When the Creator [i.e., Elohim] began making the sky and earth [i.e., everything], the earth was shapeless and barren. Darkness was everywhere. A mighty wind hovered like a mother bird over the primal waters. The Creator spoke, "Let light appear." And there was light.
*Genesis 1.1-3, Trans. Brian K. Wilcox
Note: "Wind" can read "Breath or Spirit."
* * *
It is interesting how chaos can lead to newness - chaos can help clean out the space for freshness to come in. Such was the case in my life about a decade ago. I had felt most suited to be a chaplain for many years - others told me so, too. However, I was a pastor and had not gotten the training to do chaplain work while in theology school. I found a way to that vocation after losing my role as a pastor and a relationship and ending up broke and legally homeless.
I went from living in a tobacco barn to clinical chaplaincy training in a hospital in Jacksonville, FL, and soon became a corrections chaplain. Within a year, I entered hospice chaplaincy, where I most wanted to serve. Now, for a decade, I have enjoyed serving in varied chaplain positions resultant of the dismantling of my previous life. This work in spiritual care has been instrumental in continued spiritual growth. For such, I am thankful and can smile back upon all that chaos that opened to a new way of serving others, one more aligned with my heart and inclusive values.
* * *
Have you ever had a significant move onward in spiritual progress without a preceding chaotic period or event? Sometimes, we seem to need a shock or some unrest to move us toward a deepening spiritual emergence. Could we say soul thrives on chaos? Caroline Myss, in Entering the Castle, a work based on Teresa of Avila's The Interior Castle, says: "Paradoxically, your soul thrives on chaos because it recognizes the hand of the divine at work in upheavals that push you toward transformation."
Myss writes about the four veils of Spirit. These are progressive states, so to speak, that we grow into.
All growth potential, however, well beyond where we are, is inherent in the soul. These potentials simply need stimulation, like a seed needs environmental conditions - soil, sunshine, water ... - to develop and become a plant. Yet, the plant was already in the seed, as the seed remains in the plant. Nothing is left behind.
* * *
If you observe how you pray, you will see where you are in spiritual emergence. The way we pray - as well as live life daily - and its content shifts with spiritual emergence. As we move through aspects of spiritual maturity, our prayers take on the nature of the development we have emerged into. Each point of emergence is an unexplored habitat we adapt to and explore, which readies us to move to another landscape after we have integrated the wisdom of that domain.
* * *
Where I have chosen headings other than Myss', I place her's in brackets.
1) Egocentric Religiousness [Organic Divinity]
Our personality - our ego - seeks to utilize the idea of God, or whatever term(s) we use for the Absolute, to keep order in our world - to stave off chaos (I will use Spirit, henceforth). Our faith is rooted in our instincts - for example, survival and affection. Prayers are mainly about getting good things - security, health, protection, happiness, pleasure, a good job, a relationship ... - and warding off threats. We may lose faith if Spirit does not meet our basic needs - as we esteem those needs - and we demand that Spirit be consistent in doing that.
2) Conscience and Personal Choice
Spirit is more like a moral compass; the sense of duty and dignity is foremost. Spirit appears in the thought of right and wrong and better and best. Spirit is seen as consistently just. We are more empowered personally to make creative decisions and freer from the earlier ego-dependence on Spirit.
3) Inner Guidance
Spirit is becoming the Inner Voice of subtle revelation and guidance. We are more intuitive. We are asking questions about our soul, like, "What is my sacred destiny?," "What is Spirit?," "How might I enjoy fellowship with Spirit?," not about our mere physical existence or ethics.
4) Spiritual Contemplation [Mystical]
We still integrate into our spiritual lives basic, instinctual needs, the power of moral and creative decision-making, inner guidance and subtle revelations of Spirit. However, all things flow "downward" from the soul into these other areas. Living in union with Spirit has become our habitual lifestyle, whereas before, we had infrequent experiences of felt-connection with Spirit. Here, one grows from communion with Spirit to union with Spirit. In spiritual contemplation we grow into the consciousness of Oneness.
* * *
Repentance [lit., a turning around, back] is not simply about release from egocentricity or a wrong. The turning away from can include letting go into a more inclusive embrace of Spirit. So, it is not enough to turn away from, for we are to turn toward. The embrace consists of wisdom and compassion. Our sense of truth and care for others grows as our connection to Spirit grows.
Growth in the spiritual life is toward increasing harmony. We want to grow into unity of body, mind, and soul. In what Myss calls the Mystical, the needs of our physical selves - including emotions - and intellect are harmonized with the needs of and aspirations arising from the soul for loving union with Spirit.
* * *
Chaos is an ingredient in this harmonizing. The holy Spirit seems to relish using chaos for spiritual growth. As we grow more deeply in Spirit, we need less chaos and less pronounced to spur us onward to a deepening experience of Spirit.
It seems we, from the soul, often create chaos when our intuitive logic - not general intelligence - knows we need it. We may complain, but we created the disorder in agreement with a deeper need than living trouble-free.
A key is to be thankful for good chaos. We cannot create godless or foolish disorder and say, "Well, that was good because it helped me grow." And we never claim Spirit creates difficulty that contradicts the nature of Spirit as Love.
The Hebrew and Christian Bibles begin with chaos. All is a mess. Disorder reigns. Spirit takes the formless voidness and makes an ordered world of beauty and fullness. That indicates how Spirit likes to take the disorder of our lives and use that to grow us in more mature expressions of Spiritlikeness and more fully as loving beings.
Reflect on one time of chaos or a chaotic event that you sense Spirit used to urge you to a leap in spiritual growth. Are you going through any chaos now that might be a way your soul is growing itself?
* * *
*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2023. Permission given to use photographs and writings with credit given to copyright owner.
*Brian's book is An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love. The book is a collection of poems Brian wrote based on wisdom traditions, predominantly Christian, Buddhist, and Sufi, with extensive notes on the poetry's teachings and imagery.
