Greetings, Dear Ones,This post will pick up from the previous one, reflecting on ideas from The Darkening Spirit, by David Tacey. Tacey's book is an exploration of the ideas of C.G. Jung on religion and spirituality, and promises a proposal for what religion might begin to look like in the future. I have read the first four chapters, and find much to savor in these pages, some of which I will be chewing on in this blog.
One initial question has to do with why it is even necessary to imagine "what religion might look like in the future?" Hasn't the Church always been what it is? A place for worship and service, where some people lead and most people follow, and between the vestry and the choir and Sunday School most people find a place to fit in? Well, I haven't been active in any institutional churches for about a decade now, but from what I hear from friends in the field, this form of "being Church," while it is still very much alive and well in some corners, is either dwindling in numbers or chronically tied up in controversy in others. And all the while the voices of modern (and post-modern) atheism are loudly crying that religion is not only the opiate of the masses, but the cause of much of the pain and misery in the world. In such an environment, how could religion simply keep on as it has? Bidden or unbidden, change will come.
In order to follow Tacey's line of reasoning, we need to consider his explanation for how the world of religion came to be as it is. From a Jungian standpoint, the Divine lives within the human psyche, whether we recognize that inner space as God's dwelling place or not. Our decision to externalize God and locate "Him" is the cosmos, or the Bible, or an institutional hierarchy does not change the fundamental existence of God within. The longer that Inner Voice is ignored or denied, the more energy it needs, and therefore gathers, in order to break through to consciousness. And the harder God has to work to get our attention, the darker and more difficult the process of breaking through will become. The in-breaking of the Divine may be experienced as something overwhelmingly painful and difficult; Tacey even uses the word "savage."
According to Tacey, Western Christianity has done two things to promote a sense of irreconcilable distance between Humanity and Divinity: 1, externalizing God, thereby localizing religious life in the external institution of the Church, and 2, externalizing Christ by limiting the doctrine of the Incarnation to Jesus of Nazareth and only Jesus of Nazareth. The spiritual contents of the psyche cannot rest easy if those two realities are the final word in religion.
To speak from my own experience, there was once a day when a finely done liturgy with great music and a theologically sound sermon made me very happy. I had been raised to believe that the work of the Church was where all the really important work got done. That's why, for most of my early life, I wanted to be ordained. The priest at the front of the Church was doing the really important stuff. But that hasn't been the case for a long time. More and more I crave silence and simplicity in my times of prayer and worship. Words and music have become distractions, like gremlins jumping up and down off to the side, while the Truth I want to commune with is ineffably, elusively within. I no longer hear the voice of an externalized God. Meanwhile, the inward Truth I seek is manifestly NOT the same as my own ego, of that I am quite certain. But what it is, and how it is to be found, I am not yet certain. So I will keep reading, and pondering. I don't think I am alone in this. I suspect there are others who are reformulating their understanding of God, seeking a Larger Story which both expresses who God is more authentically for them, and accommodates their own seeking as part of the Story. With Tacey, I think there is an Inward Divine, not so airy-fairy as the New Age folk believe, but an inner drive to wholeness and divinity that is our human birthright. If we do not find God within, then what we have found is something less than God.
Enough for now. The journey continues.
Thank you for walking this far with me.
Blessings,
Beth
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