I just started reading an oldish book called Our Many Selves, by Elizabeth O’Connor. A major premise of the book is that the failure of the church’s witness isn’t so much that we have differences in interpretation, but “in a pervading attitude in the Church itself that the inwardness of its life can be known without any serious commitment.” If we “just get our theology right” for some, and if we “invite Jesus into our hearts” for others, spiritual maturity will magically happen.
How does one become spiritually mature? What does that look like? Often the church presents the answers to these questions in finely combed-over doctrine, leadership positions, or how many programs you are involved in. These are good things, but they are not proper measures to experiencing God; growing in his grace, love, mercy, and justice; and being a receptacle of that for others. If we are not mindful, they can become the very things that distract us from doing the inner work we are called to.
Because we cannot experience God and love others well if we are clogged up with our own personal agendas for him and our own hustles that are basically trying to manipulate and manage our attaining them.
What are our expectations in the faith and what do those questioning the faith see in us? We can get pretty far in our adult lives and find we’ve been disillusioned. We make an ideal for ourselves and the church, thinking growth is in willing this ideal person into reality and stuffing down all our negative desires, voices, embarrassments, jealousies, and demands. Just don’t feed those awful parts of ourselves and maybe they will go away. Because they’re not real. But what if they are? What if they have more power over us than we realize? What if we can do some work to disarm them?
We can’t grow without facing our shadows. O’Connor speaks of a hierarchy of our “selves” competing for power. Who does your self-narrating, telling you what kind of person you are and how you view God and others? We want to identify as loving and gracious, so we may “resist any knowledge that threatens that image.” But what happens is that we can’t bear this knowledge or get rid of it—that shame that keeps sneaking up. So we project it on others—who unintentionally summon our greed, envy, or hunger of some sort—and we try to kill the “undesirables” in them. Or maybe you embrace your negative narrators and you find yourself stuck in feelings of inferiority. Are you really who your narrator is saying you are?
We tend to identify as one kind of self when we are made up of a cacophony of selves in disarray. (Or, call it a narrator if that sounds better to you.) We are complex beings. Realizing this is so freeing, because now we can see that this negative part of me isn’t all of me. A negative thought or feeling or desire isn’t the total of who I am. But how do we distance ourselves from the powerful influence of these negative selves and become more integrated into distinct persons, growing in maturity, enjoying communion with the triune God and one another?
O’Connor challenges us to clean up our own inner households if we want to have the relationships and community of belonging that the church is to nurture. Instead of ignoring all these selves, as she calls them, we need to face them with curiosity:
“If I respect the plurality in myself, and no longer see my jealous self as the whole of me, then I have gained the distance I need to observe it, listen to it, and let it acquaint me with a piece of my own lost history…
“We must find our own lost territories and fulfill the command to make them His disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit…
“So much of our real suffering comes because there is no integration of our many selves around the Self which is ‘in the Lord.’”
If Paul can talk about it, we can:
“For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate.” (Rom. 7:15)
Part of maturing is being able to honestly self-evaluate. And we find that if we face these negative narrators with curiosity, they have valuable information for us. Why am I feeling angry and demanding of this person right now? What is my expectation, here? What are my fears? Am I anxious about something? Let’s spend some time with God and our own souls over this. It can lead to a lot of work. Good inner housework. After all, God delights to dwell in our souls. Let’s clean up all the clutter to get to him. “My very wholeness may depend on my willingness to keep company with these strange dark messengers.” What can be redeemed, even here? Instead of faked.
A lot more can be said. And obviously there is the focus on “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil. 4:8). This is where we want to be. But we do have to deal with the cobwebs. They are showing all over the church.
Thank you Aimee. A therapist, who was not a Christian, asked me if I believed I was forgiven why was I afraid to open up with myself and look at all the awful things in my heart. You have said something like that here and it's nice to have a sister remind me from time to time.
This is very good, Aimee, and I really should commit to doing some inner housework . . . but I'm tired. LORD have mercy but I'm tired!