Spiritual Struggle

One spring day I was taking our dog Hobbes for a walk and noted what a beautiful morning it was. The air was crisp, cool, and clear, the trees and lawns brightly green and gardens in bloom with a riot of colors. It was one of those e. e. cummings “most amazing days,” and I thought, how blessed I was to be a part of this universe, a part that could enjoy its beauty through the mystery of consciousness and self-consciousness, that somehow matter has evolved to the place of being able to see itself, to reflect on its own existence, inspired by that sacred drive for life that we call by many names, given our religious or philosophic perspectives. It was an ah-hah moment that came without struggle, that came naturally, that was an absolute gift.

That, I believe, is how many people think about spirituality and how I often experience the spiritual life: serendipitous, joyful, uplifting, insightful, broadening of one’s horizons. The idea of spiritual struggle seems contradictory, a paradox, a product of effort and dare I say “discipline,” as in practice? Do we really have to work at spirituality?

The truth is that we don’t always have “most amazing days” such as the one I described. That they are occasional is the very thing that makes them eventful and extraordinary. We go to work or we get sick or we have a colleague who bullies us or we wonder if we are loved or we live with or near or are related to challenging people. Community has once been defined as the place where the person you would least like to be with always lives.

And, as we look at our broader human family, we see poverty, hunger, disease, injustice, and violence interfering with the possibility of “most amazing days.”

But not to despair! In the retreats and workshops I lead I often do a meditation exercise in which people are invited to recreate in their imagination a moment when they felt most fulfilled, most connected, most loved and loving, most at peace. When time comes to share the images conjured up by this exercise, there are the usual, expected bucolic scenes like the one I just described. But there are just as often the unusual places, people, and things which despite all odds proved an environment or an occasion in which individuals felt complete, fulfilled, loved, loving, and at peace. Hospital rooms. Doing chores. Suffering a loss. Rising to a challenge. Comforting someone.

Perhaps that’s the wisdom behind the apostle Paul’s notion that “all things work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to God’s purpose.” It’s not that all things are good, but even the bad things might be transformed for the good in a person who “gets” the larger spiritual picture.

We just experienced the rare convergence of Passover and Holy Week, both observances  of spiritual struggles. Jews remembered their oppression in Egypt, and how they heard Yahweh call them out of slavery through a wilderness and to a Promised Land. Christians remembered the Passion and compassion of Jesus struggling with religious and political authorities on behalf of “the least of these,” his crucifixion at the hands of Rome, and his return to those who believed.

Spiritual struggle is called “jihad” in Islam, and Muslims in the United States are now reclaiming the word from terrorists through an advertising campaign. In a sense they are engaging in “jihad” against Al Qaeda’s and the Taliban’s violent interpretations of the term.

Similarly, much of our spiritual struggle as progressive people of faith is reclaiming spirituality and religion from those who would coerce rather than persuade, control rather than cooperate, take rather than give, enforce rather than inspire, condemn rather than bless. And we each struggle with similar temptations within ourselves. Hopefully our struggle will lead to more “most amazing days” for all.

Copyright © 2013 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. Check out past posts in the right rail on the blogsite.

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Posts you may have missed:

Spiritual Handcuffs

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Love Force

Mid-October I read in the morning paper about the Lance Armstrong doping scandal, the Taliban shooting of 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai for encouraging the education of girls in Pakistan, and the death of George Whitmore, an African American whose life was never good after a reckless prosecution and wrongful conviction for murders committed while witnesses actually placed him in a catering hall where he was employed, watching Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech on August 28, 1963.

Not exactly the stuff of contemplation, you might think.

Yet exactly the reason we need contemplation. In Soul Friend, Kenneth Leech echoes Merton and other contemplatives when he writes:

The contemplative is more of a threat to injustice than the social activist who merely sees the piecemeal need. For contemplative vision is revolutionary vision, and it is the achievement of this vision which is the fruit of true spiritual direction. A spirituality of clear vision goes hand in hand with love. To see with the eyes of God is to see truthfully and lovingly. Such a love is not sentimental or naïve: it is a love which undermines oppression and burns away illusion and falsehood, a love which has been through the fire, a love which has been purified through struggle. It is a love which has known solitude and despair.

I’ve been re-reading insights I’ve underlined in books I read long ago. The morning that I saw the above articles, I happened onto one of Mahatma Gandhi’s ruminations in The Gandhi Reader (ed. Homer A. Jack) on satyagraha, variously interpreted as love force, truth force, and soul force, politically expressed in non-violent direct action. “The force of love is the same as the force of the soul or truth,” Gandhi wrote.

When asked for proof of its existence in history, he replies, “History is really a record of every interruption of the even working of the force of love or of the soul.” He uses the illustration of two siblings arguing. If they go to war or sue (for Gandhi, a lawyer, another form of violence) their quarrel will be remembered, but if their love for one another is reawakened and they reconcile, few notice because that’s as it should be. “Soul-force, being natural, is not noted in history,” Gandhi explains, declaring that what’s true of families is true of nations.

The next day our newspaper carried an article about studies indicating we retrospectively characterize a week or a time in our lives by its peaks rather than intervening constancy, which to me seems to validate Gandhi’s point.

But I would add that satyagraha is revealed in history when love stands up to the test, such as Gandhi’s challenges to injustice through civil disobedience. This may give us a new way of understanding the cross: Jesus’ love force stood up to “the powers that be,” and the crucifixion interrupted the natural trajectory of truth, love, and soul of the inbreaking commonwealth of God, just as it was subsequently interrupted by the persecution of early Christians who tried to live into that commonwealth. Thus Easter is an affirmation of the triumph of truth, love, and soul and non-cooperation with the forces of violence and death.

I schedule my posts on Tuesday for Wednesday publication, so this was put in final form on election day in the U.S., which means I do not know the outcome. Indeed, the outcome may not be known by the time you read this, given the anticipated closeness of the presidential election and the possibility of contested election results.

No matter. Whoever is elected will have to deal with those who want to make a name for themselves or their party or their ideologies by exploiting division and divisive issues—in other words, making history rather than letting the forces of love, truth, and soul bring reconciliation, mercy, and justice to Washington, D.C. As much as I believe in recovery programs and understand alcohol may easily exacerbate orneriness, I long for the time when lawmakers would end their day having cocktails together and trust working together and compromise without looking to give the latest sound bite to inflame their constituencies, satisfy their contributors, promote their ideologies, and enlarge their egos.

What we need in government—as elected officials and voters—are more contemplatives.

Copyright © 2012 by Chris R. Glaser. All rights reserved. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Suggested uses: personal reflection, contemporary readings in worship, conversation starters in classes.  Please visit Chris Glaser's website  to learn more about this ministry and/or make a donation!

9/11 : When We Were One

Copyright © 2011 by Chris R. Glaser. All rights reserved.

In the days following the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001, as people speculated as to the U.S. response, an unorthodox thought crossed my mind. “What if we did nothing?” I wondered. “What if we just took the brunt of their hatred and did not respond in kind?” We had gained the world’s empathy; why squander it on violent action?

It was an idealistic thought. Certainly easy to say for someone who only experienced the terrorism on live television; who had lost no one directly. And not pragmatic, as I pride myself at being. Probably would be interpreted as weakness, inviting more attacks. My experience with church bullies has taught me that not responding to attacks is an ineffective way to stop bullying. And I must admit I was glad to see the Taliban driven from power in Afghanistan—those who had blown up the giant stone Buddhas, those who wouldn’t let girls go to school, those who banned children from flying kites.

In a presentation in Chicago a week after 9/11 and in Dayton three weeks after, I pointed out that our immediate response to the attacks was heartening:

Categories seemed to disappear; divisive walls came down. We were no longer Democrats or Republicans, no longer black or white, no longer gay or straight. We were humbled, but not by the terrorists. We were humbled by recognizing our need for one another; that we do not, that we can not stand alone. Look how quickly Jerry Falwell was slapped down for his divisive comments that blamed gays, feminists, pro-choice advocates, and God! Remember how rapidly we sought to defend Arab-Americans and Muslims that some would separate out for retribution. And notice how we resisted those few who would divide us by blaming the victim, the U.S., in a way they would never blame the victims of any other form of violence, such as rape or spousal or child abuse. We are rallying around each other, symbolized politically by the flag, symbolized spiritually by our prayers. 

And then I cautioned:

Eventually, Americans and the world will move beyond the tragedies in New York City, Washington, D.C., and the Pennsylvania countryside. Walls and differences and partisanship will be reconstructed.

I paralleled our experience as a nation in that moment of kairos—that moment of spiritual crisis and opportunity—to a conversion experience, an encounter with an awesome God that is humbling, prompting us to come together “no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female,” remembering that we are ALL beloved children of God:

An encounter with God transforms us, and we are ready to love everybody. But then we return to building our walls, divisions, categories—reminding us that we have not yet recognized the kingdom of God in our midst, the commonwealth of God in which we share a common spiritual wealth.