Claiming our sainthood – Steps one to twelve - coming home to self-coming home to the God of our understanding
I am writing on Friday December 2, 2016. Physically I am at the laundromat. Earlier this morning I was at the gym. As any regular reader will guess, I was listening to this week’s podcast of On Being featuring host Krista Tippett having a conversation with one of my long-time mentors, Father James Martin. Father James Martin who Ms. Tippett reminded us: “has been a member of the Jesuit order, the Society of Jesus, since 1998. He lives in the America House Jesuit Community in midtown Manhattan. He grew up in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. And he’s the author of many books including The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, Jesus: A Pilgrimage, and his new book, Seven Last Words. I spoke with him in 2014.”
It may not be surprising that Father Martin and I share another mentor, Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk. It happens that Father Martin, a business major who worked for a corporation following graduation from Wharton School of Business, had come home from work one day many years ago, heated up some spaghetti and sat down to watch a PBS documentary on Thomas Merton. This relationship with Thomas Merton via the documentary and his books such as No Man is an Island literally changed the course of his thinking and, thus, his life. Father Martin through his books, his loving and patient spiritual guidance and, probably, most of all his humble example of a loving laughing relationship with the God of his understanding has opened the door for many. Certainly, he continues to open doors for me.
As is my custom I have no intention of repeating what the reader can read or listen to for themselves. The podcast can be downloaded and his books are available at most public libraries or the library of many from whom one might seek spiritual guidance.
I do want to focus my attention to a quote by Thomas Merton which Father Martin repeats in this interview. He says: “As Merton said, for me to be a saint means to be myself.”
This is not only an extraordinary statement in its simplicity, but is what I am choosing to call a truth which is so simple that it takes most of us a lifetime to return to that place which Jesus called, becoming as a little child. Becoming as a child means to me to return to that place where barring very early trauma or neurological conditions we are absolutely delighted to be ourselves. We take delight in discovering our physical bodies with no shame. We explore the taste, texture, smell, color, hue and energy of all we encounter. We have no words of judgments although if we experience pain we withdraw, if possible. Father Martin would call the phase of spiritual innocence joyful rather than happy. He distinguishes joy from happiness: “Yeah. I mean, I think that joy is different than happiness. Joy is happiness in God. Joy has an object. Joy is about a relationship. Happiness can be very evanescent, can come one day and leave the next. But joy is a lot deeper than that.”
In my mind one does not dissect joy as one sometimes does happiness. It is just that sense that all is right with self and thus, with the God of one’s understanding – with the universe.
The Jesuit Ignatius spiritual retreat guide is designed to lead on to that place of acceptance of self. So is the 12-step program which is used by many of those recovering from active addiction to alcohol, other drugs, power, money, food, sex or anything which separates one from oneself. The 12 steps as worded for the Narcotics Anonymous Program is not very different than the wording for versions of the other 12-step programs. The steps are:
1. We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
In my mind, all 12 steps are designed to remove those barriers which prevent us from joyfully being us and from connecting to the God of our understanding and the rest of the universe. Each step peels away one more layer of that which we thought would protect one, but in fact, causes much isolation, loneliness and other pain. Step-by-step one reclaims that small child who was joyful with self and was eager to explore self and the world. Step-by-step one becomes ready to share this healing process and to receive it from others.
This is the path to sainthood since sainthood is a state of joyfully unfolding which allows us to use our particular talents to serve others which quite naturally serves the God of one’s understanding. The Buddhist might call the state of sainthood being fully present. Other traditions might name the same concept differently. They all recognize, without all the person made impediments – no matter how bright and shiny they are – we can attain enlightenment, sainthood, the state of embracing joy by coming home to ourselves regardless of particular talents, superficial differences, race, color, cultural background, age, gender, sexual orientation or other social constructs.
Written December 2, 2016
I am writing on Friday December 2, 2016. Physically I am at the laundromat. Earlier this morning I was at the gym. As any regular reader will guess, I was listening to this week’s podcast of On Being featuring host Krista Tippett having a conversation with one of my long-time mentors, Father James Martin. Father James Martin who Ms. Tippett reminded us: “has been a member of the Jesuit order, the Society of Jesus, since 1998. He lives in the America House Jesuit Community in midtown Manhattan. He grew up in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. And he’s the author of many books including The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, Jesus: A Pilgrimage, and his new book, Seven Last Words. I spoke with him in 2014.”
It may not be surprising that Father Martin and I share another mentor, Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk. It happens that Father Martin, a business major who worked for a corporation following graduation from Wharton School of Business, had come home from work one day many years ago, heated up some spaghetti and sat down to watch a PBS documentary on Thomas Merton. This relationship with Thomas Merton via the documentary and his books such as No Man is an Island literally changed the course of his thinking and, thus, his life. Father Martin through his books, his loving and patient spiritual guidance and, probably, most of all his humble example of a loving laughing relationship with the God of his understanding has opened the door for many. Certainly, he continues to open doors for me.
As is my custom I have no intention of repeating what the reader can read or listen to for themselves. The podcast can be downloaded and his books are available at most public libraries or the library of many from whom one might seek spiritual guidance.
I do want to focus my attention to a quote by Thomas Merton which Father Martin repeats in this interview. He says: “As Merton said, for me to be a saint means to be myself.”
This is not only an extraordinary statement in its simplicity, but is what I am choosing to call a truth which is so simple that it takes most of us a lifetime to return to that place which Jesus called, becoming as a little child. Becoming as a child means to me to return to that place where barring very early trauma or neurological conditions we are absolutely delighted to be ourselves. We take delight in discovering our physical bodies with no shame. We explore the taste, texture, smell, color, hue and energy of all we encounter. We have no words of judgments although if we experience pain we withdraw, if possible. Father Martin would call the phase of spiritual innocence joyful rather than happy. He distinguishes joy from happiness: “Yeah. I mean, I think that joy is different than happiness. Joy is happiness in God. Joy has an object. Joy is about a relationship. Happiness can be very evanescent, can come one day and leave the next. But joy is a lot deeper than that.”
In my mind one does not dissect joy as one sometimes does happiness. It is just that sense that all is right with self and thus, with the God of one’s understanding – with the universe.
The Jesuit Ignatius spiritual retreat guide is designed to lead on to that place of acceptance of self. So is the 12-step program which is used by many of those recovering from active addiction to alcohol, other drugs, power, money, food, sex or anything which separates one from oneself. The 12 steps as worded for the Narcotics Anonymous Program is not very different than the wording for versions of the other 12-step programs. The steps are:
1. We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
In my mind, all 12 steps are designed to remove those barriers which prevent us from joyfully being us and from connecting to the God of our understanding and the rest of the universe. Each step peels away one more layer of that which we thought would protect one, but in fact, causes much isolation, loneliness and other pain. Step-by-step one reclaims that small child who was joyful with self and was eager to explore self and the world. Step-by-step one becomes ready to share this healing process and to receive it from others.
This is the path to sainthood since sainthood is a state of joyfully unfolding which allows us to use our particular talents to serve others which quite naturally serves the God of one’s understanding. The Buddhist might call the state of sainthood being fully present. Other traditions might name the same concept differently. They all recognize, without all the person made impediments – no matter how bright and shiny they are – we can attain enlightenment, sainthood, the state of embracing joy by coming home to ourselves regardless of particular talents, superficial differences, race, color, cultural background, age, gender, sexual orientation or other social constructs.
Written December 2, 2016
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