The Driving Force
I have heard the comment more than once. “You are searching and I hope you find some answers.” This last one came in response to my blog about being "Camino-bound."
Interestingly enough, all of the comments have come from people securely within the church culture. I don’t take offense at the comments, but I do recognize it as a sign of the entrenchment of the church culture. I have spent my whole adult life straddling two worlds—the rich historic world of church and the creative, innovative world of people I would call “secular spiritualists.”
If I occasionally get the “I hope you find some answers” from people in the church culture, what I often hear from my secular spiritual friends is, “You’re crazy to try to change the church, but we are glad someone is trying to do it.” There is this sense among them that the church could and should be so much better than what it is, but they are too far removed from the church now to put the effort in.
Yes, I am searching. But what I am searching for is not so much for me as it is for our culture. My personal search is only a reflection of a deep yearning in our culture. I am searching for the Third Way. I am searching for an integrated way of life that lies between what I would call the lazy complacency of the church and the reactive rejection of the secularists (the two far end extremes!).
Psychologists will tell you that one of the stages of individuation is to get beyond the either/or of childhood compliance and teenage rejection to find one’s own voice and identity. Tired of compliance, teenagers often feel they have finally broken free from the influence of their parents when they do just the opposite of everything their parents want. But as long as the teenager is only rejecting his or her parent’s values, they are still being controlled by their parent’s presence. At the extremes we have only compliance and rejection, not integration.
It is true that I am searching. But the driving force behind my search is the belief that there is a way of life that honors both the gifts of our historic religious traditions and the creative spiritual edge of our secular culture. It is true that I am searching because for most of my adult life I have experienced what I would call being an “equal opportunity offender.” In my effort to integrate, I often offend both sides of this either/or culture we live in.
I am too religious for the secular culture and too secular for the religious culture!
The entrance to the Pancarlik Church, Cappadokia, Turkey 2014
I can’t be anything other than that. I experienced the loving community of a church as a child and I believe that it literally saved me. But I also love exploring new worlds beyond my particular religious tradition, my beliefs, my values and my background. I like the feeling of being grounded and growing at the same time.
It’s not so much that I am searching for answers as much as I am trying to provide a new answer, a Third Way to a culture that can think only in oppressive binary terms. Can’t a person be both religious and open to a creative, life-giving, transformational, paradigm shifting Sacred Presence?
Isn’t there a god out there big enough for both?
Seeking, searching and hoping…
Brian Heron, The Pedal Pilgrim
P.S. Watch for invitations in the next couple of weeks to shift to my new website and platform.