask: in what respects was I a slave? As in Plato's "Allegory of the
Cave": we are born in a cave chained from the neck, unable to face the light. What
chains us? Some would respond that our senses lead us to look outside instead of within.
That is a dualism I reject unless our outward looking is for our roadmap which is within.
Our senses are gifts, not distractions, and all of creation can speak to us of
the Creator - but freedom is to act from the necessity of our own nature - not to
march to anyone else's drummer - even if that drummer praises us, bestows honor on us, or
a good salary. Our own desires for honor, wealth, and pleasure of the senses can enslave
us. Pharaoh can be aspects of our own selves that are less ultimate than our essential
nature. So - finally we learn that we have been enslaved, but we still don't know what the
message is that we are to carry to all of humanity. For the true Promised Land is not the
simple physical security we first understood when we were led out of our personal Egypts.
Just as the Israelites, at the Red Sea, had no notion of Sinai and revelation, so I had no
notion of a larger story of which I was a part. I had no notion of purpose, meaning,
destiny. I thought of discomfort, fear, major disruption. I sought easefulness, trust, and
a newly settled state. I was simply seeking a different Pharaoh - maybe I could live with
that Pharaoh and grow old before I recognized that I was again enslaved. All of this was a
very slow process. And maybe this can't be written before rigor mortis sets in.
Nor could we see around
a single bend
until we'd turned it.
I keep trying to jump ahead and say, "Aha! so that's what it has all been
about." And I'm continually mistaken. So what are all the wrong answers about before
we finally live our way into the right answer? The answers are wrong because we're not yet
right. We are the answer and we are a work in progress. Along the way - long before the
end - there are multiple gifts of joy, of comfort, of nourishment - and there is growth in
love. It is in the light of this love that I, at last, have the courage to look at myself
(without flinching) and begin to see the me that God loves. But that is the
Promised Land. When I can say "Amen" to the me God has known in my mother's womb
- even before the earth was formed - then my life too links back to creation. I stand at
the beginning and see that it was good. I see that it is good.
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