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Robert’s text goes on to say:
“In making our spiritual journey, we tend to overlook the larger historical religious context of the milestones we encounter along the way. Usually, we unknowingly take for granted what, at one point in the history of religion, was a major breakthrough of God’s revelation. Few people, however, see their individual experiences in its broader historical context, much less grasp its significance, like we might by studying phylogeny. My hope is that by pointing out the correlation between individual experiences and the key revelations of our religions, we can better appreciate and understand the diversity of God’s revelation to man. This is not only a way to better understand our various religions, but understand the variety of our individual experiences as well. By making this correlation, everyone can place their journey in a much larger context than would otherwise be warranted.”
Reflecting on these words a couple of things come to mind. First, that “we unknowingly take for granted…a major breakthrough of God’s revelation.” The second is twofold, God’s revelatory diversity and the larger context. As to the first point, often in a schools of spiritual formation one of the first tasks that the student undertakes is to write a life narrative. This helps the student uncover and highlight what has brought them to this point-in-time. In the writing we are often met with the understanding that God has been there all along. Even greater than that knowing is the slow understanding that the awe and wonder at watching the sunset or the deep love towards the newborn is, in fact, the Mystery.
Prior to realizing this wonderful connection though there is the living of an ordinary life, and rightly so. There are the educational decisions, career choices, partner selection, and perhaps the start of a family. And once the kids come along, well, that is many chapters of life in and of itself. It has taken me a lifetime to see that development, or formation, has been at play all along. What I hear Roberts saying is that an organic unfolding occurs against a backdrop of diverse spiritual development. She also says that this unfolding, if we care to look, will map onto a larger context.
This idea of formation and a larger context invites me to pay attention to the details of my life. To my experiences and responses in order to discern the Mystery as it pertains to this individual. What I sense for myself is that while God’s revelations are universal understandings of love, care, compassion, kindness and so on, how might I come to know this will be curated specifically for me. My experience of this most likely will differ from yours. I mean, who can explain an explosion of interior love for the world while walking across a parking lot? You may have the same insight but in a very different context. That is what I mean by a curated experience.
Where the experiences seem to take us, at least for myself, is this idea of a larger context. While the revelatory experiences are deeply personal and intimate, they somehow lead to the whole. As the layers fall away it seems all that is left is an us, even as we show up uniquely different. Something Marianne Williamson said has stuck with me. It’s something along the lines that we often get distracted by each other’s lampshade, that outer layer of ourselves, without experientially understanding that that which exists us, gives us life, the very breath we breathe, is all the same substance. The only thing I would add here is that some lampshades are more opaque than others.
At the end of the day all of life is joyful practice in order to take no revelation for granted; to honor the diversity in our spiritual experiences knowing the larger context can inform us as we are on The Way.
