Last weekend I received an email that began with these words from John O’Donohue:
There is a place in you where you have never been wounded . . . where there’s a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility in you.
The intention of prayer and spirituality and love is now and again to visit that inner kind of sanctuary.
Initially, all I did was breathe in the first portion: I am not wounded. I am seamless. I am confident and tranquil. But as the week has worn on, the last sentence has repeatedly taken my breath away: The intention of . . . spirituality . . . is now and again to visit that inner kind of sanctuary.
My paraphrase?
The intention of spirituality is to experience and know oneself as whole, unbroken, strong, and at peace.
No mention of God. At all.
I totally get it. And I completely agree! It echoes the claim of “spiritual, but not religious.” It affirms the definition of spirituality itself: “noun: spirituality; the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.” [Oxford] I have no argument with any of this.
Here’s what’s taken me aback:
As I’ve sat with his words, mulled them over in pages of journaling, even found myself repeating them with clients in past days, I’ve felt an inner dissonance—a nagging (and surprising) tension between what O’Donohue affirms and what I was taught. I thought I’d gotten over all that! Despite my now-decades of deconstruction, the book I’ve written, the ongoing conversations I have about every bit of this, my unswerving belief in our sovereignty and agency and beauty and strength, there are, apparently, theological tender hooks that still have me in their grip.
Admittedly, this is WAY too simplistic (and more caustic/critical than I mean for it to be), but I grew up hearing, learning, and sadly incorporating that I am wounded. I am broken. And I do not, cannot, know wholeness or confidence or tranquility apart from God. That’s why I need God. I am NOT saying that it’s impossible to be healed and made whole through a belief in and commitment to God; that confidence and tranquility aren’t to be found in the divine. I AM saying and asserting how surprised I am that I am surprised (!) by the idea that I could be the very object of, location of, and intention of spirituality itself.
Again, I already KNOW this—intellectually and objectively. No matter my rational awareness, it does not negate the part of me, unbidden and unwanted, that argues, that resists, that whispers-if-not-shouts that spirituality can’t possibly be self-focused. It doesn’t matter that I don’t actually believe this to be true. The subconscious messaging persists. And it does matter: seeing and naming every bit of this.
“Centuries ago, the people mediating between supplicants and God were priests. Now, in our secular culture, we turn to parents, critics, partners, bosses, even strangers on Instagram. We are easy to shame, eager to prove our worthiness, to see validation from some power outside ourselves.” ~ Elise Loehnen, On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good
- It helps me understand, at least in part, why I have struggled to see myself as worthy, good, and sovereign; you and me both have ingested just the opposite, sometimes completely unawares.
- It helps me understand why, upon questioning-if-not-leaving the church and its doctrine/dogma, I struggle to find a way of believing-and-being that doesn’t feel like a slippery slope “backwards.”
- It helps me understand why I sometimes feel a sort-of magnetic pull toward the pursuit of something (or someone) outside of myself vs. an honoring of what’s within.
“We are so fixated on an authority ‘out there,’ we’re missing the miracles inside, all the moments that illuminate our connection to something bigger within ourselves.” ~ Elise Loehnen
- And it helps me understand why it seems that a window has been thrown open in a musty and dark room; I am breathing in the freshest air, gasping even, as I read these words yet again:
There is a place in you where you have never been wounded . . . where there’s a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility in you.
The intention of prayer and spirituality and love is now and again to visit that inner kind of sanctuary.
My reason for writing about this is not to convince you of anything. Nor am I making a case for spirituality in and of itself. I am articulating, yet again, just how deeply we have been influenced by a system of beliefs that, by their very definition, require a god and in such, have the overwhelming tendency to lessen/weaken our sense of self. It is as though being strong, whole, and complete and having a relationship with the divine are mutually exclusive. *sigh*
The irony is not lost on me. I have been writing about and talking about all of this and then some for a very long time—retelling the ancient, sacred stories of women so they are (and we are) seen and honored as strong, whole, and complete; not made to blame for the downfall of humanity, silenced or shamed—whether by God, the over-culture, and/or most-certainly ourselves. Nor have I ever been confused: my endless passion for this reimagining and rewriting has always been on my own behalf; an expression of my need, my desire, my hope. It’s become my spirituality (sans God), in so many ways. And still, in spite of all this, I am acutely aware, especially this week, of the places and ways in which there is always more healing to know, more grace to inhale.
This is the way of things, isn’t it? We inevitably pursue and (hopefully) find what we most want, what we most need, what deep-within matters most.
When we’re awake and aware, we recognize the messages everywhere that heal the messages within.
One could say that this is God. I wouldn’t necessary disagree. But at least for now, I’m going to say that all of this is (and always has been) of my own, inherent inner sanctuary—calling me home to myself: whole, unbroken, strong, and at peace.
May it be so.