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Quiet is the Flow
River De Chute... Easton, ME
Today's Saying: Much, if not most, popular so-called spirituality seeks to center the self, to position the self to enhance its life by getting what it wants. This is not the wise Way. The grace of self-demotion is central in all spiritual paths, and the decentralizing of self does not appeal to most of us humans. How can a path of self-demotion thrive in a culture of self-promotion? It can not. Surely, the self must go up before going down, otherwise, there is not enough self to go down. But going down is essential, then going up means something else than the prior going up. But it is futile to seek a life of Grace just going up and up and up. That is really just going down without getting to go up. So, by going down, one realizes going up and down is the same act. But we have to go up and down before realizing this. And we go up and down until a sense of just being, neither up nor down... we just are, and we give no thought to either up or down or down or up. The ladder disappears.
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The Jungian, Robert A. Johnson, in Balancing Heaven and Earth, tells of a patient's dream.
One man I saw recently had a dream in which he was walking on the street when a downpour began and he was washed by the deluge into a sewer - an image that is about as down as you can get. When he finally landed he was in a holy place, and the Virgin Mary was there.
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Above, the dreamer gets washed down. We most often associate holiness or spiritual growth with up, rarely with down. Hence, we often hear the word "transcendence" in spiritual work. Most religion has been upward mobile. In Christianity, the ladder has been a prime image of growing closer to God. In Christianity, Jesus was lifted up on a cross. Historically, hills and mountains have been associated with gods. In Buddhism, Mt. Meru is the center of Earth. For many Jews, Mt. Zion is the dwelling place of the LORD in Jerusalem. When persons praise God, they sing things like, "I lift you up," never, "I bring you down," and often they raise their hands and lift their eyes. Heaven, many Christians say, is somewhere above the clouds. So, when persons resurrect at the end of time, they teach, they will ascend from the broken open graves. Most, if not all, these evangelicals believe in a rapture at what they call the Second Coming of Christ, and persons will float into the sky or disappear to reappear up with Christ.
Culturally, we speak highly of high. Persons get high on drugs; they say, "I went on a high" or "I got high." These drug takers are disappointed when, rather than a high, they go down: have a downer. Being above others is a sign of authority in a climb-up culture. Persons aspire to climb up the corporate ladder to feel successful - going down is a demotion, not a promotion. We are fascinated by skyscrapers, flying in a plane above the clouds, hiking in the mountains, and space travel.
Moreover, we do not link sacredness with a sewer. "Virgin" is a signifier of inner purity: being virginal. Who would expect to see the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, by being washed down a sewer? This is like saying, "Who expects to smell like a rose after falling in a pig pen?" I can testify to this, for I once fell into an open sewer in my favorite white pants. I did not smell like a rose, and my pants did not look like my favorite white pants afterward.
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One way of interpreting the dream is it speaks of the opposite of self-inflation. To be near virginal Life, we are more and more denuded of self. This happens to us. Something works to humble us. Through meekness, we are brought near to Life. So, the lower we are, the nearer we are to Spirit. Of course, this does not mean having a bad self-image. And a self trying to demote itself is just more of the self. Even the self with a good self-image or a good spiritual image is not that we are. That we are is that we are in God, and even our best selves in themselves limit our access to Spirit.
So, being lifted up is complemented by being washed down. Up and down are two sides of one movement. Hence, in Christian spirituality, the "humiliation of Christ" - you, too - is a grace. This is not meant to make us less alive but more alive. This recenters the self to the Self. How could being lowered be something to be disdained, when it is a being lifted up?
Hence, the higher you go, the lower the self that cannot take you higher is denuded of its centrality and self-importance. The result? What "Christ" and the "Virgin Mary" represent appears more clearly and powerfully - both are of your Being. You realize by experience what was there all along - you in God, God in you. So, the you-in-God is never lifted up and brought down. Yet, this is not realized until the self-in-itself is demoted by Grace.
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The paradox... in Spirit, demotion is promotion, burial is resurrection. And it is best not to lift yourself up or put yourself down. You can set a context for Spirit to do that. Then, let it happen. Get out of the way, which is to say, let the self remove itself in your "Yes" to Life, so, letting Life do the work you cannot do in this intimacy with Grace. See, self-demotion entails the self knowing it cannot do what only Spirit does through our consent.
All those who lift themselves up, they will be brought down. Those who bring themselves down, they will be lifted up.
*Gospel of Matthew 23.12
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*© Brian K. Wilcox, 2021
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse. The book is a collection of poems based on wisdom traditions, predominantly Christian, Buddhist, and Sufi, with extensive notes on the poetry's teachings and imagery.
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