George and I
were having coffee when he said, “I'm attending a twelve-step
group.” He continued, “Several months ago I hit bottom and had
to admit that I was addicted.” “I used to make fun of
twelve-step groups because they seem so programmed.” “I'm just
now beginning to see the wisdom in the twelve steps, particularly the
first three.” He then recited these steps to me: “1. We admit
that our life is out of control. 2. We acknowledge a higher power
who can return us to sanity. 3. We decide to turn our will and
lives over to God as we understand God.”
George continued, “This
higher power stuff is strange because I'm an atheist, or at least an
agnostic. I don't really believe in God. Yet there is something
about the group. I see other addicts whose lives are changing
through their involvement. I guess my higher power is this
twelve-step group. I'm beginning to believe that my life too can
change if I am willing to trust the process.”
George paused and looked at
me. “You know, I was raised in a religious home.” “I went to
church school where I was taught the beliefs of my religious
tradition. But they never really took. I enjoyed my friends and the
group outings, but I didn't believed all the stuff they taught me
about God. It was like they were trying to convince me that God was
a super hero. My friends were concerned that I had lost my faith.”
I've thought a lot about
this conversation with George, and I am reminded of another comment
he made. He said, “Faith is not about belief. It's about trust
and longing.” In this context, George has faith. But it's not
based on a creed or a specific world view. It's based on the ongoing
life experience of his twelve-step group.
When I titled this
reflection, “You Gotta Have Faith,” I was not implying that we
'ought' to have faith. Rather, I was stating my assumption that faith
is just a reality of our life situation. We all have a set of
operating assumptions and practices that guide us. These may be as
simple as, “I trust my intuition;” or “I trust my intelligence
and physical stamina;” or “I trust my family and friends to
support me.”
Some of us attach a belief
statement to these practices. “I trust that God will guide and
protect me;” or “I trust the economic and military power of the
United States.” Yet ultimately, these belief statements are simply
world views that are consistent with the practices that provide us
with security and meaning in our lives.
It used to be that our
religious, political and cultural institutions reinforced our
practices and belief statements. For many of us,
these institutions no longer provide this grounding. This trend is
manifest in recent polls on religious affiliation. The fastest
growing group nationally is those who no longer claim an affiliation.
This is complemented by the fact that increasing numbers of people
identify themselves as “spiritual but not religious.”
Many
of us feel cut off, alone and disquieted; and we consciously or
unconsciously cast about for ways to ease this dilemma. Some of us
turn to religious and political groups that describe the world in
terms of simplistic polarities. Either you believe or you don't
believe. Having done this, we can demonize those whose world view
differs from our own. Others search for answers in spiritual and
esoteric traditions different from their own. Still others deny the
problem all together, relying on one technical fix after another to
maintain a status quo that is no longer sustainable.
As I
ponder the issues raised in my conversation with George, I am
increasingly convinced that, like my friend, we may be hitting bottom
as a society. Like the addict, we are confronted by the fact that
our present coping mechanisms, or faith practices, are inadequate to
the challenge. The incredibly polarized presidential election and
the devastation of super storm Sandy have put us on notice. Global
warming is a real and present danger as is the political dysfunction
in our land. We are addicted to cultural values that are killing us.
In traditional religious language, we are beginning to realize that
we have been worshipping false Gods.
Now
remember, I'm not speaking belief systems here. I'm speaking of the
fact that the collective practices that we have developed to promote
meaning and wholeness in are lives are inadequate. Put another way,
our values are out of whack. These misdirected values are manifest,
not by what we say we value, but by how we live. And as with the
addict who who hopes that one more addictive hit will satisfy this
need, we continue to feed our collective addictions hoping to satisfy
our yearning for security and meaning.
So how
do we move from step one to step two in twelve-step terminology? How
do we acknowledge a higher power that can return us to sanity?
Again, step two does not require a belief statement. As with my
friend George, we are not required to believe in God, particularly
not the God we rejected in our earlier lives, to engage step two.
What is required is that we get in touch with our deep yearning for
wholeness. What is further required is that this yearning causes us
to proceed as if there is a source of healing that can move us from
the insanity of our destructive cultural practices to the sanity of
healthy, nondestructive ones.
When
we proceed in this way, step three will follow. We will begin to
explore and engage in practices that are less destructive. In terms
of global warming, we will be attracted to people who are reducing
their carbon footprint on he earth. These may be folks who are
composting, who are car pooling or who are paying more attention to
the beauty of the creation. The point is, that we will do this not
to be politically correct but because we yearn to be healthier, both
individually. and collectively.. We will begin to appreciate the
insanity of our addictive practices. We will seek help from others
to develop practices that provide greater wholeness and meaning in
our lives. In twelve-step language we will begin turning our will
and life over to God as we understand God. Put another way, we will
begin to trust these developing practices because they result in
positive changes in our lives and culture.
The
issues I am discussing here are not new. The mystics in all
religious traditions have been grappling with questions such as these
for more than a thousand years. Furthermore, one doesn't have to be
an expert in meditation techniques to engage this material. What is
required is the yearning, the personal honesty and the ability to
accept help from others in changing our practices.
John
Kirvan has written two little books of meditations which I have found
useful in this regard. They are titled, God
Hunger
and Raw Faith.
In these little books, Kirvan focusses on the lives and teachings of
mystics from Jewish, Christian and Moslem traditions, mystics from
ancient to modern times.
Listen
to what these mystics have to say that may apply to our present
situation:
Simone
Weil (pronouced 'vey') (1909-1943)1
“wrote with the clarity of a brilliant mind educated in the best
French schools, the social conscience of a grass-roots labor
organizer and the certainty and humility of a Christian mystic. She
stayed out of any church, but her passionate need to share the
sufferings of others led her to fight with the anarchists in the
Spanish Civil War, to work as a field hand and unskilled laborer, and
ultimately to die in England from TB complicated by her refusing to
eat more than Hitler's rations allotted to her countrymen in occupied
France.” Weil proclaimed, “To
believe in God is not a decision we can make. All we can do is to
decide not to give our love to false Gods.”
Blaise
Pascal
(1623-1632)2
a mathematician and scientist, was one of the geniuses of modern
France. “At 10:30 and for two hours on the evening of November
23, 1654 he had a life shaping experience of God. He forgot 'all the
world and all things except for God.'” From this time forward his
heart had found truths that his formidable reasoning couldn't fathom.
Yet Pascal the scientist could not give up his reason. So, like
many of us, Pascal was stretched between the extremes of experience
and reason. As he put it, “We want truth and find only uncertainty
in ourselves.”
Henri
J. Nouwen
(1932-1996)3
was
a psychiatrist, priest, intellectual and prolific writer, a professor
at Notre Dame, Yale and Harvard. People read his writings, not only
because of their spiritual insights, but because he was willing to
expose his own frailty, his bouts with depression and doubt. He,
like Pascal, bridged the gap between academia (psychology and
theology) and the life of the spirit. During the last years of his
life, he served as pastor at L'Arche Daybreak near Toronto, a
community where people with developmental disabilities and their
friends lived together. While there, he developed a deep friendship
with Adam Arnett and cared for him, a man who never spoke a word.
Nouwen was willing to risk because, as he put it, “Ultimately we
must choose between security and freedom.”
Rumi
(Muhammad Jalal al-Din – 1207-1273),4
one of history's greatest mystic poets, has influenced both the
Moslem and Christian worlds. In 1244, Rumi, the brilliant scholar,
met and fell in love with Shams el Din of Tabriz, a wandering
dervish. For two years they danced, prayed and sang together until
Sahms was murdered, probably by Rumi's relatives. Through his love
for Shams, Rumi, a spiritual neophyte became a poet and mystic,
realizing that the mystery of love bridged the gap between the
physical and spiritual worlds. Rumi put it this way, “ No Heaven,
no earth just this mysterious place we walk in dazedly . .”
Rabbi
Abraham Joshua Heschel
(1907-1972)5
was born in Poland to a family of respected rabbis. He received his
doctorate at the University of Berlin. In the late 1930s, Rabbi
Heschel was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Poland. He
escaped to London just a few weeks prior to the German invasion of
Poland. His mother and three sisers were killed by the Nazis.
Heschel's life was grounded in the mysticism and inner spiritual
practices of Kabbalah, Hassidism, and medieval Jewish philosophy. He
played a prominent role in the US civil rights movements and
protested the war in Vietnam.
He said of his life6,
“It is not enough for me to ask questions; I want to know how to
answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face:
What am I here for?”
Julian
of Norwich (1342-1420)7
was a medieval nun who lived in a kind of solitude in a single cell
attached to the Church of St. Edmund and St. Julian in Norwich, East
Anglia. She lived a life of such sanctity and powerful relation to
God that she attracted visitors from throughout Europe. She left
behind a work titled “Showings” or “Reflections of a Divine
Love,” the oldest work in English by a woman, a work that is still
in print and is still read by spiritual seekers. She went beyond
patriarchal notions of God adding the dimension of motherhood.
Because of her experience of the presence of God in her life, she
could write, “God dwells within us. We dwell in God.” “All
will be well.” “All will be well.”
The
list of mystics goes on and on: Therese of Lisieux, Rabbi Alazar
Ben Azariah, C. S. Lewis, Angelus Silesius, Thomas Merton, Francis
of Assisi, the writers of the Kabbalah, Evelyn Underhill,
Al-Ghazzali, Karl Rahner . . . They come from many religious and
spiritual traditions. But
in all cases, they are driven by a profound yearning for wholeness
and meaning for themselves and their societies. They stand over
against the societal norms of their times. Their journeys are
solitary and often lonely. And the Mystery, or God, that they
engaged was often baffling, confusing and challenging. Yet through
it all, there was a resounding sense of hope.
So
whether we follow the teachings of the prophets; claim Jesus as Lord
and Savior; engage God in silent meditation; claim, “I'm spiritual
but not religious” or say, “I don't believe in God” - whatever
our situation, the world needs people who are able and willing to
grapple with the ambiguities and uncertainties of humanity, people
who are able to walk in the shoes of the mystics. It is my hope and
prayer that we each are capable of this calling.
- Raw Faith by John Kirvan (p. 28ff)
- Raw Faith by John Kirvan (p. 76ff)
- Raw Faith by John Kirvan (p. 60ff)
- God Hunger by John Kirvan (p. 60ff)
- Who Is Man by Abraham Jushua Heshel, p. 53
- Silent Hope by John Kirvan (p, 60ff)
