Shining a Light

According to the Gospel of Thomas (a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus), “If you bring forth

what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you,

what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

This is a challenging piece of scripture, and it cuts both ways. It suggests that transformation is possible only when we bring forth those aspects of ourselves (and, by extension, our culture and society) that usually remain hidden. It also suggests that destruction is the inevitable result of our failure to attend to this task.

The first step in bringing forth what is within us is to shine a light to see what’s in there. Those things that are hidden may be positive in nature—hidden talents, inner beauty, and any of a number of manifestations of the divine. Or those hidden things may be negative—false assumptions, bigoted beliefs, dangerous fears and blind hatreds.

Part of the work we do as a religious community is to find ways to illuminate those things that dwell

in shadow, both one the personal level and in our larger society. We do this sacred work together because there is always more hidden than can be held by one person alone. And we do this work together because many of those hidden things are, in fact, not unique to us, but are universal issues and concerns.

This work of illumination is often difficult. Not only does it reveal things we’d rather not acknowledge, but it also brings to light our own responsibility for changing things that need to be changed. In other words, this work reveals that things are messed up (hardly surprising, but still difficult) and that we have the power to do something about them (which can be both heartening and frightening).

Anytime we delve below the surface, we find discomforting truths. And we find unimagined resources. Marianne Williamson suggests that “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.”

Bringing forth what is within us is challenging on multiple levels, then. However, if we are willing to engage in this work together, however challenging it might be, we are opening ourselves up to the possibility of transformation.

Make no mistake: this is holy work. Hard work, to be sure, but work that just might save us.

Going Deeper Together

As others before me have pointed out, the difference between the sacred and the profane is that the sacred always takes one deeper. Anything is profane at its surface and sacred at its depths.

Transformative religion takes us on journey from shallowness to real depth. It is possible to be spiritual and to have meaningful spiritual practices that are not done in community or shared with others. But these practices take on the dimension of religious depth only when they are shared in community.

For example, you can dance by yourself or chant by yourself or meditate by yourself and receive some benefit from these practices. But the really deep work begins when you share these practices with others. Because it is in the moment of encounter with the other—in the sharing, in the chanting, in the dancing, in the silence—that one faces challenges and multidimensionality that cannot be found in solitary practice.

Any spiritual practice can help you feel more in touch with yourself or more centered in your own body or consciousness. But shared practice—which is at the heart of transformative religion—takes you deeper.

Anything that is done with others (as opposed to alone) is inherently messy. But it is this messiness itself that leads to depth. In encounters and engagement with others our assumptions are challenged, our perspectives are multiplied, and our aims are broadened.

The world is more complex than can be fathomed or appreciated by one person alone. One lone voice might be about longing for union, but many voices joined together are about the actual experience of union, even with all its awkwardness and occasional disharmonic moments.

Matthew Fox talks about “one river, many wells.” To get to that river beneath the wells we need the depth that practicing in community gives us.

If religious transformation is our goal, then our journey must be one that takes us to the depths and does so in the company of others.

Transformation Through Story, Song and Verse

Although information can be conveyed by various means, wisdom tends to be passed along mostly by story, song and verse. Mere knowledge is one thing, but wisdom requires that we make a shift and transform the way we look at things. It requires that we go deeper than normal language and thinking allow us to go.

Stories, songs and poems bring us to a place where we can make a leap toward something new—or at least toward some new way of looking at things that we thought that we already knew. Creative expression—and attention to creative expression—opens us up to ideas in a way that rote learning cannot do.

Metaphor is at the heart of almost every creative endeavor. Wisdom stories are extended metaphors that give insights about the nature of the universe and the workings of the human mind.

Songs and poems combine metaphors—both small and large—with tone, rhythm, rhyme, and many other elements to create a structure that points both to itself and to something beyond self. And—to the extent that stories, songs and poems are universal—they point beyond both self and other as they break down that somewhat arbitrary distinction.

One of the most bothersome things in the world to me is the way in which scripture is so often taken only literally—by both believers and non-believers. What a waste to regard such great works of imagination as signifying nothing beyond the shallowest interpretation of them.

When we want to speak wisdom, when we want to communicate to and from the deepest part of our being, we need these stories, songs and poems.

Joan Chittister tells a wonderful story about a Hindu spiritual leader:

Once upon a time, as the Master lay dying, the disciples begged him, for their sakes, not to go.

"But if I do not go," the Master said, "how will you ever see?"

"But what are we not seeing now that we will see when you are gone?" the disciples pressed him.

And the spiritual Master said, "All I ever did was sit on the river bank handing out river water. After I'm gone, I trust you will notice the river."

This story says something important point about religious transformation: we can point to the river, we can even give out handfuls of water, but what's needed is to see the river, to feel it, to play in it and drink from it and be made new in it.