Being Truly Human

The Desert Way of Spiritual Formation

Mah

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781621899549
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Our busy exterior may be a cover-up for an undernourished interior soul. Modern life is so packed with things to do that we have not learned to be truly human. It is difficult to nurture the spiritual life in a media-saturated world filled with relentless information, ongoing activities, material wants, worrisome uncertainties, and seductive addictions. Being Truly Human challenges readers to give space in their busy life for God to do the work of transformation in the inner self. It takes inspiration from the Desert Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries whose directness, simplicity, and concreteness to life's struggles provide a fresh perspective for modern saints. Like the desert saints, modern Christians are challenged to begin a spiritual odyssey, in the wilderness of their soul, to become their true selves. To be truly human means the freedom to love in concrete acts of humility and hospitality, acts which are truly lacking in our world today. The practice of solitude and silence will lead us to be indifferent to the crying needs of our false selves and to give God our undivided attention, which is necessary for the spiritual formation of our true selves.

Chapter 1

The Homeless Self

You have made us to be toward Yourself, O Lord, and our

hearts are restless until they rest in You.

—Augustine of Hippo1

We have Lost our Way Home

Since the time our first parents fell into sin, our memory of home is vague though our longing for paradise remains strong. God’s first question to Adam when banished from the garden was, “Where are you?” Man lost his intimacy with God through sin but not all was lost. There remains a longing within man’s heart to return home. The book of Ecclesiastes rightly observes that God has set eternity in the hearts of men; they will remain restless and dissatisfied until they make their way home. Home is not about getting to the right place; it is about having a right relationship. For those who love and obey him, Jesus promises that he and the Father will come to them and make their home with them.2

The first sin in the Bible is about Cain and his brother Abel. Cain got jealous because God favored Abel. Blinded by uncontrollable rage, Cain killed his brother. That was the first murder recorded in history. As a result God put a curse on Cain. The earth would no longer yield crops, and he would be a restless wanderer. The curse is two-fold.3 His work would be unfulfilling no matter how much Cain put in his work. Dissatisfied with life, he would continue seeking and searching with the vain hope that he would finally get what he looked for all his life.

Man’s restless search leads him to live a mazelike existence. Every hedge, corner, and turn in a maze looks identical. Frustrations set in after numerous attempts to leave the maze end in failure. Each retreat and turn give hope, but a dead end quickly dashes hope. He tries again hoping that the next turn will lead him out of the maze. By making many false starts and desperate turns, he dashes from place to place with the hope that the next one will finally work for him. Symptoms of a mazelike life are everywhere: getting a new job because the old one did not meet his expectations, a second marriage because the first one did not work, a new place because the old had too many unpleasant memories, a new appearance because the old looked stale and unexciting, or a new skill because the old became irrelevant. Life in a maze is like on a treadmill—moving somewhere but getting nowhere. Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician and Christian philosopher, is right when he says that man is not living but hoping to live.

Man does not think that he is lost in a maze. Though frustrated at times, he treasures the freedom to choose at each fork of the road. Such freedom carries a price tag. The idea of making choices often leads to anxiety, fear, and isolation. The thought of making the wrong choice and paying dearly for the consequences frightens him. Yet he is willing to be enslaved by freedom in exchange for a life filled with dreams and hope. In Dostoyevsky’s book, The Brothers Karamazov, the Grand Inquisitor said to Jesus Christ:

There has never been anything more difficult for man and human society to bear than freedom . . . In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, “Enslave us, but feed us!4

We have not changed much since Dostoyevsky’s time. Our appetite has gone beyond food to consumer products and services that will make our dreams come true. We are hoping to live a life based on consumption thinking that this will satisfy our inner longings for home.

We Live for Consumption

Joseph Stowell relates this story about his three and a half years old Matthew who got lost while Christmas shopping in a suburban mall. His wife, dad, and mum went different directions to search for Matthew. Having given up hope of finding Matthew at the assigned place, he went back to look for others.

Unsuccessful, I trudged back to our meeting point. My wife, Martie, had not found him, nor had my mother. And then my dad appeared, holding little Matthew by the hand. Our hearts leapt for joy. Interestingly enough, Matthew was untraumatized. He hadn’t been crying. To him, there had been no problem. I asked my father where he had found him. “The candy counter,” he replied. “You should have seen him. His eyes came just about as high as the candy. He held his little hands behind his back and moved his head back and forth, surveying all the luscious options.” Matthew didn’t look lost. He didn’t know he was lost. He was oblivious to the phenomenal danger he was in. This is a candy-counter culture, where people who don’t look lost and don’t know they’re lost live for consumption.5

We live for consumption. Consumerism has become a substitute religion. It promises to fulfill our most fundamental needs which are religious—our need for God. In the old days, the church or cathedral was the most prominent building in the town or village. It was the center of activities and all traffic led to it. The modern cathedrals are the shopping malls of today. Most likely, a primitive Christian when faced with trouble would go to a church to pray. Unfortunately, a modern Christian when depressed will go to a shopping mall to forget her woes. Like attending church, people dutifully and faithfully track to the mall at least once a week for supplies. The design of the mall is to tempt and entice us with the promise to satisfy our deepest needs and longings. The gospel of commercialism keeps blaring and flashing into our ears and eyes. It says, “Use me, take me, buy me, drink me, smell me, touch me, kiss me, sleep with me.”6 Slick images with catchy captions loudly promise to match our every need. Whether it is insecurity, worry, pain, curiosity, pride, or appetite, there is a product out there to soothe us, boost our esteem, gratify our ego, and keep us satisfied and happy. Unfortunately the promise to fulfill our deepest needs is short-lived. The first big ticket item for people who live in a car culture is to own a car. We are happy and gratified when we get our hands on the steering wheel of our first car, but the second car we own must be better and bigger than the first. If not we will feel dissatisfied and disappointed. Our needs, like the grave, are never satisfied.

Consumption, as a substitute religion, can be addictive and leads to a compulsive lifestyle. Consumerism is about making choices, and we relish the freedom to choose. But there is a dark side to it as pointed out by Anthony Giddens, a social scientist. In his book, Runaway World, he writes, “The dark side of decision making is the rise of addictions and compulsions.”7 It is not strange that in a consumer-driven society people going for counseling and therapy are on the rise. We look to consumer products for self-gratification. In the process we are in bondage to them. Addiction takes place even before we come to recognize it. We know that we are addicted when we look at these products or services expecting gratification and to want more of them. We are addicted when the absence of these products or services is greatly missed affecting right away our mood and feelings. The narcotic of consumption will lead us to the next fix, but this will not last for long. A narcotic has no choice but is always looking out for better pay, better job, higher standard of living, and a more promising future, in order to maintain his addiction.

Where is our Axis Mundi?

Life revolves around a single, sacred pole (or totem) in a primitive society. This pole, that extends to the center of the earth and to the heavens above, functions as the axle around which the world revolves. Religion, that binds the heavens and earth together, provides the stabilizing force that life in general needs. Primitive people are religious for the simple reason that life, without the aid of modern science and technology, is too unpredictable and fragile without its axis mundi.8 The Temple of Heaven in Beijing, China provides such a symbol at the time of the emperors. The iconic building is on a foundation that has a semi-circle and a half square joined together. The semi-circle represents the heavens above and the square the earth below. The Temple of Heaven symbolizes the pivotal point that holds the heavens and the earth together. It is the “totem pole” for the nation of China. Twice a year the emperor would stay a night there, preparing himself through a ritual of ceremonial cleansing and fasting, to offer sacrifices to heaven with the hope and prayers that the coming harvest would be a good one.

The identity of primitive people is tied to the place they stay and to the community they live. If we ask a primitive person who he is, he will answer that he is a son of so-and-so and lives in a particular village. He can also tell you about the people in the village and how they are related to him. The place and the people who live there have an existence tied permanently to the axis mundi. Once we went on a mission trip to a remote village in Sarawak, Malaysia. We were heading towards Long Napir which was the home village of one of the members of the mission team. When our four-wheel drive was approaching Long Napir on a dusty and bumpy road, we began asking questions. We were curious about our surroundings, being city people, and queried the brother about the place that passed us. Each time he would reply that such and such a place belonged to one of the villagers. The surprising thing was that there were no markers indicating ownership. He instinctively knew the people and place even though he no longer stayed there. We had a good laugh. In a modern city, we do not even know who our neighbors are.

Modern society has lost its axis mundi. We have taken on a new identity when we are lost and adrift from home. When we do not belong to a place or people, we drift along and are rootless. Change is the norm rather than the exception when not rooted to a permanent center. We change clothes according to the season or fashion. Gadgets are not to last because we change them for new and better ones under the lure of clever advertising and improved technology. Relationships will not last either. The divorce rate has risen and more and more children come from single parent homes. Easy access to cheap and efficient transport increases people’s mobility nowadays. It is difficult for us to forge lasting friendships knowing that we will not be in the same place for l...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Homeless Self
• Chapter 2: Entering the Emptiness
• Chapter 3: Solitude and Silence
• Chapter 4: Being Truly Human
• Appendix A: Silent Retreat: Making Space for God in Our Busy Lives
• Appendix B: The Practice of Lectio Divina
• Bibliography for Further Reading