A Tale
My Christian evangelical friends worry that I’m not going to church. “You need to worship," they say, or they’ll drop an aside like “Those New Agers are crazy: imagine thinking you’re God!” and they watch me closely for a reaction.
They're hoping I don't become self-absorbed, narcissisistic, and it is a worthwhile concern. Narcissus, you remember, is the figure in Greek mythology who stared at his reflection in the water with so much absorption that he fell into the pond and drowned. The classic paintings never show him dead; in them, he’s still poetic and pretty; sometimes — like this one — he’s even depicted ignoring an extremely inviting young woman.
The Tale Wagged
The Greek myth pictures an obsession to steer away from. If I work on myself, get therapy or meditate, am I in danger of drowning in myself?
Sure I am.
But I once almost died, not of drowning, but from asphyxiation. I mean, as an evangelical Christian, I had externalized and intellectualized spiritual life to such an extent, that internalization dried up into a dusty ritual. I was attempting to live in concepts and ideas; truth was something that happened strictly inside my head.
Like a tree, we require both motionless roots in the dark, gathering moisture and minerals down in the dark earth, and leaves and limbs moving out in the sun, gathering air and light. In my “heart,” “moisture” and “air” combine, synthesized by light into the “food” my spirit requires to flourish, to be happy or whole or healthy.
Cut it off from "moisture" (preconscious experience, spontaneity, play, illogical impulses — stuff like that), I suffocate; cut off from "light and air" (outer and conscious experience, planning, work, creativity), I “drown.”
For me, religious ritual died because it was trying to live on air alone. It’s the experience of "God" that I missed, no matter how blurred and fuzzy any experience can be. I couldn’t be that pure; the boxes of "inner" and "outer", me here and God there, just had toloosen up and get all mixed together. Right and left brain had to be mutually active and interactive.
So, I guess I trust God to save me from myself, and to trust myself to save me from mere ritualistic worship.
