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Eckhart Tolle writes, in The Power of Now, "A belief may be comforting. Only through your own experience, however, does it become liberating." Belief in itself has no necessary spiritually enlightening or transformative value. Indeed, belief attained may as well lead one farther from valid experience as lead one toward valid experience. Furthermore, even good belief is another earthy veil between Spirit and us.
Professor Katherine Watson, in the movie "Mona Lisa Smile" (2003), on her first day of teaching art history at Wellesley, prepares to show her students slides of famous art works. As the image of each slide is projected onto the screen, promptly students, in turn, comment expertly on the slide. They give the name of the art, year discovered or created, and comment on what is noteworthy. By the time the slide show is over, Katherine is impressed and depressed. She asks how many of the students read the entire text; they all raise their hands. One student says, "... and all the supplemental material."
The next class day arrives. Katherine deviates from the class syllabus, introducing unfamiliar art works. She asks the students not to identify the pieces, but to evaluate them. Now, the students' are uncomfortable, while they struggle to assess and assign meaning in what they thought would be a memorization class.
Katherine was seeking to lead students to an appreciative, insightful relationship with art. After all, the class was on art appreciation, not art theory or art memorization, nor for simply getting academic credit for taking the class.
Tolle speaks of an "open concept" and "closed concept." How does this pertain to belief and an appreciative, insight relationship with the Triune Being?
A closed concept is one that allows the human mind, due to socialization, to form an image with conceptual boundaries. For example, the word God for most persons has become a closed concept. When hearing "God," automatically there is an internalized image or thought that is descriptive of "God." There is as definite and defined an image or thought as someone worshipping a rock and calling it "God."
An open concept is one that resists the human mind defining by boundaries. "God" has become so socialized that it is practically impossible for "God" to be an open concept for us. Thus, the mystery, the openness, that originally inhered in "God"--and many religious words--has been closed off--that is, there is no vacancy for any fresh experience or understanding. This is why most preaching and teaching in churches is simply the same material reprocessed in the same way persons have heard it a thousand times: indeed, often, if not usually, churches are closed systems clothed with closed concepts. Thus, they are suffocating to persons who are open to the Spirit of Christ.
Part of a transformative spirituality is opening our systems and concepts to opportunities for removing ideological suffocation. This is done by letting in new insights and alternative ways of seeing and experiencing the same truths.
This leads beyond attachment to belief, and often calcified by rationalistic fossilization over time. This need is a reason contemplative spirituality is, presently, the greatest gift for renewing the churches. Why? For it is the only consistent spiritual orientation that leads beyond closed concepts--and, yet, this is just the fear of those churchman and churchwomen who dread letting go of toppling religious empires and trusting Spirit to breathe anew and radically among us. Rather, many of these persons continue to believe we can manage churches to newness. They continue to seek newness, while clinging to closed concepts that propagate closed systems.
To become an open system yourself, alive to the sense of Divine Presence, may require a painful breaking away from dependence on concepts and practices that no longer encourage your opening to the wonder of Aliveness. There is no middle ground: you either choose to remain closed--and that might be uncomfortably comfortable to you--, or you choose to remain open--that may not make you more comfortable, but it will release you from the suffocation of religiousness and open your mind and heart to the Aliveness which makes it possible for us to live a life of gratitude and joy, at a level we never thought possible in this world--at least, not possible for us.
Remember, Christian faith is not teachings to learn; faith is a living relationship to enjoy. The Infinite is not an idea to claim, but Love to love.
I leave you with a suggestion. Try new words and phrases to address God in prayer. I like one that I used in this writing: Aliveness.
*OneLife writings are offered by Brian K. Wilcox, a United Methodist pastor serving in the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church. He writes in the spirit of John Wesley's focus on the priority of inner experience of the Triune God; scriptural holiness; ongoing sanctification; the goal of Christian perfection (or, wholeness). Brian lives a vowed contemplative life with his two dogs, Bandit Ty and St. Francis, in North Florida. OneLife writings are for anyone seeking to live and share love, joy, and peace in the world and in devotion to God as she or he best understands God.
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