Category: Spirit (Page 23 of 49)

3 Metaphors for Healthy Spirituality (Part 4): The Three Boxes

March 6, 2021 / Matt McMann / 0 Comments

Fair warning – the second Box is not fun.

Now that I’ve introduced the series, told a story of my spiritual struggles, and unpacked the metaphor of The Cosmic Egg, I’ll share the second metaphor that guided me through my deep spiritual fog – The Three Boxes. While this analogy can resonate with anyone who practices spirituality, I think it’s especially applicable to those who have a history with an organized religious system.

Imagine three boxes sitting on a table. The first box is labeled Order, the second Disorder, and the third Reorder. Each box represents a stage on the journey to a healthy spirituality.

THE ORDER BOX

When we’re young, we need order. Structure. Rules. Clear direction. In the Order Box, things are black and white. There is no gray. The benefit of this stage is clear when we think of how we raise our children. We teach them to always be kind and eat their vegetables, but to never lie or run into the street. The subtleties of exceptions to those rules would be lost on them. Our early days in a spiritual system are often similar, especially in highly structured ones. We are given the rules. What’s true and what’s not. What’s right and what’s wrong. Everything is communicated with an air of certainty. A clear sense of Order provides the structure and stability needed for a safe, secure foundation.

While the Order Box is a helpful and probably necessary place to start, at some point its rigid simplicity begins to show. Life is complicated. Humans are messy. A certain belief that seemed reasonable when presented in a religious service makes less sense when you’re doing life with a co-worker. The “right” belief begins to feel somehow less loving than the “wrong” one. People don’t fit neatly into the categories our Order Box creates for them. Goodness and grace pop up in unexpected places. We start to question what we’ve been taught, and once we pull on that thread, a lot can unravel. At this point, we face a choice – run back to the safety and simplicity of the Order Box or climb willingly into the Disorder Box.

THE DISORDER BOX

The Disorder Box is where we get serious about examining our spirituality. This space is rife with confusion, doubt, and frustration. Anchor lines are cut. Support pillars are toppled. Previously unquestioned beliefs are placed under a microscope. Where the Order Box is all about construction, the Disorder Box is all about deconstruction. It’s a very unsettling and disorienting place to be.

I had one foot in this box for decades. In the early days, it started with me parting ways with more traditional Christian teachings on gender roles, then on homosexuality. I jumped fully into the Disorder Box seven years ago, and wrestled with such topics as the the validity of other faiths, the existence of hell, the impact of evolution, the role of the church, and Biblical interpretation. It was a lonely, frightening, and difficult journey, one I don’t think I could have faced without a small group of spiritual confidants who helped me process my doubts.

While in the midst of feeling adrift in this roiling spiritual sea, a friend recommended the writings of Richard Rohr. His daily email meditations became a lifeline, exposing me to a spirituality that had its roots in my own Christian tradition, but had grown beyond it in compelling ways. When I read about his metaphor of The Three Boxes, I realized I was sitting squarely in the Disorder Box. And while that was still an uncomfortable place, learning that it had a name and was a necessary stage of spiritual growth made all the difference. It was like I’d been suffering from a vague, unknown illness, and had finally found a clear diagnosis and a path toward recovery. I doggedly continued analyzing and sifting, searching and discovering.

THE REORDER BOX

That process led me to the final stage – the Reorder Box. The swirling silt began to settle. The waves started to calm. Soon the fog thinned, and I spied a new coastline on the horizon. Deconstruction complete, I examined the rubble around me. Recovering the aspects of my former worldview that had survived honest scrutiny, and adding new treasures I’d discovered along the way, I began to rebuild. What emerged was a more humble, satisfying, and vibrant spirituality, one strong enough to embrace both diversity and mystery.

It’s been several years since I climbed into the Reorder Box. I can honestly tell you that it’s a wonderful place to be. The prize is more than worth the struggle. I have a deeper peace, a more resilient joy, and a greater love than I had before. Not to mention the confidence and relief born of having faced my demons and overcome.

THE OTHER SIDE

This cycle of Order, Disorder, and Reorder is not a one-time occurrence on the road to healthy spirituality. To differing degrees, it returns in various seasons. But for me, I believe the foundational shift has been made. As I go through The Three Boxes in the future, my experience will make the path clearer. The journey will be easier knowing how much better it will be on the other side.

NAMING YOUR BOX

So which Box do you find yourself in? Remember that all three are necessary and have their seasons. Today’s wonderfully freeing Reorder Box may become tomorrow’s constricting Order Box, leading you on another trip through the cycle. But have no fear. You are in good company. The path has been well traveled, and the reward is worth the struggle. Next week, I’ll share a final metaphor to help you navigate the Boxes – The Tricycle. Until then, examine your spirituality honestly. Work on what you find. Climb into the next Box. Invite trusted companions to share the road. If you do, you’ll find your way to a healthy spirituality, and take another step toward Becoming Yourself.

For a deeper look at The Three Boxes metaphor, I highly recommend Richard Rohr’s The Three Boxes meditation and his podcast Another Name for Everything.

3 Metaphors for Healthy Spirituality (Part 3): The Cosmic Egg

February 27, 2021 / Matt McMann / 0 Comments

The best egg I’ve ever had is a cosmic one.

In part one of this series, I laid the foundation. In part two, I told a story of my spiritual struggles. In this post, I’ll share the first of three metaphors that helped me through those difficult years – the Cosmic Egg. I learned about the Egg from author and teacher Richard Rohr, who adopted it from The Crack in the Cosmic Egg by Joseph Chilton Pearce.

Picture healthy spirituality as an egg. The center yolk is My Story. The white surrounding the yolk is Our Story. The shell containing the whole is The Story. The three Stories form a collective whole, one nested inside the other like the parts of an egg.

The yolk of My Story

Most of us begin life almost exclusively focused on the yolk of My Story – my needs, my desires, my dreams, my ego, my hurts, my personality, my agenda, my problems, my experiences. The lens through which we view life is largely self-referential. Our first thought about most things is, “How does this affect me?” This is a normal and necessary starting point for virtually all of us.

The egg whites of Our Story

As we hopefully mature, we move into the egg whites of Our Story. In this stage, we begin to identify more strongly with our place inside of groups. Our family, our state, our country, our race, our religion, our gender, our team, our occupation. We learn to better interact with others, to compromise, to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. We experience both the benefits and the difficulties of belonging to a larger unit. In addition to our My Story view, we now see ourselves and the world through the lens of our associations.

The shell of The Story

If we continue our growth journey, we finally move into the shell of The Story. Containing both My Story and Our Story, The Story is where we move beyond the biases and limitations of our identity groups. We recognize not only our personal shortcomings in My Story, but also the failings of Our Story, realizing at last the essence of The Story – that all of humanity and creation is an interconnected whole, held together by something bigger than us all. What that something is depends on what you believe. For me, it’s God. The Story is the realm of transcendent meaning where we find the highest virtues to which we aspire – unconditional love, real forgiveness, deep humility, true self-acceptance, authentic goodness, unshakeable peace. These lead us to a total, loving inclusion of everyone and everything, including ourselves.

A Unified Whole

Each of the three Stories is good and necessary, one building on the next. The skills acquired and lessons learned in the smaller stages prepare us for the larger ones. Each must be experienced. There is no “spiritual bypassing.” And once The Story is encountered, the goal is not to eliminate My Story or Our Story but to hold them as a unified whole. Like three notes sounding in harmony, they collectively bring beauty and color to our life’s music. That is a healthy spirituality.

Even if we’ve done the hard work necessary to reach The Story, there is no static state where we can declare, “I’ve arrived.” We slide in and out of that sense of wholeness all the time. But with experience, we can more quickly recognize when we’ve slipped into too much My Story thinking, which leads to narcissism, or too much Our Story thinking, which leads to being judgmental and exclusionary. It becomes easier to once again focus on The Story and work our way back to a unified whole.

How The Cosmic Egg helped me

The Cosmic Egg metaphor clarified my spiritual struggles and helped me understand why I’d grown increasingly dissatisfied with some of mainline Christianity’s teachings. While Our Story gives much needed context to My Story and a wonderful sense of belonging, it also opens the door to the great danger of thinking that OUR Story is THE Story. This is the trap I’d fallen into – believing that only the Our Story of Christianity provided the true path to The Story.

I had a desperate need for a stranglehold on the truth. To be right. To have all the answers. Because if someone else’s spiritual Our Story was equally valid, then my Our Story must be wrong. It took me a long time to realize that my exaggerated Our Story view was blocking my full understanding of and appreciation for the beautiful inclusiveness of The Story. The God whom I now find at the heart of The Story is bigger, more amazing, and more loving than my previous worldview allowed me to imagine.

Eating The Cosmic Egg

Unfortunately, an overly inflated view of Our Story isn’t unique to me or to Christianity. We see this on full display in American politics and culture. White nationalism is a glaring example of an Our Story gone horribly wrong. The belief held by former president Trump and some of his most ardent supporters that the 2020 election was stolen from them, without evidence, is another example of an Our Story creating its own false reality. While those are recent examples, inflated Our Story problems can be found in virtually every political party, country, religion, and group.

The metaphor of the Cosmic Egg provides a wonderful path to healthy spirituality, but as the above examples show, the painful difficulty often comes in moving from one stage to the next. In my next post, I’ll share a second metaphor that helped me make those transitions – The Three Boxes.

So where are you in The Cosmic Egg? How’s your balance of My Story, Our Story, and The Story? What does your version of The Story look like? How do you live it out? Chew on these questions. Talk about them with people you trust. Have the courage to take an honest look in the mirror. If you do, you’ll find your way to a healthy spirituality, and you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.

For a deeper look at the Cosmic Egg metaphor, I highly recommend Richard Rohr’s Cosmic Egg written meditations and podcast on Another Name for Everything.

3 Metaphors for Healthy Spirituality (Part 2): My Story

February 20, 2021 / Matt McMann / 2 Comments

I’d like to tell you a story.

In my last post, I gave an introduction to this series, which will focus on three metaphors that I’ve found extremely helpful in my spiritual and personal growth. If you haven’t seen that post, it would help to do a quick read here.

These metaphors can be incredibly powerful tools for nearly everyone, regardless of where you’re at on the spiritual spectrum. I’ll share the first of those next week. For some necessary context, let me give you a bit of my spiritual history and recent struggles.

I was raised in a Christian home and grew up going to church. After a meaningful spiritual experience when I was ten years old, I began taking my personal relationship with God seriously. I attended a fairly relaxed Christian liberal arts college where I studied music performance, then spent twenty-six years as a full-time musical worship leader in various contemporary, evangelical churches. I stopped worship leading several years ago to pursue writing full time.

Over the course of the last seven years, I have gone through a significant and often difficult spiritual journey, during which I questioned many aspects of my faith. My belief in and relationship with God continued to grow during this time, but I began to struggle with a number of the teachings and positions of mainstream evangelical Christianity, including the lack of validity of other faiths, the existence of hell, and the role and interpretation of the Bible. This led me into many years of deep study, thought, and prayer, as well as endless hours of wrestling with these topics in the company of spiritual mentors and close friends.

At my current point in my ever evolving spiritual journey, I no longer call myself an evangelical Christian. This is partly due to the development of my beliefs, but also because that label has been widely adopted by people whose worldview is vastly different than my own. I would not say that I have left the Christian faith, but that I have built a worldview which, as author and teacher Richard Rohr says, “includes and transcends” my former belief system.

What does it mean to include and transcend? As I continue to grow spiritually, I retain some of the basic tenants of Christianity that still ring true for me. These include a belief in the existence of a loving God as the creative force behind the universe, the humanity and divinity of Jesus, and that the best use of my life is to know, love, and follow God. At the same time, I have let go of some tenants that I either no longer believe in or understand in a significantly different light. Some of those I listed above. I liken my transition to setting aside shoes that served me for a time but began to feel too small. I would now call myself a Christ-centered theist who seeks to know and follow Jesus. To me at least, that’s an important distinction.

Some of you who know me from my former church roles may feel confused or even shocked by this. I understand. It’s okay. This evolution in my beliefs is simply the continuation of my life-long spiritual growth arc, the result of many seasons of bare-knuckled soul searching. Though imperfectly, I have walked with God for the last forty-one years. I have no intention of giving up now. I am at peace with where I am at with God and where God is at with me.

The three metaphors I will share in the rest of this series were lifelines for me during that difficult period, when I felt adrift in a stormy spiritual sea. They were candles, lighting my path through a dark and often lonely wilderness of doubt and struggle. My wish and prayer is that these tools will be of value to you on your own journey, whether or not your story resembles mine. I hope you’ll join me next week with an open heart and an open mind as I share the metaphor of The Cosmic Egg. If you do, I sincerely believe you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.