One afternoon, several days into the retreat, I was taking a long walk among the rolling hills and tall trees of the retreat center. In some indeterminate place between mere imagination and ordinary reality, I found I was walking among the disciples with Peter at my side. It was the most vivid piece of acting imagination I had ever experienced. I knew without quite knowing how that Jesus was up ahead of us. "We" couldn't keep up even though we tried. All I could get were little glimpses of his back, just as Jesus turned corners or entered copses of trees. I looked to Peter, and it seemed to me that he shrugged, as if to say, "He's like that." I understood Peter was teaching me that Jesus is visible sometimes but always beyond our capacity to comprehend or control. We just follow by faith.
Another moment happened more recently. I was several days into the Camino, the ancient pilgrimage route in northern Spain. This particular morning my walking partner and I decided to get up early because we planned a long day of hiking over a small mountain range. We woke up in the dark, got bad coffee from a machine, and were soon on our way out of the village. It was so dark and foggy we used our headlamps to make sure we stayed on the path. After about half an hour, we found ourselves catching up to a small party of French people. They'd noticed us coming and stopped so they could help us negotiate a nearly impassable bog created by an overflowing cistern for sheep and cattle. With their flashlights and my minimal French, we were soon across the bog and on our way, our boots still dry. We thanked them and then, for a time, traveled together in silence, eyes focused ahead on the small patch of trail illuminated by our headlamps. And then I knew he was there. I could feel Jesus walking alongside me on my left-hand side. We walked along together for a time of silence. I said no word and heard no word, and did not desire one. It was enough to simply be with him on the way.
If you were to imagine that Jesus is with you right now, where would he appear? Would he be beside you, a companion on the way? Is he ahead of you, leading you along to an unknown destination? Is he behind you, holding you up in ways known and unknown? Or is he in front of you, holding you in his gaze, teaching or commissioning you for some work only you can do? Progress in humility requires the willingness to receive and affirm Jesus. He bids us to be toward him as James Merrill was with his friends: wax to receive and marble to retain.
Loving with the Holy Spirit
Scripture tells us that God is love (e.g., 1 John 4:16), so there is no virtue or action that will reveal the image and likeness of God more than when we love. We experience love in a variety of ways, from the love between friends to the love of parents for children and children for parents. But there is nothing more compelling and endlessly fascinating to us than what occurs between two people who fall in love and are subsequently called to mate for life. Jesus himself taps into this rich vein of human experience when he calls himself the bridegroom (Mark 2:19). We are to imagine that we are like a bride and that Jesus loves us and wants to be with us always. One way to learn about love, then, is to reflect on the stages of a loving married relationship.
Falling in love, with the overwhelming desire and excitement that often accompanies those first stages, is only part of the story of how we love, and so it is only part of the story of how our love reflects God's love. We know from scripture and from the stories of the saints that God's love for people and for communities can have an overwhelming beginning: The church remembers that Paul is knocked off his horse at the moment of his call, and the Bible tells us that the church is born with wind and tongues of flame. But in both the human and the divine spheres, falling in love is only the beginning. Our human capacity to love another person grows and matures over time. We are also called to commit to love and to stay in love.
I met Chloe during our first year of college. Both of us had arrived at school hoping to meet and date lots of people. However, we met each other within the first two weeks and, by the end of October, were together for life. How did this happen? Neither of us was looking for a spouse, and I had a girlfriend from home (who conveniently wrote me a "Dear John" letter that fall!) Yet somehow, we found that we were drawn so deeply to each other that within less than two months we had to name the reality that we were in love. At my suggestion and for ease of remembering, we named November first as the beginning of our relationship, although there was surely some moment earlier than that when we both knew we would be partners for life.
When I think back on how Chloe and I fell in love, I know it was not a question of rational choice. It was more like stumbling into a subterranean stream, a flow of water more powerful than I was. I did not know what was coming and could not clearly see where the stream was leading. It was like being carried forward in the dark. If I made any free choice in the matter, it was only to say "yes" and so trust the feelings I was having— and trust that Chloe, in some way, shared them.
As a priest, it has been my privilege to hear dozens of stories of how people met and fell in love. There is almost always an element of mystery in the way love enters our lives. We are carried along by something larger and more powerful than ourselves, something greater than either our memory can recall or our free choosing can control. We stumble into love in the fullness of time and our best reaction is only to say yes.
We are more active and deliberate when we take a second step by committing to love. One of the most significant moments in The Book of Common Prayer wedding service is during the exchange of the vows. The rubrics simply say, "The Man, facing the woman and taking her right hand in his, says..." and "Then they loose their hands and the Woman, still facing the man, takes his right hand in hers, and says..."28 At wedding rehearsals, it's my experience that everyone, when practicing this part of the ceremony, wants to help out by meeting their partner halfway. But that's not what the rubric calls for. The rubric wants the man to take the woman, and the woman to allow herself to be taken. And then it wants the woman to take the man, and the man to allow himself to be taken. Ideally, each person must reach all the way across the space that separates the two people, take a nearly limp arm, and bring it to the middle. I find it always takes practice to get a couple to make this simple gesture.
In all likelihood, most of the rest of any couple's relationship will be filled with negotiation and compromise. They will meet in the middle. But in this moment, when each half of the couple is pledging for life, there is to be no compromise between them. Instead there are full and reciprocated gestures of taking and of being taken. Each must say only a moment later, "with all that I am and all that I have I honor you." In the giving and receiving of vows there is to be no reservation, no holding back, no negotiation. In the name of God, when we commit to love, we are to give ourselves completely.
Even here, the Spirit can work in unexpected ways. There is often an ineffable presence in a wedding ceremony that is hard to account for and of which we are barely aware. In my own wedding, it took my best man, Michael, to point out the Spirit's presence. At the beginning of the reception, I was a nervous wreck. I'm not a good dancer, and I had just married a gorgeous dancer. The thought of "leading" her in the first dance in front of a few hundred of our closest friends and family had me in knots. Just before the first dance, Michael got up to give the toast. As is often the tradition, he and I had been alone with the priest at the front of the church just before the wedding ceremony was to begin. In his toast, Michael talked about how nervous he had been at that moment but said that looking over at me he felt, exuding from me, a sense of total calm and certainty. It helped him and affirmed his sense that my marriage was going to be a good thing. It is odd to me, but Michael was right—even though I had not been conscious of it at the time of the ceremony. I knew I was about to make the most significant commitment of my life, and yet, by the gift of the Spirit—by the gift of something much larger than myself—I was calm. I was ready to give myself completely. (I wish I could report that I was as confident and self-assured on the dance floor. Our wedding video proves otherwise.)
But there is a third
facet to love, and it is probably the most difficult. Staying in love over the remainder of a lifespan requires a different set of responses and skills from us than either falling in love or committing to it. Gordon Cosby, when reflecting on his years of leading communities in mission, said that it is easier to bring something into being than to keep it in being, true to itself.29 So it is with our loving relationships.
Even the strongest marriages can be like fine bottles of red wine. Young, untried wines go through three stages. In the first few years, they can be attractive and fruity but with a somewhat unpleasant taste. The right kind of unpleasant taste, either an extra acidic bite or a roughness on the tongue, are characteristics that demonstrate that the wine could age well.
Often, these same wines enter a second stage and close down for a few years. This means that the delightful flavor of the first stage is gone, but the profound flavors of maturity have not yet emerged. The wine can be boring and even slightly unpleasant. So it often is with love. Sometimes, particularly at first, love demands that we allow ourselves to be swept along in its exuberance, like the fun fruitiness of a young wine. Other times, often later in the relationship, the relationship can seem to close down and so love consists in the decision to just keep showing up, choosing to be faithful to the one we love even when it is dull and seems to have lost its flavor. Sometimes, especially at first, it seems love is beyond our will. At other times, if love is to stay alive, it requires our will. I mean this not in the sense of forcing love—willing it into something, but in the sense of the decision made time and again to be attentive, respectful, and even obedient.
A good wine then enters into its third and most glorious phase. Some of the appealing fruitiness of the first phase is lost, but it is replaced with depth and subtlety. A good, well-aged wine unfolds in the mouth and awareness for as long as a minute, with great pleasure for all. Long-term studies of marital satisfaction show that if couples can successfully negotiate the stresses and strains of the middle stages of their relationship, often accompanied by the challenges of childrearing, they will enter the last stages with marital satisfaction that is actually higher than when they first fell in love. Just as the full enjoyment over time of a great bottle of wine requires patience and proper care, so it is with our loving relationships.
Through the course of a long relationship, we will inevitably experience temptations to be unfaithful in various ways. There are many ways to be unfaithful that fall short of adultery. We may check out of challenging conversations necessary to keep a relationship vital, or we may allow work or hobbies to consume too much of our time and energy. Other relationships with children, work colleagues, or friends may take too much precedence. The practice of staying faithful to our partner is a profoundly spiritual one. The practice consists in remembering every day to treat the other as what we knew him or her to be right from the start, an unfathomable gift of love.
I think of a couple I see often. My drive to work takes me past the Mission of San Rafael, a Roman Catholic Church on the site of one of the original Franciscan mission outposts in California. Often I am driving past just as the morning mass is letting out. When the timing is right, I always see an older couple walking away from the church, holding hands. Their walk is relaxed with a slight, energetic bounce. I look at their hands, and I feel sacred envy. Their hands are a symbol to me of love maintained and strengthened over the course of a lifetime. One of Augustine's attempts to point to the mystery of the Trinity helps explain my deep reaction. "Love means someone loving and something loved with love. There you are with three, the lover, what is being loved, and love."30 The two halves of the couple are the lover and the one being loved. Those held hands are the love itself, nurtured over a lifetime of love.
I've never met the couple, and if I did, I am certain I would hear of both joy and suffering. If I really came to know them well, I might even hear of times of great kindness and grace as well as times of frustration and even petty cruelty. I believe this to be true because of my own experience and because of the teaching of the church. Chloe and I have been very blessed in our relationship, but our life together has not gone unmarred by selfishness and meanness. In fact I believe part of why we are together is to slowly unlearn some of the selfishness we both brought into the relationship and so, over time, learn to truly love.
Finding A Spiritual Friend and Guide
The good news is that we are not meant to be alone in this work of the fifth step of claiming the image and likeness of God. Again, Benedict writes that a monk "does not conceal from his abbot any sinful thoughts entering his heart, or any wrongs committed in secret, but rather confesses them humbly" (THE RULE OF SAINT BENEDICT, 7:44). Most of us don't have abbots, but all of us have access to people who can play the role of spiritual confidant. This aspect of our spiritual growth requires someone we trust. The work we do on ourselves, by ourselves, will always reach a limit. We need others to help us to distinguish the path of love from the path of deceit. There are two characteristics of speaking truthfully. First, we honestly face into where we have erred and get into the practice of confessing our sins. Second, we learn to discover and claim our real gifts and offer them for the world.
Speaking truthfully about our sin is no easy matter. It requires holding steady in the face of some powerful shame. There is something in us that would prefer to continue in a falsehood we have always clung to rather than to let it go and continue on the path of truth. It is mortifying to admit to ourselves and, even more, to others that we have been deceived. We are like Fonzie from the old TV show Happy Days. We think we are cool and in control, but when the truth comes out, we can barely begin to articulate what is true. Like Fonzie, we begin to speak and what comes out is like an old, underused engine trying to start "I was wr... I was wr... I was wr...."31
Augustine, as is often the case, precisely captures the core of our dilemma. "We love the truth when it enlightens but hate it when it accuses. Because we do not want to be deceived and do want to deceive, we love truth when it reveals itself and hate it when it reveals us."32 If we return to the exercise at the beginning of the book where someone stares into our eyes and asks, "Who are you really?" a significant part of the truth is actions, thoughts, and stances for which we are or ought to be ashamed. The rare moment when someone looks deeply in our eyes includes great promise but also terror. We hunger to be known. And we are afraid to be known.
This fifth step, then, holds great potential. Either we will continue the spiritual journey in a greater knowledge of the truth of ourselves and of God, or we will stay where we are, cloaked in falsehood or deception. Spiritual master and Trappist monk Michael Casey states it precisely: "Taking the difficult step of speaking frankly about oneself is the price one pays for spiritual progress beyond a certain point. Encouragingly, it is also the sign that one has already made considerable advance in opening oneself to the workings of grace."33
We all need help at this step. We need a safe relationship with another who can act as our spiritual midwife in the process. Much of the work is ours: we must engage in the hard but simple act of speaking truthfully about ourselves without flinching and without excusing ourselves. No one else can recast our core self-perception so that the image we have of ourselves is free of distorting lies and concealing excuses. The primary role of the other is to simply hold us in love and keep confidence, telling no one what has been disclosed. Simply keeping confidence is often enough.
There may also be a word of advice that is offered in response to our confession. Almost always a word or two is all we can take. Most often our sin is like a splinter in the flesh. Over time the resulting infection and not the splinter itself causes most of the pain. Confession is often a process by which the splinter can be removed and revealed as the small, pathetic object it so often is. Only then can the healing begin.
Stability is one of the keys to a healthy relationship with a spiritual friend or director. Over time, trust deepens, and we find that we can speak mo
re truthfully about ourselves. The other develops the ability to both detect and point out how we are deceiving ourselves. Over the course of a lifetime we may hope to have a handful of these guides and confidants.
Our goal is simply to get into and maintain a daily habit of thinking and speaking truthfully about ourselves. Just as we visit a doctor only occasionally but are faced each day with choices that either lead to health or sickness, so it is with our souls. Speaking truthfully about ourselves, particularly if we always keep in mind the beauty and power of the divine image in us, is a reminder that we do not need to settle for anything less than full spiritual health.
Saint Paul, in his hymn to love, reminds us that in this mortal life "we see in a mirror, dimly" (1 Corinthians 13:12). As in all things, the full truth about ourselves is known only to God. But thanks to spiritual masters like Benedict and Augustine we can confidently explore parts of ourselves, seeking glimpses of the divine image. In this chapter, inspired by Augustine, I've invited you to play with the idea that we are one and three like God is one and three. In the way we remember, in the way we make friends, and in the way we love, we can catch glimpses, by grace, of our true selves, made in the image of God. We can see sketches of the master artist's true intention for us.
Once we have a clearer sense of what in us is the true image of God and what is the distorting likeness, we are ready to move to the most difficult steps in Benedict's ladder of humility. In steps six through eight, life invites us to release any sense of superiority, and any excessive sense of control and autonomy. The distorting likeness is stripped away so that more of the true and beautiful image and likeness can emerge.
CHAPTER 5
Stripping
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