Did you ever have to make up your mind? : Ordinary religious experience
Counting myself among the tax collectors, prostitutes and others who stake their self in opposition to the status quo (See Jesus’ parable of two sons in Matthew text below), I was shocked when God, whose name I refused to speak for decades, broke into my meditation and transformed my vapid blindness into scintillating light. This is what happened.
I have been diligent in my spiritual practices and disciplines, meditating, fasting, and cultivating self-awareness studying the way of the Chuang Tzu and practicing Zazen as well as dabbling in Indigenous medicine practices, Sufi dancing and Native Drumming for more than twenty years. This is where it gets me — facing a wall — a wall of great height and who knows how thick and impenetrable. As best I can tell, I have achieved the aim. I can sit in empty, open nothingness. And there is nothing disturbing the nothingness. It is bland, barren and dark. So I quit. Cold turkey. From four hours of meditation each day to none. I am done. But the story is not over.
Three days later a relatively new friend arrives for a visit. Her name is Drue. I am annoyed with myself for whining about my aborted meditation practice. Drue listens patiently then tells me about her prayer practice, something called Centering Prayer. She is so enthused about it that when Drue asks me to try it I say, “Sure. I can certainly sit with you for twenty minutes.” Sitting on the terrace of my home in the foothills of the Sangre de Christo mountains, we turn our backs to the sun. Drue instructs me to settle myself, quiet my mind (no problem) and consent to God’s presence and action in me (what a curious idea!). Drue will signal the end of twenty minutes by saying a prayer aloud.
I close my eyes, get very still and silently say (while rolling my inner eyes with a fair share of skepticism), “OK God, I consent to your presence and action in me.” Immediately it is as if my heart explodes in an ocean of bubbling light. Every bit of my being is quivering — ablaze with lavish light sparking life. Twenty minutes pass in a flash and when, as we agreed, Drue signals their end by praying, “Our Father, who art in heaven….” rivers of warm tears spill from my chin. All I can weep is — “Oh my God, oh my God. I am so sorry I have forgotten you.”
Why did the word “God” come to my mouth? How could this be? It is involuntary, instinctive, inspired. It contradicts what I, scientist, artist, heathen, say I stake my life on, yet these are the words that lavish my lips and turn my world upside down and inside out. “Oh my God, oh my God. I am so sorry I have forgotten you.”
Being consumed by who I think I am, where I think I am going and obcessed by what I think I am seeking, I have been blind to WHAT IS accompanying me every step of the way. I am astounded to discover, the very thing I most vehemently reject, the word “God” and any idea, language or concept to which that word points, never let go of me. All of the years meditating and cultivating what I experience as ‘nothingness’ are fulfilled and perfected in a flash when I consent to God‘s presence and action with me. Awe and wonder are but whispers in the face of this lightening bolt revelation. Writing these words makes me shake my head and rub my eyes as every cell and space in my body swells in light of the moment.
Much as the first son in Jesus’ parable who replies with an unequivocal “No, I will not,” when his father approaches him instructing, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today,’ eventually changes his mind and decides to work in the vineyard, I change my mind about God. In an instant I “make up my mind,” to say “yes” to something I had unquestionably rejected (“God”) and finally decide, there is “Something More” and it is not the old bearded guy doling out judgments from angel studded clouds that I denied since I was four years old.
There is “Something More” that fills the open, empty darkness of the ground of my desire. And whether this “Something More” is called God, YHWY, Light, Mystery, One, Muhammad, Shekinah, Wisdom, Allah, I AM, Is-ness, Ultimate Reality or whatever, there is “Something More” that is unborn, unbound, undying infused in and of, with and through all that is born, bound and dying. Although no word can name it, direct experience claims it with absolute certainty.
And so I had to “finally decide, to say yes to one and let the other one ride…” to turn away from my life bound in secular pedantics and turn toward a Mysterious Experience in which I am absolutely certain. (Which of course leads to stories for another day, but I digress.)
“Did you every have to make up your mind? To say yes to one and let the other one ride?” Sometimes it is essential to change our mind. This is the message Jesus attempts to convey to “the chief priests and the elders of the people … who ask, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” These appear to be perfectly reasonable questions. Except, the authorities have observed Jesus “doing these things.” They have the direct experience of Jesus healing and teaching and exuding enough charisma that crowds of people are following him. And, they choose not to be affected by him. They choose not to believe.
The fact of the matter is, the chief priests and the elders are not at all interested in where Jesus gets his authority. They are interested in maintaining their authority. The problem is Jesus breaks their purity codes, hangs out with untouchables thereby challenging the authority of the keepers of the status quo. So the chief priests and elders endeavor to undermine Jesus’ authority. But Jesus is not game.
Too wise to fall into their trap, Jesus turns the table on the sanctimonious religious official and uses the parable of the two sons to accuse them. “By the way, don’t you realize that the most despised people among you, the prostitutes and tax collectors who fail to keep the temple Law of Moses “are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you because when John came crying “Repent,” they believed and changed their minds and changed their ways. But when John came to you, “you did not change your minds and believe him.””
Can you hear Jesus shaking his head and mumbling, “Don’t you see? Humanity was not made to serve the law. The law was made to serve humanity. All you have to do is change your mind and believe what John said, “Repent, (which means turn around, change your mind) believe, the kingdom of God has come near.””(Matt 3.2) In fact, it is right here, right now. Believe me. All you have to do is make up your mind to believe.” (Please forgive my loose paraphrasing.)
Could it really be that simple? Just change our mind? Simple as a belligerent son saying to his father, “No, I am not going “to work in the vineyard today,” then changing his minds and showing up for work?
This reminds me of the Lovin’ Spoonfuls lyrics, “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?” (Yes, I am old.)
Did you ever have to make up your mind?
You pick up on one and leave the other behind
It’s not often easy and not often kind
Did you ever have to make up your mind?
Did you ever have to finally decide?
And say yes to one and let the other one ride
There’s so many changes and tears you must hide
Did you ever have to finally decide?
Of course this 60s song is about a man choosing between two women but, let me suggest it is not too different from John’s call to repent — to finally decide, to say yes, I believe, and leave not believing behind.
Not everyone has a knock-down, drag out, blow your mind away experience such as the one that turned my life upside down and inside out one afternoon sitting on my terrace with my friend Drue. But, everyone has the opportunity to make up their mind. To say, “Yes, I believe, and leave not believing behind.” Choice becomes practice, choosing to believe over and over and over again even in the presence of doubt. And, by choosing to believe we enter the Kingdom of God, right here right now. No waiting for a happily ever after life!
The patriarchs of the Christian tradition tried to answer unanswerable questions regarding Jesus and his authority. They wrote creeds that many continue referring to today. Countless theologians have tried to rationally and systematically describe the nature of the person Jesus. Tens of thousands of books have been written about Jesus, human and divine. Countless preachers have put untold myriad people asleep trying to answer the unanswerable question, who is this Jesus? Where did he get his authority?
The bottom line is this. At some point we have to finally decide. To say, “Yes, I believe and leave not believing behind. It is not often easy and not often kind” but at the end of the day each one of us must finally decide.
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Learn more about me at https://www.debraasis.org/ All words are generated by grace and the grit of a real human being. Debra Asis
Matthew 21:23–32 When Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.
