Friday 24 March 2023

Religious Anarchy

 




Strangely, I think that anarchy and wholeness belong together. I think that when we think we have "found" we are lost. It is Reality that finds us, and Reality is always movement, radical freedom.


I can trace all this, in a way, back to the words of Thomas Merton when he was speaking of the Shakers, when he wrote....

The Shakers remain as witnesses to the fact that only humility keeps us in communion with truth, and first of all with our own inner truth. This one must know without knowing it, as they did. For as soon as we become aware of "our truth" we let go of it and embrace an illusion.





Possibly there will always be a degree of "anarchy". In my own often stumbling path I remember, way back, gaining a minor form of liberation when someone spoke of having contradictions in their lives/words/beliefs pointed out to them. They said that this no longer caused them any concern, that sometimes we just have to live with "truths" that apparently contradict each other. Each seems "true" to us at any one time and need acknowledgement. Perhaps the point is, if we do not cling too tight to the exact expression, in time the "contradictions" resolve themselves at a "higher" (or perhaps more fundamental) level.

Dogen, the zen guy, has said that though nothing in the entire universe is concealed, nevertheless there is a movement forever forward into a greater intimacy with Reality-as-is. Which I have faith is healing, non-judgemental, full of gifts and grace.







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