Let’s hold on to the confession of our
hope without wavering, because the one who made the promises is reliable. And
let us consider each other carefully for the purpose of sparking love and good
deeds. Don’t stop meeting
together with other believers, which some people have gotten into the habit of
doing. Instead, encourage each other.
--Hebrews 10:23-25a CEB
This week I have been sharing reflections on Parker Palmer’s book A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life. Palmer asserts that inside each of us is our “true
self.”
Philosophers haggle about what to call
this core of our humanity, but I am no stickler for precision. Thomas Merton called it true self. Buddhists call it original nature or big
self. Quakers call it the inner teacher
of the inner light. Hasidic Jews call it
a spark of the divine. Humanists call it
identity and integrity. In popular
parlance, people often call it soul.
Throughout our lives we are forced to
become internally divided in order to protect our true selves. We build a wall around our true selves, and
sometimes that wall is so strong we lose track of our true selves altogether.
Some children, sadly, need this wall at
home. Others do not need it until they
get to school. But sooner or later,
everyone needs a wall for the same reason, to protect our inward
vulnerabilities against external threats.
More than discovering our “inner child,”
Parker describes a journey we undertake to discover who we were originally
created by God to be. He does not advocate
a return to childhood, but rather finding an “adult wholeness” where we are no
longer alienated from our true selves and manage a healthy interchange between
our inner selves (who we were created to be) and outer selves (how we negotiate
a world often hostile to our true selves).
Parker is clear that in order to discover
our “adult wholeness” we need “spaces within us and between us that welcome the
wisdom of the soul.” We need individual times
of solitude and spiritual work as well as communal work in relationships of
trust. This is where the church comes
in; a healthy church equips us for our individual spiritual work and provides
opportunity for communal spiritual work in worship and group study. During this pandemic, we all have had plenty
of time to practice solitude and individual spiritual work, but the communal
part is hard to come by, especially if you are in an at-risk group.
Even though it may take more effort and
come with more frustrations, we neglect this communal spiritual work at our
peril. Parker explains:
A strong community helps people develop
a sense of true self, for only in community can the self exercise and fulfill
its nature: giving and taking, listening and speaking, being and doing. But when community unravels and we lose touch
with one another, the self atrophies and we lose touch with ourselves as well. Lacking opportunities to be ourselves sin a
web of relationships, our sense of self disappears, leading to behaviors that
further fragment our relationships and spread the epidemic of inner emptiness.
Do your solitary spiritual work, but don't neglect your communal spiritual work. It's more difficult to do so right now; technology can do a lot, but it can also provide frustrations. However imperfect, whatever communal work we can do together matters just as much as it always did--maybe more so now after months of quarantine.
Grace and Peace,
Chase
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