There must be a time of day when the man who makes plans forgets his plans, and acts as if he had no plans at all. There must be a time of day when the man who has to speak falls very silent. And his mind forms no more propositions, and he asks himself: Did they have any meaning? There must be a time when a man of prayer goes to pray as if it were the first time in his life he had ever prayed; when the man of resolutions puts his resolutions aside as if they had all been broken, and he learns a different wisdom: distinguishing the sun from the moon, the stars from the darkness, the sea from the dry land, and the night sky from the shoulder of a hill. [Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, p. 260.]
Black Friday . . . Small-Business Saturday . . . Cyber Monday . . . Giving Tuesday . . .
Who comes up with this stuff, anyway? Well, I think I know the answer,especially when I hear the many reports of how "successful" or "unsuccessful" these days are . . . when the impact of the days is measured in $$$ and %.
Advent arrives as a blanket warming the cold, market-driven days, urging me to "forget my plans" . . . "fall very silent" . . . "pray as if for the first time" . . . "learn a different wisdom."
Advent does not speak the language of market growth or GNP or China trade deals or even "what will I get the grandchildren for Christmas?"
The season offers a quieter, gentler invitation . . . to reevaluate and recalibrate . . . to stay rooted in that which is life- and light-giving, rather than getting carried away by the distractive pulls of the moment . . . to join a more universal design that transcends my little social gatherings and travel plans and musical specials.
Merton was not writing about Advent per se, but he might as well have been describing the season.
I am tempted, this early morning in Advent, to state my goals for the season: “forget my plans” . . . “fall very silent” . . . “pray as if for the first time” . . . “learn a different wisdom.” But I think I would regret placing my own agenda on the days, forcing this grand, unfathomable season into my own little gift box, so that by the end I could measure it - maybe in % - to see how successful or unsuccessful I was.
No, I think instead I'll just be alert what shows up . . . I'll stay open to the grace and mercy hiding in whatever is . . . I'll allow the warm blanket of Advent to cover all the coldness within me and in the world.
Showing posts with label spiritual experience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spiritual experience. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 3, 2019
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Traditions and Transcendence
Mark 7:1-13
The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus 2 and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)
5 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”
6 He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
“‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
7
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’
8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
9 And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’[e] 11 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— 12 then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”
The word "tradition" appears frequently in the Mark 7 passage.
If you are of a certain generation, think Tevye belting out "Tradition!!" in Fiddler on the Roof.
If you are of another generation, think Emmett and the construction workers singing, "Everything is awesome!!" as they blithely go about the same, endless routine, day after day assembling the pieces of the city in the Lego Movie. [Those of you who right now are rolling your eyes and dismissing this blog-post over a Lego Movie reference have missed a jewel if you've not seen it . . . smart, funny, symbolic, and with several brilliant messages, one of which plays on the song, "Everything Is Awesome!"]
Routines and practices easily become overly familiar, so deeply woven into the pattern of daily life that we no longer ask, "Why do I do this?" or "What fruit does this regimen bear in my life?" No need to ask the questions when you're convinced, "Everything is awesome!!"
Rarely do we think of a daily ritual, a religious practice, or an habitual routine as inauthentic. Mostly, they simply lose their energy over time. Sometimes we persist in the practice simply as a lucky charm, never mind that the ritual itself has become empty for us, devoid of any deeper meaning or significance.
I like the word transcendence. It suggests "beyond" . . . beyond comprehension, beyond explanation, beyond the usual, beyond ordinary experience. For several months now, I've sought to bounce things (including practices, rituals, routines, vocations) off this notion of transcendence. Assuming that God is somehow connected to all beyond us, I ask, "Does this thing . . . or practice . . . or belief . . . or connection . . . or vocation . . . have some sense of transcendence about it?" (Of course, all things are full of transcendence if we see them as so. But rarely do we have those eyes to see. As Elizabeth Barrett Browning pointedly wrote, most of us sit round the flaming bush and pluck blackberries.)
So it was, in Jesus' time, with these "traditions of the elders" and the "human traditions" to which the religious crowd was attached. It wasn't that the traditions were bad . . . and it wasn't that those who engaged in them were purposely deceitful or evil people; rather, the rituals and traditions themselves no longer held transcendent weight. They no longer pointed the persons who practiced them to The One Who is Beyond. Deeper realities were lost. The practices were no longer shaping lives, deepening connections with God, or helping the practitioners open themselves more deeply and receptively to the Spirit.
No longer did anyone ask, "Why do we do these things?" or "What is this practice trying to accomplish in my life?"
New wine was bursting the old wineskins of the traditional religious system.
Who among us has not been here, perhaps accumulating religious practices in hopes that the mere practice, rotely performed, would commend us to God?
Who among us has not clung to some method of prayer or formula for experiencing God which was effective in the past, trying to recapture some elusive emotional impulse which reminds us of God's presence?
Who among us has not piled up a storehouse of lucky charms in hopes that they will shield us from difficulty and lead us to a gilded life?
We have all been there, done that. So how do we engage in life, in practices, in rituals that deepen our connection with God? . . . that allow us to participate with God in what God is doing in the world?
What practices connect me with that which is transcendent? What routines have the gravitas to hold the weight of who I am? . . . to shape me? . . . to open me? . . . to help me see more clearly what is real (in myself and in the world)?
These are not the religious rituals that make me feel better, that confirm who I am, or that are done for the sake of a season. Rather, transformative spiritual practices connect me with something more substantial, something solid, something that can ground me or anchor me. (Hence, Meister Eckhart's phrase for God was "The Ground of Being.") Thus, they are transcendent.
How will I know if some "tradition" to which I hold is transcendent or leads me to transcendence? There are probably several ways to answer. Most simply and straightforwardly, hold your spiritual practice up to the transcendent values of love, compassion, and mercy. Do my daily routines or spiritual practices make me more compassionate? Do they open up space inside me to respond to the world with mercy rather than judgment? Do they allow love to flow through me into the world? Am I better able to forgive, include, accept, and be open to the other?
At the very least, God's project for the world starts with love, compassion, and mercy. Thus, that seems to be the place you and I can start, as well.
The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus 2 and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)
5 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”
6 He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
“‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
7
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’
8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
9 And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’[e] 11 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— 12 then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”
The word "tradition" appears frequently in the Mark 7 passage.
If you are of a certain generation, think Tevye belting out "Tradition!!" in Fiddler on the Roof.
If you are of another generation, think Emmett and the construction workers singing, "Everything is awesome!!" as they blithely go about the same, endless routine, day after day assembling the pieces of the city in the Lego Movie. [Those of you who right now are rolling your eyes and dismissing this blog-post over a Lego Movie reference have missed a jewel if you've not seen it . . . smart, funny, symbolic, and with several brilliant messages, one of which plays on the song, "Everything Is Awesome!"]
Routines and practices easily become overly familiar, so deeply woven into the pattern of daily life that we no longer ask, "Why do I do this?" or "What fruit does this regimen bear in my life?" No need to ask the questions when you're convinced, "Everything is awesome!!"
Rarely do we think of a daily ritual, a religious practice, or an habitual routine as inauthentic. Mostly, they simply lose their energy over time. Sometimes we persist in the practice simply as a lucky charm, never mind that the ritual itself has become empty for us, devoid of any deeper meaning or significance.
I like the word transcendence. It suggests "beyond" . . . beyond comprehension, beyond explanation, beyond the usual, beyond ordinary experience. For several months now, I've sought to bounce things (including practices, rituals, routines, vocations) off this notion of transcendence. Assuming that God is somehow connected to all beyond us, I ask, "Does this thing . . . or practice . . . or belief . . . or connection . . . or vocation . . . have some sense of transcendence about it?" (Of course, all things are full of transcendence if we see them as so. But rarely do we have those eyes to see. As Elizabeth Barrett Browning pointedly wrote, most of us sit round the flaming bush and pluck blackberries.)
So it was, in Jesus' time, with these "traditions of the elders" and the "human traditions" to which the religious crowd was attached. It wasn't that the traditions were bad . . . and it wasn't that those who engaged in them were purposely deceitful or evil people; rather, the rituals and traditions themselves no longer held transcendent weight. They no longer pointed the persons who practiced them to The One Who is Beyond. Deeper realities were lost. The practices were no longer shaping lives, deepening connections with God, or helping the practitioners open themselves more deeply and receptively to the Spirit.
No longer did anyone ask, "Why do we do these things?" or "What is this practice trying to accomplish in my life?"
New wine was bursting the old wineskins of the traditional religious system.
Who among us has not been here, perhaps accumulating religious practices in hopes that the mere practice, rotely performed, would commend us to God?
Who among us has not clung to some method of prayer or formula for experiencing God which was effective in the past, trying to recapture some elusive emotional impulse which reminds us of God's presence?
Who among us has not piled up a storehouse of lucky charms in hopes that they will shield us from difficulty and lead us to a gilded life?
We have all been there, done that. So how do we engage in life, in practices, in rituals that deepen our connection with God? . . . that allow us to participate with God in what God is doing in the world?
What practices connect me with that which is transcendent? What routines have the gravitas to hold the weight of who I am? . . . to shape me? . . . to open me? . . . to help me see more clearly what is real (in myself and in the world)?
These are not the religious rituals that make me feel better, that confirm who I am, or that are done for the sake of a season. Rather, transformative spiritual practices connect me with something more substantial, something solid, something that can ground me or anchor me. (Hence, Meister Eckhart's phrase for God was "The Ground of Being.") Thus, they are transcendent.
How will I know if some "tradition" to which I hold is transcendent or leads me to transcendence? There are probably several ways to answer. Most simply and straightforwardly, hold your spiritual practice up to the transcendent values of love, compassion, and mercy. Do my daily routines or spiritual practices make me more compassionate? Do they open up space inside me to respond to the world with mercy rather than judgment? Do they allow love to flow through me into the world? Am I better able to forgive, include, accept, and be open to the other?
At the very least, God's project for the world starts with love, compassion, and mercy. Thus, that seems to be the place you and I can start, as well.
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Love Loves . . . Merton's Thoughts
Before posting my own reflection on, "What does it mean to love another?" as a follow-up to the previous post, "Love loves what is . . . as it is," I want to post some of Thomas Merton's words about love and charity.
These thoughts come from the first section of Merton's, No Man Is an Island. The chapter is called, "Love Can Be Kept Only by Being Given Away." (I have retained Merton's original language, which uses masculine pronouns throughout. Merton was not only a product of his times, he was also the product of an all-male monastic community.)
There is a false and momentary happiness in self-satisfaction, but it always leads to sorrow because it narrows and deadens our spirit. True happiness is found in unselfish love, a love which increases in proportion as it is shared. There is no end to the sharing of love, and, therefore, the potential happiness of such love is without limit. Infinite sharing is the law of God's inner life. He has made the sharing of ourselves the law of our own being, so that it is in loving others that we best love ourselves. In disinterested activity we best fulfill our own capacities to act and to be.
Yet there can never be happiness in compulsion. It is not enough for love to be shared: it must be shared freely. That is to say it must be given, not merely taken.
***********
Love not only prefers the good of another to my own, but it does not even compare the two. . . . Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. . . .
To love another is to will what is really good for him. Such love must be based on truth. A love that sees no distinction between good and evil, but loves blindly merely for the sake of loving, is hatred, rather than love. To love blindly is to love selfishly, because the goal of such love is not the real advantage of the beloved but only the exercise of love in our own souls. . . .
Charity is neither weak nor blind. It is essentially prudent, just, temperate, and strong. Unless all the other virtues blend together in charity, our love is not genuine. No one who really wants to love another will consent to love him falsely. If we are going to love others at all, we must make up our minds to love them well. Otherwise our love is a delusion. . . .
One who really loves another is not merely moved by the desire to see him contented and healthy and prosperous in this world. Love cannot be satisfied with anything so incomplete. If I am to love my brother, I must somehow enter deep into the mystery of God's love for him. . . . The truth I must love in my brother is God Himself, living in him.
************
In order to love others with perfect charity I must be true to them, to myself, and to God.
The true interests of a person are at once perfectly his own and common to the whole Kingdom of God. That is because these interests are all centered in God's designs for his soul. The destiny of each one of us is intended, by the Lord, to enter into the destiny of His entire Kingdom. . . .
If we love one another truly, our love will be graced with a clear-sighted prudence which sees and respects the designs of God upon each separate soul. Our love for one another must be rooted in a deep devotion to Divine Providence, a devotion that abandons our own limited plans into the hands of God and seeks only to enter into the invisible work that builds His Kingdom.
These thoughts come from the first section of Merton's, No Man Is an Island. The chapter is called, "Love Can Be Kept Only by Being Given Away." (I have retained Merton's original language, which uses masculine pronouns throughout. Merton was not only a product of his times, he was also the product of an all-male monastic community.)
There is a false and momentary happiness in self-satisfaction, but it always leads to sorrow because it narrows and deadens our spirit. True happiness is found in unselfish love, a love which increases in proportion as it is shared. There is no end to the sharing of love, and, therefore, the potential happiness of such love is without limit. Infinite sharing is the law of God's inner life. He has made the sharing of ourselves the law of our own being, so that it is in loving others that we best love ourselves. In disinterested activity we best fulfill our own capacities to act and to be.
Yet there can never be happiness in compulsion. It is not enough for love to be shared: it must be shared freely. That is to say it must be given, not merely taken.
***********
Love not only prefers the good of another to my own, but it does not even compare the two. . . . Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. . . .
To love another is to will what is really good for him. Such love must be based on truth. A love that sees no distinction between good and evil, but loves blindly merely for the sake of loving, is hatred, rather than love. To love blindly is to love selfishly, because the goal of such love is not the real advantage of the beloved but only the exercise of love in our own souls. . . .
Charity is neither weak nor blind. It is essentially prudent, just, temperate, and strong. Unless all the other virtues blend together in charity, our love is not genuine. No one who really wants to love another will consent to love him falsely. If we are going to love others at all, we must make up our minds to love them well. Otherwise our love is a delusion. . . .
One who really loves another is not merely moved by the desire to see him contented and healthy and prosperous in this world. Love cannot be satisfied with anything so incomplete. If I am to love my brother, I must somehow enter deep into the mystery of God's love for him. . . . The truth I must love in my brother is God Himself, living in him.
************
In order to love others with perfect charity I must be true to them, to myself, and to God.
The true interests of a person are at once perfectly his own and common to the whole Kingdom of God. That is because these interests are all centered in God's designs for his soul. The destiny of each one of us is intended, by the Lord, to enter into the destiny of His entire Kingdom. . . .
If we love one another truly, our love will be graced with a clear-sighted prudence which sees and respects the designs of God upon each separate soul. Our love for one another must be rooted in a deep devotion to Divine Providence, a devotion that abandons our own limited plans into the hands of God and seeks only to enter into the invisible work that builds His Kingdom.
Thursday, August 16, 2018
A Case for God . . . Not the Experience of God
2 After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. 3 His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. 4 And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.
5 Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” 6 (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)
7 Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”
8 Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.
9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 10 They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what “rising from the dead” meant. (Mark 9:2 - 10)
The Transfiguration story is important at several levels. It is especially challenging to those who have given themselves to an intentional journey of deepening life in God. Within a narrative full of movement (Jesus took . . . led them . . . they were coming down . . . all indicating journey and action), Peter gets struck by how "good it is for us to be here" and his desire to erect shelters, tabernacles, or booths. His suggestion that they create a memorial marker speaks to the perpetual human tendency to freeze spiritual experience in time, to codify the experience in order to remember it and perhaps to have it again at some later time.
Did you have a meaningful spiritual experience at this particular retreat center? Then go to that place again, and see if you can replicate that experience.
Did you sense God speaking to you through this book or author 10 years ago? Then read the book again, or another by the same author, and God will repeat the vision.
Did you find a particular set of spiritual practices meaningful to you as an adolescent? Then return to those practices in order to have a similar spiritual experience.
Did something significant happen to you today? Take a picture, post it to Facebook, and set it to your social media timeline. Next year on this date you'll be reminded of what happened today.
Was a particular sermon or worship experience meaningful to you? Buy the cd of the sermon and service . . . you can replay it as you drive around town, and be reminded always of the way you felt God come close in that experience.
Of course, these methods are not all bad, and I'm not suggesting there is never a place for them. All of them, however, are attempts to recreate a particular experience of God. There are so many different ways to build shelters and set up monuments to spiritual experience, just as Peter suggested on the mountain.
The real danger in the spiritual life is that the experience itself becomes a commodity, sought in and for itself. Most humans are complete addicts in this way . . . when something feels good, especially when we feel we have tapped into the numinous in a significant way, we want more of it. We want to repeat the same experience of peace . . . we want to have the same sense of generosity again . . . we want to know ourselves loved deep-down, not just for a moment, but always.
Addiction to spiritual experience is especially seductive, and because it is "spiritual," we assume it must be good. If a little is good, then more must be better, right?
Hear Thomas Merton:
The one great danger that confronts every person who takes spiritual experience seriously, is the danger of illuminism or, in Monsignor Ronald Knox's term, "enthusiasm". Here the problem is that of taking one's subjective experience so seriously that it becomes more important than truth, more important than God. Once spiritual experience becomes objectified, it turns into an idol. It becomes a "thing", a "reality" which we serve. We are not created for the service of any "thing", but for the service of God alone, Who is not and cannot be a "thing". To serve Him Who is no "object" is freedom. To live for spiritual experience is slavery, and such slavery makes the contemplative life just as secular (though in a more subtle way) as the service of any other "thing", no matter how base: money, pleasure, success. Indeed, the ruin of many potential contemplatives has been this avidity for spiritual success. (The Inner Experience, ed. by Thomas Hart, p. 139.)
The language of "idolatry" hearkens back to the Ten Commandments, which begin with the command to have only one God. To be sure, to use the language of idolatry for something which is seemingly good, like spiritual experience, seems extreme. Yet, that is the very nature of idolatry. Even good things that are not God must not be worshiped.
Let me be clear. I'm for spiritual experience.
Worship may be a spiritual experience.
Retreats may provide an experience of God.
Spiritual practices may open us to spiritual experience.
But spiritual experience is at least one degree away from God. As Merton says, the goal of the spiritual life is not experience, but God . . . to know God in a direct, unmediated way.
For this reason, the Christian mystics have proposed silence and solitude as the most basic contexts for knowing God, rather than some setting in which emotions and excitability were the driving forces. In silence and solitude, there are no words to get in the way, nothing about silence and solitude that can truly be described or prescribed, no way for the experience to be manipulated in order to get a particular experience of God. There is only God in the naked silence.
Also, this is the reason many of the great monastic traditions -- going back to the Desert Abbas and Ammas of the 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries -- gathered in places which seemed extreme, building monasteries in places that were not lush or aesthetically abundant. Deserts, rocky outcroppings, and frigid tundras have provided monastic settings which tend toward the extremes. They have been chosen most often because their fierceness lends itself to the rawness and immediacy of God, rather than to an excitable religious experience. (20 years ago, Belden Lane's book, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality, was a testament to this fierceness.)
Again, please do not diminish spiritual experience. Most all of us are prodded forward by spiritual experience, even the experience of God. But the goal is not more experience. The goal of life is God.
5 Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” 6 (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)
7 Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”
8 Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.
9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 10 They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what “rising from the dead” meant. (Mark 9:2 - 10)
The Transfiguration story is important at several levels. It is especially challenging to those who have given themselves to an intentional journey of deepening life in God. Within a narrative full of movement (Jesus took . . . led them . . . they were coming down . . . all indicating journey and action), Peter gets struck by how "good it is for us to be here" and his desire to erect shelters, tabernacles, or booths. His suggestion that they create a memorial marker speaks to the perpetual human tendency to freeze spiritual experience in time, to codify the experience in order to remember it and perhaps to have it again at some later time.
Did you have a meaningful spiritual experience at this particular retreat center? Then go to that place again, and see if you can replicate that experience.
Did you sense God speaking to you through this book or author 10 years ago? Then read the book again, or another by the same author, and God will repeat the vision.
Did you find a particular set of spiritual practices meaningful to you as an adolescent? Then return to those practices in order to have a similar spiritual experience.
Did something significant happen to you today? Take a picture, post it to Facebook, and set it to your social media timeline. Next year on this date you'll be reminded of what happened today.
Was a particular sermon or worship experience meaningful to you? Buy the cd of the sermon and service . . . you can replay it as you drive around town, and be reminded always of the way you felt God come close in that experience.
Of course, these methods are not all bad, and I'm not suggesting there is never a place for them. All of them, however, are attempts to recreate a particular experience of God. There are so many different ways to build shelters and set up monuments to spiritual experience, just as Peter suggested on the mountain.
The real danger in the spiritual life is that the experience itself becomes a commodity, sought in and for itself. Most humans are complete addicts in this way . . . when something feels good, especially when we feel we have tapped into the numinous in a significant way, we want more of it. We want to repeat the same experience of peace . . . we want to have the same sense of generosity again . . . we want to know ourselves loved deep-down, not just for a moment, but always.
Addiction to spiritual experience is especially seductive, and because it is "spiritual," we assume it must be good. If a little is good, then more must be better, right?
Hear Thomas Merton:
The one great danger that confronts every person who takes spiritual experience seriously, is the danger of illuminism or, in Monsignor Ronald Knox's term, "enthusiasm". Here the problem is that of taking one's subjective experience so seriously that it becomes more important than truth, more important than God. Once spiritual experience becomes objectified, it turns into an idol. It becomes a "thing", a "reality" which we serve. We are not created for the service of any "thing", but for the service of God alone, Who is not and cannot be a "thing". To serve Him Who is no "object" is freedom. To live for spiritual experience is slavery, and such slavery makes the contemplative life just as secular (though in a more subtle way) as the service of any other "thing", no matter how base: money, pleasure, success. Indeed, the ruin of many potential contemplatives has been this avidity for spiritual success. (The Inner Experience, ed. by Thomas Hart, p. 139.)
The language of "idolatry" hearkens back to the Ten Commandments, which begin with the command to have only one God. To be sure, to use the language of idolatry for something which is seemingly good, like spiritual experience, seems extreme. Yet, that is the very nature of idolatry. Even good things that are not God must not be worshiped.
Let me be clear. I'm for spiritual experience.
Worship may be a spiritual experience.
Retreats may provide an experience of God.
Spiritual practices may open us to spiritual experience.
But spiritual experience is at least one degree away from God. As Merton says, the goal of the spiritual life is not experience, but God . . . to know God in a direct, unmediated way.
For this reason, the Christian mystics have proposed silence and solitude as the most basic contexts for knowing God, rather than some setting in which emotions and excitability were the driving forces. In silence and solitude, there are no words to get in the way, nothing about silence and solitude that can truly be described or prescribed, no way for the experience to be manipulated in order to get a particular experience of God. There is only God in the naked silence.
Also, this is the reason many of the great monastic traditions -- going back to the Desert Abbas and Ammas of the 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries -- gathered in places which seemed extreme, building monasteries in places that were not lush or aesthetically abundant. Deserts, rocky outcroppings, and frigid tundras have provided monastic settings which tend toward the extremes. They have been chosen most often because their fierceness lends itself to the rawness and immediacy of God, rather than to an excitable religious experience. (20 years ago, Belden Lane's book, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality, was a testament to this fierceness.)
Again, please do not diminish spiritual experience. Most all of us are prodded forward by spiritual experience, even the experience of God. But the goal is not more experience. The goal of life is God.
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