A few nights ago we got a once-in-a-lifetime visit from the local priest, ostensibly for fund raising, but as it turned out, mostly for socializing. My wife is a convert from Southern Protestantism - not the Baptists, but the South has a general view on relations with pastors. For one thing, they vote them in or out, and so they have to perform. For another, they (the pastors) have to show their humanity, but on a higher level. They are, in other words, just like us but dedicated to being better and more learned in the sacred.
Not so priests; we were taught from the cradle that these are special humans, separated by the mystery of Rome and Peter and a 2 thousand year history and celibacy. No families, dressed in dark skirts and high white collars, answerable only to Vatican City and God. No matter that in Latin America they typically have families; we in the cold countries expect supra-human qualities and thus humble ourselves. A visit from a priest, then, is or at least was a big deal.
For better and for worse, he proved absolutely human, something I knew but could not get myself to expect. And, as is typical these days, he was not of the old stripe of priest I grew up with, the type that would chase you out of the church from the confessional hollering with raised fists - as I once witnessed at age eleven while awaiting my own turn. No, now they are civil, human and...New Age!
Such I thought after the visit, and such it proved to be after I bought a book from an author that he had recommended: Father Richard Rohr. Started last night, I quickly saw that he was an ecumenicalist and stretched the understanding of God and Christ and all the great religions well beyond dogma to find - truth. And in this book, "The Immortal Diamond," we look for the truth that is found in all of us, in the soul.
Truth, as he explains, is the unchanging in a mutable world and the one thing we all search for, whether we are spiritual or not - lovers want undying love, scientists want a unifying theory, and the spiritual want a great underlying One in the cosmos of the heart - and soul. Soul, Rohr explains (so far in the book - more later), is the light of the eternal within each of us, that permeates everything. It is what we truly are, beyond what he calls the "False Self," or the ego. The ego will do anything it can to cling to its primacy, but we are always, forever our soul, the individual drop on the ocean. It lies hidden to us, but is always there and always at work. It is truth, the unchanging, what is behind everything.
Tying together a few of the last blogs, we can see the triumvirate here of Truth, Beauty and Love. Beauty comes from that god source of the soul which is truth, and in beauty is the beginning of love. One does not arise without touching the other. And so, shockingly apart from the priests of the old school, the soul is beyond religion. Scripture points the way, but it is not the way. The way is already written in the soul, which can only be accessed personally. Perfect good New Age theory, and in line with the perennial tradition - and my own inner beliefs.
This says much about depression, and hopelessness and the existential angst of our age. More on that at another time, but it also speaks, paradoxically, of the Truth that is beyond multi-cultural confusion. Last week I wrestled with the idea of finding truth in moral relativism and had an idea that it did exist, in the soul. We might begin to find the moral truth for the world there - where beauty and thus love lie. In this truly is the Golden Rule - to love others not as the false self loves itself, but as the real self, the soul loves itself. In this is found utopia, and only in this. It is impossible on any other scale - yet in this world, almost as impossible to achieve, even for the single individual. But it is there, this perfection, where truth lies, and their where the ground of moral behavior lies. If a person or institution or nation is built on anything else, it is either incomplete or altogether false. How this would apply practically can only be known by someone who could speak from that depth; for pain and sorrow is given to us to learn of soul, just as (proper) punishment or restriction is given to children to show them the way to behave. Giving all does not necessarily mean giving stuff- sometimes it may mean withholding. The "all" that is given is the compassion from the soul.
More from Fr. Rohr later, and my interpretation of it. For eveyrone needs a path to get through the jungle, and there is a right way and a wrong way, if one wants to get anywhere at all. FK
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