Textured Discipleship
The value was in the wondering, it was in the question waking these believers up
On a melting afternoon in late August, I sat in the office on the seventh floor of the Kimball Tower with a certain political science professor. He leaned back in his filled-to-the-brim-with-books office looking at me with a quizzical brow. We were discussing the term “covenant belonging.” I said something about the relational nature of covenants and their inherent community-building benefits. He mentioned the obligations and responsibilities they foist upon us and the utility of disciplined discipleship. Mid-sentence he interrupted himself and blurted out, “I detest the trendy question, ‘Why do I stay?’ It is problematic and indulgent. ‘Why do I stay?’ you may ask. ‘Where the hell would I go?’ is my reply.” I sat still, unsure how to reply to his impassioned tangent. Before I could muster a filler “um” or an ‘interesting,” he went on to say something along these lines: “to ask that question is to suggest that my decision to remain a Latter-day Saint, to subscribe to the doctrines and participate in the culture needs justification or logical rationale. I am not interested diluting my convictions to answer a poorly worded and insufficient question.”
As I walked across campus the rest of that day, I became consumed with the ideas of staying and going. I phoned friends looking for insight, thought partners, and listening ears. I oscillated between asking my siblings, parents, co-workers, friends, people in line at the grocery store, “Why do you stay? Where would you go?” I suppose I was looking for some profound answer, a revelation of sorts. I wanted to be moved in a particular way by the responses I received, but instead I got a lot of, “mmm, I don’t know” “let me see” “wow, I’ve never been asked that before.” After a handful of empty answers, I am embarrassed to admit that I came rather slowly to a realization. It was not the answers that mattered. The value was in the wondering, it was in the question waking these believers up. It was the act of reflection, inquiring of ourselves, introspection that allows us to experience, “the world… continuously unfolding itself for [our] further understanding, with the idea, of course, that whatever understanding [we] bring to this experience is incomplete, is too small.” I often turn to externalities, frantically looking outward for what lies latent within. The beloved Simone Weil sheds metaphysical light on this inward-oriented contemplation: “if we go down into ourselves, we find that we possess exactly what we desire.” So in an effort to scour my interiority for an answer, this is what I came up with: Within institutionalized religion is the inherent danger of becoming robotic and routine. Its subscribers mechanically obeying or worshipping void of aspiration or intention. When confronted with a question like “why do I stay,” we are asked to look in the metaphorical mirror, where we see our spirituality naked, stripped of duty, rigid lists of do’s and don’ts, and catalogues of doctrines and principles.
This question of why we stay or (better) where we would go demands a reflection on what it is that we desire while we partake of the sacrament in a sterile classroom or stuffy chapel. Why is it that we trek to the temple to participate in ancient rituals and make hefty binding covenants? Like the dreaded annual spring cleaning of our souls, we must go through old schemas and worn-out perspectives, determining what we have grown out of and what we no longer have room for in the bookshelves of faith. By the time we are done we may see some holes in our closets of conversion or cupboards of conviction, but this space and openness is the very thing our discipleship asks of us, and ultimately is what will redeem us. Mary Oliver proves useful here:
I want to step through the door full of curiosity,
wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of
darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the
mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my
arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular,
and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and
frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this
world
We can’t have simply visited our faith tradition; we need to be, as Dostoevsky suggested, “perfectly open and not take fright at the whole truth.” With this openness and decluttered vision, we can collect a list of blessings or positive consequences of our faith tradition. What is it that this religion gives my life? How am I different by devoting myself to it? Is this faith community a catalyst for my becoming, growing into my potential? I’ve noticed in my social spheres that the tendency is to wield the proverbial yardstick and ensure the Church is measuring up and when it falls short (which it inevitably will, seeing that as long as humans are in God’s church it will remain human), they feel justified critiquing their practices. While I agree that butting heads ideologically or practically with your faith institution can be salient in becoming a cerebral covenant keeper, it must be matched with equal clarity on the affirming side. While we hold in one hand the short-comings and blind spots of our leaders and structures, we must be able to hold its virtues and truth. Richard Rohr suggests that “the true and essential work of religion is to help us recognize and recover the divine image in everything.” If our lenses are blurred by mistakes and flaws of the people within the organization or the organization itself, we inhibit religion from fully participating in our lives and “radically connect[ing] us with everything…[and] helping us see the world and ourselves in wholeness, not just in parts.” While the tension between how our institutions should be and how it is in real life is palpable, it does not need to partition us from the living presence of God, through His children and His church.
Since I was young, the institution of the church has been explained to me as a symphony. A beautiful composition written by the Master composer and given to us to learn and play in His way. We are to practice and perfect the theme and variation to one day perform at His throne. There is a diversity of instruments, but everyone is playing in the same key and time signature. The conductor is patient, but firm and with is billowing arms leads us measure to measure. I think this is wrong. Rather, a more helpful and potent metaphor is a jazz jam session. It is full of passionate musicians coming to the stage having honed their craft, pouring their soul into the endeavor of music as the live out their art form. The basic chord progressions and hallmark jazz principles are embodied but its unformulaic. The piano kicks it off with a stride, then the trumpet takes the lead, slowly inviting the saxophone to join. They are all engaged in collective improvisation, creating the song together as they go. The bass has joined by now and introduces a new chord to which the rest of the band must respond to and negotiate how to incorporate that into the larger song. Each voice is individually celebrated and recognized but it’s communal at heart. They crave each other’s ideas and unique contributions to make chorus burst with life and color. His church is meant to be co-created with its members. We, as devout covenant making humans are to take our respective instruments and join in, add our own lick or two into the song of love, joy, redemption, and hope. His church, like Jazz in its purest form, transcends the trivial conflicts of life, transcending temporal boundaries that can often impede divine connection. So, grab your brass instrument of choice, your keyboard, or clarinet and hop on stage. We’re about to perform and we need you.
I have reflected on this question since my professor abruptly posed it to me. Where would I go? What moral framework would I subscribe to if not this one? Where would I turn for peace? What community would I lean on to challenge me and shape me and fill me? These questions are powerful tools in crafting me, an earthly vessel that I hope and pray God will fill with Him. “Religion,” Willa Cather determined, “is different than everything else because in religion seeking is finding.” While my questions rarely reveal answers, I am buoyed up by another comforting Rohr re-imagining of the Christian project, “the wounds of all humanity are an unanswered question” and these wounds endear me to Christ and weave God into my personhood.