Giving Up Ourselves ...

I think I'm finally beginning to get the hang of this "social media" thing.  I've had FaceBook down for a while now, and I've been learning the benefits of Twitter.  And while I've been writing this blog on and off for a while now, it's only recently that I've begun to really regularly read other people's blogs.  (Thank you Feedly!)

One that I've been enjoying is John Shore's.  His tagline is "Christianity With Humanity," although I really enjoyed his earlier tag which was something like, "Trying God's patience since 1958"  (That's what really hooked me when I first came across his posts.)

The other day he posted a lovely and, to me at least, powerful piece about Lent:  "Giving Myself Up For Lent."  He wrote:

"Along with meat and alcohol, this year for Lent I’m going to give up something else. Insofar as I can, I’m going to give up myself.

I’m going to give up my ego. My self-identification. My drive to make something of myself, to be someone, to matter. I’m going to try to give up the whole idea of myself as a separate, independent being in the world—as a person who has any real existence at all outside of the awesomely fearful sacrifice made by Jesus Christ on behalf of all mankind (including, even, me)."

I know that that last line is one that'll give some UUs pause.  After all, not all of us are Christians, and not even all those who identify with Yeshua ben Miriam put much emphasis on "the awesomely fearful sacrifice made by Jesus Christ on behalf of all mankind."  But I'm going to encourage you to put that resistance on hold for a moment.

Whatever you feel about "God," whatever you believe about whether there is or is not some "sacred something," can we agree that there is a dimension that is bigger, greater, larger than our own small ego-self?  Don't think "deity" -- or, at least, don't let such thoughts get in your way right now.  Don't think Grand High Poobah.  Ask yourself if you are the center of all that is, if you are the be-all and end-all of existence.  If you think so, then you really have to ready John's piece and try to let it sink in.  As my colleague Barbara Merritt once put it, "Whether or not we believe in God, we must realize that we ourselves are not God."  (That's in her chapter on "Adversity" in the excellent Skinner House anthology Everyday Spiritual Practice: simple pathways for enriching your life.")

Yet even if you don't think you're God -- or, as I once put it in a sermon, "think you're at least applying for the job" -- John's primary point is worth pondering.  Is your "self-identification," your "drive to make something of [yourself], to be someone, to matter" helping you or hindering you in your efforts to live fully a life of peace and authenticity?  Does your "idea of [yourself] as a separate, independent being in the world" get in the way of your making deep connection with everything else in the world?  Does it make it more or less difficult to really see yourself as "a part" of the "interconnected web of being"?

One of the reasons so many of us find it so difficult to be open to "The Other" (whatever that "Other" might be for us) is because we are so bound by our perception of our own selves and the value (overvalue) we put on them.  As our Christian kin mark the Lenten season, perhaps we, too, can make of it an opportunity to "give up ourselves."

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Choices

As I've noted I've been reading Fr. Murray Bodo's meditative biography of St. Francis of Assisi, Francis:  the journey and the dream.  A lovely book, and a powerful one.  Much of what I've read has moved me deeply.

Here, for instance, is a portion of the chapter titled, "Barefoot in the Dirt":

One of the hardest trials of poverty, that sometimes made Francis forget how glorious was the service of his Lady Poverty, was the inconvenience of the poor life.  To be poor was to be subject to countless little annoyances that the lords, or even the rich merchants like his father, could buy their way out of.

To be poor was to take the road on foot while the rich rode.  To be poor was to wait long hours in the shops while the rich went before you.  To be poor was to beg and eat what was placed before you, and that monotonously the same gruel, while the rich ate at tables ever varying their fare.  To be poor was to mingle with those who were petty, narrow-minded and whose conversation was dull and uninspired, while the rich chose companions with care and welcomed the educated, the artist, the entertainer.  To be poor was to live among those who had given up hope and whose lives were lived from moment to moment with no star to lead them on, while the rich still had ambition and the will to accomplish something in life. . . .

[It was] the sacred penetration of dirt when you wanted to be clean, of a cold stone slab when you wanted a warm bed, of sleeping alone when you wanted someone beside you, of the will of others when your own was wiser and more efficient, of routine when you longed for variety."

There is so much in there to reflect on.  How many of us could willingly accept such a life?  I was especially struck by the emphasis on the inconvenience of it -- how contrary that is to our modern preocupation, perhaps even obsession, with making all things ever-more convenient?  And the thought of choosing the companionship of the "dull and uninspired" -- how would that play in a religious tradition such as Unitarian Universalism which tends to draw more people with advanced degrees than any other (even while we affirm the principle of "the inherent worth and dignity of every person")?  And what about choosing to follow the will of someone else "when [my] own was wiser and more efficient" -- what might that do to our experiences in our work places or our homes?  What a commitment to peace.

Inconvenience.  As Modo puts it, "The earthiness of it all, the gritty, day-to-day reality of poverty was what would kill the Dream for many."  Perhaps we could muster the energy to mount a glorious campaign of some kind, but to willingly accept a life of mundane inconvenience? 

There is so much here to reflect on.  Lent might just be a good time to do so.

In Gassho,

RevWik