by Charles LaFond
“There is something in the soul which is only God….The seed of God within us. If the seed had a good wise and industrious cultivator, it would thrive and grow up into God. Now the seed of a pear tree grows into a pear tree…the seed of God into God. “
Meister Eckhart
Reading this changed me. I am 55 years old; ready to enroll in AARP. How did the time fly so fast? How did I get here: a silent farm in a river valley of New Mexico surrounded by green and trees and birds – such a rare thing in the New Mexican desert? Who am I? Feeling abused and pummeled, I chose to buttress my teenage self-esteem and ego, I have left my previous life behind for a time; choosing instead to live on this planet as just a human. A spiritual director wisely once said “Charles, your problem is NOT that you don’t suffer fools lightly. Your problem is that you don’t suffer fools quietly.”
Yup.
To leave the institution and hierarchical church, at least for a season of recovery from Ecclesial PTSD (Yes, it’s a thing) was like having the hoses cut like the Borg in those episodes of “Star Trek: the Next Generation.” Part human and part manufactured, “the Borg” was a collective, connected to “the Source” for sustenance and power by many hoses within their pod.
One is, for a time, very alone. And strangely relieved – if vulnerable. It does one no favors for professional advancement, but my hierarchy-climbing days are over. I am tired of fighting. I leave that to others. I’d rather be poor. Live simply. Eating apples from my farm. Baking pies.
But what happens when one “leaves” a church institution? A commune? A sect? A gang? A coven? An addiction? A village? What happens when one moves to solitude for healing and perspective. Unplugged. No ladder to climb, only mountains and hills.
What happens, I think, is that a new set of rules and a new celestial compassion awakens within us. We become willing to be more vulnerable not just to each other but to the planet and all the sentient and non-sentient beings – even to the cosmos – even to the “other.” We genuflect to sunsets and not just to crosses. We listen to birds and not just preachers. And finally, if we have the time to really mature the God-seed we carry within us, newly vulnerable to those who do us harm by violence, or by its mirror-image (perhaps more violent) neglect.
Vulnerability, the willingness to be connected and therefore also wounded, is the water and nutrient-set which grows the seed of God within us. I wish there was another way, another formula for me. I wish it worked differently. Ego-driven, manipulative people will still climb their way to the top. They aren’t mean so much as unaware, connected to a Borg called “Ego.”
So what do we do, you and I? How do we live? I have no idea what is best for you but here is my list.
•Keep going. One more day.
•Stay close to a loving dog and its iconography of unconditional love.
•A long walk and lots of water every day.
•Silence, ego-examination and life-examination.
•Silence and listening.
•Simple-living so that the planet’s resources have a chance to feed the planet’s living beings with water and food.
•Active connection with people and its inherent vulnerability to resulting wounds.
•Some form of creativity – generativity – such as parenting, painting, pottery, cooking, letter-writing … birthing something.
•Birthing God outside of institutional stone and glass by tending to the God-seed within you and listening to the land.
•Acting out, to poke domination and injustice in its eye. If you ignore the suffering of others, there will be nobody to stand by you when you suffer at the hands of ego.
That’s my list. What’s yours? I bet you have one. It is down there next to the gestating God-seed. It is its placenta.