God-parent?

One of my favourite therapy theorists to date is Michael Washburn.

In fact, his style is fairly impenetrable most of the time, but there's one central idea of his that nails it for me, namely his idea of 'regression in the service of transcendence'.

AKA, you can't truly go 'up' if you won't go back.

Which reminds me of a piece of scripture I keep coming across which nags at me. In Romans 8 there's a wonderful list of what cannot come between us and the love of our amazing God.  We read

"Not death, life, heavenly messengers, dark spirits..."

The writer goes on

"[not] the present, the future, spiritual powers...".

No mention of the past.

A poetic omission? Or something more pointed?

Is part of the message here that, whilst the present and the future are no bar to the love of God, the past very much can be? (I wrote more about this idea of 'hidden meanings' in the post "Secret Messages...".)

In the last little while, I've been feeling pretty confused about how to 'see' God, and 'who' to talk to. And when I was contemplating the Romans 8 verses it suddenly became clear to me how the past was affecting my relationship with Him, and that I probably need to 'go back'.

When I was baptized last year, and up until about two months ago, Jesus felt beautifully clear and present for me. He was my best friend, my brother, and my King; and, notwithstanding the excitement I felt at the idea I came across that he was not facially beautiful (based on Isaiah 53's description of the man of sorrows), I felt I knew 'who' I was leaning on and loving so passionately, and who was accepting and loving me over and over again despite my many and various daily failings.

But a couple of months ago I arrived for a recovery meeting early and popped into the Catholic church nearby to pray. In amongst the postcards of their stained glass was a little pamphlet called "The Secret of Mary" by St. Louis de Montfort, which I felt really drawn to read. This event 'collided' with a whole constellation of others:

• a friend gifting me a beautiful wood carving of the Virgin Mary, 
• the start of a nagging, somewhat feminist, concern about the absence of a prominent mother-figure in Scripture and non-Catholic meetings and disciplines, 
• college discussions about Jung's Anima and Animus archetypes, the re-realisation that my own feminine side has been under-developed / distorted, and a college recommendation of a book about Mary Magdalene by the Episcopal priest Cynthia Bourgeault,
• a dream in which my pastor's wife was acknowledging me as a strong, independent woman, and subsequently watching a new film about a young woman in the 1800s being encouraged and empowered by her substitute mother.

All of these events happened within the space of a week or so, and for a few days I wondered whether I might commit myself entirely, or at least for a full year, to a practice of connecting exclusively with Marian Divinity.

But before I could talk to my beloved discipler about any of this, two more things happened to rock my little boat and pull my sails around...

Firstly, I started reading Bourgeault's book about "the other Mary", and secondly, a friend and colleague loaned me his copy of The Impersonal Life by Joseph Brenner.

And now I was really in trouble!

Because I discovered I did not want to hear about the possibility of there being a special relationship between Christ and Mary Magdalene. I. DID. NOT.

Nor did I want to go back to suspecting that there are 'bits of the Bible missing' (the so-called gnostic gospels of Mary M and Thomas) and that my understanding of Jesus' teaching was being determined to some extent by politics and bigotry.

Nor did I want to wade into these metaphysically churning and difficult waters of the unitive ground, or subtle imaginal realms.

And I most adamantly did not want to shift towards a sense of Him being none other than my own "I Am".

No no no no no.

Oh what a turmoil I was in.

And then, in marched eight Romans.

I have an image of shaking a small drawstring bag upside down and seeing lots of pieces of a game falling out.

The King who loves me no matter what, with unfailing strength and love became the daddy I used to have before he changed, and the daddy who I never stopped hoping would be his old self again one day so I could be protected.

The brother-confidante Lord became my older brother who I was suddenly separated from and who I searched for in almost every stupid affair I had or wanted to have.

The feminist demand of "Where is the mother-figure?" became the truly terrified infant cry of "Where is MY mother who seems so unable to hold me?"

The much-feared and apparently much-favoured Mary Magdalene who felt horribly in the way between me and the Jesus I thought I was precious to became the little sister who stole away my daddy's affections because according to him she was 'more genuine than me'.

The panic at complicated and "grown up" metaphysics became my ancient anguish at having to grow up so quickly, instead of staying in the innocent simplicity of 'spiritual milk'.

And similarly and finally, the encouragement to shift, from leaning on my powerful and loving King, to the simple contemplation of God being none other than my own "I Am", became the necessity of growing up very very suddenly one night in order to be the responsible one who had to protect my Mummy and save my Daddy's life.

Wowzer.

During college lectures on Jungian archetypes, the repeated mantra was that, until the psychodynamic ground is somewhat cleared of the debris of early years, our access to truly 'archetypal energies' will be blocked by pollution from past experiences. Romans 8. The past can block us from seeing God clearly for who S/He/ is (I am). And so, Washburn. In order to truly 'transcend' and be in clearer relationship with my unfathomable God, I need to thank Her for my therapist, and ask Him (whoever I Am) to go back with me and do some more healing.

With a slightly fuzzy-headed Amen...

Secret messages in the Bible

Sometimes, I think I come across pieces of Scripture that I can make sense of in several ways at once. There seems to be what I'll call a 'literal' reading. And then sometimes, something shifts in my perspective, and I start to wonder if there's a more 'subtle' message.

Like in Romans 8:38, which I wrote about in "God-parent?". In (extensively) listing the things that can't come between us and the love of God, the writer includes the present and the future, but makes no mention of the past. So is it entirely intentional that we then come to wonder about how the past might well come between us and the love of God? I know that when I'm waxing lyrical myself, I might leave out all sorts of things, with no intention that any list I share is meant to be inclusive. But is the Holy S similarly sloppy when it comes to the Living Word?

Or earlier on in the same chapter (v29-30) we read "From the distant past, His eternal love reached into the future."

Now, ostensibly what is being written about here, as far as I understand 'common' teaching, is the Divinely mysterious and eternal intention of God to take fully human form as Jesus; an intention formed before any exiles or commandments, or prophets, or floods, or serpents, or banishments.

But the moment I personally found this piece of Scripture, I happened to be tenderly recouping my energy after a really grief-stricken hour in my personal therapy, experiencing waves of emotional and physical memories of being left too alone as a tiny baby.

And the first thing that struck me, when I read about His love reaching from the distant past into the future, was that that's what He had just done in me in the therapy room (and which is what I'm sure I've also been told by my teachers that He does). Namely, that He doesn't just "patch us up" here and now as adults. He doesn't just give us an emotional prosthetic to help us walk straighter whilst remaining fundamentally still crippled. His power is so awesome that sometimes He actually moves right into our past, as we're feeling the effect of it here in the present, and He works His magic. And, back here in the future, we're - I'm - feeling the peace of His eternal love; and the damage done to that little baby, which was still creating suffering in the here and now, has been wiped clean away, or at least is now in the process of being healed with no scar.

(I wish I knew more about quantum physics now, because I am SURE that I'm fumbling to say something that quantum physicists take entirely for granted about how God has engineered this wild universe.)

Now, I really don't like the idea, which I think falls into one of the negative readings of the word 'gnostic', that God has hidden magical and mysterious formulae in His Word which only a certain circle of initiates can understand. That's not the God I feel myself loved by. He doesn't want to hide or trick - He wants to find.

But at the same time, Jesus regularly said things along the lines of "All who have ears to hear, let them listen", and frankly even 'clever old me with my fancy degree and big brain' finds a lot of Scripture far from straightforward or plainly and literally communicated.

I wonder if that's how He's created the Living Word - the words have been written to do the mystical equivalent of rearranging themselves on the page in a way that supports not just layers but whole separate universes of meaning when the reader enters into a deeper contemplative relationship with them by the power of the Holy Spirit.

It feels like this meandering is all leading me to the conclusion that there are as many understandings as there are readers of the Living Word. But if it is, I'm not arguing that it's because His Word is so vague that it's like a horoscope that seems to ring true for everyone reading it. Or that any subtle interpretations are unintended personal psychological constructs or projections.

I mean that that's how outrageous His power and mercy is.

Not only does He bend time and space to heal our past as it was happening, but He wrote words, and gave us His Spirit for reading them, such that each one of us might understand them in a very particular way for us, whilst they still remain the same physical words for the person sitting reading them on the next seat, and for whom their meaning may be absolutely and intentionally different.

Now that is awesome!

#misunderstoodchristians, or #supernaturalsupplements...

There is all sorts of good that's done every day by all sorts of people who don't "believe in God".

But 'Followers of the Way" don't claim to have the monopoly on a commitment to "good will to all (wo)men".

What I suspect a lot of secular society misses, and what I wish it saw as the thing that makes life with Christ different, is the incredible deal God wants us all to take Him up on. And I don't think it's the life-after-death deal you're probably thinking about.

At least, until I found my home with my church, I had NO idea this was what it was all really about.

So here's my take on the deal that's on offer...

1) By entering into RELATIONSHIP (not a religion) with Him (Her), on a daily basis, we will be constantly renewed with a supernatural power (a.k.a. the Holy Spirit) to do "good works" both tiny and enormous. Here, the emphasis is not that we will do "good works". The emphasis is on the fact that S/He will provide the petrol for the journey, not us.

2) That being filled with the Holy S, each follower will be guided, subtly but in detail, on where, and how, and when to apply themselves to relieving all manners of suffering in ways that will yield the most true resolution of suffering, because there is just simply no human way, even for the most brilliant of us, that we can take all factors into account.*

(* an aside that I can't resist - this 'ultimate resolution of all manner of suffering' - physical, emotional, economic and ecological, micro and macro - is also known as the arrival of God's Kingdom on our beautiful Earth.)

3) That this daily (in fact, moment by moment) relationship with God will fill each follower with a healing love and sense of peace that 'passeth all understanding'. And it is the absence of this longed for sense of peace and love in so many hearts which arguably underlies every form of human suffering. From the suffering caused by all forms of greed for or reliance on money or power, to the suffering caused by our failure to protect our Earth, to physical and emotional illness, to violent crime and child abuse and drug addiction.

It is possible to build a better world in every conceivable area of personal, social, national and international life, but not without God. And I don't mean so much that we need to all get back to following a set of pre-determined religious rules and regulations.

Rather, I mean that we each need to, little by little, try entering into a personal, intimate relationship and conversation with the loving God who granted us the free will to try to do it all without His love. To search "inside" ourselves for the fire that burns (maybe it's the cause of preventing child abuse that we are most impassioned by; maybe it's the lack of community in our own personal neighborhood that troubles us the most) and then to try humbly, falteringly, obediently and delightedly to take the action, or inaction, that we are guided to by Her tender voice, just for today, just in the next hour, and let Her work out the rest.

And here's a clue - the fire in our soul is most likely to be a familiar one. That's how amazing S/He is. I don't believe for a moment that He / She wills or designs our suffering, but WOW! is She able to empower us to use it to reach out to others who need us, with His help.

Truly loving and wise fathers don't demand absolute obedience and unfailing love. They let us go. Because they love us and don't want slaves but children. They just hope that if we keep our eyes, ears, minds and hearts open and honest, we will find our winding way into loving them right back, of our own free will, and to realizing how much they have to show us about how to live well.

If we just talk to them.

THIS is why I'm a Follower of Christ.

THIS is the deal I'm signing up for.

I want to be at peace, and to feel my true worth as His child.

Yes, I can't help but love this world and the people in it, and yes I want it to be all that it could be. And yes I burn to do something.

BUT I absolutely need Her power and Her plans for living, because my brain is simply too small to figure out how best to do my bit in the time I have, and my power reserves are simply too fininte, without a very particular form of supernatural daily supplement.

Come, Holy Spirit - do your stuff!