Richard Rohr published a book in 2011 called Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. I really appreciated the book, and it helped to open up a lot for me related to a spirituality of maturity and aging.
Rohr says that in the “first half of life” the developmental task, spiritually speaking, is to build the “container” for ourselves. This has a lot to do with finding security and selfhood. Rules and structure help us do that. In so many ways, it’s a lot like learning a sport, craft, music, etc. You start with some basic structures for learning and embodying something.
The danger of the first half of life, however, is that we get stuck in laws, limits and order and cannot easily handle the contradictions and complexity of ourselves and the world around us. That’s where the “second half of life” comes in.
Our readings are focused on “first half of life” questions today.
In Deuteronomy 4, Moses is speaking to the people and says, “hear the statutes and decrees which I am teaching you to observe, that you may live.” He goes on to counsel them to be careful “not to forget the things which your own eyes have seen, nor let them slip from your memory as long as you live.”
What I really appreciate about this vision is that there are some fundamentals of the faith (in this case the commandments) that are seen as the structure that need to be carried on, learned and embodied. They are not seen as restrictive so much as leading to life.
What is often missed, however, is the latter part of this reading from Deuteronomy. In the second part of the vision, Moses affirms communal memory (“do not forget”) in addition to holding on to the commandments. The people are told to keep telling the stories of what they have experienced so that this stays fresh and alive in the psyche and hearts of the collective. It is the necessary balance to the structure.
Pass on the structure and the stories.
With this in mind, I wonder what you would name related to your experience of faith? What would be the “structures” (or rules or guides) that people should know or follow? What are the stories that we should tell so that future generations understand what we have experienced?
We could also ask what rules or structures we have moved away from that have had serious negative consequences for the community. What stories have we forgotten that have left us in peril?
For me these are very serious reflections that have powerful consequences. They ask us what structures and stories actually help us to live fully and well.
I recently heard an interview with James Talarico – the Texas Democrat who just won a primary for the U. S. Senate – related to his opposition to a Texas bill that would have required the Ten Commandments to be posted in every classroom. While Talarico identifies as Christian and is even in seminary, he fought the bill, in part, because it tried to impose a structure without the full story (the experience of the people). About it he says,
“I’ve fought the bill to require the Ten Commandments to be posted in every classroom. And I’ve often wondered, instead of posting the Ten Commandments in every classroom, why don’t they post “Money is the root of all evil” in every boardroom? Why don’t they post “Do not judge” in every courtroom? Why don’t they post “Turn the other cheek” in the halls of the Pentagon? Or “It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven” on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange?
Talarico’s comments remind us that law without the communal stories becomes a rigid structure that feels more punishing than life giving. In fact, imposed structure can easily slide into the authoritarianism we’re witnessing all around us in this country, and there are many who would want to establish this as an imposed practice (what I view as a dangerous form of Christian nationalism) which only tells one side of the story.
In the gospel from Matthew 5, Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” Far from being a call to return to “old time religion” (or “anything goes” for that matter), Jesus is advocating for balance of structure and story. He wants to make sure that we have the life-giving law AND he wants to be sure that the voices of the prophets are represented fully in the story.
What I find so interesting in our modern context is that so many of the people who want to impose the law (for example, the Ten Commandments in schools), do not seem to know or care much for the prophets. And yet the prophets are the voices that hold an essential part of the collective memory and the stories of how people are really doing within the structures.
The meaning of the word religion is “to bind together” and good religion helps to bring back together what has been separated. Today’s readings invite us to remember that we all need structure to grow and develop. At the same time, we need memory and story to guide us forward and keep the structure from choking the life out of us.
Maybe in our prayer today, we “recite” a prayer that we learned along the way (for example, the Our Father) and then we just talk to God after – telling God our story as it is right now – to complement our prayer with heart talk.
One Comment
George Dardess
Wonderfully challenging as always, Mike.
About memory— it too, like rules, can be easily distorted and become a kind of strait-jacket of its own. That’s why your emphasis on Jesus’s saying he coming to “fulfill” the law is crucial. Memory needs to be keep alive, that is, to grow— not to become ossified, hardened into stone. I think of Christian Nationalists reading Revelations as if “Armageddon” was a fact about to be realized thanks to the Blessed Trump. That is scripture become stone. “From the river to the sea” intoned as a prescription for the present by our ambassador to Israel is similar. Without growth, discernment all the best rules or visions in the world become shackles.