I have been thinking lately about the spiritual life. How do I conceive of it? What is my basic attitude toward it? I find that I am very slowly inching my way along a spectrum between two poles.
At one end of the spectrum, I see the spiritual life as an unreasonable stretch beyond the normal. Let’s face it, the Course asks a lot of us. Here is the list as I see it, along with my “unreasonable stretch” reactions:
The Course wants to engage in concentrated study every day, study that is not aimed at learning new facts, but at learning concepts that are so fundamentally different that they invert our whole worldview. I like the idea in theory, but in practice it requires a degree of effort that I find uncomfortable.
It wants us to practice morning and evening, every hour on the hour, several times in between the hour, and in response to the slightest disturbance of our peace. It wants our experience of situations and of the day to flow from that practice, rather than from the specific circumstances of our day. Again, I am inspired by the idea in theory, but in the moment, when I have to actually muster the focus, and really remove my attention from the worldly stuff it wants to be on, it is such a stretch.
It wants us to ask for guidance all day long, so that in the end we place not only our little decisions in God’s Hands, but we even let Him dictate the basic structure of our lives. There is a lot I love about this, but the constant asking and tuning into the subtlest of answers takes effort, and those answers frequently upset my plans. The fact is that I want to do what I want to do.
It wants us to be giving miracles to others all day, constantly thinking about the needs of others, continually asking what contribution we can make, always seeing ourselves as on the scene for God, never clocking out of this full-time job. So that in the end, this is what we devote our lives to, with the basic structure of our lives becoming designed to serve this mission. This is a wonderful theme to watch on a movie screen, but my first reaction to doing it myself is that it sounds like an exhausting sacrifice.
Overall, the Course wants us to change, and to bring change into the minds and lives of others. It wants us to accept a radically different way of seeing things, out of which will flow different ways of behaving, which will make a difference in every life we touch. Yet change is so hard! And there is an even more basic question: Is this kind of change really possible? Does anyone really change? One thing I have learned is that the human mind is less like an auto body than like a tire: It can absorb an endless series of blows and maintain its shape. At times it seems that no matter what we do, no matter what spiritual path we embrace, no matter what exalted bliss we experience, the human ego maintains its shape, and like a monster tire, keeps right on running over people while denying it is doing so.
And why is Jesus asking for this unreasonable stretch beyond the normal? Isn’t the normal hard enough? Isn’t just maintaining a normal life enough of a challenge? You have to wonder what his motives are. And something in the back of my mind does. I don’t have a specific sense of him wanting to punish me or use me or mess with me. But I do have a deep-level suspicion of any agenda that clashes with my own. All I know is that he is pushing against me, and something is wrong with that.
Now, I keep at it with the spiritual life. Every day I try to get all those pistons firing, because something in me says this is the way life ought to be. And because of the benefits, which really are enormous. But while I am pulled in the direction of the spiritual life, there is also this basic resistance, which says that this is an unreasonable stretch beyond the normal. As a result, even while walking in the right direction, I am constantly dragging my feet.
But then there is the other end of the spectrum, the other pole. This pole accepts the same basic outline of the spiritual life, yet sees it entirely differently. Rather than an unreasonable stretch beyond the normal, this pole sees the spiritual life as the gracious offer of freedom from prison. In this view, what I call normal is not the given and it is certainly not good. It is not some positive foundation that everything else should be measured against. Rather, it is self-made and it is the problem. It is, quite simply, a prison cell I built for myself. It is what I need to be released from.
And the spiritual life is not a weird demand added on top of the normal. It is a lovingly gracious invitation out of my cell. It is the way out. That is what the study is. That is what the practice is. That is what the guidance is. That is what the extension to others is. That is what change is. It is a gracious gift. God baked me a cake and stuck the key in it, just because He loves me. Why on earth wouldn’t I want to turn that key?
I suspect that we are all somewhere along this spectrum, stuck between viewing the spiritual life as an unreasonable stretch beyond the normal and as a gracious offer of freedom from prison. The way to tell where you are on this spectrum is simply to ask, “How much am I dragging my feet? Conversely, how much are all those pistons—study, practice, guidance, extension, change—firing, with full energy and enthusiasm?”
To be honest, I don’t seem that far towards the other end. I’ve always been suspicious of any kind of effort. But I am having glimmerings of that other end, which have been arising in my mind of their own accord, and I am trying to add my will to those glimmers. So that’s at least progress. What I keep thinking is that it would be really wonderful if I could approach the spiritual life in a completely unconflicted manner, regarding it only as gracious way out of prison, or to use one of Jesus’ images, out of the tomb and into the sunlight.
