A peculiar courage

Meditations by Ian White Maher: Praise | Gratitude | Joy | Transformation

We are facing a changing time. The effects of the isolated self are coming home to roost. We can no longer plunder the Earth with impunity. We have come to understand that we are a nested, complex organism that has been thrown out of balance because we thought we were individual actors who didn’t impact the collective world. The coming collapse of the environment is asking us to take our collective identity seriously. The shift we are being asked to make in our understanding of ourselves is not one that amplifies the isolated individual, the rampant self-improving person, but rather the healing of the body we as beings are a part of. The healing of the larger body will also heal us.

But we need a spiritual practice that has depth. That holds us accountable, that supports us in the giving of our gift to the world, that allows us to practice a transformation we can experience as a group of people rather than on our own.

I understand that it is easier to say there is something spiritual about life than to say I am part of a collective expression called God, which is a transforming and creative force, particularly when we’ve trapped God behind the harmful actions of small people and the communities they represent. But God is not limited to them or even limited to what we have created in our own minds.

It is a peculiar courage in our culture today, as so many of us walk away from religious institutions, to be not just a spiritual person, but a religious person in the sense that you decide to give expression to God as part of a community, as part of a larger body of believers who know that we have not seen paradise yet but that it is not impossible either. Our imagination is limitless. Our spirituality, when focused and developed in community, is able to produce changes not only in us but also in the world.