God’s Major Revelations - Paragraph 1
Roberts has finished her discussion on The Nature of Integration and now, in this next section, moves toward the heart of her essay; God’s Major Revelations. As we have read in earlier pieces of her essay, ““revelation” is central to our thesis.” Here’s our text for today:
God’s Major Revelations
“What follows is an outline of the major revelations that mark both the stages of the individual journey and the advent of various historical religions. My original intent was to fill in the outline with examples of religions for which particular revelations was pivotal or central to its belief system. In researching these ancient religions, however, I found such a plethora of data and examples, the job of writing it all down, including the source, became too time consuming. Although it would have expanded the piece to book-length, no amount of data is essential to the thesis. After this I decided to expand the outline, based less on man’s various religions, than on the individual’s journey, but this became too autobiographical and was ditched as well. In the end, I cut the original outline down to the essentials of the thesis, leaving to others, perhaps, the more scholarly chore of filling in the relevant data.”
I love this paragraph because of its hominess and messiness, which depicts so well what happens within the confines of our ordinary lives. Just like Roberts, we often have a certain something in mind that feels like a direction in which we are moving only to find that pieces of what we wanted to do are just not going to be possible. We must stop, take stock, pivot, and then carry on. I do not sense from her any frustration or disappointment with this (common) development, but instead a mature ability to pivot her essay in a direction that still meets the need of what she is trying to convey.
And before we get started let’s revisit what she is trying to convey with her thesis. Her thesis speaks of the “correlation between individual experiences and the key revelations of our religions” so we may “better appreciate and understand the diversity of God’s revelation to man.” She finds that “the fullness of God is present in every revelation” but that “the nature of this fullness is only progressively revealed until man is prepared to understand its all-encompassing reality…in this way the process of each one’s spiritual development is a recapitulation of God’s progressive revelation to all men.”
Key revelations, therefore, are made to individuals that may then become a religious movement based on the individual’s interpretation of the revelation; a spiritual path is born. Roberts is wishing to visit two important subjects of study in this essay. One subject includes the contours and cross-sections of the individual journey. The other is to expand on, perhaps catalogue, the foundational revelation of each world religion and the resulting spiritual path. She is wise both to leave these explorations to others and extend the invitation for further research. In doing so she has freed herself to focus on “the individual journey and the advent of…religions” within the frame of her outline, and which I suspect is a bare bones thumbnail of her own journey.
At the end of the day what I take away from Roberts is that we can expect the adage “the best laid plans of mice and men.” We have this adage because it is a common human malady and a truth; things do not go as planned. For myself this unpredictability of life is a place of practice. Life goes the way that it will and my focus and dedication must be on my reaction and/or response to the uncontrollable event taking place. If I sense that I am in reactivity a common question to ask myself is “why this frustration?” or “why this anger?” This is the daily life of self reflection.
Cultivating this stance of neutral observer with compassionate questioning has taken time, but what I have found to be true is that when in reactivity the grist for the mill has become available. The reactivity invites me into a more personal reflection of what is actually happening beneath the surface of things. I find that usually there is some story or narrative that I am clinging to, or a misplaced wish that reality were different. It often leads me to some piece of my psyche in need of healing. Even now, when I stop and consider what I just wrote, “wishing reality were different” it seems ridiculous, even ludicrous. Reality can only be the way it is and if I want to move with Reality then I must check my reactivity in favor of a more open, neutral place of responsiveness.
This open place is where I find clarity of mind and compassion of heart. The open place is also a place of surrender because I must let go of my (stubborn) wish or storyboard and connect with what is actually unfolding. It sounds like it should be easy to do, just notice what is actually happening, but in truth this shift can be very difficult. It takes much practice. But, alas, I’ve grown to love the difficult way and the practice as it actually turns out to be a much more harmonious and joyous way to live.
