Seeking God, or Self-Harm?

This morning as I settled into my prayer time, I picked up Divine Intimacy and flipped to the entry for Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent. In a few pages, I realized I have found the key to something I wrestled with for years, and have struggled to put in to words, even after the struggle subsided.

The text asks, essentially, why is it hard to know God is present with me? The answer is that God hides. The method put forth to deal with that hiding is "to detach oneself, deprive oneself, renounce oneself, annihilate oneself, to die spiritually to oneself and to all things" (p. 32).

Leaving it at that is where I stumbled for years. As a teen, and even as an adult in some circumstances, I was pretty adept at things like going without food or water because I was too shy, hesitant, feeling-like-a-bother to ask for what I needed. Subtly I was firm in my opposition to my flourishing and even my existence. Is that the kind of detachment and self-deprivation that brings about revelation of God? Is that death to self? It never felt right to believe that was what Jesus was talking about, but my mind didn't know what else to do with that. 

The quote from St. John of the Cross there is actually this: 

It is to be observed that the Word, the Son of God, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is hidden, in essence and in presence, in the inmost being of the soul. Wherefore, the soul that would find Him must go forth from all things according to the affection and will, and enter within itself in deepest recollection, so that all things are to it as though they were not... God, then, is hidden within the soul and there the good contemplative must seek Him with love (Spiritual Canticle, 1, 6)

There's that huge, important missing piece: God is hidden in the inmost being of the soul. God is not hiding in a box or behind a garbage can somewhere. He hides within the soul, at least by His capacity to dwell there, if not through the indwelling presence given in baptism. 

The text goes on:

St. John of the Cross continues, "He that has to find some hidden thing must enter very secretly even into the same hidden place where it is, and when he finds it, he too is hidden like that which he has found. ... This is a new invitation to detachment -- to forget everything, to withdraw from everything -- in order to enter into the depths of your soul, the place where God hides Himself (p. 33)

I'm not meant to learn to deprive myself of food; I'm mean to deprive myself of what restrains me from eating. I'm not meant to go a day without water while staring for hours at a spare water bottle my friend has in the car (true story). I'm meant to forget the knots I tie myself into instead of caring for my need. The true physical, emotional, psychological needs I have are in fact needs because I am a spiritual being designed to seek and find God. They serve my ultimate end, which is union for God. They are meant to be met, and posthaste, but not for their own sake. 

Along with God being hidden in the inmost being of my soul, all the enemy territory is also there. All those lying beliefs about how it would be better if I didn't exist. All of those subtle motivations to pride and self-harm. This is why it can be such a battle to even go within in the first place. God hides among our mess.

But, the beautiful journey is to go within, and there to "forget all that is thine, withdraw thyself from all creatures, and hide in the interior closet of thy spirit" (Spiritual Canticle 1, 9). There it is that no one, and nothing else matters, but seeking the One alone, because He alone suffices. Finding Him, my spouse, my children, my friends, my achievements, my talents, my possessions, my health -- they all fade there. There I embrace the nada. There I flee what is superficial and external, and cling wholly and completely to what is God.

This actually sharpens our love for all persons and created goods, because we can see more clearly what they are all for, and their preciousness.

There God defeats our enemies and unfurls the flag of His love, now planted firm in territory fully ceded to Him. 

Depth of Identity

Must articulate more thoughts provoked by yet another song. 

Because I went down a Yannick Bisson rabbit hole a few months ago (because of becoming a Murdoch Mysteries fan as a result of a David Suchet/Hercule Poirot rabbit hole a year before that) I have been watching Sue Thomas, F. B. Eye. It's a decent show, even if it does often leave you conscious of the actors having learned their lines. (I'm a sucker for characters, who I start to care about like they are real people, and I like these characters.) This show has a theme song called Who I Am, by Jessica Andrews.

Now, to be honest, I usually skip through the theme song when I watch the show. There's one held note right towards the end that just rumbles my speakers the wrong way. Plus, the theme song often comes as much as five minutes into the opening of the show, and by that time I want to just get on with it.

But lately I've listened to it with more intentionality. I couldn't actually understand the lyrics at first, so I looked up the original, longer version on YouTube, with lyrics. I was struck in kind of a confusing way by this experience, and I've been just waiting for the chance to sit down and untangle my thoughts on this.

First, the song has a strong, driving, triumphant sounding female vocal, which is great. The song is all about personal identity, and the feeling the song gives is of confidence and certainty. It fits the show well, because the lead character is a deaf woman who has overcome a lot of social obstacles and who now works for the FBI. (There was a real Sue Thomas who did just this.)

So I was weirdly struck when I understood the words of the chorus:

I am Rosemary's granddaughter
The spitting image of my father
And when the day is done, my Momma's still my biggest fan
Sometimes I'm clueless and I'm clumsy
But I've got friends that love me
And they know just where I stand
It's all a part of me
And that's who I am

So, let me unpack how this strikes me.

First of all, I have to say positive things. We are communal beings, and our identity is absolutely revealed to us in relationship to other people. I don't know who I am without you. And our families are surely our most primal sense of belonging and identity, so there is beauty in this.

A bunch of other things occurred to me before that, though. First, I can't relate. At all. Singing a song of strength and connecting it to my family of origin and how we felt about each other is about as far from my experience as picking cotton in the Deep South or fishing in the Alaskan wild. But I can imagine it. And as I said, I can feel the value in it. 

I'm also a genealogist and I follow genetic genealogy groups, and I hear people who face discoveries, for example, that the father they always knew turns out to not be their biological father. I see how this is absolutely devasting to a lot of people's sense of identity. Or the overwhelming emotions of adoptees who meet bio family for the first time. 

I think of the compassion I've had to learn for myself. I became interested in genealogy at a young age in part, I think, to get below the immediate surface of the addiction and mental health issues of my parents, and their divorce, to see who else were my people. 

But beyond on that, there was something even deeper that troubles me with this song. 

It's such a shallow identity.

If my ultimate identity is just in my family and my friends, or even in my own strength and accomplishments -- all of this has a failing point, sooner or later. To pretend otherwise is just folly. It is true I am made for relationship, but my design is incredibly profound: I am made for relationship with God Himself. I have found that relationship in Jesus Christ, and so my life's bounty is to grow in my identity in Him. He is my strength, my love, my healing, my forgiveness, my joy, my purpose, my rest, my delight. That is really something to sing about. 

I understand that some people may have actually found this depth of relationship with God precisely because of the faith and witness of their parents, and that makes sense to me. If this is the case, the failure with the song is a skipping over of the primary, to focus on beautiful secondary causes He has given into one's life. (In fact, the Sue Thomas character, and the real life Sue Thomas were both Christians and regularly pointed people to Him.) It's a country song. Maybe everyone who listens to country music presumes Jesus. I just don't think presuming Jesus is ever a good idea. 

Identity is such a huge piece in Christian life. It isn't exactly a doctrine. It's really more of a component of what is properly called mystical theology, or lived Christian spirituality. American culture is in a state of crisis over personal identity, and Christians are not helping matters if we are not rooted in identity in Christ and if we don't know how to help others root in Him. I suppose I am keenly aware of this precisely because I'm currently in formation to do that as a spiritual director. 

I could delight in thinking of myself as a daughter of St. Teresa and of St. John of the Cross. Carmelites do call them our Holy Parents. Clearly, obviously, we only love them because they teach us how to love Jesus and be loved by Him. I can actually see myself delighting in singing about being a Carmelite ("and that's who I am!"). I think it is just a crime against humanity, literally, to stop short of God and to place our identity in any created thing, even our most beloved loved ones, themselves.

And, here's the song as seen in the show:

Better than a Hallelujah

 Recently I was reminded again of the song Better than a Hallelujah, which Amy Grant recorded in 2010. From the first that I heard it, it's been a tear-jerker for me, but now it strikes me on even a deeper level than before. 

When I first latched on to the song, I was drew encouragement and consolation from it, because I was in a time of pouring out my miseries. I needed to hear that my mess was indeed beautiful, and that pouring it out to God really was better than a choir singing out... The hallelujah, well, that spoke to me of trying really hard to have faith and to stand firm, when all I felt capable of was crumbling. 

We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a hallelujah

Now it's some ten-odd years later. Now I'm in a formation program to become a spiritual director. Now this makes me weep for the sheer beautiful truth of it. 

God just hears a melody

It's in fact the Song of the Resurrection, which He has written and He pours into us even as we are pouring out our miseries to God. "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be poured into your lap" (Luke 6:38). It is precisely in those moments where we feel the most pitiful, when we cry out, that God is instantly reciprocating and pouring Himself out in return. It might take years to consciously receive, but "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Rom. 10:13). 

I think if there is one task of the contemplative spiritual companion, it is to bear witness to God's presence, who He is and what He does. In a way, it is what Amy Grant did for me (or rather Sarah Hart and Chapin Hartford, songwriters, did). The song affirmed to me, yes, it really is better to pour out your misery than it is to carry out mere religious action, even if that action is objectively good (and especially if it is just conformity for the sake of saving face or pleasing someone else). There is a messy point in life where honesty, for a moment, flies in the face of what is right, decent, and true. But the truth is, God hears through it. Hearing another human being affirm that pouring out one's heart to God is beautiful is enough to support faith until it becomes one's own interior knowledge.

Heaven knows there's no shortage of provocation to our cries of misery. It's a grace, actually. The misery itself? No. But the act of faith that knows there is God to whom I can turn meaningfully with it, that's such a tremendous gift. 

In reality, most of the time these exchanges happen in excruciatingly slow motion. I don't just feel miserable for an hour, cry out to God, and then skip along merrily through my life, blessed beyond measure. These things require patience, stamina, and determination. I think it is like planting a fruit tree, and it is why it is ten years later than I can look back and hold the fruit in my hand that grew from a dead pit. This is the spiritual life. There is no quick fix, but there is real transformation. It's true!

As a bonus, here's the official video, telling its own story: