Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ.
“It’s not your fault.”
It was some twenty years ago, and I had just told my therapist, rather off-handedly, that I had caused my cancer. I had read somewhere (or did I make it up?) that Type A personalities were more apt to have heart attacks and Type Bs, like me, get cancer. The theory is a bit hazy now, but it somehow helped me make some sense of all that was happening to me at the time.
My counselor looked at me and said, “Harry, you don’t have the power to cause cancer. It’s not your fault.” I burst into tears. I couldn’t hold them at bay any longer. All the years of blaming myself, sub-consciously or not, was finally released. It was one of the most liberating experiences of my life.
I had a similar experience at the Wild Goose Festival last month in North Carolina. Diana Butler Bass, in my mind the foremost interpreter of what is happening with religion in American today, was talking about new understandings of Mary Magdalene (I’ll share this with you on Sunday). Five hundred people were there. Some crowded into a tent and most, like Jenny and me, were outside on the grass, the lucky ones under trees, leaning in to listen.
In response to a question at the end of her talk, she replied, “Yes, it’s a new Great Awakening.”
Wait, what. . ., now? People audibly gasped around us and started smiling and nodding their heads. A new Great Awakening. According to Butler Bass: “Awakenings are periods of sustained cultural reorganization wherein an entire society is transformed. They are not renewals of what already exists. Awakenings extend and enlarge the boundaries of faith and culture, often embodying unfulfilled aspirations of earlier generations and opening our religious and social imaginations in unexpected ways. Awakenings open eyes and hearts toward greater practices of love and justice. . . Every spiritual awakening seeks to make visible, even if only in some complete way, God’s dream for creation.”
This is to say, things are happening beyond our power to control them, despite all our best efforts. It’s not our fault that Church isn’t working as it used to and that less people are finding this to be their spiritual path. We can blame ourselves and others, keep looking for some magic program or leader, and continue to feel anxious when the next idea doesn’t pan out. Or. . .
Understand it’s not our fault. It’s a new Great Awakening. It’s finally here which brings me great relief. Tears are not streaming down my face as before, but my eyes still moisten a bit when I imagine all that might be, and can be, and will be, because God is still dreaming.
Grace and peace,
Harry