Our liberation begins with the irrevocable belief that we are worthy to be liberated, that we are worthy of a life that does not degrade us but honors our whole selves. When you believe in your dignity, or at least someone else does, it becomes more difficult to remain content with the bondage with which you have become so acquainted. You begin to wonder what you were meant for.
Cole Arthur Riley
To begin to accept ourselves as we are, we must learn to mend, to heal, to bring together instead of splitting and tearing apart. We must learn to undo what has been done, to unbelieve what has been believed. We must bear witness to our life instead of running from our shame. More precisely, we must learn to bear witness to our life through bearing witness to our shame. We must stop hiding and show up. One way to do this is to get down to the root of it all, to ride our monsters all the way down to the ground floor. To do this we must begin to learn to accept ourselves as we are and to communicate generously with ourselves and with the world around us.
We all keep believing that we need to be saved from being who we are, but the reality is that any saving that happens is actually from who we keep pretending to be.
We need saving from the continual, habitual pretending to be who we are not, and the saving comes in the form of being reminded that we simply need to become more of who we already are because who we actually are is pretty great, accepted, and deeply cherished. There is nothing to prove, nothing to win, nothing to gain, and nothing to judge. To practice this acceptance that brings healing to fear and shame, we must face ourselves and our monsters, our demons.
In my first blog post of this series on fear and shame, I mentioned the story of the demon possessed man as is found in the New Testament. Here, I want to offer another interpretation of this story based on the genre of spiritual writing globally, across various religious and philosophical boundaries and traditions.
In this story, the demon possessed man lives in a cave outside the city. Within the genre of spiritual writing, setting a story outside of a city means that we are outside of conventional norms…we are outside of socially accepted expectations, roles, and identities. This indicates a liminal space, a space of transition and transformation, a time of growth and creativity. Additionally within this genre, a cave is almost always a representation of a spiritual struggle. It’s discussed in terms of a battle or a struggle or a challenge of some kind, and the cave almost always involves some type of demon or adversary.
From this perspective, the demon possessed man in this story is not really possessed in the way that we tend to interpret that story. Instead, it is likely that this individual has intentionally gone to the cave to engage in a spiritual struggle, and the struggle is specifically identified as one of possessiveness, which is a primary spiritual struggle identified by Jesus on numerous occasions. Pain is always a good indicator of possessiveness – because we are desperately holding on to something – and the antidote to this stinginess is generosity and opening up. So, the way this story might be framed, then, is probably to see this as a story about a man struggling with the demon or confusion or fear of possessiveness, which is what we might call an addiction. The man is divided against himself, trapped within his own neuroses, and is in need of self-acceptance and healing through a practice of letting go but is unsure how to do this within the bounds of his normal behavioral and social norms, habits, and identities, which is why he goes to the cave to figure it out.
If we are honest with ourselves, we are all addicted to something…substances, shopping, ourselves, happiness, suffering, work…we are all possessed by something, some ambition that drives us relentlessly forward to achieve some future idealized version of life where everything is perfect and we have it all together. The attempt to prove that this future life does exist is what we mean by possession, and we typically express this through our addictions and ego fixations, our neuroses. Letting go of this possession is a spiritual practice. It is a practice of recognizing and accepting that this future idealized version of our lives is a fiction, it will never exist no matter how hard we try and work and punish ourselves. This man in the story, then, is facing his illusions, his possessiveness, to practice the generosity of letting go.
He is not possessed by a demon. He is intentionally facing his own demon of possessiveness. Possessiveness has a hold on this man’s life, and he goes to the cave to attempt to overcome it.
However, as is true for most of these cave stories within the genre of spiritual writing, we soon learn that overcoming or overpowering or pushing back against the thing, demon, fear, confusion, or adversary we are opposing – in this case possessiveness – only makes it even stronger. Usually, the lesson we learn in these stories is that we must stop struggling and resisting and invite the demon/fear in…to welcome it in and have it come and stay awhile…so we can face it and get to know it and become friends with it…and maybe we even feed it and give it something delightful to eat. In doing so, the demon or fear loses its power and hold over us and eventually leaves of its own choosing completely deflated. This is the lesson: acceptance, not struggle, is the way we let go.
In the case of the story in the New Testament, it is Jesus who helps this man face his fears and address his spiritual alienation so he can become healed of his obsession with possessiveness. Jesus helps this man face his demons in a life-affirming way and let go and, in so doing, Jesus offers this man a powerful teaching on learning to become friends with himself, generously accepting himself as he is, and giving himself a lot of love and compassion.
As Ilia Delio writes, “Compassion…unites what is divided and binds together what is otherwise opposed…The compassionate person identifies with the suffering of others in such a way that she or he makes a space within the heart to allow the suffering of another to enter, not to heal them or remove their pain but to be with them in solidarity” (47). Here, then, we see Jesus practicing generosity to reveal the power of compassion to heal…to mend and weave together what has been divided, fragmented, and torn apart. In the process, the man comes to understand the deep teaching that the antidote to possessiveness is generosity – an acceptance of self, a letting go, and an openness to others and the world around us.
So how do we face our demons today? How do we face our addictions? How do we embrace who we already are instead of trying to change who we are?
We must begin by generously and compassionately re-exploring our past, carefully and creatively identifying our own shame-based communication from our past.
For example, below is a stream-of-consciousness approach to re-exploring my past and one way that helped me to reconnect with my own confidence instead of with the shame that was given to me. This form of journaling allowed me to creatively and non-judgmentally discover forgotten truths about myself and about God that shaped and formed me but were buried, hidden deep below decades of false and delusional shame stories I kept telling myself about myself.
— Beginning of journaling passage —
“We are afraid of fear because we believe that it has the power to name who we are, and it fills us with shame.”
James Finley
When folks like me say they grew up in church, we don’t mean we grew up going to church. We mean that we grew up IN the church. We mean that these dry bones still creak in rhythm with the creaking of the old wooden pews slowly wearing out each Sunday as they try to support the weight of those sanctified bodies trying to remind themselves how holy they are by telling themselves how sinful, shameful, and worthless they are. But most of us already know the deep truth that God sure does love paradox above all things.
We are children of the church, raised on potlucks and holy platitudes.
We know the Bible. We did Bible drills. We referred to the Bible as the “sword of the Lord.” We know the old musky smell of the church, we crave and loathe it, and we know the end to every sermon because we know the preacher will always “take us to the cross.” We are children of the church.
Growing up in church, I learned some words. I learned words that you speak because they are acceptable to speak, "church-language," and I learned words that speak to you, in your deepest heart where your soul lives and still burns like wildfire.
These words that speak to you are not, paradoxically, church-language. These words that speak to you bring experiences that you cannot communicate to anyone because the images harden, crack, and crumble as they fall off your tongue because they’re meaningless compared to the experience itself, and so you hold the experiences instead of trying to communicate them, cherish them, and hope they will form you in the best ways.
My words that spoke to me were wonder, awe, fire, and Moses. Moses spoke to me as tall as a tower that reached all the way to God. For me, Moses didn’t climb Mt. Sinai. Moses was Mt. Sinai. He was a mountain in my mind. Moses was the source of endless inspiration and creativity for me. Even then I could sense his struggle with shame and his courage to walk through it, doubting himself the entire way, even in the very presence of God he doubted himself. Even when God gave him a purpose, he doubted himself because his shame kept him hidden and afraid. Me and God love a paradox, and God knows I love to doubt myself.
Moses taught me we are all very small specs of dust, blown out hot and heavy from the mouth of God…our lives are every word that comes from the mouth of God…we are limitless in our soul when we release our shame and open all the way up to the fire of Life, when we are meek. Yes, Moses taught me about meekness. Only Moses and Jesus are described in the Bible as being meek, truly gentled by God.
Moses taught me about place and placeness too. His story was about place, who owned place, what power dominated place, who owned bodies within different places, how power worked in placeness, and how we could leave one place and go to another. I also learned how place could be denied to anyone, including Moses, by corrupted power or by God.
I learned that Pharaoh (or whoever is in power) could kill certain bodies and not even consider it murder. Systemic power evaluates and decides which bodies count more than others.
I also learned that those who had no power may have no control over their own bodies; may, in fact, be told to make bricks without straw within the mud pits of destitution and slavery, trapped at the bottom of a total domination system as their bones and blood are ground into the earth of those same mud pits.
I learned that today’s gears of progress and technology bent on the dominion and manipulation of place are no different than those mud pits. The desire to dominate, murder, exert power, enforce and impose our will on others by force and control is no different in our hearts now as it was then.
On any given day, we are all of us still back in those mud pits, still trying to make bricks without straw and increase the daily tally to meet the expectation and demand of the will of another. Some of us left when Moses liberated us, some of us stayed, and some of us died in those pits…we just never realized it.
But, Moses also taught me about time. As I put myself into his story, I came to see that time was perhaps more significant even than place. Because time was not for place or for the manipulation of things within place. Time was for eternity, and the doorway into the eternal now of the present moment existed within our hearts. Bodies could be bound to place but found freedom in time, unbound. No one could bind a body in time.
Time is holy, set apart. Remember My Sabbath and keep it holy. Guard it. Time is sacred, moments of movement as the Spirit goes.
Many say that God is omnipresent. They say God is everywhere in space and place. But God is omnipresence. God is saturating time, every moment is sacred and God is every moment.
The Egyptians wanted to conquer place and master time because they knew time could never be conquered, time could only be channeled into the manipulation of place. There is nothing tangible or material about time. Pharaoh has no power over time, which is why the Egyptians worshiped time but not place. Pharaoh may be able to keep bodies bound in place but never bound in time. Pharaoh may be able to manipulate time for the exploitation of place, but he cannot touch the eternal now of the present moment.
Moses wandered in time and through place, but he was bound to nothing but God alone, a living presence in the moment of the desert where Moses was cut down, gentled, made holy by the hot breath of dry sand flowing out from the very mouth of God.
How do we forgive place? How do we remake and heal placeness? We face it. We go back. Moses went back. He faced his demons, his fears. He didn’t want to. He faced his own shame. He left the desert and went…home…the only home of placeness he knew…the place of power, corruption, and death…Pharaoh’s total domination system…he went back…so he could forgive it. And when he did…a miracle…freedom, redemption.
Moses was a man finally gentled by the belonging he found in the time he spent in the place called desert, and after this time, he went back to a place where his demons lived so he could face them finally and be healed, woven, and mended.
As he wandered his way through this process he was stripped of all his shame by a powerful, tender, and gentle Spirit…Adonai…Hashem…Elohim…God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…in the desert sands, his soul was stripped down to bare bones by a God hell bent on salvation and, so, Moses was a hero and a mentor to me because he taught me that time and place are both significant because they are both necessary for passion, fire, healing, weaving, and mending. Time and place are both necessary for a life lived and born witness to, in awe and wonder.
At the burning bush, God called Moses out of place and into time, into history, into a moving moment of redemption for God’s people. This moment would last over 40 years in a place called desert waiting for another place called Promised Land, but I think Promised Land is never a place.
Oh, God certainly brought the people to a place, but it was only after a time; a time in the harrowing, shaping sands of the desert where dry bones and soul were reshaped and reframed, healed, redeemed, from all those thieved years of deformed and distorted placeness in slavery and shame; all those stolen years forced into desacralized placeness. Sacred time was healing broken backs, wounded souls, and desecrated bodies. And so, at the end of a necessary amount of time, place is given…or, more precisely, place it able to be received.
In my theological imagination, God’s people finally walked into the Promised Land only after time had healed, woven and mended, their souls, bodies, and hearts.
They didn’t walk into a new place. They settled down in an old, familiar place that was a new home they had made and sanctified in time…and called it Sabbath rest at the end of a very long journey. This is the kingdom of God. Shabbat shalom.
Moses was dry bones and soul, courage and fear, a walking mystery beloved by God, and that taught me that God loves mysteries because deep calls to deep. Moses taught me that God doesn’t care one bit for perfection. God is only ever interested in weaving and mending. From Moses I learned everything I needed to know about wonder, awe, and fire.
In the end, what Moses taught me about was longing, and what I learned was that my longing comes from a beckoning to come home to myself. That is my deepest and truest longing. That is my burning bush.
What the stories of Moses said to me was, “Trust your longing, because it is the voice of God. Longing is God’s answer to every prayer.”
In my mind and my heart, I too had a burning bush, and in my own imagining I just walked right into the middle of it and immediately became obliterated in time and space, taken up into God and poured out across the universe as pure Spirit. My burning bush was wild and free. My God was made only of wonder and awe, and I was the fire ignited by that wonder, interwoven into a cosmic narrative of redemption, a tapestry of mercy and grace.
Yet, as I grew older, I quickly learned that those words that speak to your heart and soul get taken from you, tamed, domesticated, colonized, imprisoned in a whole house of other words that keep the emotions locked up and locked down. My words, my experiences, my Moses were all tamed and limited within the confines and restrictions of BELIEFS, made doctrinally appropriate and dogmatically approved…which is to say made more legible for a domesticated “God” to read when pushing up the bifocals and bending down close to see the fine print on the list that’s always being checked, and checked twice.
The smallest word I can think of is belief…those golden idols fashioned in the images of our own desires that we misperceive to be something True and Good and Beautiful.
Belief is what hardens our hearts and turns us against our neighbors. Our web of beliefs are what keep us all so small and domesticated, entangled with shame and fear, trapped within a system of domination we rarely even try to notice. This web is the web of expectations and demands that keep generating shame and fear. We are trapped in the web of belief and we don’t even know, nor do we usually care.
Now faith…faith is entirely different from belief. Faith is an experience. Faith is SEEING. Faith is realizing God is not a babysitter or a security blanket. Faith is embracing ambiguity and uncertainty without reaching for protection or defenses. Faith is not outside of ourselves. Faith is impermanence and change. Faith is not something to believe in and has nothing to do with dogma or doctrine. With faith there is nothing to do, nothing to prove, nothing to gain, and nothing to achieve. There is no ambition when it comes to faith. Faith is simply the movement of love and compassion in an infinite flow of mercy and grace.
Faith is fearless, the audacity of a face-to-face with God on a mountain, a direct encounter with Reality without filters, without fantasies and illusions, without armor and walls all around.
Faith is Moses, dry bones and soul, fire falling and ocean splitting itself in half because that is all it can do in the presence of such a faith as Moses. Faith is a whirlwind, stone tablets carved in fire, a lightning bolt dropped on the back of the sky as a thunder roll tears the night from its slumber, a gentle breeze that hits you just right across the face as a bird begins to sing and a butterfly comes into view all at once so that all your soul can do is weep at the beauty of such a life, such a life you are always trying to remember to remember so you never forget the overflowing love and creativity of a whisper and a promise of a Spirit you felt blow right through you once.
Yes, faith…give me faith any day. I’ll surrender to it.
But, religion didn’t teach me faith. My religion taught me some domesticated words…some colonized concepts…some beliefs…forgiveness, grace, salvation, redemption. These words don’t have to be small, but we are afraid of them, so we made them small. Because we were afraid, we never experienced them so we never understood them, we could never truly SEE them. They always sounded nice and wonderful, but they always seemed very far off…and never for me.
And, so, we took wild, mysterious, and audacious faith and turned it into some nice, knowable, vacuum-sealed beliefs we could quietly collect and intellectually give our assent to to show everyone that we were “right” and “good,” a noble species.
How easy it is to sanitize God with our beliefs and then punish ourselves for not being perfect. Now I see that it was shame all along, full of deceit, devoid of meaning, twisting freedom into a lie of perfectionism and fear.
There was no experience or practice connected to these beliefs, these words. There was just a lot of talking about these words.
All we could do was give a nod and a wink, wink that we all knew what was happening, but these were all empty words without true communion or communication. It was always a language of secrecy and hiding, and that is always a primary sign and indicator of shame-based communication. Within my religious community, we didn’t think or act or practice the words we spoke so often to each other in sermons, songs, prayers, and Bible studies. We didn’t live communion.
This is the deceit of shame-based communication…it is only the appearance of true communication, but we aren’t actually communicating anything deep or meaningful.
Surely, this is not communion because none of us was actually communicating (in communion) with ourselves or with each other. All we had was a list of tamed, sanitized, imprisoning beliefs. We didn’t have any deep experience of God, or Reality-As-It-Is, and we were stuck in our shame, unable to commune with our True Self or with those around us. We were small, worshiping ourselves and playing church in the dark with our idols like toys, and in our smallness, all we could do was believe.
— End of journaling passage —
At the end of this stream-of-consciousness practice to generously explore my past with compassion and gentleness and without any self-judgment or shame, I realized that all the “religious” words in my community were code words, but they didn’t signify anything specific or significant. They didn’t really have any meaning other than to signal to everyone hearing them that we were all “supposed to know” what we were “supposed to know” about those words and what they meant.
What this journaling practice helped me to realize the most was the ways that religious language itself, consciously or unconsciously, was used to paralyze me within a web of fear and shame and then hide that paralysis from my own realization of it by framing it into only one “authorized” interpretation of reality. That framing process became the ongoing attempt to solidify my belief structure itself, and we called it conviction, loyalty, fidelity, and even faith. But, trying to solidify something that isn’t solid is not loyalty, it’s insanity, and it will only ever bring suffering, fear, and shame.
The creative re-exploration of my past through this journaling practice allowed me to finally see this happening in my life because I was finally opening lines of communication with myself. In turn, this allowed me the freedom to then begin the important work of facing my fear and my own demons of shame, re-framing the fear and shame of my past into something healthy and healing, which is what we will explore in my next post.