The Real Self

It is argued (and I concur) that existence apart from God is really a false existence--it is not real, not recognized by God because he did not create or imagine any thing to have existence outside of relationship with himself ("In him all things have their being." Col. 1:17.) 

The setting up of the "imagined self" is the fruit of the snake's suggestion in Genesis 3 that if humans act outside of unity with God, we "would be like him," implying we would not need him--that we could BE independent of him. This is where the false, uncreated, illusory self was projected, which some believe is the Original Sin. 

Salvation, then, is found in the recognition that life ONLY exists in relationship to God as we surrender in openness to that relationship--only IN HIM do we live and move and have being (Acts 17:28). We are not to fight, strive or perform to get in that relationship--that would be the work of the illusory self--we simply come with brokenness and openness in response to his call and trusting in his mercy alone.

The sad part is most of us cannot recognize the REAL us, who is created by and held in life by God. Many contemplatives refer to the real self as the "hidden self," which is self-explanatory--it is a part of us that is not easily known and must be discovered. Paul alludes to this when he says that pagans are "darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of God" (Eph. 4:18). Though God created us to live out of an identity all wrapped up in him, many of us live without any illumination of that "self"--our minds are "darkened." 

To make matters worse, we mature living, deciding, experiencing life out of our false, illusory self as though it were our true self (but which is no self at all!), and we build and plan our lives in a Babel-esque way to "reach the heavens" completely out of sync with God's plan. 

When I suggest to myself that I do not really know myself and have been living, planning, reacting to life, and processing the human experience through a FALSE SELF that isn't even REAL (because it was not created by God), it is disorienting at best and paralyzing at worst. But it IS the claim of sacred text--we are not who we think we are if our whole lives have been built upon a self who is not REALLY a self. This is why we are in such deep kimchee. We don't even know ourselves, which makes faith an inapplicable abstraction to us.

So...how does one DISCOVER the real self. Ahhh...if only that were an easy step 1, 2, 3, answer. But it is not. The true self is about as easy to find as God's presence within is easy to find. As obscure as that sounds, that's about the most accurate way to describe the road to discovery of the true self. In The Confessions Augustine wrote: "I could not be then, O my God, could not be at all, if you were not in me; or, rather, unless I were in you, of whom are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are all things." 

It is only when you seek the face of God that you discover your own true face. This is not to suggest that you and I are God, but that we only find ourselves as we look at God (like we see a reflection of our faces when we look at the water). 

This is not a path of exactness or certitude. In fact, it is much the opposite. This path is one requiring humility and vulnerability as one moves into what many call the "cloud of unknowing." Think of the two places we are most touched by the Person of Christ: when he lies in the manger as an innocent, vulnerable baby and when he hangs on the Cross naked, nailed and dying, refusing to call for help. It is in these kinds of weak places, uncertain places, desperate places, painful places, "this-could-go-in-a-way-I-didn't-anticipate" places, where we fall in love with Jesus and see him most clearly. 

I think we find our true selves in these kinds of places too. That's why Christians embrace the Way of the Cross. Following the Way of the Cross means we don't have to hide from our struggles, weaknesses, inconsistencies or failures--we can actually stare through them to the mercy of God and in so doing, we actually find our TRUE SELVES in Christ. This is how we deconstruct the false, illusory self and find the self God imagined us to be instead of wasting our lives living through the fake phantasm of a being (unrecognizable to God) we created in ourselves. 

My hope, as the Bishop-Protector of the Order of St. Anthony is to challenge us to persevere in book-ending our days in prayer; embracing weekly fasting; finding paths of simplicity of focus and living; participating in weekly Eucharist; submitting to spiritual direction and the sacrament of reconciliation; et.al. In so doing, we are NOT to act out of the false self--which is only interested in posing; performing; being perfect or right; proving we are better than other people; trying to make up ground for our own stupid; trying to earn brownie points or a Eagle Scout badge from God; etc. 

We are doing this to submit to a process that helps us enter "the manger"--as infants in faith, needing to be taken care of more than trying to be in charge. We are doing these things to nail ourselves naked to the cross vulnerable and helpless, doing what we don't necessarily want to do. Think of those times when you plan to skip a meal in anticipation of redirecting your hunger towards the eternal, or it's time to do an office and you think: "Oh no...I have to do these same prayers again!" It's easy to feel like doing the office twice a day is going to kill you (at least a little). But, maybe that's the point?

What if the broken, empty, "I-seem-to-just-be-going-through-the-motions", boring places like the Office can often be, IS the kind of place where we can best bump into God and discover the true human self he created? Not the moments of inspiration or great experience (though we welcome those with thanksgiving). Remember, God inhabits obscurity. He abides in the quiet, secret, hidden place, which seems like a glass through which we can only see darkly. I think we should train ourselves to welcome this as the adventure of faith. Faith may always be a sketchy enterprise, but it can be one that is exhilarating as we radically throw ourselves into it. I want to be like a free-jumper off of the cliffs of the human experience smack into the darkness, which is faith. Whether it's a win or loss, whether I live or die, is not in my hands. My role is simply to jump. I hope this is what all of us in the Order aspire to. 

The Shadow Self

Well…I was busted again today by the Holy Spirit. One of the great truths that has emerged through the contemplatives and mystics of the ages is that we humans often prop up a false or “shadow” self into our daily lives. This shadow-self loves to pretend it is the REAL us and loves to try and control the events of our lives along with the people we encounter.

I think the presence of the shadow-me in all of us is the result of Original Sin, which in the Genesis narrative appears when human beings imagine a NEW BEING that wasn’t God’s design—one that claimed it didn’t need God. The anti-God, serpent’s voice claimed that this “new you” would be “like God.” But it was not. It was not a self that God imagined or approved—nor did he recognize it. This would mean that this shadow-self is non-being because it was NOT the creation of God. Remember the claim of Rev. 4:11, “For you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being” (emphasis mine). Things only have being when God creates them. Col 1:17 tells us that all CREATED THINGS are all things are “held together” by Christ.

The shadow-self is NOT created and is NOT held together by God. Technically, it is nothing (no-thing). It is a falsity held together conceptually BY US. It has no substance, no reality—it is only a phantasm that takes shape when we try to attach things to it to make it seem real (like throwing a sheet over a ghost to give it form—anybody remember Casper?). We try to give this mirage’d-self realness through passion, fame, status, pleasure, intellection, experience, etc. But it doesn't work. It doesn’t work because the shadow-self is not a self that God sees because he did not create it. It has no "being" for only created things have "being" through God.

So here I sit in front of the prayer: “I have sinned against you in thought, word and deed.” I admit that even my very religious, regimented life can be empowered by the imposter of my life—my shadow self! How do I know? Because God-forbid anyone interrupt my prayer time or the plans that emerge out of this special, sequestered time! If I live an unexamined day, my shadow-self ends up being the lord of my life—even of the time that should be the time when I am being formed by God, where the true-self God imagined me to be emerges. 

Unbelievably, there are times when my very prayer time is being empowered by my shadow-me, thereby quashing the real-me. 

Crap.

Truth is, it is this shadow-self that must be crucified.

But, the real me is so imperceptible at times. Though it is the real me, I am so used to living out of a false-me, I can’t seem to find the real me—the one imagined and created by God in his likeness and image. I am like the poor pagans described by Paul in Eph. 4:18—People who “are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.” Think of that. The life of God is RIGHT THERE; WITHIN THEM…but they cannot see it. The are “separated” from it. It eludes them.

Augustine nods to this reality in the Confessions as he talks about his life before he crossed the threshold of faith when he was looking for God in things in the world. He claimed that all along God was WITHIN HIM: “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient and ever new! Late have I loved you! And, behold, you were within me, and I out of myself, and there I searched for you.” 

The Psalmist speaks of "The Lord, Who holds our souls in life” (Ps 66:8). You and I are alive right now because he is IN US holding us IN LIFE.

Our REAL SELF is rooted in this reality:

GOD HAS WRAPPED YOU INTO HIMSELF AND SITS WITHIN YOU.

The secret of my identity and your identity is in the love and mercy of God and is identical with him, as we are in his image and likeness (there is no suggestion here that we are God but only our life only happens because of him). He is the reason for our existence. This can only mean there is one central purpose in life--to discover happiness, purpose and fulfillment in our discovering ourselves in the Person of God. We am IN HIM, not in our false selves. If we find him, we will find ourselves.

But only God can help us do this--it is not the work of human effort alone. Thomas Merton claims that we cannot find God—we must wait for him to find us by uttering a word into us. He is claiming that the finding of ourselves is an incarnation, not a human exploration. This means for us to know God, God must make himself known to us. Merton goes on to say that for God to make himself known to us, “God must not only be great, he must be small--small enough to enter our littleness and to make himself known there.”

This is the why of the Order. This is the why of bookending our lives in prayer. We are looking for God. We are looking for ourselves—our true selves.

When I think of the essence of sin as being the impulse to live out life from a false-self instead of the real-self, I realize I could say the confession prayer constantly—and then repent for saying it 3/4ths of that time out of my false-self!

This makes me feel hopeless AND delighted.

Hopeless because I realize faith is beyond human effort and I will never be very good at it (never beyond the acumen of a child). Delighted because this was NEVER supposed to be about the false-self (which is the only part of me that COULD feel hopeless, guilty, shamed, dejected), but about the REAL-ME who only has life in God.