I
t was Thomas Merton who said that we spend our lives climbing to the top of the ladder only to discover two things: first of all, there is nothing at the top anyway, and even more ominously, we had the ladder against the wrong wall the whole time!
It takes courage to hesitate and to question ourselves in order to act contrary to inherited conventions. Of course, one of the best and most deceptively ironical ways to stifle this spiritual growth is by means of religion.
Rather like the Samaritan woman at the well in our Gospel reading last Sunday, we avoid the issues of our life by diverting attention to the red herring of correct religious practice — should we worship in this temple or the other one down south? (John 4.20)
I remember my family relocating from the midlands of England to the west coast of Scotland when I was turning 11. On arrival at school, my misfit accent gave me away, so I was encircled by a gang of boys at a convenient opportunity and pinned up against the playground wall with only one question: “Catholic or Protestant?”
It’s a tad dramatic to say my little life depended on it, but it felt that way at the time, and the wrong answer would have led to ostracism and a physical beating. My gasping and important inspiration in the moment was “I think I’m a Methodist ….” Apparently I may as well have said I was Zoroastrian or Hindu — I was OK since I did not belong to that other crowd along the road that wore a different-coloured uniform.
The psychological category of mythic membership is a necessary stage for an 8- to 12-year old’s spiritual evolution, whose tribalistic limitations we can only see from a more adult perspective. Tragically we sometimes get stuck there. Case in point, how much of the suffering of the Libyan people in 2011 can be attributed to this level of maturity in the political leadership?
Jim Marion surmises in EnlightenNext magazine (Putting on the Mind of Christ — the Inner Work of Christian Spirituality), that many adults, including Christian leaders, have not heeded St. Paul on putting away the things of a child (1 Cor. 13:11), and are “still predominantly stuck in the rigidities and separatism of mythic consciousness.”
Our planet can ill afford leadership and social participation that comes from a pre-adolescent mindset.
For our consciousness to develop from the particulars of our originating tribe to what Jesus refers to as the universal “weightier matters” (Matt.23.23) of justice and compassion, we all need to climb down the ladder of our previous fear-based certainties and move into global and cosmic citizenship. No-one is exempt. We either grow, or we stop growing. We either pray ‘thy kingdom come,’ or we inherently limit ourselves to the juvenile intention ‘my kingdom stay.’ Come on down, and start over!
The Rev. Andrew Twiddy is the Rector (pastor) of the Anglican parish of St. Anne & St. Edmund, Parksville.
Questions or comments? atwiddy99@gmail.com, or 594-1549.