Process is Everything
I had an excellent discussion with a friend recently. We compared the butterfly effect with the “drop in a bucket” analogy. We looked at our stats, working among the marginalised and tried to work out exactly how much difference our work made.
The “Drop in the Ocean “analogy is an obvious one. If we imagine a drop of blue dye dropped in the clear sea of a Hebridean beach its clear that the dye wont be blue for long.
The Desert Fathers talked of Deification – the process whereby the human soul merges into God. In modern parlance it is fashionable to talk of our life purpose in terms of what “the Universe”wants for us, or rather what we want from the Universe. In the above quote Fr Rohr is talking about that process, however we recognise it.
“Respect the process” said an old friend of mine. “God is into process “ said an old spiritual mentor. Nothing could be more real.
It seems to me that revolution is man made, process is from God. As societies develop what is organic needs to be respected.
At the turn of the 20th century in Russia the Bolsheviks split from the Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks were in favour of grabbing everything immediately, with violence if necessary, with man made revolution, while the Mensheviks wanted to take a more natural, legal route towards the eventual goal of global Communism. History demonstrates that the Bolsheviks won out with result of the eventual Soviet Experiment.
Interestingly before women were given the vote in 20th Century Britain it was the UK Tory party who were in fact most progressive in this regard. At the time it was understood, accurately or not, that as regards family and the preservation of social order woman were more conservative and so giving landed women over 30 the vote meant more potential votes for the Tory party. Process won out and women of this demographic were eventually granted the vote to which they were entitled.
The concept of revolution has been etched in western consciousness since the terror of late18th century revolutionary France. George W. Bush called for “Global Democratic Revolution.” at the beginning of the 21st century. Shrouded in false perception this was the underlying philosophy for both the Iraq invasion and the invasion of Afghanistan. In the aftermath of the Twin Towers atrocity the American people were led to believe that Saddam Hussien’s Bath party was in some way associated with Osama Bin Ladin – leading to the allied invasion of Iraq and 30,000 Iraqi deaths. In the all-out confusion of postmodernism at this time the West perceived the “Good” as neo-conservatism.
If we are are at peace with ourselves we will be at peace with the world. If religion provides us with a them and us mentality then it is antithetical to the aims of genuine spirutuality – but we cannot give up on religion yet. It can provide a focus – a systemeatic view of reality and can still healthily influence perception and as such genuine transformation. Religion should facilitate genuine spirituality which always involves unity, not disunity. A them and us mentality in these absolutely unprecidented, uncertain and dangerous times is about as useful as a drop in the ocean.
In our efforts for peace and justice we must resist the temptation to constantly quantify. This was the mistake that was made as the reformation of the 16th century coincided with the advent of the printing press – we began to argue about words in a world in which formerly pictures and symbols had sufficed.
As our hearts become transformed we do not know the good that we are doing, the knock on effect is massive and cannot be measured by conventional means. A butterfly beatings its wings hopefully in Edinburgh may one day cause a storm of hopeful collective consciousness on the other side of the world.
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At the end of the day we do not do things in our own strength, but in God’s. The connection between the two lies in the Universal Consciousness which Rohr makes reference to.
It is grace that makes us whole, and the journey of grace is certainly that – a journey.
If we are to understand what Rohr means by transformation we must have a corrrect understanding of what human nature is . The Abrahamic tradition teaches that we are made in the Image of God – the Imago Dei. As such it must be supposed that grace is not antitheitcal but actually complimentary to human nature. Grace is that which causes us to become more like God.
Karen Armstrong OBE describes the journey from – and connection to – universal consciousness to the subjective as thought. However you wish to describe God – respectfully – Allah, the Holy Trinity or the Universe when you refer to God in your thoughts and in your words – you are eventually led to universal consciousness die to God’s Universal nature. Structures of sin or dis-unitive social structures such as those of corrupt power based on domination simply cannot stand in the face of genuine human transformation. All useful religion should facilitate this.
One imagines that in the Abrahamic tradition this is why we are so strong on not having idols – our thoughts must remain in the Good at all times. Idols – be they sex, money, Baal or other false gods – distract us from constant meditation on the Good – however it is personified. Our religions are the guiding light. Righteousness was – and is – a state of being and seeing, a constant focus of the mind and as such the heart. As the ancient Jewish tradition described in Deuteronomy, tying the sacred word of God to ones door frame and forehead demonstrated this. Such traditions left hardly any room for idols. It is interesting that the bull statue on Wall Street in New York feels like such an idol. When he returned from Mount Sinai Moses was livid with the impatience of the people they having built an idol in the form of a Golden Calf to worship. It seems fair to say that the only god that is worshipped in the postmodern era is money.
In a historical context the pedestal that money was placed upon in the West was in no small part due to the Calvinist notion of pre-destination. The worship of money was acculturated by Western Leaders such as Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the USA,.. Interestingly these political leaders came immediately after Jean Francois Lyotard defined Post-Modernism as “The Absence of Meta-Narrative,” in 1978.
Further, it is an interesting observation that all training involves knowledge becoming wisdom as it filters through from the mind to the heart. The explosion of ideas that was the Scottish Enlightenment received momentum through the Edinburgh academia in the mid eighteenth to mid nineteenth century.. The key to the Scottish Enlightenment was both a free thinking polity encompassed by the strict, austere focus of the presbyterian kirk. The kirk provided direction to the Scottish zeitgeist which free thinkers such as Hume were nevertheless strengthened to swim against. A healthy, organic and vital Celtic Zeitgeist ensued.
Simple beautiful traditions that focused the mind on the Good of God such as walking to Kirk on the Sabbath (Sunday) meant that there were definite parameters to the Scottish Enlightenment. The collective consciousness was in such agreement that Scottish living polymaths received recognition not just from the next life but in their own era, their ideas receiving growth and nourishment by their peers in the here and now, while they were still alive. Even those who didnt believe in God like Hume were able to swim against the tide, allaying superstition for the good of the people for whom “the World” was formerly encompassed by the Flodden Wall. The Scottish National Portrait Gallery on Queen Street in Edinburgh is a testament to this and as such is an absolute pleasure to visit. The Scottish polymaths who inhabit the ground floor did not just become famous after their deaths. Perhaps there is something here in the definition of “Enlightenment” such that it involves a present collective light that shines so brightly it illuminates the lives of those who live in it in the here and now, illuminating ones life purpose in the present.
Process is involved in the journey but when we truly locate “the Good” in ourselves then we are ready for our life’s purpose. This is what Rohr means elsewhere when he talks of finding our soul- gift – people who do not count the cost but are just willing to serve and help. Constant meditation on the Good is they key to finding this good within ourselves.
To want to pray is to pray.
Peter James Cox
Scottish Association for Inter-Religious Dialogue Director