Submitted by rlp on Tue, 02/05/2008 - 10:39.
If you were to ask me how I would define the spiritual life, I would be very uncomfortable. I’m not sure what I would say. I’m not sure how to define something like that. My greatest discomfort would come in thinking that someone might ask me to define it. Who am I to define something as mysterious and broad and individual as spirituality?
I’d probably try to avoid the question if I could.
I don’t know, maybe there’s a book you could read or something. Do you know anyone else who might know about this? I know this sounds crazy, but I’ve never tried to put a definition to that idea. I’d just be pulling stuff out of the air and making it up right while I was talking to you.
But if you said, “That’s okay. I just want to know what you think. Right off the top of your head is fine. I won’t hold you to it or quote you or paste it all over the internet or anything. But yeah, what do you think it means for a person to follow a spiritual path?”
If you said that, I’d probably agree to give it a try. I’d interlace my fingers and drop my hands into my lap. I’d close my eyes and let go of my head so that it slowly dropped forward until my chin was almost touching my chest. Then I would take a deep breath and shut out everything in the world except your question.
This is what I would say:
If there is an intelligence behind the universe, behind all that exists. If there is an intelligence that put these forces in motion, the forces that cause tides to pull and the plates of the earth to shift. The forces that pull matter together in swirling galaxies and blast energy outward when stars die. If there is an intelligence behind all of this, I know nothing about it. Any ideas I have about this intelligence will be wrong. Any name I give it, Hashem or God or Allah, will be a false name. Whenever I think I have come to understand this being, my understanding will have to be broken down and rebuilt, only to be broken again.
Yet in my ignorance, I can serve Hashem with acts of goodness in Hashem’s name. I can honor even the possibility of Hashem’s existence with my prayers and worship and life. I can follow the Christian spiritual tradition with its story of death and redemption, but not arrogantly, as if I have found the key to unlock the reality of Hashem. Instead I must follow the Christian path humbly and broken, for it is the only path I know.
Always there will be breaking and disillusionment. Always I will be building, and never will I achieve understanding.
And so I build and tear down. That’s all I know.
Tomorrow I will tell you the story of a time when I was terribly disillusioned. My way of honoring God was broken like the stones of a sacred city and scattered across the plains.
I will tell you this story because on the spiritual journey, disillusionment is as important as enlightenment.
rlp
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"Instead I must follow the
"Instead I must follow the Christian path humbly and broken, for it is the only path I know."..."I will tell you this story because on the spiritual journey, disillusionment is as important as enlightenment."
thank you for these words!! I cannot say more then that!
" I will tell you this story
" I will tell you this story because on the spiritual journey, disillusionment is as important as enlightenment."
Indeed - indeed
" I will tell you this story
" I will tell you this story because on the spiritual journey, disillusionment is as important as enlightenment."
That was my path as well
I mean, besides the goofy toy collection and the swearing
This is one of my favorite things about you.
Spiritual "Practice"...
I know disillusionment. I believe we all do.
I think our spiritual "life" should be called our spiritual "practice." Much like the medical practice. Just as we snap our suspenders and think we have perfected it, we find ourselves "broken like stones of a sacred city" disillusioned with our own practice.
Thanks rlp for keeping me outside the box.
Waterman
I wonder, RLP, if you might
I wonder, RLP, if you might have a book to suggest, despite the certainty of being uncertain, that might shed some light on those things that keep people returning to Christianity in the face of disillusionment and doubt. I am looking for something that gives a rational, intellectual discussion rather than an emotional or Bible-based support for Christianity. Any suggestions would be much-appreciated!
that's a tough one for me. I
that's a tough one for me. I read mostly literature nowadays. Surprised by Joy was important to me when I was younger. It's the story of CS Lewis' coming to Christianity out of atheism. He basically found a spring of joy in Christianity that just fit with his soul. Might not mean much to a lot of people, but it did to me.
Hemingway - I've read a lot of Hemingway. Because it is great and because I want to devour good modern writing. At the end of "For Whom the Bell Tolls." Hemingway's central character is dying. He wonders who has it easier when dying, those who believe in God or those who "Take it straight."
This is hard for me to explain, but when I read Hemingway, I think I get a good "feel" of life for folks who take it straight. And something about it doesn't sit right with me.
Other people might have better book suggestions and will probably chime in. I make weird connections that mostly don't work just for me.
Spiritual
Rob Bell has made a video: Everything is Spiritual Watch a clip at everythingisspiritual.com
I beg to differ everything
I beg to differ everything is not spiritual. I believe we try to spiritualize everything which causes people to get truly messed up. You have to remember we are human as well as spritual beings.
becky
Francis Schaeffer approached
Francis Schaeffer approached this concept in the 60s and wrote a series of lectures then turned them into books
the complete works is available on amazon for around US$100 - 20 books in 5 volumes. I am working my way through them.
Rational Discussion
Erin,
Perhaps it in the nature of your question lies the problem. If one is able to approach any sort of genuine intellectual honesty, one has to admit that reason and intellect cannot provide any sort of answers that can give solid "proof" of anything that verifies the existence of God. We may intuit, we may find comfort in the company of fellow seekers, we may take heart in the peak experiences that somehow connect us to something much larger and more meaningful. But in the end it is the ability to believe that we do have meaning, that we are the result of an incredible, unknowable plan that can allow us to approach something called "faith".. I have no answers that would appeal to reason ,only a 60 year journey into accepting that the ability to face uncertainty has not prevented me from total disillusionment about the human condition. I know that I know not , yet I am part and parcel of the fabric of the universe and that deeply suggests to me that I am in some pretty important ways "beloved". You might try to read "The Mystery of Christ" by Robert Capon to expand the radical nature of what grace can mean. Pretty radical stuff and also full of hope and a good bit of laughter as well.
And also with you...
Have you ever read anything
Have you ever read anything by Frederick Buechner? Both his fiction and non-fiction is useful, provocative, and inspiring.
Also well worth your time is George MacDonald. Again, both fiction and non-fiction.
As much as one hates to
As much as one hates to admit it - It is a haze out there. Often I sit back and wonder how so many folk have Christianity working so well for them. The difficult questions seem to elude them.
Oh for some easy answers. But let us face it, none exist. To me the greatest encouragement is to know that there are people out there – like you - whom grapple with these knotty issues.
How do you equate – or deem objectively – that this whole play (called life) will end up turning out ok for those people who think like I do - that Christ is the only way? Not an easy task especially when you take into light those caring and faithful followers of {place your religion name here}.
I pray and hope that God
I pray and hope that God knows what is, as we say, in the heart of a person. The crazy thing is, even orthodox theologians admit the limitations of our language. Have you tried to squeeze the idea of atonement by death on a cross into language? It can't be done without feeling you've somehow cheapened the whole thing.
As for exclusivity, I'll leave you to struggle with that one. You might consider a couple of things. First, the idea of unbelievers spending eternity in hell is simply not in the New Testament. You can have the idea of hell if you need it but this eternal separation business...where does it come from? Revelation has the beast tossed into a lake of fire for eternity, along with - of all things - Hades. Who knows what that means? Even if you take Revelation literally, eternity for people ain't in there.
Second, even if you wish to think exclusively about Christianity as being the only way or the best way or whatever, where in the New Testament can you find an easy definition of what being a Christian means? If I read Jesus, I find he's pushing hard for people to live according to his commandments. Paul says some other things. James sounds a bit like Jesus to me.
It's all so fuzzy and hard to track - This notion of Christians who have said some kind of prayer and non-Christians bound for some eternal punishment. I think that simple idea is an invention of the institutional church.
So I've let go of that burden. I'm free to follow Christianity and proclaim it boldly, but - trying to follow the New Testament - I don't use hell as leverage. Ever. No on in the New Testament did.
I hate to pull up scripture
I hate to pull up scripture (as I'm never sure of context), but honestly I do struggle with the idea of hell being something very real. What does 1 Cor 6:9 really mean? I'm a layman and have real trouble with stuff like this.
Is eternal damnation real? Is eternal destruction the actual truth? All I know is that theologians have been arguing over this fact for many moons.
I throw my hands up in the air and say 'I don't know'. All I do know is that there is a very real part of me scared that I've missed something or I'm not doing my part and no amount of talks calms such fear.
Hi Gary,
Hi Gary,
I hear your frustration and sincerity. I'm a seeker of truth as well. I appreciate the quote because that a verse is a good example of how our preconceived notions can make it hard to read the New Testament. First a couple of hard facts.
Jesus mentions something that might be translated as hell 5 times. I mean, it's like 12 times through the gospels but 5 events. In four of them the word is gehenna, which was a burning trash dump outside of Jerusalem, as most scholars think. No one knows what he meant by saying things like "better to have your hand cut off than all of you be thrown in gehenna." No one knows what he meant. Your guess is as good as mine, but Jesus was one to use colorful, illustrative language. In one parable (Rich man and Lazarus) he mentions hades. I'm giving you the greek word. Hades instead of gehenna. There was an idea of a place of punishment among Jews by the time of Christ. But this is a parable. So what will you do with that? Can we build an entire theology of hell on a parable. AND, even if you do, there is no mention that people would be put there forever.
The book of Acts has no mention of hell. Nor does any of Paul's writing. There are verses like the one you quoted, inheriting the Kingdom of God. But what does that mean? Is it fair to make that mean an eternal existence in heaven, and, while you're at it, go head and assume the opposite is true - an eternal existence in hell? It sounds like heaven and hell only if you already have those ideas firmly implanted.
A careful reading of the gospels might lead a well-meaning seeker to the idea that the Kingdom of God is wherever and whenever God's ideas about life are followed and loved.
YOUR ANSWER
9Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders
There's nobody living right, not even one,
nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God.
They've all taken the wrong turn;
they've all wandered down blind alleys.
No one's living right;
I can't find a single one.
Their throats are gaping graves,
their tongues slick as mudslides.
Every word they speak is tinged with poison.
They open their mouths and pollute the air.
They race for the honor of sinner-of-the-year,
litter the land with heartbreak and ruin,
Don't know the first thing about living with others.
They never give God the time of day.
This makes it clear, doesn't it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it's clear enough, isn't it, that we're sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? Our involvement with God's revelation doesn't put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else's sin.
God Has Set Things Right
Don't you realize that this is not the way to live? Unjust people who don't care about God will not be joining in his kingdom. Those who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don't qualify as citizens in God's kingdom. A number of you know from experience what I'm talking about, for not so long ago you were on that list. Since then, you've been cleaned up and given a fresh start by Jesus, our Master, our Messiah, and by our God present in us, the Spirit.
Just because something is technically legal doesn't mean that it's spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I'd be a slave to my whims.
You know the old saying, "First you eat to live, and then you live to eat"? Well, it may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that's no excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor him with your body!
FLESH AND BLOOD CAN NEVER ENTER THE KINGDOM OF GOD
FLESH IS THE FLESH - IT'S THE SPIRIT, spirit.
WHAT SPIRIT MOVES THE FLESH ?
THE RESULT OF THAT MOVEMENT IS WHAT WE SEE EVERYDAY -
IT IS CALLED LIFE, WHAT SPIRIT MOVES YOUR MEAT ?
YOUR ACTIONS SHOW THE WORLD OF THE PYSICAL, FLESH -
WHO YOUR FATHER IS - WHO GAVE YOU BIRTH -
ARE YOU BORN FROM ABOVE ? A LIVING BEING -
THE FLESH IS THE FLESH YAHSHUA SHOWED YOU THAT.
WITH HIS FLESH.
Exclusivity
I could not answer the exclusivity clause Biblically and satisfactorily. Some other religions make similar claims (if you're not with us, then you're out completely). What makes me so arrogant as to believe that my belief trumps that of someone else? Which one is the Correct one? I can't believe in all of them. Heck, even Pure Land Buddhism makes some form of exclusive claim. At this point it all looked more like a human construct to me, designed to keep the membership up.
At the end, if God DOES care about me personally, and whether or not I worship, then I also think God is smart enough to know how close I walk to the commandments, regardless of the name I place on God.
Very thought provoking
Very thought provoking Gordon, I like it.
I wonder though, do you really feel that any understanding of God is wrong? I am not offended by that notion, just puzzled. I agree that as human beings there is only so much we can understand, and surely we can never fully comprhend the creator of the universe; still I have always taken ideas like: God is Love, just, compassionate... to be more than just ideas, but rather solid truthes.
I loved your essay, Im just puzzled by the idea that ALL theologies are wrong.
Here's the thought behind
Here's the thought behind that. A being capable of creating the Universe will obviously be so far beyond humanity that the idea that any human language could describe that being is impossible. Imagine if ants had an idea of your existence but were limited to describing you with an ant vocabulary. Bit of a silly illustration, but you see the point.
In truth human language doesn't even do a perfect job of communicating human ideas. If I have a complex thought and explain it to you, I'll only be partially successful even at that modest task.
This doesn't discourage me from trying to understand and know God. It just introduces - hopefully - some humility into that exercise.
So why would such a being
So why would such a being want to be worshipped? Or care if we did? Or even notice if we did?
I'm not being sarcastic here, I really want to know what people think the answers to these questions are. I've been looking for them for many years, and found nothing.
Hey Chuck! Lots of people
Hey Chuck!
Lots of people won't know that you and I have chatted in comments and email since the beginning of rlp.
Chuck, that old essay is still in the archives.
http://www.reallivepreacher.com/rlparchive/node/132
Tradition is the only answer. There is a human tradition of paying homage and honor to the Creator. I can't tell you what a supreme being would want. But I can say that worship in many forms is a very "human" thing to do. It's a very old thing to do as well. I trust some long-standing human archetypes like worship.
answer
do give yourself any worth ? worship ?
do you love yourself, ie. feed so you do not die, drink so you do not die ? Reproduce children so you do not die ?
IF you do not worship yourself, why would God need your worship ?
Love GOD
Love your neighbor as you would Love yourself
ALL THE LAWS AND PROPHETS HANG ON THESE TWO.
all of them - ALL
WHAT IS WORSHIP ? what do you give worth ?
death or life ?
God is both - but loves life, hates death
HE GIVES LIFE WORTH -
AND DEATH ? WHAT IS THAT TO SOMEONE WHO IS ALIVE ?
TO GIVE SOMETHING WORTH, IF IT HAS WORTH IT DOES NOT NEED TO BE TOLD IT HAS WORTH, IT JUST KNOWS, IT JUST IS.
IT LIVES, proof of it's worth, it is alive, it is.
I AM THAT I AM have to be, someone wrote this.
are you ?
Of doubt and comfort
I misread the first sentence of this essay as:
If you were to ask me how I would define the spiritual life, it would be “very uncomfortable”.
Which I must admit made me laugh out loud, and louder still when I realised my mistake.
I remember many years ago, my pastor gave one of the most exciting sermons I ever heard. He talked about doubt and struggle, he didn't offer solutions.
And you know what?
He got pilloried. “You can't preach that from the pulpit! Someone might back-slide!” He had people sending him books on faith, all kinds of weird stuff going on.
So many people, so fragile. He never continued on that track, much to my disappointment. I think in some ways, he was perhaps about a decade ahead of his time. With the wellspring of postmodernism and missional communities now entering into Christian thought, perhaps we are allowed to be a little more genuine now, and not have to maintain the happy-clappy façade for fear that the whole house of cards will come tumbling down.
Indeed.
This post is touching on something that is so difficult to explain, preach, profess...Disillusionment is by far the most important part of our spiritual journey. Well, that's my experience anyway. If our faith tradition, any faith tradition, holds any power at all it discovered in moments of disillusionment.
I have been rereading Dark Night of the Soul again. As a friend once said "Some days just be like that."
Disillusionment and Trust
Revscott,
rlp here. I accidentally overwrote your comment. I'm sorry about that. Hit a wrong button. If you want to repost it, I'll answer.
Disillusionment and Trust
No problem, G. My basic question was this: where does trust enter the picture for you? In my own struggle and experience, I have found that my disillusionment often has to do with myself and my limitations/prejudices, that in un-learning things my faith and trust in God grows. Luther would have probably said that it's something along the lines of leaving the unimaginably mysterious God in the heavens and trusting in Christ as the revealed God who I should trust and in whom I may believe.
Funny that the overwrite happened: this is much closer to the question I really want to ask. I think part of this faith stuff is, really, learning how to ask the questions the right way.
Thanks, anyway - it was a great post regardless of whether or not you and I are on the same page.
Scott
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: "It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to believe."
I once asked my freinds what
I once asked my freinds what they meant by "spirituality". it is a very popular terms to use these days "I am not religious, but I am a very spiritual person"
What does that mean?!
They told me, it means that they believe in something, but they do not know what exactly it is. Isn't that the opposite of faith? Isn't that agnosticism?
It seems to me, I have never relied on belief. I have never felt the need for faith. I have prostrated myself, I have begged the universe for redemption, but I never felt compelled to have any faith that it would provide it.
I have always been too busy pursuing the truth. And I guess you could say, I have faith that the truth exists. But that wouldn't quite be right, because I don't trust in truth. I have a pathological need, emotionally, for truth to exist. So I desperately crawl and grovel through life, after the truth. In the dirt, and the dust.
Jesus claimed to be the truth
In John 14:6 Jesus claimed he was the Way, the Truth and the Life. If you read John 1, and then put that together with Genesis 1, combined with some understanding of the actual construction of the physical unicerse you can see that Jesus created the very fabric of the universe (light- the smallest particle of matter is a photon which is light) by his voice or word, Logos. In essence the very creation is spoken into existence or being as truth, objective reality, as particles of light. Where He is, darkness cannot be, darkness equates with non truth, or falseness. Anybody who would claim to be God, then must have these qualities, or objective reality as we know it cannot exist, and they are defined by their own lies as false. For Christ to make this claim can only mean it was true. Any other possible scenario questions the very fabric of matter and existence.
If you honestly search after the truth, it (He) will find you.
your answer
then you already know - I AM THAT I AM.
YOU CAN NOT HAVE "FAITH" IN FAITH.
LIVING IS FAITH, YOU JUST TESTIFIED TO THE FACT THAT YOU HAVE "FAITH" BY LIVING AND ASKING WHAT IS "FAITH"
THATS IT. NOW YOU KNOW THE TRUTH -
I AM THE WAY THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE.
NO ONE GOES TO THE FATHER BUT THROUGH ME - LIVING
YOUR VERY LIFE THAT ASKS - WHAT IS TRUTH, WHAT IS FAITH.
well, guess what - YOU FOUND IT !!!!!
now LIVE IT. life sweet life.
RLP, As an architect I've
RLP, As an architect I've watched as movements have made their way from academia through art and architecture to the general society and finally to the church. The main ones in my time have been modernism, post-modernism and deconstruction/deconstructivism. As I'm sure you know, Jacques Derrida coined the term in the 1960's. In my view, deconstruction/deconstructivism has finally made it to the church in the form of the emergent movement. I've been anticipating its arrival with some trepidation. Now that it's here...I'm afraid. Reading your post makes me wonder. Is everything I know wrong? Is it necessary to throw the baby out with the bathwater with regard to Christianity? Is what the emergent church doing/saying/thinking still "Christian"? In what sense is it and in what sense is it not? Peace, Kim
All of these are fears that
All of these are fears that I understand. I have a personal comfort in knowing that I have no postmodern agenda that is intentional. I'm seeking truth. I'm trying to read the scriptures well. And I'm writing honestly about what I think. That certainly doesn't make it true.
We can only be people in our time. And we can only seek truth in the ways that seem right to us. And we can only tell the truth about that journey. What is ultimately true is beyond me.
I think your last point is
I think your last point is what initially made fundamentalists uneasy. They want to know that what they know is what they know is true. That Scripture is inerrant. That God is God. That we are saved once and for all and once saved there is no losing that salvation. They look with scorn and ridicule at Pilate when he asks "What is truth?" because they are so sure that they have it. (I'm saying "they" with reference to fundamentalists when I would have said "we" for most of my Christian life)
Well, I'm with you. I'm seeking truth. I'm realizing that Pilate's question is not such a bad one to ask. Truth can be relative. I get that. Is it entirely personal/anecdotal though? Is there an "ultimate truth" outside our comprehension? Continuing to read your chronicle...
what we can know.
I understand in this life we can only see in a mirror dimly, and only know in part, but I think it's important that we CAN know, at least something. And wasn't that the point of Christ? So that while we will never know God in the full way, we can know Him in the revelation He has provided us through Jesus, and more importantly we can be known by God? I think it is comforting to understand we cannot know everything, but there are some very important things that we can know because they've been revealed to us. Christ died for our sins, because we are completely incapable of saving ourselves. That's the foundation of knowledge.
PS: I would be lying if I said I didn't think I know everything, this is a problem of mine, and I pray God breaks me of my arrogance.
what we can know.
I understand in this life we can only see in a mirror dimly, and only know in part, but I think it's important that we CAN know, at least something. And wasn't that the point of Christ? So that while we will never know God in the full way, we can know Him in the revelation He has provided us through Jesus, and more importantly we can be known by God? I think it is comforting to understand we cannot know everything, but there are some very important things that we can know because they've been revealed to us. Christ died for our sins, because we are completely incapable of saving ourselves. That's the foundation of knowledge.
PS: I would be lying if I said I didn't think I know everything, this is a problem of mine, and I pray God breaks me of my arrogance.
your answer
if you know christ - thats it.
thats the whole story - no bullshit -
want to see GOD ?
become like CHRIST and live. Now you know, end of story.
so simple - man (god) hates that it is this simple and trys all the time to kill this truth
you see that, right ?
YOU DO SEE AND DO NOT BELIEVE but
IF YOU BELIEVE AND THEN DO, live, THEN YOU WILL REALLY SEE.
you will know the TRUTH and the TRUTH will set you free -
from what ? WHY DEATH OF COURSE !
YOUR ALIVE !
your answer
if you know christ - thats it.
thats the whole story - no bullshit -
want to see GOD ?
become like CHRIST and live. Now you know, end of story.
so simple - man (god) hates that it is this simple and trys all the time to kill this truth
you see that, right ?
YOU DO SEE AND DO NOT BELIEVE but
IF YOU BELIEVE AND THEN DO, live, THEN YOU WILL REALLY SEE.
you will know the TRUTH and the TRUTH will set you free -
from what ? WHY DEATH OF COURSE !
YOUR ALIVE !
i see now!
I can understand you and I hope you do the same!
Sorry anyway!
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Could you please explain me
Could you please explain me the meaning of 'YAHSHUA'
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