A Few Reflections

Reflections for Blog

This past week the posts from the Center for Action and Contemplation (Richard Rohr’s emails) have focused on the pattern of order, disorder and reorder that is endemic in the Christian journey.

Fr. Rohr’s basic point is that the fully engaged Christian journey involves, first, having an ordered existence (which relies on the cultural, familial, and personal defaults, whether helpful or unhelpful), disorder, when such standards are disrupted and found wanting (frequently including some sort of personal crisis), and reordering, when a person of faith rises like a Phoenix out of the ashes into a new way of being. It is in the reordering that we are able to move into a mature faith. (I would note that this observation bears some similarity to James Fowler's Stages of Faith.)

He cites Jesus’ message as indicative of that rhythm.  Jesus challenges the status quo and, in one specific case, literally creates chaos (disorder), when he turned over the moneychangers’ tables in the Temple.  But his efforts to challenge order, prompt disorder, and encourage reordering were implicit in his teaching.  His statement that we must be born again is a wonderful summation of those three steps.  Our faith journey is like a snake shedding its skin, or a caterpillar, through the miracle of chrysalis, becoming a butterfly.  

This rhythm reflects a normal life pattern, if uninterrupted. The movement from order to disorder to reorder is part of the natural flow of an engaged faith journey.  However, it is possible to become prematurely-locked in one of the two earlier stages – either becoming rigid in grasping hold of the order which is familiar (and perhaps inadequate) or dwelling in the disorder (or chaos) which life will eventually put in our way.  In such cases, our faith journey is interrupted and we never get to the fullness of faith, life, and redemption this movement holds for us.

As one faces the trauma of disorder, there is a temptation to see that chaos (whether it is loss, addiction, betrayal, or some other form of human brokenness) as a permanent state of life.  It is at that stage that courage impels us to see over the horizon to the promise of a new being to come.   Despair cannot take hold.

As I pondered all this, I was reminded of the lesson from Genesis this past Sunday.  It recounted the story of Joseph, the prince of Egypt, revealing his true identity to his brothers, who years before had callously sold him into slavery.  There was a dramatic reconciliation between them.

Five chapters later, their father Jacob, died.  The brothers feared that the previously-betrayed brother would exact his revenge.  Joseph relieved that pressure with these words (RSV): “You meant it for evil but God meant it for good.”

It is hard to discern the vast expanse of what history has been, and impossible to see what events will be.  But that is the canvas on which salvific history is written.  We may see chaos at our door, or disorder overwhelming our well-ordered lives.  However, we only see a fragment of the full canvas. God continues to work throughout time and well-beyond the experience of individual lives.

To be brutally honest, it is hubris to think that all of creation and the author of life would alter the course of history to satisfy our desire for certainty and an easy life.

I am reminded of the Book of Job.  After being goaded by his “comforters” and with his own sense of unfairness in the events of his life, Job rages at God. As Chapter 38 says, “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you and you shall to declare to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding.  Who determined its measurements – surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?  On what were its bases sunk, or who laid the cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?’”

In other words, it’s a mystery.  We cannot know it.  We will not see the totality of God’s work in the world.  It may be representative of evil, but God can mean it for good. The power of redemption is always available to the Almighty.

The issue may be a misunderstanding of time.  We want things to happen in our time – the Greek word is chronos. We want things to happen in a hurry – right now.  We are not very keen on waiting; we do not like delaying gratification.  If something doesn’t happen in our preferred time-frame, then it is of no use.

But God has a different sense of time – kairos, the fullness of time.  His divine action, the divine movement, may or may not take place in the timing we prefer.  It is more likely to take place in kairos, God’s sense of time.  That divine movement may take place days, weeks, months, years, decade or even eons from now.  And that divine action, which may or may not be pleasing to us, may not be a solution, but most assuredly will meet the divine purposes when all things are considered.

Jesus tells us in John’s gospel, chapter 16: “There is so much I have to tell you, but you cannot bear to hear it.” A full understanding of life and the trajectory of history are beyond our ability to comprehend.

The best option is to enter into the mystery, and allow our journey to be deepened and reordered.