Is There Another Way?
Is There Another Way?
Friday of the Second Week of Lent – March 13, 2020
Over the years, we grow so accustomed to the broad gate and the wide road that we cannot imagine any other way to live. Wide roads are comfortable and give us lots of wiggle room. We learn to maneuver on wide roads.
Elizabeth O’Connor, in the paragraphs below (which continue her thoughts from yesterday’s Lenten post), says that usually what jolts us from the wide road to the narrow road is “an event, or a flash of insight, or a demanding ache.” And then, after we have been jolted awake, God “puts in the heart and the mouth the question, ‘Is there another way?’”
Richard Rohr often makes a similar claim. He regularly says that our two most compelling teachers on this spiritual path are Great Love and Great Suffering. Those experiences have the capacity to shake us awake, so that we begin to ask about and seek out another way.
That “other way” is what Jesus calls the “narrow road” and “narrow gate.” This is the path of contemplative spirituality.
In the crowd no one is responsible. All are innocent. No one is in violation of the commandment to love the neighbor, for no one even sees the neighbor.
Does this, then, raise for those in the crowd the question of how to step out of the crowd, how to recover the lost self? No. “What must I do to be saved?” implies that one knows he is lost. It says that one is acquainted with his own pain. It indicates awareness of being on the road which Scripture says “leads to destruction.” But this state has the whisper of consciousness. It is removed from unconsciousness, which is the mark of the crowd.
Are we to believe, then, that there is no way to step out of the crowd? Not so. While it is true that all things conspire against it, God conspires for it. There comes an event, or a flash of insight, or a demanding ache. There comes a person who is in the crowd, but not of it. These are moments God uses to put in the heart and the mouth the question, “Is there another way?” When that question is asked, one can begin to hear about the inward journey, or the “narrow gate.” But from learning that there are two ways – one that leads to death and one to life – it does not follow that we enter by the narrow gate. The facts about that gate are starkly simple.
One, it leads to life, but
Two, it is a hard way, and
Three, few find it.
[Elizabeth O’Connor, Journey Inward, Journey Outward. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968.]
For Reflection:
o The function of the “narrow gate” image as used by Jesus is not to restrict access or to keep people out.
o The narrow gate implies that we must jettison our excess baggage, the things we’ve convinced ourselves are necessary for life, but which actually weigh us down. When we get rid of the baggage, we easily slide through the gate.
o Consider your own spiritual journey to this point. What events or situations have led you to ask, “Is there another way?”
Friday of the Second Week of Lent – March 13, 2020
Over the years, we grow so accustomed to the broad gate and the wide road that we cannot imagine any other way to live. Wide roads are comfortable and give us lots of wiggle room. We learn to maneuver on wide roads.
Elizabeth O’Connor, in the paragraphs below (which continue her thoughts from yesterday’s Lenten post), says that usually what jolts us from the wide road to the narrow road is “an event, or a flash of insight, or a demanding ache.” And then, after we have been jolted awake, God “puts in the heart and the mouth the question, ‘Is there another way?’”
Richard Rohr often makes a similar claim. He regularly says that our two most compelling teachers on this spiritual path are Great Love and Great Suffering. Those experiences have the capacity to shake us awake, so that we begin to ask about and seek out another way.
That “other way” is what Jesus calls the “narrow road” and “narrow gate.” This is the path of contemplative spirituality.
In the crowd no one is responsible. All are innocent. No one is in violation of the commandment to love the neighbor, for no one even sees the neighbor.
Does this, then, raise for those in the crowd the question of how to step out of the crowd, how to recover the lost self? No. “What must I do to be saved?” implies that one knows he is lost. It says that one is acquainted with his own pain. It indicates awareness of being on the road which Scripture says “leads to destruction.” But this state has the whisper of consciousness. It is removed from unconsciousness, which is the mark of the crowd.
Are we to believe, then, that there is no way to step out of the crowd? Not so. While it is true that all things conspire against it, God conspires for it. There comes an event, or a flash of insight, or a demanding ache. There comes a person who is in the crowd, but not of it. These are moments God uses to put in the heart and the mouth the question, “Is there another way?” When that question is asked, one can begin to hear about the inward journey, or the “narrow gate.” But from learning that there are two ways – one that leads to death and one to life – it does not follow that we enter by the narrow gate. The facts about that gate are starkly simple.
One, it leads to life, but
Two, it is a hard way, and
Three, few find it.
[Elizabeth O’Connor, Journey Inward, Journey Outward. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968.]
For Reflection:
o The function of the “narrow gate” image as used by Jesus is not to restrict access or to keep people out.
o The narrow gate implies that we must jettison our excess baggage, the things we’ve convinced ourselves are necessary for life, but which actually weigh us down. When we get rid of the baggage, we easily slide through the gate.
o Consider your own spiritual journey to this point. What events or situations have led you to ask, “Is there another way?”
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