Tag: The Self

Fruitful Trees, Well Nourished

Psalm 1:1a, 2-3 1 Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked…Their delight is in the law of God, and they meditate on God’s law day and night.

Introduction

Our Psalm for today is an acclamation of the well-being of the one who follows God. Verse 1 always catches my eye. The Psalmist writes, “Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful!” I always wonder what people hear when they hear the word “sinners” and the phrase “the scornful.” I think people think that sinners and “the scornful” (those worthy of being scorned) are all the “bad” people, the ones who don’t fit the preconceived agreed upon notion of “the mold,” those who do “bad” things, break the civil law/code, those who are rude, impolite, terse, etc., people who swear, don’t get up early, skip reading their bible, drink spicey brown waters…. Sometimes I see that church history has done number on vulnerable human beings with the definition of what a sinner is, usually participating in this allocation of “sinner” toward those who are bad defined by deeds and actions just mentioned. (Even to the point of conflating aspects of one’s body and identity with being sinful.) Sometimes (often?) I worry how many of you think you are the “sinner” who is “not good enough” to be addressed and welcomed by God.

But who, according to the bible, are the “sinners” and those who are “scornful”? From what I can tell, it has less to do with petty demerits and absolutely nothing to do with the status of one’s body and physical expression and more to do with how and what human beings value. In other words, sinners and the scorned are those who choose idols over God as their object of love and dependence. In other, other words, they are those who have chosen themselves, their own ways and turned their backs on God and God’s ways.

Jeremiah 17:5-10

When God’s people and their leaders go astray, a prophet is summoned and provoked by God to see and hear, to share and identify with the pain and turmoil both divine and human. Jeremiah is such a prophet. He was summoned during one of the “…most crucial and terrifying periods in the history of the Jewish people in biblical times: the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon, followed by the beginning of the Babylonian exile.”[1] Jeremiah’s prophecies are unique because he uses his own experience to communicate to the people and before God. Jeremiah shared ire over having to speak judgment, expressing his anger toward God as well as his empathy towards and over his people; Jeremiah believed his people would turn, repent, and come back to the word of God.[2] Where last week Malachi was exposing the people, this week Jeremiah is frustrating the rulers of the Jewish people, exposing that everything was not fine especially within the leadership. According to Jeremiah, there was a problem when the people relaxed their relationship to God and God’s word and when the leaders sacrificed God’s people to their own comfort and security rather than shepherding them toward God’s peace and justice, towards God’s mercy and love.[3]

So, Jeremiah, in the passage assigned for today, says, “Thus says Abba God: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from Abba God,” (v.5). Who are the “cursed”? The ones who, according to God’s word and Spirit through Jeremiah, do not trust in God. It’s not the ones who drop the occasional verbal bomb, or the ones who can’t get their act together (whatever that means). It’sn’t the ones who can’t do everything according to the Holy Law of God. It’s anyone who trusts in mere mortals…and flesh…and who[thusly] turn away from God. In other words, what Jeremiah is pointing out here is that when the leaders of Israel forsake their posture towards God, they begin to build idols to replace God and those idols look a lot like themselves; as the leadership goes, so, too, will the people. As leadership becomes haughty, so will the people. As leadership becomes violent, so will the people. As the leadership turns away from God and toward their own strength, so will the people. Some may think, as long as there’s law and order and everyone knows their place…so what?

Well, it’s not that simple. According to Jeremiah, when the leadership (thus the people) turn from God and toward themselves they are uprooting themselves from the nourishing soil of God’s love and justice, mercy and peace and forcing tender roots into parched land. Jeremiah writes, “They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness…” (v.6). In other words, they are bound for death, everything they have they believe is of their own power, but it will wither and die because they are no longer rooted and anchored in the fertile soil and nourishing waters of God’s provision, and, thus, they’re cursed.[4] For Jeremiah, the idols of Israel are themselves, and this idolatry will be their downfall, not because God has left them but because they have left God and opted for their own “common sense” and judgment of the kingdom of humanity.

Jeremiah drives home the stark reality, “Blessed are those who trust in God, whose trust is Abba God. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it’s not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit,” (vv.7-8). These are the those who keep their eyes and faces fixed on God; those who do this are those whose bodies follow where their faces are turned, and eyes are focused. These ones thrive in all sorts of tumult because they are fully dependent on God, roots planted in God’s nourishing soil: God is the source of their substance, their love, their liberation; to veer from God is to steer away from life toward death. They have shrugged off the idolatry of humanity, choosing instead to fear God.[5] These are the ones who not only do good works in the world to the glory of God, these are the ones whose hearts hear God’s voice and respond to it (Dt. 6). They are, 100%, fully dependent on God.

Jeremiah continues with words of exposure and judgment, “The heart is devious above all else; it’s perverse– who can understand it? I the Lord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings,” (vv. 9-10). Turning back to those who are cursed, Jeremiah explains that their current predicament of being under God’s wrath (destruction of the Temple, impending exile, drought) is their own doing because they’ve been led astray by their own desires and devising, making idols reflecting back their own image. According to Jeremiah, they’ve brought their own judgment upon themselves. It’s time for Israel to turn back to God and forsake their idols; they must turn toward God and forsake themselves and their own “reasonable” and “rational” machinations of the heart and mind[6] which often leads astray and produces corresponding fruit of chaos, destruction, violence, and death.[7]

Conclusion

What’s the hope here for Israel considering Jeremiah’s summons and exposure? For their consciences to be burned by the light of God’s truth and presence in and through the words of the prophet. Here, healthy shame and despair, the type that drives people toward God, is the soothing balm of Gilead because in turning (back) to God—finding one’s “trust” and full dependence on God—is the source of the people’s life, love, and liberation.[8] This is the consistent and inerrant word found in our sacred text of the first and second testaments: God desires God’s people to be with God, to know—deeply and profoundly—how much this God is for them—through thick and thin, in good and bad. The cursed are those who have stepped out from under and away from this God who is for them; the blessed are those who are fully dependent on God, remaining in God’s care and nourished therein, as Luke says in the gospel, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God…But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation,” (Lk 6:20b,c, 24). It’s the poor who are the ones who are blessed because they are fully dependent on God, while the rich, according to Luke, often go their own way making idols that look like themselves.

Beloved, God has come close to us in Christ and even closer through the power of the Holy Spirit. Let us remember that our very lives, our love, and our liberation is not hinged on the machinations of our heart and mind, but on the word of God that is the good news about Jesus and is Jesus. As we gather weekly and hear the word of God, may we also hear the sweet summons of a God who is so for us that God desires to always dwell with and among us. Going about things on our own power and strength ends in destruction, violence, and death, but going forward with and in the power of God, remembering who we are and whose we are, brings life, love, and liberation not only to our own exhausted and fatigued bones, but to our neighbors out there who are suffering and struggling, barely making it from one day to the next because we will be “trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season…”

[1] Marvin A. Sweeney, “Jeremiah,” The Jewish Study Bible, Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 917.

[2] Sweeney, “Jeremiah,” 917. “[shared] his anguish and empathy at the suffering of his people, his outrage at God for forcing him to speak such terrible words of judgment against his own nation, and his firm belief that the people of Israel would return to their land and rebuild Jerusalem…”

[3] Sweeney, “Jeremiah,” 917-18.

[4] Sweeney, “Jeremiah,” 961. “A person who relies on idols is like a bush in a parched land that knows nothing, but those who trust in God are like well=watered trees that produce fruit…”

[5] Heschel, Prophets, 209. “To fear God is to be unafraid of man. For God alone is king, power, and promise.”

[6] Heschel, Prophets, 128. “Jeremiah knew that the malady was not primarily in the wickedness of the deeds, but in ‘the stubbornness of their evil hearts’…in their ‘evil thoughts’ …not only in their evil manners.”

[7] Heschel, Prophets, 121. “Instead of searching their own lives for the failures that brought down God’s wrath on them, the people resented Jeremiah’s prediction of doom, accusing him of ill-will, as if he were to blame for the disaster he predicted. Was Jeremiah an enemy of his people?…Deeply hurt by the accusations, Jeremiah protested before God his innocence and his love of his people. The word of doom was not born in his heart (17:6).”

[8] Heschel, Prophets, 192. “Where signs and words from without fail, despair within may succeed.”

Posted on by laurenlarkin 0

Some Sölle

I recently read the short book Creative Disobedience by Dorothee Sölle. She was influenced by both Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Friedrich Gogarten. Her work is excellent, pastoral, tangible, accessible; dare I say she’s the best of both of these scholars. Also, considering my own work engages both Bonny and Fritz, it made sense to me to begin reading Sölle; seems she’s my older sister here in this odd theological family.

What I am providing here is not a book review; sadly, I’ve no time for a quality book review. Rather my aim is to provide some enticing quotes from the text, encouraging you, beloved reader, to go get it and read it and take it to heart. I will use bold to add emphasis to parts I want to stand out to you.

“Basically, however, in a completely authoritarian model of obedience one never asks the question ‘why.’ The world loses its significance and is degraded to being but the raw material used in practicing formal obedience. That which is done is uninteresting. When obedience concentrates itself completely on a higher and guiding ‘other,’ it becomes blind, that is, blind to the world. It hears the voice of its master in a very narrow and exclusive sense but it sees nothing. it accomplishes the act of obedience for its own sake, recognizing no additional significance.

“An attempt has been made to solve this dilemma by suggesting that the obedience requested and carried out is given freely. To be sure an obedience freely given does mean a displacement of the power relationship and allows the obedience subject to maintain a certain semblance of honor. But the problem of worldlessness and the lack of objective concerns inherent in such a person-oriented obedience is only sharpened. A critique of obedience cannot satisfy itself merely by maintaining that those who obediently submit choose to do so freely. Blindness toward the world and total irresponsibility are still lacking in this variant of the authoritarian model.

“An obedience that is blind to objective concerns and to the world, that merely listens to what it is told, has divest itself of all responsibility for what is commanded. Obedience and not what is to be done is the sole motivation.”

Creative Disobedience pp. 15-16

“But it is precisely spontaneity for which Jesus sets us free. That which he requires does not presuppose the order of the world; that order has yet to be established in the future. Insofar as the human must first discover what God’s will is, the future of the world remains open.

“In traditional usage one speaks rather descriptively of ‘fulfilling’ obedience. The picture is that of a container of form which must be filled. So too with obedience. A previously existing order is postulate that must be maintained, defended, or fulfilled. But Jesus did not conceive of the world according to a model of completed order, which person were merely required to maintain. The world he enter had not yet reached perfection. It was alterable, in fact, it awaited transformation. Schemes of order are in Jesus’ words utterly destroyed–great and small, scholar and child, riches and poverty, knowledge of the Law and ignorance. Jesus did everything in his power to relativize these orders and set free the person caught up in the se schemes. This process of liberation is called ‘Gospel.’ Out obedience then still be thought of as the Christian’s greatest glory?

“I detect that we need new words to describe the revolutionary nature of all relationships begun in Christ. At the very least it is problematic whether we can even continue to consider that which Jesus wanted under the term obedience.“

Creative Disobedience pp. 27-28

“A society is imagined in which it is no longer necessary to deny someone people their own subjectivity. Such an inhuman demand destroys the person on whom it is made. Those who require such a degree of self-sacrifice, or include it in their life plan, lose their freedom. He who makes use of another person as a means of achieving his own ends not only humiliates that person but also degrades himself. To treat another person as if she were a thing is to become a thing oneself, a servant to the functioning of the very ‘thing’ being manipulated. By demanding sacrifice, such a person destroys his own freedom. As the one in control he becomes the one controlled. In alienating others from that which they wish to be and can become, he alienates himself. Because he concentrates on domination, on employing others as means to his own ends, he loses all the other possibilities open to him. For example, he no longer pays attention to anything that does not fit his purpose. He loses the ability to enjoy ling because he must constantly reinforce his life by accomplishments. The relationship between people is so interdependent that it is impossible for one person to prosper at the expense of another. In the long run such exploitation proves detrimental to both.”

Creative Disobedience pp. 34-35

“The stronger a person’s self-identity–that which we have previously referred to as his or her being a subject–the easier partial renunciation becomes. in borderline situations the expression ‘partial renunciation’ can be applied to the runcination of one’s own life for the sake of the other. However, even then it is impossible for such a person to relinquish his or her identity for the sake of the other. And so one could formulate the thesis: The greater one’s realization of selfhood the greater one’s ability for true renunciation. The more successful one is at living the easier it is for him or her to let go of life.“

Creative Disobedience p. 39

“A person can, during the course of his lifetime, become more imaginative, or, on the other hand, he can give u more and more of his phantasy. He then becomes progressively poorer in his style of living and ever more fixed in that which he refers to as his life-experience or his understanding of people. This growing impoverishment of life takes pleasure in assuming the appearance of maturity, in feigning a full awareness of reality.“

Creative Disobedience p. 51

“Jesus made people whole without asking for thanks. He fulfilled people’s wishes without requesting their validity. He allowed phantasy full reign without bowing to propriety. he took seriously the religious requirements such as fasting, the breaking of bread, and thanksgiving, but he was also able to put them all aside. He was at ease with friend and foe alike. The conventional classification of people in artificial groupings could be suspended at any time.

“He never brought new virtues and duties. It was fulfillment he offered to those with whom he dealt, a certain sense of wholeness, of well-being, which made virtue and its practice possible. He did not fulfill duties; instead he changed the situation of those whom he met. His phantasy began with the situations but always went far beyond them.”

Creative Disobedience pp. 52-53

“The liberated human being is so strongly aware of him or herself as a self-determining subject that partial denials become possible. The expression ‘partial denial’ may seen inappropriate when it is applied to Jesus, but I use it in order to underscore the fact that a person can never deny his own identity simply at the will of another. In this sense Jesus too never denied his own identity. It is more appropriate to say that his death was the final substantiation of his identity, of the unheard of assertion ‘I am the life.'”

Creative Disobedience p. 58

“It appeared to be forgotten that for Jesus ‘God’ meant liberation, the unchaining of all powers which lie imprisoned in each of us, powers with which we too can perform miracles which are no less significant than those we are told Jesus himself performed. The feeling of possessing a full life, the fulfillment of Jesus, was lost. It was as if one wished to promise people something more and greater than the fulfillment of Jesus–a participation in divine life which is realized only after death. With the help of this beyond, this still to come, fulfillment was defamed, and the transformation of this earth in view of the possibilities for fulfillment remained subordinate.

“We still secretly feared that the realization of selfhood could only be achieved at the cost of others, suspected that it was the robbery of others, because we viewed the earth itself and the projected possibilities for fulfillment as constant and immovable. If instead the world is seen as moving toward a goal, if God is experiences as active in history and not merely posited as resting beyond nature, as eternally being, then the possibilities for fulfillment are multiplied. Then phantasy ceases to be a thing for children and poets–that which Christian history has made of it. The person is once again given the courage to say ‘I,’ without, in so doing, taking anything from anyone else.“

Creative Disobedience pp. 64-65

Posted on by laurenlarkin 2

Revelation upon Revelation

A Birthday Reflection

I know this is a week late, but, nonetheless, it appears. My Birthday revelation. 

There is no real coherence to this post; the only common ground is that over the past year I’ve learned a lot as I am wont to do. But, last year was hard. Very. Hard. I had revelation upon revelation about people: they aren’t always who they say they are. I know that this seems like quite the kindergarten thing to learn, but sometimes, even as “wise” adults…we must learn this lesson again. 

You see, there’s a longing I have: to fit in. I have never. I just don’t. I still don’t. And the irony is that I care but don’t care because I’m a 5 who idealizes belonging but then when I get it, I hate it. I guess here I say: lolz. I think sometimes I fear my own individuality. It’s quite fierce and not even I can wrestle it to submission. It’s an alligator, and I’m not one to wrestle alligators. I think this year I’ve learned through some very traumatic mediums: That I’m okay; that I’m enough. 

And I am enough. I know, a protestant priest preaching such drivel…but I believe this. I am content in me–trust me, this has been put to the test this past year…and even so: I am content. It took some great loss, some great trial, and some great self reflection: I am enough. I’m okay. Even if I have “original” sin, it doesn’t mean that I’m inherently “bad,” that all I do is crave wicked. I don’t. You don’t. It’s not a sin to be okay on your own, or to feel one inside of your own skin. That’s not “sin.” It’s not a sin to feel whole and entire in your flesh; it’s not a sin to like yourself. (By the way, there’s no real righteousness in consistently hating yourself or debasing yourself through your own self-criticism; you don’t get the gospel more than me because you think you’re shit. B-t-dubs, that narrative your listening to is not the gospel at work but your broken-ass script you use to keep yourself insulated from prospects of confession and new life.) You can like yourself, and you can like the idea of self-change without it becoming a self-righteous thing. Sin is better defined as that law you use to discern who is “in” and who is “out”; sin is better defined not as individuality but as a “bird” flipped to the rest of humanity–just me!. Sin is better defined as a hatred of self that devolves into a selfish self-non-awareness that steals from the rest of the community your very presence. To love yourself is not pride; to love yourself is an acknowledgement that the One who made you knew exactly what the One was doing. To think you are better than everyone else is bad; to love yourself is not to think that you are above everyone else but that you are worthy of the love that you have received and will receive and will give.  

But aside from that here are some of the things I’ve come to learn this past year:

  1. Everyone reveals themselves; you just have to wait. Doesn’t matter who they say they are, actions speak louder than words. I get tired of people lying to me and speaking crap to me and putting the table cloth of “encouragement” on top of it. Doesn’t matter. That shit stinks to high heaven. Substantiate your words or don’t; just, please, don’t waste them. Our world is so full of useless words, there should be a global call to all who care to use words that have meaning…meaning that incorporates their own being. I tell my students: substantiate your words with yourself. It’s why I like for them to use the first person singular pronoun…I think this…I feel that… If you put yourself behind your words you can’t hide from the attack that may come, and maybe you’ll think about what you say before you say it. What if we reclaimed words, used fewer, and let ourselves be in more of our words…   ….   …. what if?
  2. Speaking of words…Let others tell you who they are. This concept coincides with the first: everyone reveals themselves, and so we should let others tell us who they are rather than determining who they are especially when they protest that you have them wrong. One friendship that went very south was one where I could not speak for myself or convince the person that their perception of me was based on a few poorly developed ideas of me. There’s nothing more frustrating than feeling like you have to yell and shout at deaf ears to be heard. That type of relationship is not a friendship of equals; that is a situation of some sort of domination. You know who you are–even at your worst–no one gets to tell you who you are…especially someone who has known you for only a few months. Experiencing this, I’ve become more adamant about holding back judgment about other people. Let them tell you who they are–even the hardest to get along with–everyone has a story. Think: Gabby Gabby from Toy Story 4. She seems so evil but she has a desire, a story that drives her: to be loved, to be some kid’s comfort. We could brush her off as evil; but she’s not. She has a story. But if we turn the movie off midway she remains evil…but if we let her tell her story…she resonates with us on a human level. I hope we all listen to others. (Also included here is anyone who needs to control you to make their world more calm…this is also a means to dominate and tell you who you are and determine who you should be.)
  3. People who love you aren’t stupid for loving you. I think we struggle with this sometimes…At least I know I do. I was bullied in middle-school. I was fat and ugly and there wasn’t one person there who wouldn’t let me forget it. Except for a small table of other “outsiders”. A table at the cafeteria where I found refuge but where I also found discontent. I found myself looking down on those who liked me because they weren’t the ones who were of status…what’s love if it can’t get you somewhere? What’s love if you do nothing but hate yourself? While I know now that I radically misconceived love, I find that I (we?) still struggle with those who love us. If we have that self-contempt that is so extolled in some theological circles, we will perpetually question those who love us…they’ll always be mistaken. But they’re not.  Now, bear with me: I’m a mom, I know unconditional love and I love…like LOVE my kids. I’d go to fist-a-cuffs over any one of them. There is unconditional love; I’ve felt it. But it’s hard to believe that anyone else would ever unconditionally love us that doesn’t *have to*. But there are people like that who also do not share the same or similar genetic code as you do. There are people who love you just because and do not have to. I won’t name mine because they should know who they are (if not, text me, I’ll send flowers or chocolates….) Don’t forsake these people who love you just because; don’t forsake them just because you don’t love yourself. Let these people tell you a different love-story with you. I guarantee that love-story is better than your hate-story. I cannot guarantee that that story will be a happy ending…but that right now that love is real…don’t let it go. 
  4. and last…Don’t hide your story. I’m famous for this. Well…this sounds hypocritical after an exhortation to be yourself, to let others tell you about themselves, to substantiate your words, and to receive love as is… I promise that I substantiate my words to the best of my ability, that I try to love those who love me and let them love me in return, and that I am myself. But there are somethings or (rathter) something that I still wrestle with: anger over years lost. I’m writing this portion because I think it’s important to my story and because I think I’m not alone. I’ve had years stolen from me; and I hate it. I want those 7 years back more than anything. 7 years of catastrophic self-destruction. I was so angry; I was so lost. I hated me and the world for nearly a decade. I wanted to self-destruct, to implode, to cease to exist.  I wanted to go supernova leaving only a destructive black hole in my wake. My anger coursed through my veins and around me. I was destruction. Everything I touched was dirt and not gold. I hated myself in a visceral way for nearly a decade. And then Christ. And then I encountered God in Christ by the Spirit in the event of faith and I was yanked out of my self-de-struction and oriented toward the world in others-con-struction. But there is still part of me that wants those 7 years back. Those 7 years of anger and self-destruction. I feel that I’ve lost those 7 years. But then recently I realized…those 7 years (and the ones preceding that time) are the reason I am who I am. I know…I know pain; I know turmoil; I know (deeply) existential crisis that brings you the brink; I know darkness; I know trouble; I know that surge of guilt and resentment that courses through your veins where you think you won’t survive before it moves from the warmth of you inner elbow to the pulse of your ankle. I know. And while I wrestle with my age in light of this loss, I realize…that I am who I am because of it. So I cannot resent it fully. I can’t hat it fully because I’d never change who I am, I’d never change my story, I’d never change the fact that I can sit in the deep, deep darkness and those “lost years” are part of my story. Not many of us can say that…but I can. I can sit with you…I promise. I’ve a decade of pain so deep that allows me to be with you not matter what. I’m here with you, in the darkness, no matter what; I mean that with all my person; and I have no problem showing you. Just ask….

So I say this to conclude: I’m 44 and unashamed after many years of feeling regret for having “lost” those years. I’m 44 and don’t want those 7 years back because they’ve deeply formed me. I’m 44 and a whole person, content with herself and who she is now. In my 20s, I never thought I’d make it this far; I’m proud that I have. I’m here, I’m present, I’m active, and I’m not going away anytime soon. And I just don’t quit. #ThatsAPromise #ThatsAThreat

These are my birthday reflections. And to reflect on a question from last year: Am I happy with who and where I am? I have to echo last year’s response: Yes. I am very happy with who I am and where I am. 100%, yes.

Posted on by laurenlarkin 2

Once More with David Schnarch and “Passionate Marriage”: Schnarch, Moltmann, and the Self.

This is the last installment of my intentional engagement with David Schnarch and “Passionate Marriage.” (All that to say, since the book hasn’t been shelved and is still roaming about my house, I’m sure I’ll be dipping in here and there in the future.)

Here are the previous posts in this mini series:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

This last excerpt is taken from Chapter 14, from the section Self Transcendence and Self-Dissolution.  (bold is mine)

“Sebastian Moore says that our desire of fullness is, in essence, a ‘death wish’: life crises like falling in love, undergoing conversion, or suffering bereavement present the painful and bewildering demands that the ‘you’ whose desire brought this about must die. Boundary experiences arise from confronting the limits of what you can attain as the person you are currently. To fulfill your desires, you  have to change in ways that make that fulfillment possible. This means that the smaller ‘you’ dies as a fuller ‘you,’ a more unique ‘you,’ is born. We desire our self to death in the most positive sense.

“We can consider the paradox from another perspective: throughout this book…we have explored the need to hold onto yourself. But holding onto yourself and becoming more differentiated actually leads to the loss of the self you’ve been holding onto. My clients begin to mourn their ‘old self’ dying in the process of a new self being born. (…) It’s the death that gives life, but they’re often wistful about it. They talk of not knowing who they are, but more accurately they mean who they are becoming. Ironically, they’ve never been more clear about who they are.

“This process of your ‘old’ self dying as your ‘new, larger’ self is born is how self-transcendence and self-dissolution go hand in hand…Self-dissolution is as much a part of this process as is self-transcendence.

“Herein lies an important point that is sometimes hard to grasp: many people who seek self-transcendence don’t want to give anything up, and they want the path safe and clearly mapped. However, our unwillingness to give up what no longer fits (i.e., self-dissolution) blocks us from self-transcendence.And once you recognize yourself…as the manifestation of Spirit seeking its own fulfillment, then your refusal to grow is not just a personal shortcoming but also a thwarting of Spirit. This is where sin fits in…

“Sin isn’t about unconfined desire–it’s our refusal to desire and grow, our refusal with denial or rejection of the pleasurable parts of life. But as Lama Yeshe, Tibetan master of Buddhist Tantra points out, religion often becomes a form of suppression instead of a method for transcending our limitations. Instead of viewing pleasure and desire as something to be avoided at all costs, Tantra recognizes the energy aroused by our desires to be an indispensable resource for spiritual enlightenment. This same view is expressed in the Talmud in the words of third-centruy Rabbi Arika, who said that we will have to account to God for all the good things our eyes beheld but which we refused to enjoy.

“It’s not hard to understand why we in this way (not pursuing our own potentials): self-transcendence is fraught with discontinuities–and self-dissolution. Wilber notes that nature progresses by sudden leaps and deep transformations, rather than through piecemeal adjustments. He cites evidence from many fields of science to illustrate that dynamic systems do not evolve smoothly and continuously over time, but, rather, in comparatively sudden leaps and bursts.

The overarching narrative Schnarch is playing with (the dissolution of self) is the death to self that is so common and familiar in Christianity. The death of self is emphasized from every quadrant of Christianity. I believe both men and women suffer under the burden of dying to self; but I believe women often suffer more. Specifically in evangelical Christianity, this is true. Though, I wasn’t raised Christian and was still fed enough bull to believe I was here to be as demure as possible, a substance barely person to make men happy. The “don’t disturb the waters” and “do whatever he wants” was loud and clear. In trying to achieve that standard (expectation?) women (not all, but most) learn the hard process of dying to themselves. The concept of having to die to self, for me, has, is, will never be foreign. I think most of you would agree with me.

What’s foreign to me is the emphasis on the reception of a new self or a self at all; Schnarch is on point to emphasize this aspect of the death to self. But, there’s something he’s wrong about that I want to address first.

Schnarch argues, “But holding onto yourself and becoming more differentiated actually leads to the loss of the self you’ve been holding onto.” (Again, as in previous posts, I’ll be using “I” to simplify my sentences and thoughts.) I’m not sure how I can hold onto myself, holding to my integrity while simultaneously dying to myself to allow the new self to emerge. I’m not very (as in: at all) sold that by pressing into myself more that I’m going to come to the death of myself (for how does this happen while I’m holding onto myself?), and also that from there transitioning through to a new self. I think the best we get there is a weird inside-out version of Lauren (*shudders), not necessarily a new self. Also, by focusing on the self (which I must do to hold onto myself), I would negate the processes by which I would die to myself.

(Side note: this is also a criticism I can use against Ayn Rand and Objectivism’s claim that I can be so selfish that I become other focused: I cannot be so self focused that somehow (miraculously?)–without any encounter with an other, an external event–I’m now caring for my neighbor.)

The dissolution of self is not predicated on the transcending of self; rather, the opposite is true. The transcended self emerges from the dissolution of self. Specifically, the transcended self, the new self is born out of the death that the old self has surrendered to. Thus, there is no “holding on” to the self but a letting go of the self, giving in to the dark pull of the abyss that is the event of the conflict encounter (usually with an other self). Holding on to the self would be a fighting against loss; surrender of the self to the event, to what is occurring and happening, is an embrace of the impending loss of self. So, as long as we are still holding on to self and fighting to be more transcended selves, the less likely the dissolution of self will happen and (with it) a transcended (a new) self is less likely to emerge if at all.

Jürgen Moltmann writes,

“It is much more the question of [a person’s] own personal identity and integrity, for every self-emptying in historical action is a venture, and a way into non-identity. A [person] abandons himself as he was and as he knew himself to be, and, by emptying himself, finds a new self. Jesus’s eschatological saying tells us that ‘Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loess his life will preserve it'” (The Crucified God 15).

What Moltmann refers to as both self-abandonment and self-emptying correspond to self-surrender as defined as a surrender not to the self but away from the self and to the event of the conflict encounter. Very much, I cannot hold onto myself in this equation, but I must lose myself entirely (no dependence on myself in any way shape or form).

So, what is missing from Schnarch is the surrendering (“self-abandonment”/”self-emptying”) to the event of the conflict encounter that results in the dissolution of self which then results in the transcended self. Dissolution precedes transendence because the dissolution begins with that sharp awareness that what was can be no longer and something most shift, change, be altered in the self. The surrender to this awareness and desire for change is (as described above by Schnarch) dramatic and sudden and rarely ordinary and lethargic. But just as quick is the birth of the new self, the transcended self. The self is either dead or alive and never a little bit of one or the other. Thus, the birth of the new self is and is suddenly.

Again, recourse to Motlmann,

“Only by self-emptying in encounter with what is alien, unknown and different does [a person] achieve selfhood…trust in the hidden and guaranteed identity with Christ in God (Col. 3:3) makes possible the self-abandonment, the road into non-identity and unidentifiability, which neither clings to ancient forms of identity, nor anxiously reaches out for the forms of identity of those one is fighting in common” (The Crucified God 16).

The fundamental component that is missing from Schnarch is the God-encounter. For the hearer who is encountered in the event of God’s self-disclosure in Christ and the conflict that ensues within the person in this event of encounter a demand is felt and that demand is to self-empty and to self-abandon and let go not into a dark abyss of nothingness but into God and God’s self. In other words, go ahead and let yo’self go, Boo; God very much got you.

“Becoming is never safe or secure, especially if we’re dependent on a reflected sense of self. We don’t get to stop when we’re scared or uncomfortable, because we grow by going into the unknown, including the Great Unknown” (Schnarch 399).

The letting go of self (not the holding on to self) that comprises the self-surrender, self-abandonment, self-emptying in the event of the conflict encounter with God’s self-disclosure in Christ is that death from which a transcended-self, a new self is born. This death and new life is far from safe and easy; it demands a beautiful desperation that has occurred by seeking our hope in everything but God and having that hope returned to us void, thus thrusting us deep into our own crucibles. The self’s last ditch effort to be an authentic self, a new self is counterintuitive to self-preservation: it lies in entering into that darkness, into death. But rather than the flat-line being the last thing the self hears as it enters into the darkness of death, it hears the trumpet summoning it awake, resurrecting it from death.

Posted on by laurenlarkin 4