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Wisdom Quote
The problem of atheism and unbelief is not that the existence of God is denied, but that God is absent from the ordinary consciousness and lives of believers, not alive enough or important enough.
*Ronald Rolheiser. The Shattered Lantern.
Rev. Ed.
Maybe you've never used Bible reading as a stalling tactic, but I've mastered the fine art of postponing transformation through scriptural recitation.
*Marcia Ford. Traditions of the Ancients.
Comments
The intent of Christian contemplation, indeed the spiritual life, is transformation of consciousness. This transformation, as the word implies, is reshaping, or re-form, of awareness.
Spiritual consciousness is habitual awareness of God as the living, present, and pervasive Reality. The shift is from a sporadic sense of the Sacred to consistent felt-experience of the Divine.
Following are three qualities of felt-awareness of the Divine.
1. The Sacred is sensed as living. Before, likely, we experienced "God" as an idea. Sure, we believed about the existence of God, even if only for we were told that God must be ~ and we were told not to question that assumption. Now, we feel intuitively the nearness, the realness, of the Wonderful Presence.
2. The Divine is experienced intimately as present, always here-and-now. That God is a living God means God is presently present in eternal timelessness. God is directly encountered within the absence of time. Time itself is the sense of succession. Contemplation leads to the Source of that succession, to the Simple Point of beginningless beginning.
3. Love is the One pervasive presence. God is the Sacred sensed intuitively; that is, behind the phenomena of the world. God is the withinness of all. Also, God is sensed contuitively; this means God is alongside, in companionship, with the world. God is the alongsideness of all.
These qualities are cultivated slowly, and most of culture and religion does not encourage the cultivation. Indeed, there is, apparently, collective conspiracy, outside and inside churches, against contemplative awareness. This leads to a failure of the church in transforming the larger culture, while adopting the cultural resistance to selfless openness to God as a living, immediate Presence in all life.
As a pastor and spiritual teacher, I face daily that the churches, mostly, have lost almost all experience of God as a real Presence in life. One reason is that we do not even know we have lost the sense of Presence, so long we have consumed the illusory intoxication of mentalism and emotionalism. In this sense faith is equals what we think and feel in as passing emotion, not a stable felt-sense of God-Near.
In many ~ possibly, most ~ Christian churches, any clergy member or member of the laity who tries to lead in cultivation of this awareness of God will be looked upon as odd. The resistance to contemplation by evangelical mentalists is an example of widespread resistance to spiritual consciousness in the church.
This reminds me of the stark, but true, words of Ronald Rolheiser: Belief in God, for many of us, is little more than a hangover. We feel the effects of the religious activity of the past, but our own consciousness borders on agnosticism. Rarely is there a vital sense of God within the bread and butter of life. We still make space for God in our churches, but He is given a very restricted place everywhere else.
Possibly, the one aspect of Rolheiser's affirmation that we could contend with is contrast between the space given to the Sacred inside and outside the church. After forty-seven years in churches, I can only conclude that the Sacred is given "very restricted space" in the churches. I know this is a general statement, and it is not true of many churches, but the general affirmation seems generally true.
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Therefore, to be a contemplative, or spiritual, Christian is to be a person experiencing God consistently as a living, present, and pervasive Mystery and Love. The joy of this journey is of Wonder and Gratefulness. The journey continues and deepens, and with it bliss of knowing God intimately, not in the ideas of the heads or the feelings of the heart, but behind, beyond, and within each.
Religious activity often blocks this Presence. Why? Religious activity is not wrong. Yet, we cling to beliefs and practices, and we can do this when we are to let go and open to the transforming Presence of God. Above, Marcia Ford remarks of her using the Bible to defend herself against the transforming work of God-Within. She, elsewhere, refers to this kind of religious defense mechanism as a "spiritual trick."
To be growing in spiritual consciousness pertains to experience of God, not experience of spirituality. Yes, spirituality can as easily become a defense against Grace as can religion.
So, we affirm that spiritual consciousness, or living awareness of the Sacred, is neither essentially religious nor spiritual. Religion is the material means to experience God at deeper levels of awareness and receive more of God in life. Spirituality is the soul, we could say, of religion. Spirituality points to the spirit of religion. When the means of religion and the spirit urging one to engage those means are congruent, then, we have a spiritual religion, or spiritual religiousness.
So, we return to the three qualities of spiritual consciousness: living, present, pervasive. When religious practice leads us to grow in these qualities, then, those who practice the religion are engaging it for a higher Purpose. They are true to the spirit within religiousness. When persons are religious, even growing in religious devotion, without a manifesting of emergence of qualities of spiritual consciousness, then, the spirit ~ indeed the Spirit ~ behind the religion has been practically, even if not theoretically, forgotten.
The recovery of a vital spirituality in the Church is essential at this time. Even filling sanctuaries with devoutly religious persons is not the answer to decline of much of the church. Yes, even focusing on outreach, evangelism, and transformation of the church is easily another means to avoid the challenging and Christian call to become like Christ ~ which entails inner transformation of each of us. We will, also, not become like Christ simply by imitating Christ or sharing Christ: we must be transformed, or re-form-ed, into the awareness of the Living Christ.
Without re-form into spiritual consciousness, which fills religion with the purpose of connecting persons to a living, present, and pervasive experience of Sacredness, the church will continue to decline. No amount of outreach or evangelism or missions or teaching or programs ... will provide this essential, central summons to renewing the inner life of the churches.
While this writing might appear to some persons pessimistic, that is not the intent. Rather, hopefully it is prophetic of positive change and a better tomorrow. There is emerging renewal of spiritual consciousness among many Christians. This renewal is leading to a slow re-surfacing of a contemplative tradition repressed beginning with the Middle Ages.
My dream is to see laity own the honor of spiritual consciousness. Most are not on board, and most do not know this re-form is occurring. And most are not living practically atheistic by choice. Possibly, it will be the laity who will help re-form the clergy and whole church structures. God will keep raising up spiritually vital men and women who are not among "the ordained," but they are called and ordained by the Spirit of Life in this emerging re-form of the inner life of Christians and whole churches.
Suggested Reflection
Describe, in your own words, the three qualities of spiritual consciousness? How would you discern if these are evident in your life?
What is a spiritual religiousness?
How might religion become a hindrance to spirituality?
How might spirituality become a hindrance to growing spiritually?
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